Tag Archives: MIKE force

Jolly Rogers and tigerstripes

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AP Wire Photo: 4 August 1964

Dig the M1 carbines and tiger stripe camo. Hallmarks of the mid-1960s Mike Force units.

Official caption:

Skull and Crossbones on the Cambodian border. Two leaders of a special South Vietnamese government platoon, identified by the Skull and Crossbones kerchief they wear, lead [a] group along a canal that marks the Cambodian border in the Plain of Reeds west of Saigon. The special outfit undertakes terrorist actions against the Viet Cong villages.

Both the Vietnamese Rangers (Biệt Động Quân) and Special Forces (Lực Lượng Đặc Biệt) used tigerstripe as did the “Sea Tigers” of Republic of Vietnam Marine Corps (TQLC) and Green Beret-organized CIDG units.

Of the latter, Mike (Mobile Strike) Force units, recruited from Hmong, Nung, and Montagnard peoples, often used Jolly Rogers in their locally-made insignia and “M.F.” patches.

There is salty, and then there is this guy

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Found on Reddit

Indigenous member of U.S. Army Special Forces-organized MIKE force smoking his pipe after a firefight. Vietnam, mid-1960’s. Note the WWII-surplus Marine “duck hunter” camo and post-1944 modified M1 Carbine. I would imagine this fellow was probably pretty hard to kill.

Made up mostly of Montagnard hill people and other ethnic minorities, the Mobile Strike Force Command grew out of the armed hamlet program and CIDG units of the pre-Tet phase of the U.S. involvement in South Vietnam.

Note the SF advisor with the in-country made skull and crossbones MIKE Force patch