Col. Francis J. Kelly, who devised Army plans for unconventional warfare in the early 1960's, then commanded the Special Forces in Vietnam when the Green Berets were earning a formidable reputation for battlefield heroics, died on Dec. 26 at the Garden Terrace Nursing Home in Aurora, Colo. He was 78.
As commander of all Special Forces in Vietnam from June 1966 to June 1967, Colonel Kelly led an elite corps of a few thousand men who teamed up with South Vietnamese soldiers and ethnic-minority civilian irregulars like Montagnard tribesmen to wage counterinsurgency warfare against the Vietcong and North Vietnamese in some of the most remote areas of South Vietnam.
By the time Colonel Kelly arrived in Vietnam, the Special Forces, known as the Green Berets for their distinctive headgear, had already achieved renown. A Green Beret captain, Roger H. C. Donlon, had been awarded the Vietnam War's first Medal of Honor in December 1964. Robin Moore's novel ''The Green Berets,'' had been a best-seller in 1965. Barry Sadler, a former Special Forces medic, had sold nine million records with his 1966 rendition of ''The Ballad of the Green Berets.'' And John Wayne had begun work on his movie ''The Green Berets.''
Soon after Colonel Kelly assumed command of the Fifth Special Forces Group, the Green Beret unit assigned to Vietnam, he was visited by Mr. Wayne, who wanted to see the Green Berets in action. Colonel Kelly's daughter Moira remembered that the actor had asked if he could go out on one of their missions. ''My father told him 'No,' but he kept saying he wanted to do that,'' she said. ''Finally my father said: 'I'm not going to tell you how to make movies. Don't you tell me how to run a war.' ''
When it came to running the Special Forces' war, Colonel Kelly, a burly combat veteran of World War II, took part in many missions, but he loathed excesses of bravado that made it seem the Green Berets were not part of the regular Army.
He made that clear when he addressed a group of incoming officers at his headquarters in Nha Trang, South Vietnam, in January 1967, warning: ''This is no game for clowns. I haven't got any time for boozers or cheaters or buglers.'' A bugler, Colonel Kelly told a reporter visiting his base at the time, was a Special Forces man who walked into a bar filled with soldiers and sounded off about how the Green Berets were braver and smarter than anyone else in the Army in a declaration guaranteed to draw flying fists.
To avoid spectacles of that sort, Colonel Kelly declared Saigon off-limits to his men. They could wear their green berets -- authorized by President Kennedy in 1961 to publicize his strategy of counterinsurgency -- but Colonel Kelly ordered his men to stop wearing unauthorized items like tiger skin capes and elephant hide boots, and he told them to shave off handlebar mustaches.
He was looking for professionals, the sort of soldier who could put into practice the Green Beret tactical doctrine for warfare in Vietnam, much of which he had devised at the Army War College in Carlisle, Pa., and the Special Warfare Directorate in the Pentagon.
The Special Forces were created in 1952. Recruits were volunteers trained to infiltrate deep into enemy territory. Paratrooper-qualified and expert in sabotage and escape and evasion, they specialized in organizing guerrilla forces and combating enemy guerrillas.
While in Vietnam, Colonel Kelly developed a strategy known as the Mobile Guerrilla Force, in which bands of some 200 men -- a team of two officers and nine enlisted men from the Green Berets, as well as South Vietnamese soldiers and civilian irregulars -- set out on long-range patrols. They were expected to remain in the field for several weeks and were able to spring ambushes, but often had to be withdrawn prematurely because of supply problems. Colonel Kelly also gave the Special Forces an increased presence on the Mekong Delta.
A native of the Bronx, Francis John Kelly first enlisted in the Army in 1941. He received a commission in the Armored Corps the following year and went ashore in the early waves at Omaha Beach in the D-Day invasion of Normandy.
He was a policeman in New York City briefly after World War II, then returned to the Army, served as a tank battalion commander and in various staff positions, and obtained a bachelor's degree from the University of Maryland and a master's degree at Georgetown University. At 44, he went to jump school at Fort Benning, Ga., to qualify for an active role in Special Forces.
While commanding Special Forces on Okinawa from 1964 to 1966, he earned the nickname Splash from his way of making the parachute jumps that were required at least once every 90 days to remain paratrooper-qualified. His son, Lieut. Col. Damian Kelly, remembered that his father did not like to land on the ground.
''He wanted to jump into the water; it was easier on the body,'' his son said. ''He'd get me up at 4 o'clock in the morning, I'd jump into a boat, he'd jump from the helicopter and I'd pick him up.''
Last week, his daughter Moira recalled the day in 1968 when Colonel Kelly took his family to the movie theater at Fort Bragg, N.C., to see John Wayne in ''The Green Berets,'' which had been made not in Vietnam, but at Fort Benning.
The daughter recalled that the actor had drawn on her father's mannerisms in playing the role of Col. Mike Kirby, but she said that her father had a mixed view of the film.
''For an action movie, he thought it was fine,'' she said. ''As a depiction of what troops had to put up with, he felt it wasn't accurate. When they got to the scene where John Wayne was in a Saigon nightclub wearing a tuxedo, my father almost fell over with laughter. He said, 'All I had were two sets of fatigues.' ''
Colonel Kelly received many decorations, including the Silver Star and the Bronze Star. He retired from the Army in 1972 and a year later wrote, ''United States Army Special Forces, 1961-1971,'' now a part of the Army's series of books analyzing its role in Vietnam. He later obtained a doctorate in political science from the University of Denver and taught at Loretto Heights College in Denver.
As commander of all Special Forces in Vietnam from June 1966 to June 1967, Colonel Kelly led an elite corps of a few thousand men who teamed up with South Vietnamese soldiers and ethnic-minority civilian irregulars like Montagnard tribesmen to wage counterinsurgency warfare against the Vietcong and North Vietnamese in some of the most remote areas of South Vietnam.
By the time Colonel Kelly arrived in Vietnam, the Special Forces, known as the Green Berets for their distinctive headgear, had already achieved renown. A Green Beret captain, Roger H. C. Donlon, had been awarded the Vietnam War's first Medal of Honor in December 1964. Robin Moore's novel ''The Green Berets,'' had been a best-seller in 1965. Barry Sadler, a former Special Forces medic, had sold nine million records with his 1966 rendition of ''The Ballad of the Green Berets.'' And John Wayne had begun work on his movie ''The Green Berets.''
Soon after Colonel Kelly assumed command of the Fifth Special Forces Group, the Green Beret unit assigned to Vietnam, he was visited by Mr. Wayne, who wanted to see the Green Berets in action. Colonel Kelly's daughter Moira remembered that the actor had asked if he could go out on one of their missions. ''My father told him 'No,' but he kept saying he wanted to do that,'' she said. ''Finally my father said: 'I'm not going to tell you how to make movies. Don't you tell me how to run a war.' ''
When it came to running the Special Forces' war, Colonel Kelly, a burly combat veteran of World War II, took part in many missions, but he loathed excesses of bravado that made it seem the Green Berets were not part of the regular Army.
He made that clear when he addressed a group of incoming officers at his headquarters in Nha Trang, South Vietnam, in January 1967, warning: ''This is no game for clowns. I haven't got any time for boozers or cheaters or buglers.'' A bugler, Colonel Kelly told a reporter visiting his base at the time, was a Special Forces man who walked into a bar filled with soldiers and sounded off about how the Green Berets were braver and smarter than anyone else in the Army in a declaration guaranteed to draw flying fists.
To avoid spectacles of that sort, Colonel Kelly declared Saigon off-limits to his men. They could wear their green berets -- authorized by President Kennedy in 1961 to publicize his strategy of counterinsurgency -- but Colonel Kelly ordered his men to stop wearing unauthorized items like tiger skin capes and elephant hide boots, and he told them to shave off handlebar mustaches.
He was looking for professionals, the sort of soldier who could put into practice the Green Beret tactical doctrine for warfare in Vietnam, much of which he had devised at the Army War College in Carlisle, Pa., and the Special Warfare Directorate in the Pentagon.
The Special Forces were created in 1952. Recruits were volunteers trained to infiltrate deep into enemy territory. Paratrooper-qualified and expert in sabotage and escape and evasion, they specialized in organizing guerrilla forces and combating enemy guerrillas.
While in Vietnam, Colonel Kelly developed a strategy known as the Mobile Guerrilla Force, in which bands of some 200 men -- a team of two officers and nine enlisted men from the Green Berets, as well as South Vietnamese soldiers and civilian irregulars -- set out on long-range patrols. They were expected to remain in the field for several weeks and were able to spring ambushes, but often had to be withdrawn prematurely because of supply problems. Colonel Kelly also gave the Special Forces an increased presence on the Mekong Delta.
A native of the Bronx, Francis John Kelly first enlisted in the Army in 1941. He received a commission in the Armored Corps the following year and went ashore in the early waves at Omaha Beach in the D-Day invasion of Normandy.
He was a policeman in New York City briefly after World War II, then returned to the Army, served as a tank battalion commander and in various staff positions, and obtained a bachelor's degree from the University of Maryland and a master's degree at Georgetown University. At 44, he went to jump school at Fort Benning, Ga., to qualify for an active role in Special Forces.
While commanding Special Forces on Okinawa from 1964 to 1966, he earned the nickname Splash from his way of making the parachute jumps that were required at least once every 90 days to remain paratrooper-qualified. His son, Lieut. Col. Damian Kelly, remembered that his father did not like to land on the ground.
''He wanted to jump into the water; it was easier on the body,'' his son said. ''He'd get me up at 4 o'clock in the morning, I'd jump into a boat, he'd jump from the helicopter and I'd pick him up.''
Last week, his daughter Moira recalled the day in 1968 when Colonel Kelly took his family to the movie theater at Fort Bragg, N.C., to see John Wayne in ''The Green Berets,'' which had been made not in Vietnam, but at Fort Benning.
The daughter recalled that the actor had drawn on her father's mannerisms in playing the role of Col. Mike Kirby, but she said that her father had a mixed view of the film.
''For an action movie, he thought it was fine,'' she said. ''As a depiction of what troops had to put up with, he felt it wasn't accurate. When they got to the scene where John Wayne was in a Saigon nightclub wearing a tuxedo, my father almost fell over with laughter. He said, 'All I had were two sets of fatigues.' ''
Colonel Kelly received many decorations, including the Silver Star and the Bronze Star. He retired from the Army in 1972 and a year later wrote, ''United States Army Special Forces, 1961-1971,'' now a part of the Army's series of books analyzing its role in Vietnam. He later obtained a doctorate in political science from the University of Denver and taught at Loretto Heights College in Denver.
Col. Francis J. Kelly, who devised Army plans for unconventional warfare in the early 1960's, then commanded the Special Forces in Vietnam when the Green Berets were earning a formidable reputation for battlefield heroics, died on Dec. 26 at the Garden Terrace Nursing Home in Aurora, Colo. He was 78.
As commander of all Special Forces in Vietnam from June 1966 to June 1967, Colonel Kelly led an elite corps of a few thousand men who teamed up with South Vietnamese soldiers and ethnic-minority civilian irregulars like Montagnard tribesmen to wage counterinsurgency warfare against the Vietcong and North Vietnamese in some of the most remote areas of South Vietnam.
By the time Colonel Kelly arrived in Vietnam, the Special Forces, known as the Green Berets for their distinctive headgear, had already achieved renown. A Green Beret captain, Roger H. C. Donlon, had been awarded the Vietnam War's first Medal of Honor in December 1964. Robin Moore's novel ''The Green Berets,'' had been a best-seller in 1965. Barry Sadler, a former Special Forces medic, had sold nine million records with his 1966 rendition of ''The Ballad of the Green Berets.'' And John Wayne had begun work on his movie ''The Green Berets.''
Soon after Colonel Kelly assumed command of the Fifth Special Forces Group, the Green Beret unit assigned to Vietnam, he was visited by Mr. Wayne, who wanted to see the Green Berets in action. Colonel Kelly's daughter Moira remembered that the actor had asked if he could go out on one of their missions. ''My father told him 'No,' but he kept saying he wanted to do that,'' she said. ''Finally my father said: 'I'm not going to tell you how to make movies. Don't you tell me how to run a war.' ''
When it came to running the Special Forces' war, Colonel Kelly, a burly combat veteran of World War II, took part in many missions, but he loathed excesses of bravado that made it seem the Green Berets were not part of the regular Army.
He made that clear when he addressed a group of incoming officers at his headquarters in Nha Trang, South Vietnam, in January 1967, warning: ''This is no game for clowns. I haven't got any time for boozers or cheaters or buglers.'' A bugler, Colonel Kelly told a reporter visiting his base at the time, was a Special Forces man who walked into a bar filled with soldiers and sounded off about how the Green Berets were braver and smarter than anyone else in the Army in a declaration guaranteed to draw flying fists.
To avoid spectacles of that sort, Colonel Kelly declared Saigon off-limits to his men. They could wear their green berets -- authorized by President Kennedy in 1961 to publicize his strategy of counterinsurgency -- but Colonel Kelly ordered his men to stop wearing unauthorized items like tiger skin capes and elephant hide boots, and he told them to shave off handlebar mustaches.
He was looking for professionals, the sort of soldier who could put into practice the Green Beret tactical doctrine for warfare in Vietnam, much of which he had devised at the Army War College in Carlisle, Pa., and the Special Warfare Directorate in the Pentagon.
The Special Forces were created in 1952. Recruits were volunteers trained to infiltrate deep into enemy territory. Paratrooper-qualified and expert in sabotage and escape and evasion, they specialized in organizing guerrilla forces and combating enemy guerrillas.
While in Vietnam, Colonel Kelly developed a strategy known as the Mobile Guerrilla Force, in which bands of some 200 men -- a team of two officers and nine enlisted men from the Green Berets, as well as South Vietnamese soldiers and civilian irregulars -- set out on long-range patrols. They were expected to remain in the field for several weeks and were able to spring ambushes, but often had to be withdrawn prematurely because of supply problems. Colonel Kelly also gave the Special Forces an increased presence on the Mekong Delta.
A native of the Bronx, Francis John Kelly first enlisted in the Army in 1941. He received a commission in the Armored Corps the following year and went ashore in the early waves at Omaha Beach in the D-Day invasion of Normandy.
He was a policeman in New York City briefly after World War II, then returned to the Army, served as a tank battalion commander and in various staff positions, and obtained a bachelor's degree from the University of Maryland and a master's degree at Georgetown University. At 44, he went to jump school at Fort Benning, Ga., to qualify for an active role in Special Forces.
While commanding Special Forces on Okinawa from 1964 to 1966, he earned the nickname Splash from his way of making the parachute jumps that were required at least once every 90 days to remain paratrooper-qualified. His son, Lieut. Col. Damian Kelly, remembered that his father did not like to land on the ground.
''He wanted to jump into the water; it was easier on the body,'' his son said. ''He'd get me up at 4 o'clock in the morning, I'd jump into a boat, he'd jump from the helicopter and I'd pick him up.''
Last week, his daughter Moira recalled the day in 1968 when Colonel Kelly took his family to the movie theater at Fort Bragg, N.C., to see John Wayne in ''The Green Berets,'' which had been made not in Vietnam, but at Fort Benning.
The daughter recalled that the actor had drawn on her father's mannerisms in playing the role of Col. Mike Kirby, but she said that her father had a mixed view of the film.
''For an action movie, he thought it was fine,'' she said. ''As a depiction of what troops had to put up with, he felt it wasn't accurate. When they got to the scene where John Wayne was in a Saigon nightclub wearing a tuxedo, my father almost fell over with laughter. He said, 'All I had were two sets of fatigues.' ''
Colonel Kelly received many decorations, including the Silver Star and the Bronze Star. He retired from the Army in 1972 and a year later wrote, ''United States Army Special Forces, 1961-1971,'' now a part of the Army's series of books analyzing its role in Vietnam. He later obtained a doctorate in political science from the University of Denver and taught at Loretto Heights College in Denver.
As commander of all Special Forces in Vietnam from June 1966 to June 1967, Colonel Kelly led an elite corps of a few thousand men who teamed up with South Vietnamese soldiers and ethnic-minority civilian irregulars like Montagnard tribesmen to wage counterinsurgency warfare against the Vietcong and North Vietnamese in some of the most remote areas of South Vietnam.
By the time Colonel Kelly arrived in Vietnam, the Special Forces, known as the Green Berets for their distinctive headgear, had already achieved renown. A Green Beret captain, Roger H. C. Donlon, had been awarded the Vietnam War's first Medal of Honor in December 1964. Robin Moore's novel ''The Green Berets,'' had been a best-seller in 1965. Barry Sadler, a former Special Forces medic, had sold nine million records with his 1966 rendition of ''The Ballad of the Green Berets.'' And John Wayne had begun work on his movie ''The Green Berets.''
Soon after Colonel Kelly assumed command of the Fifth Special Forces Group, the Green Beret unit assigned to Vietnam, he was visited by Mr. Wayne, who wanted to see the Green Berets in action. Colonel Kelly's daughter Moira remembered that the actor had asked if he could go out on one of their missions. ''My father told him 'No,' but he kept saying he wanted to do that,'' she said. ''Finally my father said: 'I'm not going to tell you how to make movies. Don't you tell me how to run a war.' ''
When it came to running the Special Forces' war, Colonel Kelly, a burly combat veteran of World War II, took part in many missions, but he loathed excesses of bravado that made it seem the Green Berets were not part of the regular Army.
He made that clear when he addressed a group of incoming officers at his headquarters in Nha Trang, South Vietnam, in January 1967, warning: ''This is no game for clowns. I haven't got any time for boozers or cheaters or buglers.'' A bugler, Colonel Kelly told a reporter visiting his base at the time, was a Special Forces man who walked into a bar filled with soldiers and sounded off about how the Green Berets were braver and smarter than anyone else in the Army in a declaration guaranteed to draw flying fists.
To avoid spectacles of that sort, Colonel Kelly declared Saigon off-limits to his men. They could wear their green berets -- authorized by President Kennedy in 1961 to publicize his strategy of counterinsurgency -- but Colonel Kelly ordered his men to stop wearing unauthorized items like tiger skin capes and elephant hide boots, and he told them to shave off handlebar mustaches.
He was looking for professionals, the sort of soldier who could put into practice the Green Beret tactical doctrine for warfare in Vietnam, much of which he had devised at the Army War College in Carlisle, Pa., and the Special Warfare Directorate in the Pentagon.
The Special Forces were created in 1952. Recruits were volunteers trained to infiltrate deep into enemy territory. Paratrooper-qualified and expert in sabotage and escape and evasion, they specialized in organizing guerrilla forces and combating enemy guerrillas.
While in Vietnam, Colonel Kelly developed a strategy known as the Mobile Guerrilla Force, in which bands of some 200 men -- a team of two officers and nine enlisted men from the Green Berets, as well as South Vietnamese soldiers and civilian irregulars -- set out on long-range patrols. They were expected to remain in the field for several weeks and were able to spring ambushes, but often had to be withdrawn prematurely because of supply problems. Colonel Kelly also gave the Special Forces an increased presence on the Mekong Delta.
A native of the Bronx, Francis John Kelly first enlisted in the Army in 1941. He received a commission in the Armored Corps the following year and went ashore in the early waves at Omaha Beach in the D-Day invasion of Normandy.
He was a policeman in New York City briefly after World War II, then returned to the Army, served as a tank battalion commander and in various staff positions, and obtained a bachelor's degree from the University of Maryland and a master's degree at Georgetown University. At 44, he went to jump school at Fort Benning, Ga., to qualify for an active role in Special Forces.
While commanding Special Forces on Okinawa from 1964 to 1966, he earned the nickname Splash from his way of making the parachute jumps that were required at least once every 90 days to remain paratrooper-qualified. His son, Lieut. Col. Damian Kelly, remembered that his father did not like to land on the ground.
''He wanted to jump into the water; it was easier on the body,'' his son said. ''He'd get me up at 4 o'clock in the morning, I'd jump into a boat, he'd jump from the helicopter and I'd pick him up.''
Last week, his daughter Moira recalled the day in 1968 when Colonel Kelly took his family to the movie theater at Fort Bragg, N.C., to see John Wayne in ''The Green Berets,'' which had been made not in Vietnam, but at Fort Benning.
The daughter recalled that the actor had drawn on her father's mannerisms in playing the role of Col. Mike Kirby, but she said that her father had a mixed view of the film.
''For an action movie, he thought it was fine,'' she said. ''As a depiction of what troops had to put up with, he felt it wasn't accurate. When they got to the scene where John Wayne was in a Saigon nightclub wearing a tuxedo, my father almost fell over with laughter. He said, 'All I had were two sets of fatigues.' ''
Colonel Kelly received many decorations, including the Silver Star and the Bronze Star. He retired from the Army in 1972 and a year later wrote, ''United States Army Special Forces, 1961-1971,'' now a part of the Army's series of books analyzing its role in Vietnam. He later obtained a doctorate in political science from the University of Denver and taught at Loretto Heights College in Denver.
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COL US ARMY WORLD WAR II, KOREA, VIETNAM,SILVER STAR,PURPLE HEART
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