The Journal of Military History

Abstract

After the Communist Tet Offensive of 1968, General William Westmoreland, commander of U.S. forces in Vietnam, supposedly credited the Army-Navy Mobile Riverine Force (MRF) with having “saved the [Mekong] Delta” for the allied cause. The MRF drove enemy forces from key population centers and decimated the Viet Cong main force units that stood and fought them. But in August 1969, General Creighton Abrams, Westmoreland’s successor, disbanded the MRF. Despite the MRF’s impressive battle history, Army and Navy leaders never fully embraced the creation, development, or operational deployment of one of the few truly joint-service units of the Vietnam War.

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Cite this article

Edward J. Marolda, “Orphan of the Mekong Delta: The Army-Navy Mobile Riverine Force,” The Journal of Military History 80, no. 4 (October 2016): 1149–1181.

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