Page:John Banks Wilson - Maneuver and Firepower (1998).djvu/352

 330 the 196th had to undergo additional training for combat in Southeast Asia. Also, support units normally attached to separate brigades in Vietnam had to be organized, including signal and military police platoons and chemical, military intelligence, Army Security Agency, military history, and public information detachments, The training process began in June, and by August 1966 the 196th had deployed to Vietnam.

After July 1966 no further increase took place in the number of divisions and brigades until the spring of 1967, In March of that year, responding to Westmoreland's request for additional forces, the Army Staff considered organizing either an infantry or a mechanized infantry brigade for service along the demilitarized zone between North Vietnam and South Vietnam. The original request called for a mechanized infantry brigade with personnel drawn mostly from the 1st and 2d Armored Divisions at Fort Hood. Before the unit could be activated, Westmoreland decided that he needed a standard separate infantry brigade. On 10 May the 198th Infantry Brigade was activated using personnel from the 1st and 2d Armored Divisions. Two days later, at the insistence of General Ralph E. Haines, Vice Chief of Staff and former commander of the 1st Armored Division, the brigade's three infantry battalions and artillery battalion were inactivated and replaced with units taken from regiments assigned to the 1st and 2d Armored Divisions, In turn, new battalions from those regiments were activated to replace the units taken from the two divisions.

Westmoreland's plan to use the 198th along the demilitarized zone between the two Vietnams went astray, Unable to wait for the brigade to arrive, he established a blocking force in April 1967 with units already in the theater. Designated "Task Force Oregon," it included the 196th Infantry Brigade; the 3d Brigade, 25th Infantry Division; and the 1st Brigade, 101st Airborne Division.

In August 1967 a complex organizational exchange took place in Vietnam due in large part to the awkward location of units in relation to their parent divisions. Both the 4th and the 25th Infantry Divisions had "orphan" brigades that operated outside their parent division's areas. To correct the problem, Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 3d Brigade, 4th Infantry Division, and the brigade's non-color-bearing elements were transferred (less personnel and equipment) from Tay Ninh to Task Force Oregon at Chu Lai; Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 3d Brigade, 25th Infantry Division, and its non-color-bearing units (less personnel and equipment) concurrently joined the 25th Infantry Division at Tay Ninh. The color-bearing units (infantry and artillery battalions) attached to the brigades were relieved from the divisions in place and reassigned. These administrative actions gave the commander of the 25th Infantry Division operational control of his 3d Brigade for the first time in Vietnam. The 3d Brigade, 4th Infantry Division, however, remained under the operational control of Task Force Oregon.