Although the mission of the CAPs, as we deduced it to be, was simple to state, it was difficult to accomplish. Stated simply, it was to keep the Vietnamese peasants and Marines in a given hamlet alive.
In so doing, security was maintained from the two predatory elements the Marines and peasants faced. Namely, the Communists and the ARVN/GVN. Once this condition of security was established, much was possible. But, without that condition, nothing in terms of real "pacification" was possible, no matter how the term was defined. The CAP Marines understood this essential fact of our effort. Some more than others. But, as a general rule, our goals were understood by the Marines who worked incredibly hard to make them happen.
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Before I take leave of this historical critique, let me give you my definition of pacification, i.e., the one which I used to guide the activities of the Combined Action Program and those wonderful Marines who gave of themselves to the people in the hamlets of South Vietnam.
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Pacification includes a number of processes. However, it is not defined simply as a process. A better term is that it is descriptive of a condition. In the case of the hamlets in South Vietnam, it was the belief and perception of the Vietnamese people that they were safe in their own homes. This idea, or feeling of safety, was the sine qua non without which there was no "pacification purpose", or potential gain simply from providing the humanitarian assistance that the indigenous government had never provided. The CAP Marines, by virtue of their willingness to stand and die to protect the Vietnamese from their twin enemies, i.e., the Communists and the GVN [South Vietnamese Government] made believers out of the Vietnamese peasants. Once that had occurred, the hamlet had been "pacified". In one very important sense, this speaks to the people's "state of mind". If the people's state of mind was such that they believed they were safe, or at least would be protected, the essential condition to proceed with visible pacification/rehabilitation efforts was in hand and in place. Without it, everything was just to much dross. I can't emphasize too strongly that the desired state of mind had to be achieved first. Parenthetically, I observed on many occasions following a heavy VC attack which had been finally beaten off after a toll of lives and physical destruction, a spirit of unity between the CAP Marines and the people as they set about the task of rebuilding the hamlet and getting ready for the next attack or problem. In sum, security and its acquisition is not simply the erection of barricades.
There is neither time, nor do I have the inclination to attempt to resolve the question about fixed and mobile CAPs. The putative reasons for going to the mobile concept have less to do with valid military analysis than the politics of MACV. On the other hand, the politics which drove part of that decision were unstated and unacknowledged by those who issued, or acquiesced, in the orders. Namely, that by the time the mobile concept had been adopted, the war had been effectively lost.
It (this decision) can be used to prove that our use of the CAP concept, beginning in 1966, was doomed to ultimate failure because it was at least two years too late. I knew that before I went to Vietnam, but I agreed to take on the job because, as I mentioned above, my purpose was to save Marine and Vietnamese lives. Lives, in my opinion, that would have otherwise been lost in the pursuit of a futile military and political strategy.