"The U. S. Marine Corps and the Combined Action Program in the Vietnam War: An Exposition and Evaluation" By Captain Keith F. Kopets, USMC For Presentation at: Society for Military History Annual Conference University of Calgary Calgary, Alberta, Canada May 2001 Introduction "Of all our innovations in Vietnam none was as successful, as lasting in effect, or as useful for the future as the Combined Action Program,"1 wrote Marine Lt. Gen. Lewis Walt in his memoirs. British counterinsurgency expert Sir Robert Thompson said combined action was " the best idea I have seen in Vietnam."2 It was an innovative and unique approach to pacification, the Combined Action Program, undertaken by the U.S. Marine Corps during the Vietnam War. In theory, combined action was simplicity itself: A rifle squad of Marines joined forces with South Vietnamese militia platoon to provide security for a local village. The modus operandi of combined action made it unique: While assigned to combined units, Marines actually lived in the village of the militia unit. Counterguerilla warfare was already a part of the Marine Corps's heritage. The Marines organized constabularies and fought guerillas from 1915 to 1934 in Nicaragua, Haiti, and Santo Domingo. The Corps called these interventions "small wars." The senior Marine generals in Vietnam studied small wars as lieutenants. But more than that, combined action was a response to the conditions in Vietnam. As the senior command in I Corps Tactical Zone, the Marines were responsible for securing more than 10,000 square miles of real estate that covered the five northernmost provinces of South Vietnam. More than two-and-a-half million people lived in I Corps. Using the militia for local security only made sense there were not enough Marines to go around. Finally, the Marines and the U.S. Army-dominated Military Assistance Command, Vietnam disagreed on strategies for the war. The Army wanted to "search and destroy" the Communists in the rural and less populated areas of South Vietnam; the Marines wanted to "clear and hold" the populated areas of I Corps. Combined action was a manifestation of the strategy the Marines felt best suited the conditions in Vietnam. With American Marines living and fighting side-by-side with the Vietnamese people, the Combined Action Program seemed to represent an effective, long-term, around the clock commitment to combating the Vietnamese Communists at the grass-roots level. It was, to a degree. Combined action worked like a charm in some locations; elsewhere, its results were transitory at best- with villagers becoming over reliant on the Marines for security. This paper traces the development of the Combined Action Program, discusses its results and some of its problems, and explains why the United States never applied combined action throughout all of South Vietnam. Origins of Combined Action Combined action came naturally for the Marine Corps, a service built on small unit fighting with a wealth of experience in foreign interventions. The Marines organized and trained the Gendarmerie d'Haiti and the Nacional Dominicana in Haiti and Santo Domingo from 1915 to 1934. In Nicaragua (1926-1933), the Marines organized, trained, and officered the Guardia Nacional de Nicaragua. These organizations were non-partisan, native constabularies the Marines commanded until the host-nation forces were competent enough to assume command.3 Both of the senior Marine Corps generals during the opening moves of the Vietnam WarLt. Gen. Victor H. Krulak and Maj. Gen. Lewis W. Walt were students of these small wars. As Commanding General, Fleet Marine Forces Pacific, General Krulak was responsible for the training and readiness of all the Marines in Vietnam. As Commanding General, III Marine Amphibious Force, General Walt directed the operations of all the Marines in I Corps. Krulak and Walt began their careers during the 1930s and 40s under the tutelage of numerous Caribbean campaign veterans, Marine officers such as Lewis "Chesty" Puller and Merritt "Red Mike" Edson. In Vietnam, Generals Krulak and Walt applied the lessons they learned about fighting guerillas earlier in their careers.4 Birth of Combined Action in Vietnam When they arrived in South Vietnam in 1965, the Marines occupied and defended three enclaves in I Corps: Phu Bai, Da Nang, and Chu Lai. The Combined Action Program grew out of an experiment conducted by Lt. Col. William W. Taylor's 3d Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment near Phu Bai.5 Taylor's infantry battalion defended ten square miles and a critical airfield at Phu Bai. He knew his three rifle companies weren't enough to defend that amount of territory. The local population lived in six villages, each nominally defended by a militia platoon. Taylor and his officers brainstormed ideas on how to improve their battalion's defensive posture. They looked to a previously unused resource: the local militia platoons. Taylor's executive officer, Maj. Cullen C. Zimmerman drafted a plan to incorporate the militia platoons into the battalion's defense. Zimmerman wanted to integrate the militia platoons with some of the battalion's rifle squads to form a combined unit. Lieutenant Colonel Taylor liked Zimmerman's plan; he forwarded it up to Col. Edwin B. Wheeler, his regimental commander. Wheeler liked the plan, too; he pushed it all the way up the chain of command to Generals Walt and Krulak. Both generals loved it. Walt sold South Vietnamese general Nguyen Van Chuan on the idea. Chuan, who was responsible for the Vietnamese military forces in Phu Bai, agreed to give Walt operational control over the militia platoons operating in Colonel Taylor's sector. Colonel Taylor integrated four rifle squads from his battalion with the six local militia platoons in early August 1965. 1st Lt. Paul R. Ek commanded the combined unit, known as a "Joint Action Company." Lieutenant Ek was well versed in counterguerilla warfare. He'd already served as an advisor to a U.S. Army Special Forces unit in Vietnam and spoke the language, having graduated the Marine Corps's Vietnamese language school on Okinawa. The Marines in Lieutenant Ek's combined company were all volunteers from 3d Battalion, 4th Marines, each one carefully screened by the executive officer, Major Zimmerman.6 The Phu Bai experiment yielded some promising results. The Marines instilled an aggressive, offensive spirit in their counterparts, giving the militia leaderships omething they never had before. The Vietnamese now patrolled and set ambushes. The Marines learned from the Vietnamese, too. They gained knowledge of the local terrain and learned Vietnamese customs and courtesies. Winning fights against local enemy guerillas, Lieutenant Ek's combined unit upset the status quo by driving the Communists out of the villages. General Walt seized on the success of Lieutenant Ek's unique company in Phu Bai and approached Gen. Nguyen Chanh Thi, his I Corps Vietnamese counterpart, with a proposal to expand combined action to the other two enclaves, Da Nang and Chu Lai. Walt didn't need to put the hard sell on Thi; he'd already been impressed by the Phu Bai experiment, too. Expansion of Combined Action Combined action stopped being an experiment and started becoming an integral part of the Marine Corps's war in I Corps because of Generals Walt and Thi's enthusiasm. The platoon became the Combined Action Program's basic tactical unit. A thirty-five man Vietnamese militia platoon, and a thirteen-man Marine rifle squad, with one attached Navy hospital corpsman, formed the combined action platoon. This unit lived in and operated out of the local village of the militia platoon. 7 American and Vietnamese chains of command remained separate. The Americans were only supposed to serve as advisors to their counterpartsand they did, in garrison; but in the bush, on patrol, the senior Marine present became the de facto commander of the combined unit. From the original 6 platoons at the end of 1965, the number of combined units grew to 38 platoons by July 1966. By January 1967, 57 combined platoons operated throughout I Corps: 31 platoons in the Da Nang enclave, and 13 each in the Phu Bai and Chu Lai enclaves. The number of combined platoons peaked at 114 in 1970, these units spread throughout the five provinces of I Corps.8 Increasing the number of combined platoons caused problems for General Walt. For one, he needed more Marines. Walt was robbing Peter to pay Paul by taking men from his two infantry divisions and assigning them to combined units. Headquarters Marine Corps, though, was not sending Walt any more men to make up the difference. They had already set a limit on troop strength in Vietnam so they could meet commitments elsewhere.9 Marine infantry commanders were hesitant to release their best noncommissioned officers for duty with combined units they knew they would not receive replacements. And because infantry commanders didn't always give up their best men for the Combined Action Program, the quality of combined platoons ranged from outstanding to abysmal based on the amount of experience, the proficiency, and the maturity of the Marines.10 General Walt acted on these problems. In February 1967, Walt appointed Lt. Col. William R. Corson as his Director for Combined Action.11 Corson was the right man for the job. He'd fought with the Marines in the Pacific and Korea and already had completed a tour as a tank battalion commander in Vietnam. Corson also spoke four different dialects of Chinese, held a doctor's degree in economics, and had experience in unconventional warfare in Vietnam. Corson served with the Central Intelligence Agency in Southeast Asia from 1958 to 1959, organizing guerilla operations against the Viet Minh.12 The Combined Action Program required its own chain of command, believed Colonel Corson. He objected to the existing command arrangements that gave local infantry commanders control of the combined units in their areas of responsibility. Corson didn't think the average infantry battalion commander in Vietnam knew what it took to succeed in the business of pacification: He was there to kill enemy.... His mission was two up, one back, hot chow. Battalion commanders were not in Vietnam to win the hearts and minds of the people.... They were playing the game of ... search and destroy. They didn't understand the nature of the war they were involved in.13 Mobility was what Colonel Corson wanted in each of his platoons. "The [combined action platoon] will [not] function as the garrison of a so-called 'French Fort,'" he wrote. The Combined Action Platoon must "conduct an active, aggressive defense [of its assigned village] to prevent [Communist] incursions and attacks directed at the hamlet residents and officials."14 Corson drafted a set of standing operating procedures for the Combined Action Program in July 1967, charging each of his platoons with six different missions:15 1. Destroy the Communist infrastructure within your area of responsibility. 2. Protect public security; help maintain law and order. 3. Organize local intelligence nets. 4. Participate in civic action and conduct propaganda against the Communists. 5. Motivate, instill pride, patriotism, and aggressiveness in the militia. 6. Conduct training for all members of the combined action platoon in general military subjects, leadership, and language. Increase the proficiency of the militia platoon so they can function effectively without Marines.16 Marines needed to volunteer to get into the Combined Action Program. They needed to have already served two months in country yet still have at least six months left on their tours in Vietnam. They needed a recommendation from their commanding officers. Finally, once selected for duty with a combined platoon, they had to attend a two-week school, which offered instruction in Vietnamese language and culture, and small unit tactics.17 Problems with Combined Action The relationship between the Marines and the Vietnamese militia was the key to the success of combined action. Theoretically, each combined platoon derived its strength from fusing the two primary elements the militia soldier and the U.S. Marine into a single operational entity. Because the political climate did not allow Americans to command Vietnamese forces, the Marines had no formal authority over the militia.18 General Walt and Colonel Corson hoped decentralized control and close coordination and cooperation could resolve any problems caused by this tenuous command relationship. (Which is to say they hoped the combined action Marines and their counterparts could work out their problems among themselves.) There were some serious problems with the Vietnamese militia. They were woefully incapable of defending their villages by themselves. "In general, the equipment and training of the [militia] platoons and their unimaginative use in static defensive positions made them a slender reed in the fight against the Viet Cong," read one official account.19 At nineteen dollars (U.S.) a month, the militia soldier made less than half his counterpart serving in the regular Vietnamese army.20 Corruption and graft were accepted practices in South Vietnam. Village chiefs controlled the militia and padded the muster rolls of their platoons to extort the salaries of "ghost" soldiers.21 The Marines had their problems, too. The modus operandi of the combined platoons living and fighting along side the Vietnamese population required Marines to adapt to a foreign culture radically different from their own. Most of the Marines that served with combined platoons all junior enlisted menwere in their late teens or early twenties. It was a tall order to expect men of these ages to quickly adapt to such foreign surroundings while also serving in a combat zone.22 The majority of the Marines that served with combined units from 1965 to 1967 came directly from the infantry. This was not the case, though, as the war dragged on. From 1968 to 1970, many Marines joined combined platoons from rear-echelon support units. These men were lacking in basic infantry skills. A senior Combined Action Program commander in Quang Tri province wrote of these shortcomings in 1969 to his subordinates: Sound tactics are not god-given; they are not inherited or acquired automatically. Not one young corporal or sergeant in a hundred has adequate competence in this field. Their understanding of the proper use of terrain, the control of the point element, all around security, fire and maneuver, fire superiority, fire control and discipline (to say nothing of the psychological and morale forces involved) leave much to be desired. In six months, I have yet to see any [combined unit] leader working to improve his own knowledge or understanding of tactics.23 A Dichotomy of Vietnam Strategies Notwithstanding its problems in execution, combined action seemed a viable strategy for providing local security in South Vietnam. Some analysts speculate there would have been a much different outcome to the war had the United States applied the Marines' strategy on a larger scale.24 The main reason why the Army never bought off on combined action was because its commander, Gen. William C. Westmoreland, subscribed to a different strategy than the Marines. General Westmoreland believed the regular North Vietnamese army and main-force Communist battalions posed the greatest threat to the government of South Vietnam, not the guerillas operating in the south. Following traditional Army doctrines of warfare, Westmoreland sought to exploit his advantage in mobility and firepower by engaging the most threatening Communist units. After the United States won the "big unit" war against the main enemy units, the South Vietnamese army could focus on the "other war" against the entrenched Communist political infrastructure. This formed the philosophical underpinning for the Army's "search and destroy" attrition strategy.25 General Krulak believed pacification and protection of the South Vietnamese population a "clear and hold" approach was more appropriate than an attrition strategy of "search and destroy." "If the people were for you," wrote Krulak, "you would triumph in the end. If they were against you, the war would bleed you dry and you would be defeated."26 General Westmoreland believed population security was a Vietnamese task. However, Westmoreland did write in his memoirs that combined action was one of the more "ingenious innovations developed in South Vietnam."27 Westmoreland also offered this explanation: Although I disseminated information on the [combined action] platoons and their success to other commands, which were free to adopt the idea as local conditions might dictate, I simply had not enough number to put a squad of Americans in every village and hamlet; that would have been fragmenting resources and exposing them to defeat in detail.28 Conclusions By 1970, "a total of 93 [combined platoons] had been moved to new locations from villages and hamlets deemed able to protect themselves. Of these former combined action hamlets, the official Marine Corps history of the Vietnam War claims, "none ever returned to Viet Cong control."29 These figures are spurious, at best as are most other attempts to quantify the war in Vietnam. Edward Palm, an English professor and former combined action Marine, was not as sanguine as the official Marine Corps history: I would like to believe, with some, that combined action was the best thing we did [in Vietnam].... In my experience, combined action was merely one more untenable article of faith. The truth, I suspect, is that where it seemed to work, combined action wasn't really needed, and where it was, combined action could never work. The objective was certainly sound. There was a demonstrable need for an effective grass-roots program targeted toward the [Communist] infrastructure, for the most part left intact by large-scale search and destroy operations. But combined action came too little, too late. The [Communist] infrastructure was too deeply entrenched, literally as well as figuratively in some places. They had had more than 20 years to win hearts and minds before we blundered onto the scene. We were naïve to think 13 Marines and a Navy corpsman could make much difference in such a setting. The cultural gulf was just unbridgeable out in the countryside.30 Even at its zenith of 2,220 men, the Combined Action Program represented only 2.8% of the 79,000 Marines in Vietnam. Yet during its five-year lifespan, combined units secured more than 800 hamlets in I Corps, protecting more than 500,000 Vietnamese civilians.31 Combined action was not the magic ingredient that would have won the war in Vietnam, in my opinion; but it was a viable approach to counterguerilla warfare, worthy of further study. What better way was there for learning about the enemy in such a war than fighting with the militia and living with the local populace? The war was personal to combined action Marines. They literally defended their homes against the enemy. No wonder combined action Marines turned out to be some of the best sources of intelligence in Vietnam. They turned out to be some of the best small-unit leaders, too they had to be, operating as they did, in order to survive. Air strikes, free fire zones, and massive demonstrations of firepower were commonplace throughout South Vietnam, but they were rare occurrences near villages with combined action platoons. The Battle for Hue City and the siege at Khe Sanh dominate the literature about the Marines in Vietnam. The Combined Action Program, though, was the Corps's greatest innovation during the war. That is how we should remember it. |
NOTES 1. Lewis W. Walt, Strange War, Strange Strategy: A General's Report on the War in Vietnam (New York: Funk and Wagnalls, 1970), 105. 2. Quoted in Andrew F. Krepinevich, Jr., The Army and Vietnam (Balitmore, Md.: Johns Hopkins, 1986), 174. 3. On the Marines in Nicaragua, see: Neill Macaulay, The Sandino Affair (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1967). On the Marines in Hispaniola, see: Hans Schmidt, Maverick Marine: General Smedley D. Butler and the Contradictions of American Military History (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1987), 74-95; Graham A. Cosmas, "Cacos and Caudillos: Marines and Counterinsurgency in Hispaniola, 1915-1924," in New Interpretations in Naval History: Selected Papers from the Ninth Naval History Symposium, eds. William R. Roberts and Jack Sweetman (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1991), 293-308. For a comparison of the Combined Action Program with the constabularies the Marines organized in Latin American, see: Lawrnce A. Yates, "A Feather in their CAP? The Marines' Combined Action Program in Vietnam," in ibid., 320-1. 4. Victor H. Krulack, First to Fight: An Inside View of the U.S. Marine Corps (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1984), 190-1; Walt, Strange War, Strange Strategy, 29; Jon T. Hoffman, Once a Legend: "Red Mike" Edson of the Marine Raiders (Novato, Calif.: Presidio, 1994), 98, 122-23, Chesty Puller and Red Mike Edson both served with distinction as officer in the Guardia Nacional de Nicaragua. Puller and Edson served successively as small wars instructors at the Basic Officer's School during the 1930's. Walt and Krulak both attended the school during that timeframe and, as captains, served with Edson and Puller in the Pacific during the Second World War. 5. Ibid., 38-40. 6. Robert A. Klyman, "The Combined Action Program: An Alternative Not Taken," (a Senior honors thesis, University of Michigan, 1986), 4-5; Maj. Michael Duane Weltsch, USMC, "The Future Role of the Combined Action Program" (Master of Military Art and Science thesis, U. S. Army Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, 1991), 57-65. 7. III MAF Force Order 3.121.4A, sub: SOP for the Combined Action Program, dated 17 July 1967 (hereafter, CAP SOP), in Michael E. Peterson, "The Combined Action Platoons: The U.S. Marines' Other War in Vietnam" (M.A. thesis, University of Oregon, 1988), 278-9; William R. Corson, The Betrayal (New York: W.W. Norton, 1968), 181-3. 8. Jack Shumlimson, U.S. Marines in Vietnam, 1966: An Expanding War (Washington: History and Museums Division, HQMC, 1982), 239; Weltsch, "The Future Role of the Combined Action Program," 65. 9. Corson, The Betrayal, 178. 10. Ltr, CG, III MAF to CG FMFPac, sub: Combined Action Group Headquarters, Organization, Equipment, Functions and Concept of Operation, date 4 May 1967; ltr, CO, CAF to CG, XXIV Corps, sub: CORDS Survey of CAP Villages, dated 24 March 1970. Both letters are in Peterson, "The Combined Action Platoons," 274, 330-3. Also, see: Ronald H. Spector, in After Tet: The Bloodiest Year in Vietnam (New York: The Free Press, 1993), 195; Shulimson, An Expanding War, 240; Klyman, "The Combined Action Program," 13. Klyman quotes Col. G. E. Jerue, a former regimental commander with the 3rd Marine Division: "Although the requirement states that they [combined action Marines] should be volunteers, it doesn't demand volunteers. We more or less had to go by the rule of thumb that if the man doesn't object, he is a volunteer for it." 11. Corson, The Betrayal, 179-80. 12. Michael E. Peterson, The Combined Action Platoons: The U.S. Marines' Other War in Vietnam (New York: Praeger, 1989), 30-41. 13. Quoted in Klyman, "The Combined Action Program," 22. 14. CAP SOP. 15. Ltr, CO, 4th CAG to 4th CAG CACO Commanders, sub: Tactical Operations; Policies and Guidance, dated 14 January 1969, in Peterson, "The Combined Action Platoons," 316-8; Corson, The Betrayal, 174-98. 16. CAP SOP; ltr, CO 4th CAG to CACo Commanders, 4th CAG, sub: Tactical Operations; Policies and Guidance, dated 14 January 1969, in Peterson, "The Combined Action Platoons," 316. 17. CAP SOP; Corson, The Betrayal, 183-4; Edward F. Palm, "Tiger Papa Three: A Memoir of the Combined Action Program," Marine Corps Gazette (January 1988), 35; CAP School Syllabus, 21 August - 1 September 1967 and CAP School Diploma, dated 25 February 1969. Michael Peterson served with a CAP platoon. He enclosed the CAP school syllabus and his graduation dipoloma in the appendix of "The Combined Action Platoons," 285-91. 18. Richard A. Hunt, Pacification: The American Struggle for Vietnam's Hearts and Minds (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1995), 34-35. 19. Russel H. Stolfi, U.S. Marine Corps Civic Action Efforts in Vietnam, March 1965 March 1966 (Washington: Historical Branch, G-3 Division, HQMC, 1968), 39. 20. Krulak, First to Fight, 187-189; David H. Wagner, "A Handful of Marines," Marine Corps Gazette (March 1968), 45; Hunt, Pacification, 91; Myers, "The Pacification of Cam Lo," 50. 21. Hunt, Pacification, 39. 22. See ltr, CO, CAF to CG, XXIV Corps, sub: Consulate - CORDS Survey of CAP Villages, dated 24 March 1970, in Peterson, "The Combined Action Platoons," 330. 23. Ltr, CO 4th CAG to CACO Commanders, 4th CAG, sub: Tactical Operations; Policies and Guidance, dated 14 January 1969, in Peterson, "The Combined Action Platoons," 316-7. 24. Andrew W. Krepinevich, The Army and Vietnam (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins, 1986), 172-7. An Army officer, Krepinevich uses statistics to argue it was feasible to apply combined action throughout Vietnam. Unfortunately, his approach largely ignores the recruiting problem such an expanded Combined Action Program would have. Spector, in After Tet, 195, shows why recruiting for the CAP was so difficult: The ideal CAP Marine was a cool and efficient infantry fighter,not only expert in the skills of combat but able to impart these skills to an untrained, uneducated farmer who spoke little or no English. At the same time, he was a patient, subtle, and resourceful community organizer, able to overcom cultural barriers and prejudice to win the hearts and minds of the villagers. Such men, if they existed at all, were in short supply. 25. George C. Herring, America's Longest War: The United States and Vietnam, 1950-1975, 2d ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill 1986), 150; Allan R. Millett and Peter Maslowski, For the Common Defense: A Military History of the United States of America, rev. ed. (New York: The Free Press, 1993), 580; Phillip B. Davidson, Vietnam at War: The History, 1946-1975 (New York: Oxford, 1991), 352-4; William C. Westmoreland, A Soldier Reports (New York: Dell, 1980), 215-6. 26. Krulak, First to Fight, 194. Also, see: Neil Sheehan, A Bright and Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam (New York: Random House, 1988), 629-633. 27. Westmoreland, A Soldier Reports, 216. 28. Ibid. 29. Graham A. Cosmas and Terrence P. Murray, U.S. Marines in Vietnam, Vietnamization and Redeployment, 1970-1971 (Washington: History and Museums Division, HQMC, 1986), 149. For an example of a successful combined platoon see: Francis J. West, The Village (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1985). Author West tell the story of the Binh Nghia combined platoon, which operated from May 1966 to October 1967 near Chu Lai. 30. Edward F. Palm, "Tiger Papa Three: A Memoir of the Combined Action Program," Marine Corps Gazette (February 1988), 76. 31. III MAF Combined Action Force Deactivation Ceremony Program, dtd 21 September 1970, in Peterson, "The Combined Action Platoons," 334-5. |
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Captain Keith F. Kopets, USMC |
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