In the summer of 2017, the newly arrived president of Marine Corps University, Brigadier General William J. Bowers, ordered a lecture series, "The Legacy of Belleau Wood: 100 Years of Making Marines and Winning Battles." The series would include four lectures, and it was to be supported by an anthology produced by History Division, providing readings to the students on the topics each lecture would cover. The intent was to produce an anthology of lasting worth to Marines, broadly depicting keystone moments in the history of the Corps during the century following the Battle of Belleau Wood. This volume presents a collection of 36 extracts, articles, letters, orders, interviews, and biographies. The work is intended to serve as a general overview and provisional reference to inform both Marines and the general public of the broad outlines of notable trends and controversies in Marine Corps history--Provided by publisher.

This is the second volume in a series of chronological histories prepared by the Marine Corps History and Museums Division to cover the entire span of Marine Corps involvement in the Vietnam War. This volume details the Marine activities during 1965, the year the war escalated and major American combat units were committed to the conflict. The narrative traces the landing of the nearly 5,000-man 9th Marine Expeditionary Brigade and its transformation into the ΙII Marine Amphibious Force, which by the end of the year contained over 38,000 Marines. During this period, the Marines established three enclaves in South Vietnam’s northernmost corps area, I Corps, and their mission expanded from defense of the Da Nang Airbase to a balanced strategy involving base defense, offensive operations, and pacification. This volume continues to treat the activities of Marine advisors to the South Vietnamese armed forces but in less detail than its predecessor volume, U.S. Marines in Vietnam, 1954-1964; The Advisory and Combat Assistance Era.

The Vietnam War ended nearly fifty years ago but the central paradox of the struggle endures: how did the world’s strongest nation fail to secure freedom for the Republic of Vietnam? Michael F. Morris addresses this vexing question by focusing on the senior Marine headquarters in the conflict’s most dangerous region. Known as I Corps, the northern five provinces of South Vietnam witnessed the bloodiest fighting of the entire war. I Corps also contained the Viet Cong’s strongest infrastructure, key portions of the Ho Chi Minh Trail, and the important political and economic prizes of Hue and Da Nang. For Americans, it was the site of the first major military operation (Operation STARLITE); the Battles of Hue City and Khe Sanh during the 1968 Tet Offensive; and a military innovation known as the Combined Action Platoon (CAP), a counterinsurgency technique designed to secure the region’s villages. The Marine zone served as Saigon’s “canary in the coal mine”—if the war was to be won, allied action must succeed in its most contested region. With such deep significance, I Corps holds many answers to the lasting questions of the Vietnam War. Following the Marine Amphibious Force (III MAF)—the primary US tactical command in I Corps from 1965 to 1970—Corps Competency? provides the first composite analysis of the critical role of the senior Marine headquarters and offers a coherence missing in piecemeal accounts. Despite the critical importance of I Corps, relatively little is known about its overall impact on the war due to disconnected and patchy historical study of the region. In this comprehensive and newly insightful study of the Vietnam War, Michael Morris tells a story that illustrates what can happen when a corps headquarters is not ready for the conflict it encounters and then fights the war it wants to rather than the one it must. The views expressed in this work are those of the author and not the official position of the United States government, Department of Defense, Department of the Navy, United States Marine Corps, or Marine Corps University.

The Battle for Khe Sanh is a book by Moyers S. Shore. During the Vietnam War a battle was conducted in the Khe Sanh area of northwestern Vietnam, and this work presents equipment and tactics of US forces and how they fought VC forces.

This manual provides guidance for the organization, planning, and conduct of the full range of military operations on urbanized terrain. This publication was prepared primarily for commanders, staffs, and subordinate leaders down to the squad and fire team level. It is written from a Marine air-ground task force perspective, with emphasis on the ground combat element as the most likely supported element in that environment. It provides the level of detailed information that supports the complexities of planning, preparing for, and executing small-unit combat operations on urbanized terrain. It also provides historical and environmental information that supports planning and training for combat in built-up areas