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JAMES G. LEWIS ON SMOKEY BEAR IN VIETNAM

SMOKEY BEAR DEBUTED his slogan "Only you can prevent forest fires!" in 1947. The bear and the slogan both quickly achieved iconic status, giving the U.S. Forest Service's forest fire prevention campaign an enormous boost. Featured in a tremendously effective public service campaign, Smokey soon became the second-most recognized symbol in American culture, after Santa Claus.1 In 1962, Smokey became the unofficial mascot of Operation Ranch Hand, the military's largest defoliation project during the Vietnam War. The project, which became operational in 1962 and ended in 1971, used Agent Orange and other defoliants to open up the hardwood jungle canopy to expose enemy movements. It was most likely a pilot that modified Smokey Bear posters to read, "Only you can prevent a forest," Ranch Hand's motto.2 Posters were placed around the Ranch Hand buildings at the training grounds at Langley Air Force Base in Virginia, Hurlburt Field (Eglin Air Force Base) in Florida, and at Bien Hoa Air Base in Vietnam starting in late 1965. This particular poster was photographed in Bien Hoa's briefing room in the summer of 1967. The phrase "Only you can prevent a forest," started as joke at the expense of the Forest Service's beloved icon and slogan. It evoked the effort to destroy forests in stark contrast to the long-held Forest Service mission to save forests. Forty years later this image reveals a long history of interconnections between the Forest Service, technology, and warfare, and marks a turning point in national forestry policy and management.	1
Smokey's presence was not limited to the ground. The pilots also dubbed their C-47 or other light aircrafts "Smokey Bears." Smokey Bears were used in a supporting role for defoliation missions, dropping smoke grenades or flares to mark where to spray or to illuminate an enemy position.3 A maneuver known as a "Smokey the Bear" happened when a flight mechanic would fail to throw a smoke grenade out the rear fuselage door to identify an enemy position to fighter pilots escorting the spray planes, leaving the grenade rolling around in the open compartment. "The airflow pattern in the plane caused most of the smoke to exit through open cockpit windows," nearly blinding the pilots and forcing them to pull off the target with colored smoke pouring out various openings and creating a moment "of sheer, stark terror" for the crew.4	2
Slide VAS006661, Ranch Hand Association Vietnam Collection, The Vietnam Archive, Texas Tech University.
Although Smokey had been unwittingly "drafted" to serve in Vietnam by Air Force personnel, it was not the first time the Forest Service had gone to war. During the two world wars, battalions of forest engineers had gone overseas to conduct logging and milling operations to supply American troops with much-needed lumber. The agency's overt participation in the Cold War overseas until 1962 centered on loaning foresters to the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to provide technical assistance to Third World countries.5	. . .