Our War Was Different: Marine Combined Action Platoons in Vietnam [Hardcover]

A. Hemingway (Author), Al Hemingway (Author), Albert Hemingway (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1994

This oral history focuses on Combined Action Program (CAP) Marines who lived, ate, worked, and fought alongside their Vietnamese counterparts in an effort to protect villages from communist guerrillas in the northernmost I Corps section of Vietnam.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Between 1965 and 1971 the Marines in Vietnam allocated 4% of their resources to an experimental effort that turned into one of the rare American successes of the war. The Combined Action Platoon (CAP) program was based on the belief that winning the support of the Vietnamese people was of primary importance. The CAP concept, duplicated in more than a hundred villages in I Corps, was a simple one: a squad of Marines plus a Navy corpsman joined forces with the local militia to protect villagers from the Vietcong, denying the latter recruits, food and intelligence. Hemingway here collects 27 oral histories by men who took part in the day-by-day pacification effort that included civic-action projects such as repairing bridges, digging wells and building schoolhouses, as well as patrols and ambushes. This little-known program, in which American fighting men were thrust into an alien culture to live, work, fight and die, has long deserved the objective analysis it receives here. Hemingway, senior editor of Vietnam magazine, offers the thought-provoking argument that the CAP concept could be successfully resurrected in low-intensity Third World conflicts. Photos.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

The Marine Combined Action Platoons in Vietnam were among the few American units that actually resided in the villages, working with their inhabitants and training the local Popular Force militia. This is the first full-scale oral history of a facet of the American Vietnam effort that was probably underused during the war and has been understudied since. The usual problems of oral history afflict this one--it fails to provide quite enough background information on the war (particularly its interservice politics) and the U.S. Marines for the general reader's comfort. But except for that typical shortcoming, this is a valuable addition to Vietnam conflict studies. It is, as well, a thought-provoking glimpse of a type of military operation that is being reconsidered for use in the post-cold war world. Roland Green

Product Details

• Hardcover: 189 pages
• Publisher: Naval Institute Press (May 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1557503559
• ISBN-13: 978-1557503558
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,301,335 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Marines at Their Finest, December 20, 2007

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rounddown - See all my reviews

This review is from: Our War Was Different: Marine Combined Action Platoons in Vietnam (Hardcover)

The editorial reviews explain rather well what a CAP Marine was and what they did during the Vietnam war. It's the oral histories taken down by the author that add a face on those heroes that came home alive to tell about those that didn't. You've read before the horror of war, but when you read these guy's stories, you'll wonder how any of them came home alive. Nothing is sugar coated. Nothing is politically correct. It all hangs out just like it went down some 40 years ago.

This book is not just another war story. It really is about a war that was different. It cut hard and cut deep when one of the stories was about someone I knew that didn't come home alive. So if you're a vet and think you've been there, seen it, and done it all, read this one.