In 1965, on the recommendations of the Rand Corporation, the U.S. military in South Vietnam began conducting what officials called harassment and interdiction missions, or “H and I” for short. H and I fire involved the shelling, by artillery and mortars, of known or suspected areas of Communist activity. In the northern province of Quang Ngai, where the Vietcong controlled most of the countryside, that meant almost the entire province. The bulk of H and I fire fell on river crossings, footpaths, trail junctures, gullies, ridgelines, or where river valleys left the highlands and entered the coastal plain. These landscape features acted as North Vietnamese and Vietcong lines of communication. American artillery batteries also regularly shelled the likely approaches to the U.S.’s divisional bases, fire support bases, and night defensive positions.[1]

Occasionally, H and I fire was truly random, striking a rice paddy, a river bank, a grove of trees, or a hamlet.[2] American commanders justified H and I on the grounds that it kept the enemy off-balance, deterred Communist troop movements, terrorized the Vietcong, and enhanced the defenses of U.S. and South Vietnamese bases. Like the intensive U.S. aerial bombardment of the South Vietnamese countryside, H and I fire became a ubiquitous feature of the Vietnam War. The U.S. never abandoned its use, even though its effectiveness as a counter-insurgency tactic became increasingly suspect. Continue Reading »