 How do you mean? It's a marine, I'll take care of it. It's a good sign. It's that sharp pain that you get when you got nerves, you know. It's that sharp nerve pain, burning, burning. They do all they can to save that life. I know. I know there's not much left because I was carrying that damn thing in my hand. I was afraid the whole thing was going to come off. For these Marines, 1965 was a year like no other in history. For the first time, fleet marine forces were committed to combat in both hemispheres at once. In the Dominican Republic, violence flared, endangering the security of the hemisphere. The Marines were sent in. And in Vietnam, growing communist aggression was answered with the commitment of battle-ready Marines from the Pacific Fleet. It was quite a year. This is the story of it. The Caribbean in April, blue water, gentle surf, sun-lit leisurely beaches, warmth and laughter and fun. But in April of 1965, it becomes a scene of violence, unrest and angry upheaval, endangering the security of the hemisphere. It is a threat which is immediately recognized. The American nation cannot, must not and will not permit the establishment of another communist government in the western hemisphere. On April 28th, word comes to the carrier of Boxer that help is needed in Santo Domingo. In moments, Marines of a ready battalion on station in the Caribbean are airborne. Such ready battalions on board ships in the Mediterranean and in the Far East. The unit from the Boxer is able to react, literally, on a minute's notice. Twenty minutes after the call for help is received, a spearhead platoon with full combat gear is on the ground in the Dominican Republic. Quickly, the platoon sets up a defense perimeter to assure the safety of the American Embassy and of civilians who have taken refuge in the Ambassador Hotel. Immediately, United States citizens are evacuated from the danger area. As the situation in Domingo grows worse, the company follows the platoon ashore and the company is soon joined by the rest of the battalion. One of the first jobs is to clear a corridor for necessary movement and communications and to provide a buffer zone, a neutral area between rebel forces and Dominican government troops. Within the neutral corridor, once it is established, the situation becomes fairly stable. But to wander out of it, even by mistake, can mean trouble. Of four Marines whose jeep wandered out of the corridor, two are on their way to medical aid. The other two are in less friendly hands. But an angry Marine who's just seen a couple of his buddies hurt does not make the most cooperative prisoner. They're here for seven blocks away from the line. They made a wrong turn. We got up halfway up the street. Your people started shooting at us. You hit one of our men. You almost destroyed one of our vehicles. You come to the United States. You can tell your way around just like that. You see, from the American forces, this situation has taken place where innocent men were alive, are being lost. From their side and from our side. And we hope that they keep... Snipers are a constant problem. But Marines manage to keep their sense of humor. There was this one guy. He couldn't hit anything. Every afternoon, he'd fire a few rounds down our way. You know, we'd stay in cover, more or less, but he never came close to anyone. We let him alone. I mean, if we cleaned him out, they might have put somebody in there could shoot. In times, the sniper problem requires action. As things settle down, the job becomes one of maintaining security. This means, among other things, a constant and careful search of all civilian traffic through the neutral corridor. No hiding places overlooked which might conceal weapons. The means of renewing violence in the corridor. So, the Marines remain in Santo Domingo, ready to stay until the danger is passed and order fully restored. Eric Kelly, you can start infiltrating your people down. Start infiltrating your people down. Who are as far as this machine gun? Golf 1, Golf 1, this is Golf 6, over. I want more. That was good. He put it right in. I want more over there. Kipnam. A wounded Marine is rescued under heavy enemy fire. His buddy is questioned. How do you mean? He's all right. I'll take care of him. You take care of your weapon with you? I took a .45. Weren't you scared? A little bit out the gut out there. Combat is never easy, but in Vietnam it is especially hard. One big reason, the terrain. Rice paddies with mud boot top deep or worse. Streams criss-crossing the paddies and valleys. Steep and unfriendly as those in Korea. Desert-like areas where temperatures hit 130 in the shade. And there isn't any shade. And tropic jungle, hot, steaming, hostile as any of the Marines faced in the Pacific during World War II. A prime answer to the near-impassability of Vietnamese terrain is the helicopter. Beneath the staccato slap of rotor blades, Marines can move swiftly to wherever the Viet Cong are reported and arrive fresh and ready to function. It means this is no new concept. In the 1950s, that for the first time, a copter assault was used to take ground in a combat zone. The place, a hilltop in Korea. Combat troops were landed. So were full supplies for their assault. Though it had never been tried before, it had been carefully worked out in advance. The operation was successful. The people who did it were United States Marines. In the mid-1960s, Navy Seabees cleared the way for another Marine Corps innovation, which sees its first combat use in Vietnam. The expeditionary landing field, it's called ELF, for short. Every element is air-transportable, including the preformed sections of lightweight metal, which interlock to form a smooth, all-weather landing surface. Once again, the Seabees make the difficult look easy. They put down 8,000 feet of runway and set up the accessory gear, lightweight landing control console, carrier-type landing lights, arresting gear, air-portable control tower. The Seabees have, in fact, taken a carrier deck and moved it ashore. Their arrival are quickly ready for action. Just four hours after the first jets land, they are taking off again to fly their first mission in close support of ground troops in the field. The forward air controller with the ground forces is a combat pilot himself. Talking directly to the jets, he pinpoints targets for them. The result of this direct voice link with airborne jets is this. An absolute minimum of delay between the time ground troops need air support and the time they get it laid in close. The combat success of the expeditionary landing field is another index of Marine Corps mobility. In a matter of days, the landing strip, control tower, arresting gear, the whole works could be taken apart and airlifted to another location. For now, however, it's working just fine here at Chulai. Elsewhere, on high ground above the huge air base at Danang, Marines man the deadly Hawk anti-aircraft missiles. Enemy air has not yet been a problem in Vietnam, but should it come, the Hawks are waiting. Below on the field at Danang itself, the business of delivering destruction to the Viet Cong in the paddies and jungles is around the clock job. Marine phantom jets are doing a big part of their job. And it is this kind of weapon system, this complexity and sophistication of striking power which leads observers to use the term the new breed in speaking of today's Marine. The phantom can break the sound barrier while climbing out from takeoff and move into action at better than twice the speed of sound. The armament that they can deliver offers wide flexibility too. Ranging from bombs and 20mm cannon to rockets and bullpup missiles. The flame and shrapnel of the Marine jets is not delivered casually. The necessity to be sure of targets, minimize danger for the innocent, is always agonizingly present. For some, the price of humane hesitancy comes high like this Marine Colonel hit while controlling jet air support from a low flying copter. I got a lot of pain in that left ankle. I set a good sign. It's that sharp pain that you get when you got nerves, you know. It's that sharp nerve pain, burning, burning. They do all they can to save that leg. I know. I know there's not much left because I... I was carrying that damn thing in my hands all the way back. I was afraid the whole thing was going to come off. I said, hell, they can't be right around in here. So I didn't call bombs and naping on these people. But that's where they were. I'm sure now that that's where they were. God damn it, I hate to put nape. And on the women and children, I just didn't do it. I just said they can't be there. Well, we held the planes. We held the fixed winged up. We held them up there. We figured we'd call them if we need them. As far as I know, I'm the first to hit. And I flew down at 100, 200 feet over this village, this hamlet area. I thought I saw some people in a hole. And I just hung around there too long and I was too low. But I was way back out over the friendly troops that we landed. I was over those troops. When we caught this round, there's no indication that we'd been fired at until then. Since all their operations are in coastal areas, the support of naval gunfire is something the Marines in Vietnam can always count on. During 1965, Marine forces launched a number of large-scale offensive operations. Names like Operation Starlight, Harvest Moon, and Piranha are written into history. In such operations as these, the young Marines of the New Breed engage the Viet Congurrillas and take on North Vietnamese regulars as well, in numbers up to regimental strength and greater. Using all the advanced weaponry and mobility at their command, the Marines seek out the enemy and wherever they find him, they beat him decisively. Not just tactical defeat, disaster. Virtual elimination of organized combat capability is the way the official reports put it. In their first major trial by fire, youngsters who were too young even to read about Korea worked with a cool professional skill that leads one old timer to remark. Well, they're young Marines. They're just as good Marines today as they were 15 years ago and possibly a lot better as far as intelligence and their capabilities are concerned. They're real fine as far as I'm concerned. Some of the troops we're into here are getting out over there. Yeah, the battalion CK is setting up over there. One, this is six over. This is six. Roger, we got it now. John, I want you to set up a few hasty defense in there real quick. Get your gun set in and then check it out if you want. See you in support, Jerry. Is it pain a lot, Manny? Give us a shot of that. You wait the man in the rear to where we can get him out on a chopper. Do you understand, over? The chopper saves a lot of lives in Vietnam. In minutes, a man can be airlifted direct from combat to an aid station where the compassionate skill of Navy surgeons is ready and waiting. Marine casualties have been light in Vietnam, but there is no warfare without its pain. Both felt and shared. Marines in Vietnam learn fast to take nothing at face value. Far too often, beneath the outer appearance of a harmless civilian, there is the familiar black garb of the Viet Cong gorilla. The Viet Cong is a tough, ruthless jungle fighter, experienced in being hard to find. But in places like Taroa, Okinawa, Iwo Jima, the Marines have learned too. Without their weapons, they look so insignificant. But the VC is hard. His thin, wiry body can take great physical hardship, and his mind will not shrink from burying a village chief alive or executing all village elders, if it might further his aims. Hard as he is, however, the Viet Cong is no Superman. He can be beaten on his own ground and beaten badly. In operations like Starlight and Harvest Moon and Piranha, the Marines have demonstrated this beyond anyone's doubting, including the Viet Cong. The Viet Cong are not the only problem. In dark little villages, the same ones the Viet Cong have hidden in and operated from. Marines find the people they have come to help. People who have lived for too long in fear. Well, the Vietnamese are wonderful people as far as I'm concerned, and they need help, and we're a strong nation, and we can give them help, and they've asked for the help. So we're here. Well, I've always had the feeling that if we could get the feeling across to the people of Vietnam that the people of the United States were behind them and wanted them to be free to have the things that they had been denied for so many years, that we could possibly bring peace to these people. Ten years from now, these people are going to forget the bullets and the shot and the shells and everything else, but they're going to remember this if they don't remember anything else. And I think if we're going to win this war, that we're going to do it here before we'll do it on the battlefield. That's the only way we can win it. People who live out in the rice country, their standard of living is very low by our standards. They have very few comforts. They live from rice crop to rice crop. This is the other war in Vietnam, the one in which American fighting men are working with Vietnamese civilians to build hope and strength for the future. It takes many forms. Standing guard, for example, over the harvesting of rice for a village which for years has paid a big part of each crop to the Viet Cong, helping them bring it in and store it, letting them see that they and their crops are going to be safe from now on. It's simple and it's practical. It's appreciated and it works. In another village, Navy doctors and corpsmen serving with the Marine Corps will be found helping the people fight a war against sickness, teaching the fundamentals of sanitation, waging combat against infection, bringing smiles to faces that for too long have reflected only fear and despair. We was out in the village for the lowest year, giving out Christmas things that people from the states sent over and we want to let everyone know back home that the kids, they really need it a lot and believe me, they really enjoy everything they get.