Page:Robert K. Wright - Military Police - CMH Pub 60-9-1.pdf/28

 12 investigative work in the theater; the l6th provided command and control of all military police units assigned to the I and II tactical zones; the 89th controlled those units in zones III and IV. These units in turn were organized under the 18th Military Police Brigade, the first military police unit of its level to be employed in the Army. The brigade commander also served as provost marshal of the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam.

During 1968 the Army Chief of Staff, acknowledging the Military Police Corps' active involvement in support of military operations in Vietnam, approved changing the branch's identification from combat service support to combat support. This change was clearly justified by the responsibilities assumed by the corps in Vietnam where military police units were organized, trained, and equipped to perform operations in a combat support role. As a combat support branch, the Military Police Corps was placed under the U.S. Army Regimental System in September 1986.

The experience of Vietnam and the implementation of AirLand Battle doctrine for the battlefield of the future placed furtJ1er responsibilities upon the military police in recent years. In 1988 the Army redefined and enlarged the branch's battlefield mission as first outlined in the publication of AirLand doctrine in 1986. Army doctrine posited that where in previous wars military police usually performed a rear security role, the battlefield of the future would find the need for protection against rear area threats vastly increased. The military police in the rear area must be ready and able for short periods of time to assume a direct combat role. The battle of the future, the new doctrine presupposed, would be fast paced and short in duration. Therefore the military police unit, with its special ability to move and communicate with great speed and with its possession of unusually heavy firepower for such a highly mobile unit, could significantly enhance a commander's combat options. In addition, its versatility in controlling traffic and troop movement would allow commanders to mobilize much more quickly than in the past. In a future when a small force structure would be used in low intensity conflicts worldwide, military police could be expected to play an increasingly important operational role.

The assets that make the Military Police Corps so valuable in contemporary battlefield doctrine are actually quite similar to those possessed by the Marechaussee Corps in the Revolutionary War. While traveling a difficult road to organizational permanence and recognition as an organic element of the Army's fighting team, military police have along the way carefully adapted their mobility and communications capability to a myriad of new duties and responsibilities, leaving the corps ready to assume greater responsibilities and duties in the Army of the future.