The Special Forces Mission to Cochabamba

In the summer of 1967, after MTT-BL 404-67X deployed to Bolivia to organize and train a Ranger Battalion at La Esperanza, the MILGP sent two personnel TDY to Cochabamba for 179 days to serve as advisors to the Airborne Battalion and Parachute School. The officer would also teach COIN (counterinsurgency) classes to Bolivian lieutenants and captains in la Escuela de Armas (The Combat Arms School) and the sergeant would instruct aspiring noncommissioned officers (NCOs) at the fledgling NCO Academy. Major (MAJ) John D. Waghelstein (who later commanded USMILGP-El Salvador and 7th SFG) and Master Sergeant (MSG) Gustavo Fabian were sent to fill those assignments. Since the Bolivian paratroopers could help a coup d’etat, they were based far from the capitol of La Paz like the Rangers were. The two SF worked for Lieutenant Colonel (LTC) Joseph P. Rice, the head of the MILGP detachment in Cochabamba and project officer for the Rangers.1

That Cochabamba element twice sent Sergeant First Class (SFC) Del Toro, to La Esperanza to teach vehicle maintenance to the Rangers and give driver training to a select few. Since the 8th Division issued insufficient fuel for the few trucks assigned, that effort was futile.2 The only contact that MAJ Waghelstein and MSG Fabian had with the SF on the Ranger Battalion training MTT was supporting proficiency jumps to keep their parachute pay from being stopped.3 The Cochabamba assignment was not very demanding. Simply monitoring the progress of the Bolivian Army against Che Guevara and his guerrillas eventually proved too tempting for the two advisors when the Airborne Battalion was alerted to assist.4

MAJ Waghelstein and MSG Fabian arranged for a truck and a Bolivian paratroop sergeant to drive them, and the trio headed south towards the “Red Zone.” Though they had an AN/PRC-10 radio, it proved useless in the mountainous terrain. Armed with a variety of foreign weapons, Waghelstein carried an Israeli Uzi submachinegun. The narrow “highway” from Cochabamba to Santa Cruz dated to the 1930s Chaco War. They started at 7,500 feet, climbed the precipitous one and a half lane road to 18,000 feet to cross the mountains, and then abruptly descended to 900 feet in the Amazon headwater region. Learning that some of the guerrillas had escaped the 8th and 4th Division cordons, the trio studied their map, selected the best egress route to Chile, and headed southeast towards that border.5 “We meandered, asking questions and scouting the dirt wagon roads that emptied into our selected egress route. Confident that any locals who had encountered the guerrillas would gladly tell us, we pushed south. It was an adventure for which I would ask forgiveness later. The survivors were evading, and they had several days head start on us. I don’t think we ever got closer than a day behind them before they crossed into Chile,” said Waghelstein. “Why did we do this? Sometimes you just get a ‘wild hair’ as all SF soldiers can attest to. That was one of my more exciting ‘wild hairs,’” mused the retired colonel.6

While MAJ Ralph W. “Pappy” Shelton’s men conducted the final field training exercise (FTX) in early September about ten miles south of Santa Cruz along the main highway, they did not accompany the Ranger Battalion when it went operational on 17 September 1967. They had already received another mission and returned to La Esperanza to prepare. The MTT was to provide four weeks of infantry tactics refresher and COIN training to nine separate infantry companies in three iterations.7 The only SF personnel that got into the “Red Zone,” MAJ John Waghelstein and MSG Gus Fabian, were conducting a reconnaissance for the Bolivian Airborne Battalion that had been alerted to join the hunt for guerrilla escapees.