My Life and Times

December 20, 2004OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
Local HeroesBy ANDREW BORENE
inneapolis — IF the Pentagon hopes to start bringing American troops home from Iraq while also increasing security there, it will have to find a way to do more with less. One approach could be expanding the Marine Corps combined-action program, an initiative that was successful in Vietnam and has shown early promise in Iraq.
The concept behind the program is that if American and foreign troops operate together, each will gain knowledge from the other as to the best way to counter an insurgency. In Vietnam, platoons were created that combined marines and Vietnamese militia members. The Americans were handpicked, chosen because they had shown particular respect for the local culture. They were expected to live in the villages they were assigned to defend, striving to "work themselves out of a job" by training their Vietnamese counterparts in police work and security operations.
The most striking success of the program was a rapid increase in actionable intelligence. Living in Vietnamese hamlets for months, the marines got a chance to get to know the locals, who in general had kept a careful neutrality in the war. This helped to humanize the American presence and reduced the passive support many civilians had been giving to Vietcong guerrillas. For many, their respect for (or fear of) the communist guerrillas waned, and they broke their silence about intelligence leads.
In the long run, it was one of the few efforts that managed to win some "hearts and minds" in Vietnam. Unfortunately, the top brass lost interest in the program in the early 1970's and, well, the rest is history.
Last year, under the leadership of Gen. James Mattis, members of the First Marine Division in western Iraq began adapting the program to aid poorly trained Iraqi National Guard and police forces. Although it is too soon to declare success, reports from the military and the news media suggest that Iraqis in the combined-action program perform better in combat, have higher morale and are considerably more reliable than their regular Iraqi military counterparts.
Expanding the program would be best accomplished by teaming coalition troops with Iraqi security troops, or even paramilitary groups as in Vietnam, and placing them in cities along the main supply routes. This would significantly bolster the coalition's ability to gauge popular sentiment and gather intelligence leads on the pursuit of enemy leaders. It would also reduce the high profile of the coalition forces.
While the situations in Vietnam and Iraq are not identical, when it comes to battling insurgents it is always vital to erase their advantages in popular support and local knowledge. A few good marines learned how to do that during Vietnam; perhaps trying it again in Iraq can bring about a different ending.
Andrew Borene, a law student at the University of Minnesota, was a first lieutenant with the Marine Expeditionary Force in Iraq. He is an adviser to Operation Truth, a veterans' advocacy group.
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