Talk:Combined Action Program

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[edit] Work needed

This article needs to be restructured more than the quick pass I gave it. There should be an introduction of 2-3 paragraphs, then a section on historical concepts. Next, the phases in Vietnam need to be covered, perhaps with a major heading on effectiveness. There needs to be a comparison with Army and joint programs, breaking out specific efforts rather than mingling.

As much as possible, references should be accessible on the Web. If they are not, citations should be placed inline such that a standard reflist can be generated.

There is much more information than given here about current programs in Iraq. I removed some editorializing, and personal opinion, rather than sourced material, runs throughout.

Especially when put into the Marine context of small wars, and continued on into the present, the article deals with a valid topic. See Foreign internal defense for doctrine both from other nations and US, primarily Army, policy. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 23:55, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Key need is for citations

Much of the draft with which I started appears to be paraphrased lightly from Kopets. I'm not easily finding citations for many of the references to unit diaries. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 03:49, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Hi! Thanks for the reply (below). I find the on-line method of comm a tad clumsy due to the lack of colored quote levels for replies, etc., and I am not used to using this medium for "conversational" comm. (One reason I don't do much in the way of blogs, IM, texting, etc. Any chance we can use E? If so, E me at the CAP Oscar memorial page ( http://www.cap-oscar.org ) and leave me a message - I will then respond by E. Looking forward to hearing from you. Seamus45 (talk) 11:41, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Hi again - since I didn't hear from you yet, I will try to insert some replies below, but I would still rather do Es, if possible. Seamus45 (talk) 14:04, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Sent once; just tried again. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 14:14, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Hi! Don't know why it hasn't arrived - maybe we are having mail issues on the site - but since you seem to be on-line, let me just give you my E and then we can cut it. It's my wiki "handle" at gmail. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Seamus45 (talk • contribs) 14:18, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Forgot to mention seamus45 is a lower-case - not sure if gmail is case-sensitive. PS: I have some stuff you may find of interest - will fill you in when we are in comm. Seamus45 (talk) 15:16, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Origins of my contribution to this article, sources, citations, SF mission etc.

First, thanks very much to you or whoever did the work for re-organizing and adding links to the material - I feel that it has greatly improved the article.

I plead partially guilty, and you correctly remind me to make better distinctions than I did about very different units, only having the similarity that they were not working with regular military units. Have you been in touch, by any chance, with any of the Marines trying to do it again in Iraq?

Sorry for any errata in this response or elsewhere, but I am a very occasional contributor, and then only in areas where I think I can be of assistance. Though basically familiar with the wiki principles (I have co-authored several sites using the pmwiki version), I am not as familiar with this version, and some of the mark-up seems to differ.

I recently discovered this page while looking for something else, and found a bare-bones article. I then contributed most of what you see.

I was a CAP Marine (Oscar-2, Khe Sanh, 1967-8), and I have spent a good bit of the last 39 years trying to figure out why we were there and what we were doing.

For a long time, this was difficult to impossible because of lack of source materials and contact. (I only started reconnecting with people I served with 23 years afterwards.) I originally started to write a memoir, but it became clear to me that the story wasn't mine alone, but all of ours, so I shifted gears and began work on a unit history.

A few years ago, I put up a web site on my unit, as the best way to keep my comrades in contact and encourage them to share their stories, pictures, etc. However, I quickly saw the need for more info on CAP as a whole to provide context for readers - even some who had been in a CAP didn't really understand the "big picture." I used all the material shown here and in the literature and web resources, and much more besides. In addition, it was drawn heavily from men I knew and served with (including the late COL Corson, whom I used to live near, and met for coffee on occasion in Napa, CA, LCOL Jim Champion [who kindly gave me permission to use his articles] and quite a number of others.) Over the years, I was also approached by authors of articles on CAP for information about it and our unit, so much of what you see in military and civilian works about CAP was actually drawn originally from me and other CAP Marines.

Do you know if any of LTC Champion's work might be online anywhere?

(The full website I had put up was unfortunately taken down due to a rift that developed among three of my comrades who had been at Khe Sanh ville the night the NVA hit it in the kick-off for Big Tet. They were collaborating on a book, but one took exception to what the others had written, and despite their efforts to ameliorate the situation, he got progressively more pugnacious, threatening legal action against them, and intimating I might be included if I published the disputed material on my site. I was so discouraged by this I took down the entire site for a year, and have only recently put up part of it - a memorial page to our men and men who served with us who were KIA or have passed away since.)

The information often lacks citations because it was drawn from many sources over a period of nearly 40 years, and regretfully, I didn't always make citations, since I wasn't originally approaching it from a scholarly stance, but as a personal journey, and in the interim, I have often forgotten exactly where I drew some information. (I am still somewhat lax about them, but will try to do better in future. If interested, you can see it at the CAP Oscar site link.)

Believe me, I know how military records centers can be, and how hard it can be to find things -- yet there are editors that would delete materials from a Wiki article for a lack of proper citing. Off topic, but you might enjoy a recollection, if you've seen "Raiders of the Lost Ark". When they are sticking the Ark into storage, I'd have sworn they were putting it in the records center for the Defense Central Index of Investigations, when it was still at Fort Holabird. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 00:17, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Re: the Command Chronology citations - these are not from somebody's work - these are from a CD with copies of the original CCs, as obtained from the USMC and passed on to me by Mr. Larry Larsen, formerly a Marine of SU-5, at that time the reporting unit for Oscar and other CAPs. Not sure how to cite that otherwise.

Hmmm. It would be nice to get it online somewhere where others can access it. If you don't have the resources, I wonder if either the Naval Historical Center or perhaps someone at USSOCOM could copy it and make it available; it's a valuable historical result. I clearly remember documents, which would now be declassified, from the MACV lessons learned series, but I have absolutely no idea where copies would still be and how I could cite them for Wikipedia. 00:17, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

BTW, I am not sure of the background of the contributor of the original material, or the person who has edited this since I entered my material, but I respectfully submit that it is incorrect to say that the CAP mission or duties were "similar" or really comparable in any way to Special Forces CIDG / SOG forces or missions, other than that we both operated in small units using indigenous forces. As remarked, ours was an in-country hearts and minds program, essentially revolving around military defense and training of the RF / PF troops and defense of the villages, as well as civic action projects, while theirs was essentially covert black ops deep into places the US was "officially" not operating. SOG members have verified to me that they carried no IDs, that all serial nos. were filed off equipment, etc., and that if they were captured in "off-limits" places, they were write-offs. They were all informed of that in advance, and all took the risks knowing the possible outcome. In-country ops were slightly different, but every bit as dangerous. They were very brave men indeed.

I'll try to make that more clear. For someone first encountering any of these topics, it is important to realize that these were not "coalition" operations between units of regular armies, but were unusually close cooperations between US and Vietnamese (with due regard to lowlanders vs. mountains, some of the early Laotian and Cambodian participation in White Star and the like, Nung, etc.). You might be interested in an article I am drafting now, Foreign internal defense, where I'm trying to cover a very complex set of relationships, many of which are deliberately noncombat. SOG was drastically different than CAP, although some of the earlier and less formal CIDG units were a little closer. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 00:17, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

I am quite certain (having served with them at Khe Sanh (including close personal ground combat), and having been their guest several times at SOAR (Special Operations Association Reunion) that they would not welcome a comparison of this nature, so I have written requesting official confirmation of this from them (including the former No. 2 man in SOG), but will leave the article as it stands (with the emendations I made, which I feel clarify matters) until I have their input. I hope this meets with the approval of the person who wrote that part of the article.

Once again, many thanks for your excellent assistance and help. I am sure we and others can eventually make this a top-notch article. Seamus45 (talk) 23:52, 15 December 2007 (UTC)