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FLEXIBLE RESPONSE The decision to commit divisions and separate brigades to Vietnam triggered a debate within the administration about the means of expanding the Army to maintain the strategic force. Proposals ranged from calling up the reserves to increasing the draft. On 28 July, however, President Johnson rejected use of the reserves and announced that the Army would base its expansion on volunteers and draftees. Shortly thereafter, Secretary of Defense McNamara disclosed that one infantry division and three infantry brigades would be added to the Regular Army in fiscal year 1966 (between 1 July 1965 and 30 June 1966).

Expansion of the Army began in September 1965, when the First U.S. Army organized the 196th Infantry Brigade. The 2d Brigade, 5th Infantry Division, less its personnel, moved to Fort Carson, Colorado, where it was refilled, and the remaining men at Fort Devens became the cadre for the 196th Infantry Brigade. The 196th eventually consisted of three infantry battalions and the brigade base, a reconnaissance troop, an engineer company, a support battalion, and a field artillery battalion. Recruits were assigned to the brigade under a "train and retain" program, which lessened the impact of limited mobilization on the training base.

The brigade's infantry battalions used a new light structure designed for counterinsurgency warfare. Each battalion consisted of a headquarters and headquarters company, three rifle companies, and a combat support company. The latter organization, similar to that in the airmobile infantry battalion, had mortar, reconnaissance, and antitank platoons. These light battalions fielded about half the number of vehicles assigned to a standard infantry battalion, and the riflemen carried M14 rifles.

The Fifth U.S, Army activated the 9th Infantry Division, the second unit in the expansion program, at Fort Riley, Kansas, on 1 February 1966, also employing the "train and retain" concept. Filled in three increments, the division included one mechanized infantry battalion and eight infantry battalions. By the end of July the division had graduated the last cycle of basic trainees, and it was expected to be combat ready by the end of the year.

While organizing the 9th Infantry Division, the Army decided to use it as a part of the Mobile Afloat (Riverine) Force in Vietnam, Brig, Gen. William E. DePuy, who was serving on Westmoreland's staff, had developed the idea of a joint Army-Navy force for use in Vietnam's Mekong River Delta. Army units were to include a brigade-size element that would live and move on ships and work with two brigade-shore contingents. Learning of the riverine mission, Maj. Gen. George S. Eckhardt, the 9th Division's commander, requested permission to mechanize one infantry battalion, which would allow him to have one brigade (three infantry battalions) aboard naval ships and two brigades (one mechanized infantry and two infantry battalions each) operating from land bases. The Army Staff in Washington agreed, and Eckhardt organized the second mechanized infantry battalion in October. To take advantage of the dry season in Vietnam, the division began departing Fort Riley at the end of 1966 and by February 1967 elements of the "Old Reliables" took part in the first U.S, Army-Navy riverine operation of the war.