Dr. Keith Ablow: These Vietnam Marines Were Doing God's Work
BOSTON, Feb. 6, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Jack Cunningham, a Marine who served in the Combined Action Program (CAP) in Vietnam, has teamed up with Dr. Keith Ablow to get the word out to about his story and those of his fellow Marines. Cunningham is the founder of www.capveterans.com.
The CAP program, sometimes called a "Peace Corp with Rifles" was a fascinating program that placed Marines inside South Vietnamese peasant farming villages where they lived with residents 24-hours-a-day, 7-days-a-week, often for many months. The Marines teamed up with the South Vietnamese militia to defend the villages from the Viet Cong and other hostile forces, but also rendered crucial services, like first aid, to villagers. Extremely close bonds developed. Many CAP Marines maintain contact with village leaders or return to their villages to visit, even today.
CAP Marines prized being assigned to the program, despite the inherent danger of Communist sympathizers living in villages, because they cherished the opportunity to so boldly demonstrate the alliance between America and South Vietnam. "We lived that alliance, every day," Mr. Cunningham said. "We risked our lives for the villagers and, not infrequently, they risked their lives for us. Ours was a true mission that relied on the best qualities of human beings—both courage and compassion."
Generally, just 11 Marines and one Navy Corpsman lived day in and day out with thousands of villagers.
Dr. Ablow is a former Fox News Contributor and the author of 16 books and several screenplays. He is the founder of Keith Ablow Creative. Recently, he and Mr. Cunningham called on television networks to embrace the goal of creating a drama series that would showcase the Combined Action Program.
Jack Cunningham has written about one of the times CAP Marines had to fight not only the Viet Cong, but also the elements—during typhoon season:
There were howling winds and rains all through the night and, by the next to last watch, the water reached the school house floor where we were taking shelter, along with our friends from the South Vietnamese Popular Force. That was the highest point in the village, but it seemed like it might not be high enough. We could be swept away, or the Viet Cong could use the typhoon to stage an unexpected attack.
Before long, the water was a foot deep in the school house, and climbing. It reached our waists. We piled school desks on top of each other and helped each other climb on top of them. The rising waters invited snakes into the school house—some of them poisonous. We literally had to shoot them with M16s as they swam through the water.
Our sergeant called for a helicopter to evacuate all of us, but it was a death-defying act getting to the roof and helping our Vietnamese friends do the same. There was literally a Marine on the chopper, being held by his feet, stretching his arms out to grab hold of each of us as we leapt for him to pull us into the chopper. We made sure the Popular Front guys got on the helicopter before us. We would never have allowed ourselves to go first.
"The Combined Action Program was an inherently dramatic undertaking and one of the real success stories of our military," Dr. Ablow said. "It has all the makings of a television drama series. And it would go a long way to further reducing the terribly wrong-minded stigma that complicated the lives of Vietnam veterans on their return to this country. These Marines were doing God's work."
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