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7 1: The Early Days and Operation Jackstay, December 1965–Early 1966 1 st Lt. Marshall Buckingham “Buck” Darling arrived in South Vietnam in early 1965 as one of the three platoon commanders serving in C Company, 1st Battalion , 5th Marines (Charlie 1/5). The battalion was afloat at the time, serving as a Marine expeditionary unit (MEU) off the coast of South Vietnam. Buck Darling had graduated from the University of California at Santa Barbara in June 1963. Buck had then lived and worked on a ranch until he learned that the Marine Corps, in his words, “gave away weapons and paid guys to hunt full time.” He liked the whole military idea. Inspired by a local recruiter in Barstow, California, he joined the US Marines. Darling graduated from the Basic School with a regular commission because he had done well in the Platoon Leaders Course (PLC), which he had taken during the summers before his junior and senior years in college, and in the Basic School. Buck requested an infantry MOS (military occupational specialty) and received orders to the 1st Battalion, 5th Marines. Although 1/5 was based at Camp Pendleton, California, when Buck joined the battalion, it soon received orders to join the other units of the 1st Marine Division already in Vietnam. Once they arrived in WestPac (the Western Pacific) in 1965 and took responsibility as the infantry component of the MEU, 1/5 became responsible for special landing force (SLF) missions and remained afloat for about seven months. The Marines of 1/5 acted as the reserve force for virtually every combat operation in I Corps during that period because they had embarked with a full load of equipment, ammunition, and supplies and they even had raid gear. They had everything necessary for rapid reaction to virtually any combat situation. For example, 1/5 acted as one of the reserve forces for Operation Starlite, the first major American combat operation in South Vietnam, conducted by the 7th Marines shortly after the landings in Da Nang in early 1965. For several long months, 1/5 sailed up and down the coast of South Vietnam. If Charlie One Five: 8 something happened in Da Nang, they would go there as fast as possible. They might move rapidly north to Cap Ferrer, south to Cap Saint Jacques, and then back to Cap Ferrer. To Buck Darling, it seemed like every morning when they woke up they had a new “deal,” as he called it. In late spring of 1965 the battalion boarded a troop ship bound for Hawaii. They stayed in Hawaii, spent several weeks training, and then boarded the USS Princeton, sailing from Hawaii with a squadron of Frogs (CH-46 helicopters). In Da Nang they traded the Frogs in for a squadron of CH-34s. Shortly thereafter, in Subic Bay, a huge US Navy base in the Philippines, a large group of new people joined 1/5 as advisors. Once 1/5 put out to sea, the advisors revealed to the battalion’s officers their destination : the infamous Rung Sat Special Zone (RSSZ) down around Saigon. The operation was to be called Jackstay. Lt. Col. H. L. “Al” Coffman, the battalion commander, launched Operation Jackstay with the mission to conduct search-and-destroy operations to find and eliminate Viet Cong (VC) installations and to capture or destroy VC personnel in the RSSZ, a densely covered mangrove swamp area of approximately four hundred square miles. The native population of approximately fifteen thousand people lived in nine villages located on the relatively few dry islands in the area. The only road in the zone crossed the Long Thanh Peninsula. An extensive waterway system provided the only real transportation for the locals, by boat. Dense vegetation severely limited access to interior areas, and extensive flooding at high tide impeded the movement of foot troops, who had to cut paths through the soggy vegetation. The shallow water of the relatively few navigable channels forming the main shipping route upriver to Saigon, about twenty-five miles to the north, provided the only approaches to the RSSZ from the sea. Although several VC installations had been identified in the RSSZ, their organization and strength varied considerably from day to day. Bunkers, ammunition and gun factories, caches, and VC units of company size populated the area. In addition, VC engineer units operated in the area on a regular basis in an attempt to block the shipping channel to Saigon. During late February and...

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