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Old 02-08-2013, 06:35 AM
dragoon500ly dragoon500ly is offline
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Location: East Tennessee, USA
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Perhaps the major impact on the Army in Vietnam was the one year (13 months for the Marines!). As soon as that 11-B begins to become an effective jungle-fighter, BAM! He's back in the states. There are numerous stories of as much as HALF (and there are accounts of at least 2 companies losing 2/3 of their men?!?!) of a rifle company rotating home at the same time.

So while the NVA/VC stayed in the field for years, the GIs were often kids straight out of Basic.

And to add insult to injury, MACV/DOD adopted the policy of assigning a officer to 6 months in a combat position and then 6 months in a staff position. The official reason was to allow as many officers as possible to get combat experience...

There are numerous words that can discribe the impact of these two policies...most of them are four letter and insult the intelligence of the high ranking officers and civilian leadership!
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