Defend and Befriend
After relatively successful military interventions in Iraq in 1992 and Yugoslavia in 1998, many American strategists believed that airpower and remote technology were the future of U.S. military action. But America's most recent wars in the Middle East have reinforced the importance of counterinsurgency, with its imperative to "win hearts and minds" on the ground in foreign lands. In both Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. military has studied and experimented with the combined action platoon (CAP) concept used from 1965 to 1971 by the Marine Corps in Vietnam.
What People Are Saying
“I learned something new from each chapter!”
— Larry Berman —
Author of Zumwalt: The Life and Times of
Admiral Elmo Russell "Bud" Zumwalt, Jr."
“The work of the Combined Action Platoons during the Vietnam War was significant, yet the participants have had little opportunity to tell their stories. Defend and Befriend provides them with a voice. Charting new waters, this book is an important contribution to the study of the war.”
— Mary Kathyrn Barbier —
Coeditor of America and the Vietnam War:
Re-examining the Culture and History of a Generation
“[...] I cannot point to another source – primary or secondary – that describes the CAP program and all that it encompasses in such a
concise manner.”
— US Military History Review —
“This book adds a great deal to the significant debate about how the United States waged the war in Vietnam.”
— Kyle Longley —