This is the second of a series of functional volumes on the Marine Corps' participation in the Vietnam War, which will complement the nine-volume operational and chronological series also underway. This particular history examines the Marine Corps lawyer's role in Vietnam and how that role evolved. Also considered is the effectiveness of the Uniform Code of Military Justice in a combat environment. Military law functioned in Vietnam. but was it acceptably efficient and effective? There were several thousand courts-martial tried by the 400 Marine Corps lawyers who served in Vietnam. Those trials stand as testament to the Marines, officer and enlisted, who made the justice system yield results through their work, dedication, and refusal to allow the circumstances of Vietnam to deter them. Did the military justice system really work? The reader can be the judge, for both successes and failures are depicted here. This book presents a straightforward and unflinching examination of painful subjects. Marine lawyers in Vietnam came to legal grips with drug use, racism, fragging, and the murder of noncombatants, along with the variety of offenses more usually encountered. The Marine Corps can take pride in the commanders and the judge advocates who ensured that whenever those crimes were discovered they were exposed and vigorously prosecuted. There were no cover-ups; no impediments to the judge advocates who conscientiously represented the accused or the United States.

This is the second in a series of functional volumes on the Marine Corps' participation in the Vietnam War, which will complement the nine-volume operational and chronological series also underway.

This is the second volume in a series of chronological histories prepared by the Marine Corps History and Museums Division to cover the entire span of Marine Corps involvement in the Vietnam War. This volume details the Marine activities during 1965, the year the war escalated and major American combat units were committed to the conflict. The narrative traces the landing of the nearly 5,000-man 9th Marine Expeditionary Brigade and its transformation into the ΙII Marine Amphibious Force, which by the end of the year contained over 38,000 Marines. During this period, the Marines established three enclaves in South Vietnam’s northernmost corps area, I Corps, and their mission expanded from defense of the Da Nang Airbase to a balanced strategy involving base defense, offensive operations, and pacification. This volume continues to treat the activities of Marine advisors to the South Vietnamese armed forces but in less detail than its predecessor volume, U.S. Marines in Vietnam, 1954-1964; The Advisory and Combat Assistance Era.

This is the second in a series of functional volumes on the Marine Corps' participation in the Vietnam War, which will complement the nine-volume operational and chronological series also underway.

This book was donated as a part of the David H. Hugel Collection, an archival collection of the Special Collections & Archives, University of Baltimore.

A concise look at how military justice during the Vietnam War served the dual purpose of punishing U.S. solders' crimes and infractions while also serving the important role of promoting core American values--democracy and rule of law--to the Vietnamese.