Author Description

The Combined Action Program, renamed the Combined Action Force on 11 January 1970 when it became a separate command, was conceived and developed by the United States Marine Corps in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN), where the program was initiated in August 1965.* The Combined Action Program and its associated concepts were a natural outgrowth of the Marine Corps' involvement in several so-called Banana Wars fought in the Caribbean during the early twentieth century, when Marines advised, trained, and fought alongside native constabulary forces in Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and Nicaragua. Encapsulated in what was to become the Small Wars Manual, Fleet Marine Force Reference Publication 12-15, the experiences of the Marines whose cumulative wisdom was distilled in the Small Wars Manual was not forgotten during World War II, but it lay dormant until 1965 when guerrilla warfare during the Vietnam War demanded their rediscovery.There are no shortages of stories or opinions about the Combined Action Program. As any Marine will tell you, the command chronologies written at the time do not provide the whole story, nor do the narratives of Combined Action Program veterans that appeared after the war. The challenge posed when attempting an overview of such a program is the same one that historians have encountered when trying to summarize the causes of the Vietnam War. Not only was the war complex, but it was also fought under different commands within four different geographical areas with diverse populations during an eight-year period.This historical work chronicles the activities of the Marines who served in the platoons, companies, and group headquarters of the Combined Action Program in the I Corps Tactical Zone. These Marines lived and dealt with the Vietnamese people in villages and hamlets on a daily basis. They were engaged to win the hearts and minds of the native people, all while having to defend themselves and the inhabitants of the villages and hamlets in bor