Marine Corps Pacification

County Fair and Golden Fleece — Combined Action —Personal Response —Kit Carson —Psychological Warfare —

Civic Action — The I Corps Joint Coordinating Council

County Fair and Golden Fleece

In developing their pacification concepts, the Marines drew upon a wealth of experience and history. General Walt recalled his early training as a young officer when he learned the fundamentals of his profession from Marines who had fought Sandino in Nicaragua and Charlemagne in Haiti. These veterans had stressed tempering the struggle against insurgents with an understanding and compassion for the people.' As early as 1935, the Marine Corps published its Small Wars Manual which emphasized the lessons learned by Marines who fought the campaigns against the guerrillas of their day.

According to the 1940 edition of the Small Wars Manual, small wars' involved diplomacy, contact with the lowest levels of the civilian population, and the uncertainties of political disruption. The goal of 'small wars' was to gain decisive results with the least application of force and the minimum loss of life. Caution was to be exercised, and the population was to be treated with 'tolerance, sympathy, and kindness'.

Although this philosophy formed the basic structure of Marine Corps 'small wars' theory, III MAF found it necessary to develop pacification tactics to meet the conditions unique to South Vietnam. 

Two innovations which showed promising potential were the County Fair and Golden Fleece programs. Both had their origins in late 1965 and were refined during the course of 1966.

The 9th Marines initiated protorype County Fair operations in late 1965 and in early 1966 in response to the need for new techniques to secure its area of operations south of the Da Nang Airbase. Containing an extended area dotted with hamlets and villages, the 9th Marines TAOR was one of the most densely populated areas of South Vietnam with over 1,000 inhabitants per square mile. The Marine regiment realized that it had to eradicate the VC guerrillas and political cadre in order to pacify the hamlets. Employing traditional cordon and search tactics, the Marines began a continuing effort in the villages to clear out the VC. The County Fair technique was an outgrowth and elaboration of these tactics

Begun on an experimental basis in February 1966, this technique emphasized coordination and cooperation with South Vietnamese military and civilian authorities to reestablish government control of a community without alienating the people. While Marines cordoned a village, ARVN troops and police gathered the inhabitants at a designated collection point. The South Vietnamese troops then searched the hamlet for any VC who might still be hiding. During this time, South Vietnamese administrative officials and police processed the villagers at the collection center, taking a census, issuing ID cards, and interrogating the population about their background and the location of members of their families. In addition, the people were fed, provided medical assistance, and entertained. A significant feature of the entertainment was that it permitted the government to present its case to the villagers in the form of movies, speeches, folk music, and drama.

Throughout these activities, the Marines remained as unobtrusive as possible, except to furnish medical and limited logistical assistance. The idea was not to overwhelm the local populace with the American military presence, but to provide a climate in which the local Vietnamese military, police, and civilian administrators could operate.

One of the more successful of these combined operations was the 9th Marines' County Fair 11 in the hamlet of Thanh Quit during April 1966. The hamlet, located in a small triangle between the Thanh Quit and Vinh Dien Rivers and 1,500 meters east of Route 1 below Da Nang, often served as a haven for local guerrillas. On the morning of 26 April at 0500, Lieutenant Colonel William F. Donahue's 2d Battalion, 9th Marines established blocking positions east of the hamlet while an ARVN company blocked to the west. One hour later, two companies of the 3d Battalion, 51st ARVN Regiment advanced north from the Thanh Quit River into the hamlet. The South Vietnamese soldiers surprised a guerrilla unit in Thanh Quit.  Realizing they were trapped, the VC fought stubbornly. The ARVN killed 45 of the guerrillas, captured 17 prisoners, and confiscated 14 weapons. The Marines in the blocking position suffered no casualties while the ARVN battalion sustained one dead and 14 wounded during the action.

The success of this operation and another in April, during which the Marines and South Vietnamese captured a VC district official, caused General Walt to order the expansion of the program throughout the Marine TAORs during the following months. Many of the regiments prepared standing operating orders for the conduct of these operations and developed fairly elaborate procedures to create a festive atmosphere. At the collection points the tents were decorated with bunting and flags. A Marine division band or drum and bugle corps often played martial airs, followed by South Vietnamese troubadours who continued to entertain the villagers. Although creating a 'county fair' atmosphere, the purpose remained to ferret out the VC. By the end of June, the Marines and the South Vietnamese had conducted 25 of these operations with a fair measure of success. In other corps areas, U.S. Army units adopted the County Fair concept, but changed the name from County Fair to 'Hamlet Festival'.

In a letter to General Walt on 4 July, General Westmoreland specifically mentioned County Fair as a desirable technique to enhance village and hamlet security. Although he observed that such operations tied down U.S. units and required the retention of a reserve, Westmoreland declared:  The Hamlet Search [County Fair] concept offers a realistic prospect for developing meaningful and lasting security in areas where it is conducted; and to the extent that this is the real objective of all our military operations, every opportunity for successful achievement of this goal should be pursued not necessarily appropriate for universal employment throughout Vietnam and that he did not want any dissipation of U.S. strength 'to the detriment of our primary responsibility for destroying main force enemy units'.

The MACV commander continued to demonstrate interest in the County Fair program and on 10 July, he requested III MAF to report on its County Fair activities for the preceding four-month period. The Marines were not only to furnish the total number of operations for each month from March through June, but were to provide the following data as well: names and coordinates of hamlets searched; number of suspects detained; number of enemy killed and captured; number and type of weapons seized; and number of hamlets in which the enemy 'infrastructure' was considered destroyed.

The month of July was to be the high water mark for the number of III MAF 1966 County Fair operations. During the month, Marine units conducted 21 such operations near Da Nang: nine by the 3d Marines, eight by the 1st Marines, and four by the 9th Marines. Colonel Bryan B. Mitchell, the 1st Marines commander, observed that his units, cooperating with the South Vietnamese, provided 'the first real GVN influence in many of the hamlets during the past three years'.

Lieutenant Colonel Robert R. Dickey, III, whose 1st Battalion, 3d Marines had just completed County Fair 4-11 on 28 July in Kim Lien hamlet six miles northwest of the airbase in the 3d Marines TAOR, was less sanguine. He wrote:  Increased search skills and techniques of both Vietnamese and Marines are needed. The villagers aid the VC due to friendship and personal relations, not politics. District officials should get to know needs of people and offer tangible evidence of GVN presence .

During the 88 County Fair operations conducted during 1966, over 46,000 South Vietnamese villagers were screened and more than 20,000 of them were provided medical treatment. These same operations accounted for 192 enemy killed and 262 captured. Although this represented an average of only slightly more than five VC per operation, the enemy casualties were local guerrillas and political cadre, the basis of VC control in the countryside. The loss of these men in sufficient numbers could destroy the Communist influence among the people. The County Fair program was a useful technique of gaining control and extending influence.

In contrast to the frustrations experienced by the Marines in conducting County Fairs, their rice protection campaign was more successful. Begun during the fall harvest season of 1965 and named Golden Fleece, the concept called for a Marine battalion to maintain security around the rice paddies while the peasants harvested the grain. These operations allowed the Vietnamese farmer to keep his produce, while preventing the Viet Cong from collecting their usual percentage of the crop. The Golden Fleece campaign deprived the VC of badly needed supplies, and furnished the uncommitted South Vietnamese peasant an incentive to support the government cause. Marine staff officers estimated that the III MAF rice protection program kept over 500,000 pounds of rice from the grasp of the enemy during the 1965 harvest season. III MAF expanded these operations during the 1966 harvest seasons. At the end of September, General Walt observed that more rice was withheld from the Viet Cong during the month than during any previous season in years.

One of the most productive of all such operations was Golden Fleece 7-1 carried out by Major Littleton W. T. Wailer II's 1st Battalion, 7th Marines in Mo Duc District south of the city of Quang Ngai.  The Marine battalion entered the district, 25 miles from its Chu Lai area of operations on 8 September to conduct a search and destroy operation. The operation, labeled Fresno, was designed to prevent enemy main force units from disrupting the constitutional election. Although Fresno did end after the election, there was a sudden change of plans. In a conversation with General Walt, General Lam, the I Corps Commander, observed that for years the Viet Cong had collected nearly 90 percent of the rice harvested in the Mo Duc region. General Walt suggested that the Marine battalion remain in the area to help protect the harvest. General Lam agreed and on 16 September, Major General Fields, the 1st Division commander, ordered Colonel Lawrence F. Snoddy, Jr., the 7th Marines Commander, to terminate Operation Fresno at midnight and immediately begin Operation Golden Fleece 7-1. Colonel Snoddy visited Major Wailer's command post south of the village of Mo Duc and told him of the change in plans .

The informality of the planning for Golden Fleece 7-1 may have deceived the enemy and apparently contributed to the effectiveness of the operation. Major Waller later commented that the operation was approached on a low key:   There was a minimum of fuss and coordination with the ARVN Division in Quang Ngai [the 2d ARVN Division]. Perhaps this low level approach accounted for the enemy not getting the word. At any rate, if he did get the word, he did not seem to think we would affect his plans.

Allied intelligence sources had indicated that two VC battalions, the 38th and 44th were in the area with two local force companies. These forces totaled approximately 900 men and agents reported that the enemy units were operating freely in the area, the 38th west of Route 1 and the 44th in the paddy lands east of the highway. During Fresno and the period immediately preceding the constitutional election, these enemy battalions had avoided all contact with allied forces in the Mo Duc region. Perhaps believing that the Marine battalion would return to its base area after the election the Viet Cong commanders become bolder after 16 September.

Although the enemy had at least two battalions in the Mo Duc area, the fighting during Golden Fleece 7-1 was usually on a small-unit level. Marine patrols either sighted or engaged enemy units attempting to move into the fertile lowlands. Marine air, artillery, and naval gunfire was called on to finish the job. Battery G, 3d Battalion, 11th Marines reinforced by five U.S. Navy destroyers offshore provided direct artillery support to the infantry battalion, and Marine aircraft from Chu Lai and Da Nang furnished close air support.

While 2d ARVN Division units were protecting the rice fields east of Route 1, Major Wailer sent platoon and squad patrols along the access routes into Mo Duc from the west. The Song Ve constituted the northern and western boundary of the area of operations and Highway 578, the southern. Special South Vietnamese observation units, called Dac Cong, supplemented the Marine patrols. By entering the Nui Nham-Nui Coi hill mass, which dominated the entire region, the Marines and their South Vietnamese allies probed much further to the west than the VC expected. The roving patrols provided excellent information which resulted in most of the Viet Cong casualties. For example, a Dac Cong outpost in the northern area of operations sighted three enemy platoons approaching the Song Ve on the night of 19 September and called for artillery and naval gunfire. A nearby Marine reconnaissance patrol observed and adjusted the fires. This particular action resulted in the death of 47 Viet Cong. On another occasion, a Marine patrol saw what appeared to be 75 ARVN troops in a position where no friendly units were supposed to be. The patrol leader quickly checked with the battalion command post and learned that the troops he had spotted were not ARVN, but VC. The Marines opened fire on the enemy and also called in artillery and air as the VC fled. A Marine tactical aerial observer in a UH-1E helicopter, controlling the airstrike, reported at least four enemy killed. When the Marine patrol swept the area, they found a base camp that the enemy had established, apparently for rice collection.

Through 21 September, Major Wailer continued the same tactics, deploying small patrols into the hinterlands and conducting company sweeps in the lowlands west of Route 1. On the 21st, the Marines readjusted their boundary with the 2d ARVN Division in order to attack the hamlet of Van Ha, 2,000 meters east of Highway 1, long a Viet Cong strongpoint. The hamlet was honeycombed with bunkers and interlocking tunnels. The district chief stated that no South Vietnamese Government force had dared to enter this complex for over four years.

Expecting heavy enemy resistance, Major Wailer stationed Company A in blocking positions that night and called for an intensive air, artillery, and naval bombardment the next morning. After the bombardment, he launched a three company attack on the hamlets. Although a few VC had probed Company A's positions during the night, the Marine advance encountered only token opposition. Once they secured the hamlet, the Marines found Van Ha to be a well-established logistic base. A granary within the hamlet held over 727 tons of rice.

Major Waller contacted the district chief and assured him that the Marines would remain in the village, if the South Vietnamese could haul the rice away. The chief agreed and provided a force of more than 8,000 workers to move the rice from Van Ha to Mo Duc, the district capital. In less than 50 hours, the South Vietnamese had removed the rice, as well as the household effects of approximately 150 families living in the village. In addition to the villagers' furniture, they gathered up the cattle, hogs, ducks, and chickens and transferred everything to the district town. Over 700 civilian refugees from Van Ha were relocated to Mo Duc where they were processed. Many of the villagers claimed that they had wanted to leave Van Ha for some time but were prevented by the VC.

At this point the South Vietnamese Government decided to settle the problem of Van Ha, once and for all, so that it could no longer serve Communist purposes. The district chief, a Mr. Lieu, asked Major Wailer to destroy the entire village. Waller's men used 13,500 pounds of explosives 'to destroy a total of 554 bunkers, 123 houses, 50 caves, 130 sheds, and 125 wells, [in the process] producing 24 secondary explosions'.

The battalion left Van Ha on the 26th and closed out Operation Golden Fleece 7-1 the next day. On the 27th, Mr. Lieu hosted a traditional Vietnamese banquet for the Marines in Mo Duc. The Vietnamese officials expressed their appreciation for what the Marines had accomplished and presented gifts to Major Waller. According to the battalion's report, more than 5,000 South Vietnamese lined the streets of Mo Duc to bid the unit farewell as the Marines boarded trucks for the return to Chu Lai.

The results of the operation were impressive both in number of enemy casualties and the amount of rice salvaged from the Communists. Marines claimed 240 enemy dead at the cost of one Marine killed and19 wounded. The district chief estimated that over 7,000 tons of rice were harvested and kept out of the hands of the enemy. Major Wailer doubted that the VC had been able to obtain more than 15 percent of the total crop before the Marines had arrived.  Most significantly, none of the harvesters working in rice paddies protected by the Marines had been bothered by enemy troops or tax collectors. Major Wailer had nothing but praise for Mr. Lieu and his U.S. Army advisor, Major Richard A. Weaver, both of whom had cooperated fully with the Main battalion.

Lieutenant General Krulak summed up the accomplishment of the Golden Fleece operations in the following manner:  The Golden Fleece effort by III MAF organizations is keyed to the various times when rice crops become ripe. As such it is nearly a continuous project. Golden Fleece 7-1 was a particularly good example.. . The VC were determined to get their hands on the rice this time, and came out in the open to fight for it.  I believe that Golden Fleece, along with County Fair, Combined Action units and the other Revolutionary Development efforts,halting though they are.are giving the Viet Cong basic structure a hard time.

The combined action program had its inception in the summer of 1965 at Phu Bai as an expedient to improve base security. The concept involved the assigning of a Marine squad to a South Vietnamese Popular Force (PF) platoon. In the early stages of the program, III MAF accepted only handpicked volunteers for combined action units. These Marines received rudimentary training in Vietnamese language, history, customs, and military and governmental organization. Initially, five combined action platoons were formed at Phu Bai. These Marines entered into the life of their assigned village and were integrated into its defense. They offered military training to the local PF platoons, while at the same time participating in civic action.

In January 1966, General Walt authorized the expansion of the program. A second combined action effort was started at Da Nang, where Marine squads were paired off with the seven PF platoons stationed around the airbase. By July, III MAF had 38 combined action platoons, scattered throughout the three Marine enclaves. The number of platoons grew to 57 by the end of the year: at Da Nang and 13 each at Phu Bai and Chu Lai.

The combined action program, like the County Fair and the Golden Fleece operations, developed into an integral component of the Marine pacification strategy. Both Generals Walt and Krulak gave the concept their unstinted support and were avid crusaders, attempting to convince MACV to expand a similar program to all of Vietnam. The Marines assembled very convincing statistics to back up their strong beliefs. A FMFPac report prepared in January 1967 observed that the 22 Vietnamese villages in the Marine TAORs that had an active combined action program for six months or longer averaged a grade of 60 percent on the III MAF pacification scale. This was a rise of nearly 20 percentage points since the combined action platoons were stationed in these villages. The report pointed out one other significant trend. It noted that the South Vietnamese PF, a home guard directly responsible to the district chief for the defense of their particular villages, was generally .regarded as the poorest of all the South Vietnamese forces. According to the FMFPac study, the desertion rate from the PF was almost four times that of the ARVN. For this period August through December 1966, the report cited statistics which revealed over 39,000 PF troops had deserted, representing nearly 25 percent of the total nation wide PF strength. During this same period there were no recorded desertions of PFs assigned to the Marine combined action units. Other figures included in the report indicated that the kill ratio of the Marine combined action platoons was 14 VC to 1 Marine or PF soldier, as contrasted with a 3 to 1 ratio for regular PF units. The report concluded:  This tends to underscore the improved military performance that is possible through the melding of highly motivated professional Marines with heretofore poorly led, inadequately trained, and uninspired Vietnamese who now are finding leaders who are qualified and who take a personal interest in them.

As could be expected, Marine battalion commanders were often reluctant to send their best and seasoned NCOs and riflemen into the program while receiving no direct recompense in return.

The necessary complexity of command and control of the combined action units was also troublesome. There were two chains of command, one Vietnamese and one American. Coordination and cooperation were the core of the entire program. Two or more combined action platoons were coordinated by a combined action company headquarters, commanded by a Marine captain, with a PF lieutenant as his deputy. The Marine battalion commander was responsible for coordinating patrol activity and combat support of combined units in his TAOR, so for practical purposes, the Marine battalion commander actually exercised operational control of these combined action units.

Although the district chief, in effect, relinquished command of his PF units assigned to the combined action platoons, he still retained administrative responsibility. In addition, the district chief usually suggested which villages were to be assigned combined action units and made the necessary arrangements with the hamlet and village chiefs. Moreover, the district chief was in a position to undercut the program by simply transferring his PF troops out of the combined action unit.

At the platoon level, cooperation and trust were most important. A typical South Vietnamese PF platoon consisted of one officer and 37 enlisted men, organized into three 11-man infantry squads and a five-man headquarters group.. A platoon was usually responsible for an entire village complex, deploying individual squads into the most important hamlets making up the village. The combined action platoon was the unit that resulted from combining a 14 man Marine rifle squad plus a Navy corpsman, with a PF platoon. The Marine NCO squad leader became the advisor to the Vietnamese platoon leader, while each of the three Marine fire teams was assigned to an individual PF squad. Both the Vietnamese militiamen and the individual Marines soon discovered they each had something to learn from the other. While the Marines taught the PFs basic small-unit tactics and discipline, they themselves obtained knowledge of the terrain, local customs, and valuable intelligence about the enemy. When the combined action platoon functioned properly, there was a mutual exchange that was helpful to both the Americans and South Vietnamese.

The combined action platoon in the village of Birth Nghia in the Chu Lai TAOR provided an excellent example of this process at its best. Located in Binh Son District four miles south of the Chu Lai Marine base in the 1st Battalion, 7th Marines TAOR, Binh Nghia consisted of seven hamlets, three named My Hue and four called Binh Yen Noi. The entire village complex was only two miles long, enclosed on the north by an expanse of sand dunes and on the south by the Song Tra Bong. According to allied intelligence sources, two independent VC companies and one main force battalion were operating in Binh Son District. The district chief estimated that more than 750 men from Binh Nghia, alone, had left their homes to join the Viet Cong. Despite this apparent loyalty to the enemy, in June 1966 the Marines and south Vietnamese decided to establish a combined action platoon in the village.

The recommendation to establish the combined action platoon in Binh Nghia was made by the district chief. His U.S. Army advisor, Major Richard Braun, convinced General Walt that he should place a Marine squad with the PF in this sector. According to one Marine observer, the conversation between Braun and Wait went as follows: 

'If you had them [a combined action platoon] where would you put them?" Walt asked. "There's a big village not far from here. It sits along a river which the Cong use to move supplies back up into the mountains. As a matter of fact, it's just south of Chu Lai airfield. The government forces were chased out of the village a couple of years ago. A platoon of Cong live there regularly now, and sometimes a company or more come in to resupply or rest'.

'Why pick there to start?' Walt asked.

'I didn't, sir. The district chief did. He has this outstanding police chief who's being badmouthed by some of the local politicians. These pols make the mafia look like a bunch of Trappist monks. The district chiefs afraid this police chief will say the hell with it and transfer to another district. But his family's from this village and his mother still lives there. The district chief says he'll stick around if we make a play for that village. The police want some Americans along if they're going in there. They don't think too much of the local troops in this district'.

'I'll see that he, the police, chief gets them', Walt replied. 'By the way, what's the name of that village?'

'We call it Been Knee-ah, sir'.

On June 10th, 1966 one squad of Marines from Company C, 1st Battalion, 7th Marines were picked to join the Popular Force unit at Binh Yen Noi. It is obvious to those who have initiated and followed the PF program that it has been a success. Since the Marines have begun their instructions, the confidence and skill of the PFs have risen considerably. The PFs are now a well-organized efficient combat unit. This program has also strengthened the relationship between the Marines and the PFs and civilians in the area. The effect of this had been the strengthening of the defensive posture of the area.

Saddened by the deaths, the Marines were determined to stay put. Beebe's successor, Sergeant Joseph Sullivan, adopted an aggressive program. Marines and PFs conducted night patrols and established ambushes even in the My Hue hamlets north of Fort Page, as the villa was renamed after Page's death. Later in the month, five Marines and three PF troops set up an ambush on the northern bank of the Tra Bong. Apparently the Viet Cong had watched the patrol establish its position and attempted to maneuver around them to hit the ambushers from the rear. The Marine patrol leader had taken no chances and had stationed a PF soldier as a rear lookout. He saw the enemy crawling along the rice paddy dikes and quietly gave the alarm. The patrol leader turned his men around and allowed the VC to approach within 50 yards before giving the order to fire. In eight minutes, it was all over. The patrol counted 21 enemy dead, including a VC company commander and a platoon leader. There were no casualties in the combined action platoon.

Throughout July and much of August, the combined action unit at Fort Page engaged in over 70 firefights and averaged almost 11 contacts a week. The Marines and their PF allies proved themselves superior to the Viet Cong in both night patrolling and fighting. By the end of August, the combined action platoon thought it had wrested control of Binh Nghia from the Viet Cong. There had been no significant contact with an enemy unit for over two weeks. According to Marine estimates, the village's pacification category had risen from the contested stage to a figure of 75 percent pacified.

Once more, however, the Viet Cong forced the Marines to reassess the situation. On the night of 14 September several Marines and PFs were out on patrol while six of the Americans  including Sergeant Sullivan, remained at the fort with 12 PFs. Although the combined action unit had not engaged the VC for over two weeks, there were disturbing rumors that VC forces across the river had been reinforced by North Vietnamese regulars. To insure the security of the fort, Sergeant Sullivan had asked the South Vietnamese PF leader to place a seven-man detachment in the hamlet of Binh Yen Noi to protect his rear. This detachment discovered nothing unusual in the hamlet and decided to go home to bed, rather than spend the night in the cold drizzle that began to fall. Apparently the enemy had maintained close observation of the fort. A company of North Vietnamese regulars from the 409th NVA Battalion, approximately 60 men, joined 80 Viet Cong and crossed the Tra Bong River. Probably guided by villagers, the enemy infiltrators slipped through the hamlet of Binh Yen Noi undetected and attacked the fort from two directions. In the ensuing battle, five Americans, including Sergeant Sullivan and the Navy corpsman, were killed. The other Marine in the fort was wounded as were five of the PFs; the remaining seven PF troops held out. A reaction force from Company C, 1st Battalion, 7th Marines and the rest of the combined action force came to their rescue and the VC broke contact.

Instead of breaking the morale of the combined action platoon, this attack strengthened the bond between the remaining Marines and the PFs. On 15 September, Colonel Snoddy offered the combined action Marines the opportunity to abandon Fort Page and to a man they elected to stay. They had gained a strong affection for Binh Nghia; it was their village and they were determined to protect it. That day the villagers held a funeral service honoring the Marines and PF troops who had died in the defense of Fort Page.

On the night of the 16th, the Viet Cong came back to Binh Nghia; this time they received an entirely unexpected reception. Apparently believing they no longer had anything to fear, they walked boldly down the hamlet's main street toward the market place. They literally bumped into a Marine PF patrol coming from the other direction. Recovering from their surprise firsts the Marines and PFs opened fire and gave the alarm. In less than 10 minutes, other members of the combined action unit reinforced the patrol led by Sergeant James White, Sullivan's replacement. The enemy tried to get back to the river bank and cross, leaving a rear guard to provide covering fire. An old woman pointed out to the Marines and PFs the positions of the VC. The unit blasted the enemy rear guard trying to escape in small wicker boats. While the shooting continued, the villagers gathered on the river banks to watch the show. According to one Marine 'You would have thought it was daytime out there . . . it was incredible'.   The combined units accounted for 10 known dead VC and undoubtedly killed others in the water. There were no Marine or PF casualties.

The Marines in this particular combined action unit. had gained a new perspective on the war. They realized there was to be no easy victory over the Viet Cong. The PFs were becoming better soldiers, but the Marines had attained something as well. They now understood the villagers and looked upon them as people to be protected and helped. One corporal put it in these words: "Hell, this is our village, it's why we're here'. An indication of the acceptance that the Marines had achieved occurred during the last week of December. The villagers held a fair and the Marines were invited, not as guests, but as participants.

Although the Marines in Binh Nghia had achieved a modicum of success in their efforts, the Marine command was not satisfied with the overall progress of the combined action program. General Walt had hoped to establish 74 units by the end of the year, but the government had not provided enough PFs to achieve this aim. Nonetheless, the Marines believed that the combined action concept held promise for the future. General Krulak stated this belief in the following words:

Personal Response

The combined action program was important because it achieved one of the basic goals of the pacification effort, the unity of interest between the South Vietnamese villager and the individual Marine. For pacification to work in the TAORs, this same unity of interest had to be established between the regular Marine battalions and the local populace. The Marines in the regular, organized units had to realize that their mission was the protection of the people, while the Vietnamese peasant had to learn to overcome his fear of the Americans.

Generals Krulak and Walt were both aware how important attitudes were and both were interested in means of determining the extent of the problem and developing a program that would avoid unfortunate incidents. The interest reflected by these two Marine generals created the Marine Personal Response Program during the summer of 1966. General Krulak discussed the question with the FMFPac chaplain, Captain John H. Craven, USN. In July 1966, Captain Craven assigned one of his new chaplains to be the Fleet Marine Force Personal Response Officer. His choice was Lieutenant Commander Richard McGonigal, who was not only a chaplain but also held a master's degree in sociology.

Chaplain McGonigal arrived in Vietnam on 5 July for a brief indoctrination visit. General Walt expressed his interest in the project and offered the chaplain the full cooperation of his staff. Lieutenant Commander McGonigal decided to take a sample survey of approximately two percent of the total III MAF force and a smaller sample of the South Vietnamese who had a close association with Americans. After refining his questionnaires and interviewing techniques, McGonigal conducted the attitude survey during the first two weeks of September.

The initial sampling revealed that a large percentage of the Marines tested held negative feelings for the South Vietnamese. Only 43 percent of the Marines indicated that they liked the local population. The South Vietnamese, on the other hand, showed a more positive feeling toward the Americans. Over 70 percent of them stated that they generally liked Americans, but 46 percent declared that Americans did not like them.

Other aspects of the survey showed that individual Marines indicated a certain ambivalence toward the population, rather than an intense dislike. Most importantly, the sampling of combined action platoon Marines and their PF partners revealed an over .whelming feeling of trust and confidence in one another.

Chaplain McGonigal had accomplished a portion of his aims with the September survey. These were to determine the existing attitudes toward the Vietnamese, where the greatest problems were, and how these attitudes were acquired. He believed that he needed a much larger and more refined testing procedure before he could begin to develop a program to overcome frictions between Marines and the Vietnamese. From December 1966-January 1967, he conducted another survey, followed by a third in June 1967. Based on his intensive study of over 10 percent of the Marines assigned to III MAF, Chaplain McGonigal reached the conclusion:

The name of the game in Vietnam is relationship. When a Marine sees the ancient Vietnamese grandmother who smiles at him with her betel nut stained ebony teeth as a full-fledged human being, he is ready to operate more effectively than we hoped. He becomes more careful in his use of firepower, more sensitive in dealing with refugees and a better trainer of host counterparts.

One month later, another patrol, composed of eight Marines, raided a South Vietnamese hamlet. They killed five villagers and raped an 18-year-old girl. The same month, three other Marines killed an old woman and placed her body in a hay stack which they set afire. As they left the burning pyre, they discovered an elderly man who had observed their actions. They shot him and one of the Marines cut off the man's ear. All the Marines involved in these incidents were charged and faced court-martial by the end of the year.

The response of the Marine command to these tragedies reflected General, Walt's determination that they would not reoccur. On 17 November, he sent a personal message to General Westmoreland giving the full details of each incident and the actions that he had taken.

More significantly, General Walt reiterated basic guidelines to his senior commanders to prevent future outrages. He made no recriminations, but also allowed no excuses. He stated simply:

I know that all of you are deeply concerned and are taking the actions you consider appropriate. . . . The following observations and suggestions appear to me to be worthy of your consideration. It is an oversimplification to lay the blame on the quality of leadership, at least not as a blanket indictment as it is usually employed. I believe, however, that perhaps the focus of our leadership has been too sharply concentrated on our operational problems and we may need to reorient and broaden this focus to devote more time and attention to the training of our younger, less mature leaders and to more eyeball-to-eyeball talks with all our troops. . . . We have had to rely frequently upon inexperienced noncommissioned officers in positions of great responsibility. To overcome the effects of this we need a period of intensive personal effort by our mature experienced officers and noncommissioned officers to counsel and train their juniors. Formal schools are not practical in our present tactical dispositions, but frequent informal sessions are possible and offer potentially rich rewards. We need discussions of such fundamental subjects as are illustrated in the material published in connection with the personal response study. Recent events offer convincing evidence that the general attitude toward the Vietnamese people is manifestly poor and must be changed. There are also strong indications that we need personal attention to the responsibilities of leadership and vigorous efforts to weed out those who are ineffective... . In coordination with these efforts, I believe we can eliminate some of our future problems by screening our commands to separate those men whose records demonstrate their unfitness or unsuitability for retention, particularly at a time when the demands of our service call for self-discipline in a greater measure than ever before. .

The general continued:

A more careful examination of our disciplinary reports and increased efforts to make our trials and punishments as prompt as we can make them, within the law, offers another area for attack against a situation that we all recognize is not going to be resolved by any one magic formula. .

I cannot believe that our men fully understand and appreciate how disastrous their sometimes thoughtless actions can be to our efforts here. One man, through crime, or just plain wanton disregard of human dignity can undo in a few minutes the prolonged efforts of a reinforced battalion. We make propaganda for the enemy with every heedless act toward the Vietnamese as a people and as individuals. At the same time, we undo all the good that had been done. We must get this message across.