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Civil Guard (Regional Forces)

The Regional Forces were voluntary units organized within a province for use within that province and consisted of rifle companies, riverboat companies, and support units. Its primary function was to relieve the regular forces of internal security duties, with additional missions of local intelligence collection and counter-subversion.

Throughout the late 1950s the paramilitary Civil Guard and Self-Defense Corps remained poor cousins of the regular Army. The Civil Guard had been created by presidential decree in April 1955 from members of inactivated wartime paramilitary agencies and numbered some 68,000 at the end of 1956. The Civil Guard was initially under the direct control of the President, but in September 1958 it was placed under the control of the Ministry of the Interior. Organized into companies and platoons, the Civil Guard was represented by two to eight companies in each province. In addition, eight mobile battalions of 500 men each were controlled from a central headquarters in Saigon and employed in general support mission. The Civil Guard and the Self-Defense Corps were poorly trained and ill-equipped to perform their missions, and by 1959 their numbers had declined to about 46,000 and 40,000, respectively.

Between 1960 and 1964 the territorial forces received more training but were still stepchildren of the growing South Vietnam armed forces family. One basic problem was organizational. While these units were operationally controlled by province and district officials, training was usually an Army responsibility. Nevertheless, beginning in 1960 much effort was expended on strengthening the operational capability of the Civil Guard and the Self-defense Corps by improving their training and supplying them with weapons and communications equipment.

To speed up Civil Guard training new unit training centers were opened, and the training cycle was reduced from twenty-four to twelve weeks. In addition, joint MAAGV-Civil Guard training teams were formed to instruct both Civil Guard and Self-Defense Corps units at their operational bases.

Before 1964 no established recruit training program for the Regional Forces (formerly the Civil Guard) had existed. Many units were little more than armed bands of young men; others were private armies and gangs "federalized" into the service of the government of Vietnam. Military Assistance Command recommended a plan to train 4,000 recruits in 1964 but, although the plan was approved and scheduled to begin in April, training fell short because of recruiting difficulties. In June the Regional Forces began conscripting personnel in order to reach a goal of 14,000 recruits; however, owing to the priority given to the Vietnam Army, few recruits were obtained and at the end of the year only about 2,000 had received training while about 700 were undergoing training. The recruit training program of instruction of nine weeks was the same as that used in the Vietnamese Army training centers. This approach at least allowed the Regional Forces training centers to train Vietnamese Army recruits when their own quotas fell short.

Because of force structure increases and other demands, Regional Forces unit training also expanded in 1964. By May the number of Regional Forces companies had risen from 473 to 523 and in November plans were made to increase this total to 640. Objectives for calendar year 1964 included unit training for all new Regional Forces companies and refresher training for approximately 60 percent of the existing units. By the end of the year, 533 Regional Forces companies had been organized, of which 494 were trained, 20 were training, and 19 remained to be trained. Of the 533 companies, 196 had completed the four-week refresher course and seven were in refresher training.

Regional Forces strength for fiscal years 1965 and 1966 had been set at 137,187 men organized into 759 companies; fiscal year 1967 force structure authorized 888 companies, an increase of 121 over fiscal year 1966, with a strength of 155,322 men. The emphasis on revolutionary development at the Honolulu conference meant that more Regional Forces companies would be needed to extend South Vietnam government influence into recently cleared areas or into national priority areas.

With the exception of the Combined Action Program and a few other programs, neither on-the-job training nor the combined operations programs had any effect on the territorial units. Yet, as U.S. Forces deployed from South Vietnam and were replaced by Vietnamese regular units, the ability of the Regional and Popular Forces to provide security for pacification became more critical. Up to 1968 the territorial forces had been without advisers, and often Military Assistance Command had little information on their condition and employment. With thousands of these units spread out over the country any effort to place permanent advisers with them would have been too costly in terms of U.S. manpower.

In an effort to begin improving them, General Westmoreland was at first forced to rely heavily on the initiative of the corps senior advisers and the U.S. resources available within each corps tactical zone. In 1967 all U.S. corps headquarters initiated Regional and Popular Forces training programs utilizing mobile training teams composed of from three to ten members who rotated among local Regional and Popular units. Their mission varied from conducting one-day on-site training to five-week refresher training programs. The teams were given a number of military labels--combined mobile training teams, combined mobile improvement teams, "red-catcher" and "impact" teams, and Regional Forces company training teams. However, these efforts proved too decentralized and uncoordinated to deal with what was an extremely difficult problem.

Encouraged by the limited progress that had been made, General Westmoreland directed a countrywide test of the Regional Forces company training team concept. Basically, the concept was similar to the Marine Combined Action Program. In practice, a team of three company grade officers and three noncommissioned officers joined a Regional Forces company at a Vietnamese Army training center, assisted in training, and then accompanied the unit back to its home base for in-place training and operational missions. The team remained until the unit was capable of operating alone, usually six to nine months later. The team did not command the unit, but Regional Forces commanders were instructed to follow the team's directions. The Regional Forces company training team was in the business of training and supervising, not simply advising, and thus had a more active role than that of the advisory teams. Team members were recognized combat leaders with about nine months left in the country and some command of the Vietnamese language.

By the end of 1967, advisor reports did not reflect any significant improvement in the territorial forces. However, there was general agreement that the training team concept was valid and should be expanded. At a conference held on 26 October 1967, General Westmoreland recommended that some 354 new advisory teams be created specifically to provide assistance to the Regional and Popular Forces. Other recommendations called for providing engineer and personnel advisers to each of the forty-four provinces. What finally evolved were the mobile advisory team and the mobile advisory logistics team. These teams formed the nucleus of a massive improvement program that addressed all aspects of the administration, logistical support, and tactical operations of the territorial units.

By 1969 the Vietnamese troops suffering the heaviest casualties and inflicting the most casualties on the enemy in proportion to their numbers are the "Ruff Puffs," the laudatory title unofficially given the 391,000 militiamen of the Regional Forces and the Popular Forces.

The RF operated in 123-man companies under the province chiefs, though often led on operations by district chiefs. Originally the Ruff Puffs were regarded as guard troops. Armed mainly with Garands and carbines, the RF guarded provincial facilities and bridges, cleared roads and conducted minor operations within their home provinces

By 1969 they were no longer in static defense positions, however. Better armed, the RF did much the same work as company-size units from the regular ARVN divisions, going on extended operations against Viet Cong forces, doing village pacification work, joining in combined operations with allied forces, and utilizing the helicopter and artillery support services of the big divisions.

Although not as well trained, armed or paid as the regular ARVN divisions, the Ruff Puffs were recruiting food men, for a number of draft-age youths enlist in the RF so they can stay in their home provinces, or in the PF so they can live with their families in compounds near their own villages.