The Marines, Counterinsurgency, and Strategic Culture

168 Chapter 6
recognized across multiple texts (Gazette articles, orders, and doctrine) and
is often spoken of in ardent prose but is consistently lost in competition
with more kinetically oriented training. Given the extraordinarily limited
culture and linguistic training provided to Marines before their entry into
highly isolated and profoundly insecure CAP village life, it is no wonder
that a summary assessment of the program provided the following strong
recommendation: “The Vietnamese- language training is inadequate and has
seriously hampered the ability of some teams to gather intelligence and to
protect themselves.” 163
Language barriers inhibited the core missions of CAP Marines, which
included training PFs to patrol proficiently, engaging productively with
villagers, and gathering operational intelligence. Marines, imbued with
strong incentives to make up for the training they lacked, spoke in a limited
English- Vietnamese pidgin with their PF counterparts and used a range of
hand gestures in order to be understood. Any misunderstandings with PFs
were difficult to resolve owing to the language barrier: “On three or four
occasions we had language problems with the PFs. The translation would
be lost and somebody would get insulted, and before you knew it there’d be
eight Marines on one side and twenty- five or thirty PFs on the other locked
and loaded.” 164 If it wasn’t misunderstandings that caused danger, it was the
inability to use the charade- like hand signals when PFs and Marines worked
together during the dark hours of night patrols. 165 Some CAP squads were
fortunate enough to be assigned a linguist, but most had to make do, often
training interested children to speak English and translate for their parents.
Those who possessed Vietnamese language ability reported friction precipitously
reduced: “They’ll give you information that’s usually very vital and
you’ll have no problem at all with the Vietnamese.” 166
Whatever the level of training received, newly arrived CAP recruits were
made to conform to a certain standard of conduct by their peers. This was
informed at the highest level by a decidedly unique mission optic: “We were
first and foremost to become deeply involved, on a personal basis, with the
Vietnamese people; helping them throughout their daily lives in whatever
small way we could. . . . Our second responsibility was to train new warriors
in each village.” 167 Although the mission set provided the grand rationale, an
immediate and unforgiving instrumentality provided the genuine incentive:
If Marines treated villagers badly, they put themselves and their entire squad
at much greater risk. Therefore, Marines policed their own and each other’s
behavior. If a Marine caused problems with the villagers, he was ousted by
the squad and shipped back to a line unit. 168 CAP squads could not afford to
incur the ill will of the often VC- supporting villagers around them.
CAP Marines were initially motivated toward good treatment of locals
for this key instrumental reason—it helped keep them alive. Over time, however,
many internalized population- centric norms for emotional- preference
reasons rather than raw instrumentality. As time passed and relations with