Honoring U.S. Marine Combined Action Platoons

BY Pete Nardie

Some 5,000 Marines and Navy Corpsmen served in the Marine Corps Combined Action Program in the Vietnam War from 1965-71. They took part in an innovative and effective program in which 13-member Marine rifle squads lived in rural villages and teamed up with local Popular Forces troops, working with the Vietnamese people in a range of counterinsurgency programs.

The Combined Action Program was “a great success,” the historian Geoffrey Wawro wrote, “one of the few good-news stories of the war.”

In honor of the CAP Marines’ work in Vietnam—including the 540 men who lost their lives in the war—the Combined Action Program Veterans Association dedicated a Monument, pictured above, on the grounds of the National Museum of the Marine Corps in Quantico, Virginia, on August 10. More than 500 CAP Marines, Navy Corpsmen, family members, and guests attended the dedication ceremony.

“We at VVA support and applaud these Vietnam veterans, whose pioneering service provided a bright spot of alliance and cooperation with our South Vietnamese allies,” said VVA President Jack McManus. “Their efforts in counterinsurgency and fighting a war of pacification placed them in a constantly precarious position, full of pitfalls, ever uncertain of the loyalties of those surrounding them, and yet they freely offered their lives and their service.”

The seven-foot-tall black granite monument, designed by Kristopher Battles, the museum’s artist in residence, is etched with three CAP scenes: a night ambush; a daytime get-to-know-you patrol of PFs, Marines, and villagers; and a Med Cap with a Corpsman attending to villagers while Marines and PFs provide security.

VVA life member Pete Nardie served with CAP Hotel 1 in Vietnam in 1966-67. Photo courtesy DVIDS.

2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 | 2016 | 2015 | 2014 | 2013 | 2012 | 2011 | 2010