Well before the end of the American involvement in the Vietnam War, the U. S.
Army Center of Military History committed itself to producing a comprehensive
and objective multivolume series of one of our nation's most complicated and
controversial foreign involvements. To this end Army historians began work on a
number of studies treating our broad advice and assistance effort in Vietnam.
Among these is Advice and Support: The Final Years, 1965-1973, the third of three
historical works that tell the story of the U.S. Army's advisory program in Vietnam.
The initial volume deals with the early advisory years between 1941 and
1960, and a second, treating the 1961-64 period, is in preparation.
In Advice and Support: The Final Years the author describes the U.S. Army
advisory effort to the South Vietnamese armed forces during the period when
the U.S. commitment in Southeast Asia was at its peak. The account encompasses
a broad spectrum of activities at several levels, from the physically demanding
work of the battalion advisers on the ground to the more sophisticated
undertakings of our senior military officers at the highest echelons of the American
military assistance command in Saigon. Among critical subjects treated are
our command relationships with the South Vietnamese army, our politico-military
efforts to help reform both the South Vietnamese military and government,
and our implementation of the Vietnamization policy inaugurated in 1969. The
result tells us much about the U.S. Army's role as an agent of national policy in a
critical but often neglected arena, and constitutes a major contribution to our
understanding of not only the events that occurred in Vietnam but also the
decisions and actions that produced them.
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