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Initials



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Background: The Revolutionary Development Program is now underway in South Vietnam. Until recently the program was being administered by only a few civilian teams who were too small in number to achieve the objectives of the program, mainly self development. The people in the villages were still unsure, afraid, and for that matter, unprotected.

The government's problem, there was to reassure and protect the people while teaching them to help themselves. The logical place to turn for large numbers of personnel under local governmental control was the Army of the Republic of Vietnam, commonly known as "ARVN".

To accomplish their objective the ARVN established a Mobile Training Team to go into the field and teach the soldiers how to help rebuild their country. Until now soldiers had only been hunting Viet Cong.

The Mobile Training Team goes to an ARVN battalion and spends two weeks teaching the men to teach others. They learn to rebuild and reassure the villagers. They not only help and teach but also protect them from the Viet Cong.

Recently, the men of the 4th Battalion of the 25th ARVN Regiment, were graduated from their training in this program and congratulated by their regimental commander, General Chinh.

After the ceremony the unit went to the village of Long Thuong, in the Long An Province, 15 miles south of Saigon. There they conducted sick call, handed out foodstuffs to the villagers and helped the people build up the village's only road to Saigon.