The Marines, Counterinsurgency, and Strategic Culture

212 Chapter 8
and culture; it requires a finesse that the normal platoon leader
doesn’t often run into. Of course, the man we asked to do this job
has had little of the background or little of the training that we
normally give our platoon leaders. In effect I would say that in the
Combined Action Program [we have an] almost . . . built- in leadership
gap or leadership problem, yet it is the most remarkable aspect
of the program, is how well these young corporals and sergeants
rise to the task. 64
CAP squad leaders exercised their autonomy by determining their mission
priorities and by “innovations” in combat dress and patrol procedures.
The fluctuating mission set of the CAP allowed squad leaders to determine
locally driven priorities. Allnutt notes this as one of the program’s foremost
advantages—squad leaders were allowed the flexibility to accommodate
their different situations and respond to “tactical environments and local
conditions” in ways that made sense. 65 CAP Marines, far from the eyes of
officers in the rear, tended to jettison all trappings of proper Marine kit
and squared- away appearance that were not useful for preserving life in the
bush. Marines discarded flak jackets, helmets, and any other gear that made
noise. 66 PFs were drilled on patrol discipline—how to walk point, keep
quiet, and maintain presence of mind under fire but unlike the Caribbean
constabularies were not drilled in parade form and military appearance. In
the oft present conflict between squared- away dress appearance and combat
utility, CAP squads went all out for the latter.
Killer teams (KTs) were another innovation devised within the CAP
units. These were small groups of typically two or three Marines and sometimes
PFs who went out at night with no pack, flak jacket, helmet, or radio
and often wearing VC- signature black “pajamas.” They would haunt the
hoochs of VC relatives or suspected sympathizers, and if “Victor Charlies”
were discovered, they would track and kill them. 67 When the rear heard
about this “innovation,” it was ordered stopped immediately. CAP Marines
themselves thought the idea very useful and continued to press for its inclusion.
68 Alternative orders did not force CAP squads to stop the KTs but to
rename them: security teams. 69
Mission command, CAP style, rested entirely on the Corps’s ability
to produce and select good leaders. Allnutt captures this concept with the
appropriate emotive force:
The major variable affecting the performance of military operations
is the leadership ability of the Marine squad leader. This man is
the key to the entire operation, and on his ability all else hinges.
He must lead in a vacuum, with no higher officers behind him to
reinforce his authority, nowhere to pass the buck, and nowhere to
hide (such as an NCO club) if things go wrong. He must have the