Combined action program
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The Combined Action Program was an undertaking of the United States Marine Corps during the Vietnam War. Running from 1965 to 1971, its purpose was to organize and support individual Vietnamese villages throughout the northern I Corps area of South Vietnam.
This small program had a number of phases. At its inception it was unofficial and did not have a standard organization. Some units were called "Joint Action Companies" (JACs). Since, in US military jargon, the word "joint" refers to something pertaining to a combination of forces from different services, and "combined" references a combination of forces from more than one nation, they became CACs, for "Combined Action Companies." This was eventually changed to CAP, or "Combined Action Platoons." In the last phase of development, when Marines were no longer permanently assigned to individual villages, the program was renamed to CUPP, for the "Combined Unit Pacification Program."
There were many similarities between what CAP did and what was done by the United States Army Special Forces, the Green Berets. One important difference was that the Marines concentrated most of their efforts in the heavily-populated coastal lowlands rather than the sparsely populated central highlands. Most CAP units consisted of a Marine rifle squad with a US Navy Medical Corpsman, and a Vietnamese Popular Forces platoon (VPF was roughly equivalent to the US National Guard, but with less prior training and poorer equipment). CAPS were generally commanded by a Marine sergeant (E-5), but were sometimes commanded by corporals (E-4). Combined Action Platoons were frequently semi-isolated and usually independent units.
[edit] Literature
A series of six novels based on the CAP program, The Night Fighter Saga, was published during the late 1980's by David Sherman, a Marine participant of the program.
