CHAPTER 27

Manpower Policies and Realities

Personnel Turnover-The Quality Issue and Project 100,000-Training The Search for Junior Leaders-Discipline-Morale-The Aviation Shortage Filling the Ranks in Vietnam: Too Many Billets, Too Few Marines The Deployment of Regimental Landing Team 27-Reserve Caliup? The Bloodiest Month, The Bloodiest Year-Foxhole Strength: Still Too Few Marines The Return of RLT 27-The End of the Year-The Marine Corps and the Draft

The Marine Corps Transformed

In 1968, the Vietnam War dominated every aspect of Marine Corps manpower policy. Since the landing of the 9th Marine Expeditionary Brigade (9th MEB) in 1965, the overall strength of the Marine Corps had increased over 60 percent. More than a quarter of all Marines were in Vietnam; almost a third were deployed west of Guam (see Table 1).1 Marine Corps Commandant, General Leonard F. Chapman, Jr., later stated that by 1968, 'there were just three kinds of Marines; there were those in Vietnam, those who had just come back from Vietnam, and those who were getting ready to go to Vietnam.'2* Between March and September of 1968, 8 of the Marine Corps' 12 active infantry regiments were in Southeast Asia. In FMFPac

only one regiment, the 28th Marines of the 5th Marine Division, remained uncommitted. This left three battalions in California, with none in Okinawa or Hawaii. On the east coast, most Marines in the 2d Marine Division were awaiting either their discharge or orders to Vietnam, while the individual battalions of the division's three regiments continued their customary deployments to the Mediterranean and Caribbean.

The dramatic growth of both its end strength and its overseas commitments compelled the Marine Corps to alter drastically many of its manpower policies. Between 1965 and 1969, the Marine Corps changed from an organization which encouraged long enlistments and stable units to one forced to rely on short-term Marines and high turnover within units. The Marine Corps Assistant Chief of Staff for Personnel (G-l), Brigadier General Jonas M. Platt, later related, 'we had no choice with respect to short-term Marines and high turnover and both were a Hell of a necessary evil.'3 Personnel Turnover

Before the Vietnam buildup, new recruits entered the Marine Corps on an enlistment of at least three years, with over four-fifths joining for four or more years.4 The Vietnam buildup that began in the fall of 1965 required a large influx of new recruits, forcing the Marine Corps temporarily to begin accepting men on two-year enlistments. Between November 1965 and

*General Chapman was Commandant of the Marine Corps from l January 1968 to 31 December 1971. table goes here