The Marines, Counterinsurgency, and Strategic Culture

180 Chapter 6
142. USMC, Small Wars Manual, ch. 1, “Organization,” 32. See repeated admonitions
of this sort within this chapter on pages 23, 24, 30, and 45, as well as in
ch. 12, “Armed Native Organizations,” section V, “Civil and Military Relationship,”
24.
143. Second quote printed in all capital letters in original for extreme emphasis.
Utley, “Introduction to the Tactics,” 51, 52.
144. USMC, Small Wars Manual, ch. 1, “Introduction,” 28.
145. Peterson, Combined Action Platoons, 45.
146. Tim Duffie, CAP veteran, lecture at Utah State University, February 16, 2012.
147. Hop Brown, oral history in Hemingway, Our War Was Different, 22.
148. Oral history file 2926, USMC Vietnam War Oral History Collection.
149. Duffie, Utah State lecture.
150. This often pertained to intra- Corps racism as well. One black CAP Marine
claims that racism toward his color—so pronounced in some areas of the
Corps that it drove him to aggressive behavior—disappeared during his service
with the CAP: Brown, oral history in Hemingway, Our War Was Different,
24, 26. For a thorough examination of the distinctly less racist attitudes
of CAP veterans vis- à- vis other Marines of the Vietnam era, see Southard,
Defend and Befriend.
151. Wilson et al., “Combined Action,” 31. William Corson, one of the most outspoken
directors of the program, set a high standard: “If they entered the job
with an ethnocentric attitude, they would not succeed.” Corson, oral history in
Hemingway, Our War Was Different, 50.
152. Warren V. Smith, oral history, in Hemingway, Our War Was Different, 141.
153. Klyman, “Combined Action Program.” An even tighter screening program was
designed on the basis of extensive research of Vietnamese culture and the right
type of Marine for the job but was never implemented. See Peterson, Combined
Action Platoons, 41–42.
154. Capt. Tom Moore, oral history in Hemingway, Our War Was Different, 151.
155. Tom Harvey, oral history, ibid., 72; Brown, oral history, ibid., 26; Klyman,
“Combined Action Program.”
156. Harvey Baker, oral history in Hemingway, Our War Was Different, 61.
157. Peterson, Combined Action Platoons, 73.
158. For CAP Marines’ opinions on this topic, see oral history file 2367, USMC
Vietnam War Oral History Collection, transcription by Lacey Lee, February
21, 2012, and oral history file 2599, ibid.
159. Francis T. McNamara, letter to Lt. Gen. Melvin Zais, attached as addendum to
Fact Sheet on the Combined Action Force. For a detailed look at the shifting
selection process over the life of the program, see Klyman, “Combined Action
Program.”
160. For complaints from a captain attempting to get Marines to take cultural training
seriously, see oral history file 753, USMC Vietnam War Oral History Collection,
transcription by Noah Johnson, February 23, 2012.