As a 1st Army Lieutenant in September 1968, Ted Daligdig III led his platoon through the jungles of Vietnam, he found himself entangled in his first firefight. Moments were tense. Feelings of uncertainly rose in him. But Daligdig, a 1966
As a 1st Army Lieutenant in September 1968, Ted Daligdig III led his platoon through the jungles of Vietnam, he found himself entangled in his first firefight.
Moments were tense. Feelings of uncertainly rose in him.
But Daligdig, a 1966 Kapa‘a High School graduate, said he survived the ordeal, thanks to his military training. Wounded only once during a one-year stint in Vietnam, he returned home to Kaua‘i safely.
Daligdig, now a retired Army colonel after 37 years with the Hawai‘i Army National Guard and the U.S. Army and resident of Kapa‘a, said he can only believe the 100-plus Kaua‘i members of Company A, 2nd Battalion, 299th Infantry Regiment of the Hawai‘i Army National Guard being deployed to Iraq are better trained then he was during the Vietnam era.
The survival rate of the soldiers is higher because the training, as a result of improvement over time, is better and because of major advancements in weaponry, Daligdig said.
In an interview with The Garden Island, Daligdig offered his insights into the training Hawai‘i troops have gone through to prepare for war in the Middle East.
“With the training they have had, I expect them all to come back,” Daligdig said. “But being a realist, I think some probably may not. But the training has got to make a difference.”
Daligdig said he spoke with many Kaua‘i members of the Army National Guard before they recently left the island for more training elsewhere in Hawai‘i.
“Without exception, every single conversation was positive,” Daligdig said. “They all knew (activation as regular U.S. Army soldiers was possible) when they raised their right hands and pledged to protect this country.”
Daligdig said he is particularly proud of Army Master Sgt. Luke Octavio and Army Spec. 4 Leonard Galvez, two Kaua‘i men who are in the 50s. Both men deployed with Daligdig to Vietnam in 1968.
“There are those who were called to Vietnam, and they are willing to go again,” Daligdig said.
Octavio is a supervisor with the Kaua‘i County Public Works Department, and Galvez is a fellow 1966 Kapa‘a High School graduate.
Octavio and Galvez are assigned to Company A, 2nd Battalion, 299th Infantry, 29 Separate Infantry Brigade, (E), an elite combat unit using the latest in training, weaponry and combat tactics. “The two guys love the military life,” Daligdig said. “It is their life.”
Members of the Kaua‘i Army National Guard go though routine training throughout the year, and last month left for the Big Island’s Pohakuloa Training Area and to Australia for more training.
Daligidg said their training in Hawai‘i has been of high quality because of the guidance of Brig. Gen. Joseph Chaves. commander of the 299th Infantry Brigade (E) on O‘ahu.
“We are good friends,” Daligdig said. “As a tactician, he is unbelievable. In my opinion, he is the best infantry officer in the state, if not in the nation.”
To ensure military troops can be ready as possible for whatever they will encounter in the Middle East, the federal government requires the troops to go through “post-mobolized training,” Daligdig said.
“They are going to go to Fort Bliss, Texas, and probably go to Fort Polk in Louisiana, ” he said.
At military facilities, they will go though “individual training on the basics of military fighting, weaponry and training for chemical warfare,” Daligdig said. The idea is to sharpen basic military skills.
Officers and noncommissioned officers will through leadership development training sharpen their skills for warfare in the field, Daligdig said.
The “individual training” of solders will then go up a notch, as soldiers are trained further to fight as a unit.
Those who don’t pass the training will go through it again, to ensure they have the skills to stay alive and to help their units survive in combat, Daligdig said. “The training is intense, and they will learn the military has the best training techniques,” Daligdig said.
The U.S. military has employed strategies to help soldiers get home, Daligdig said.
On deployment orders, military commanders tell their troops, and family support groups now exist, practices that help raise the moral of U.S. troops today, Daligdig said.
“When I was in Vietnam, we found out about our deployment through the media,” Daligdig said. “In 1968, we didn’t have family support groups before the unit was shipped out.”
The family support services mean that “wives, sisters, moms are all brought together before the guys are deployed,” and “this means families are better prepared,” Daligdig said.
The survival rate of soldiers should be higher than in previous wars because mobile military medical care has greatly improved, Daligdig said.
The survival rate also is higher because soldiers are trained to fight as a unit, Daligdig said.
U.S. military officials decided to follow that strategy because of high casualties suffered by U.S. ground troops in Vietnam, Daligdig said.
During that conflict, individual replacements were assigned to units to replace the wounded or dead troops, Daligdig said.
At the time, U.S. military officials felt the loss of large number of troops from a single community would not be tolerated by Americans, Daligdig said.
But the strategy of inserting replacement soldiers into combat units led to chaos on battlegrounds, Daligdig believes. “What we found was that was no continuity, because soldiers came from different places,” he said.
The situation led to high casualties, Daligdig said. “If you made it pass the 90 days ‘in country’, your combat experience grew and your chances of survival increased,” he said.
Daligdig can remember vividly his preparation for war and combat in Vietnam.
He said he joined the Hawai‘i Army National Guard when he was a 17-year-old student at Kapa‘a High School. He wanted to qualify for “GI Bill” benefits to become an architect one day.
Once week after graduating from high school, Daligdig went through basic training at Ford Ord in California in June 1966.
Daligdig said many classmates were eager to join the military because “the Vietnam War was heating up.” “They joined the Marines, Air Force and Army. They were proud to serve, and they served proudly,” Daligdig said.
Daligdig was member of Company B, 1st Battalion, 299th Infantry, 29 Infantry Brigade (Hawai‘i Army National Guard), which was activated for duty in Vietnam on May 13, 1968.
Like his National Guard counterparts of today, he also went through additional training before being to war.
“It was very intense, and we went through individual training and training as a unit,” Daligdig said.
Daligdig also had gone through officers’ training at the Hawai‘i Military Academy, which is operated by the Hawai‘i Army National Guard.
Daligdig said he left Kaua‘i as a 2nd lieutenant in 1968 and arrived in Vietnam in September that year, and “saw hell.”
As a 1st lieutenant, Daligdig led a combat platoon of 40 men, and within the first week of “being in-country,” he found himself and his men in a firefight.
“Yes, there was uncertainty,” Daligdig said. “But the training kicked in. The training I had received from the Army and the Hawai‘i Army National Guard more than prepared me.”
During the year he was in Vietnam, Daligdig commanded a company, consisting of 160 men. He said a low-point was seeing some of the men under his command die.
In June, he visited the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall in Washington D. C., found the name of those men, and paid his repeats.
He also paid tribute to a Big Island man who had gone through the same officer’s training program in Hawai‘i, and had died in combat in Vietnam.
Daligdig was wounded in combat only once, but he said his injury was minor compared to those of his brother, Terry, also a Vietnam veteran.
His brother, a Purple Heart recipient, was wounded five times.
The Daligdig brothers are the sons of Theodore Daligdig Jr. and Beatrice Daligdig.
Daligdig, now 56, retired a year ago as the deputy chief of staff for U.S. Army Pacific at Fort Shafter on O‘ahu.
Today, he serves as administrative officer for the adjutant general of the Hawai‘i Army National Guard on Kaua‘i and the military liaison for Kaua‘i County.
He also works with the Kaua‘i County Civil Defense Agency during emergencies.
Among his duties as a civilian administrator on Kaua‘i, Daligdig manages the Kapa‘a and the Hanapepe Armories and the rifle range at Kekaha and supervises U.S. Department of Defense employees.
Daligdig is the chairperson of the Kaua‘i County Planning Commission.
Lester Chang, staff writer, can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 225) and lchang@pulitzer.net
