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Combined Studies Division C.S.D Vietnam


irish
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Several years back or so I had posted this patch in hopes of getting an ID. At that time to the best of my recollection no positive ID could or was able to be made. The original thread with photo I could not find, so, I will start again with this thread.

 

While recently reading an on line article @ smallwarjournal.com, the article appears to be taken from "Veritas" Journal of U.S. Army Special Operations. The article was titled Civilian Irregular Defense Group " The first years 1961-1967 by E.G. Piasecki. Within the first page of this article I ran across a reference to the initials C.S.D Combined Studies Division which in this article at that time was a part of MAAG..

 

Early in the war when Diem was still in power the CIA had sought ways to to bring the Vietnamese minorities into support of the government. They did this through a combination of training and advisory assistance. This effort would soon become known as the CIDG program. The CIA had hoped that the CIDG program would become a paramilitary counter balance to the growing insurgency. The early efforts as outlined in the article would result in the Buon Enao Experiment or by its larger organizational name Village Defense Program, VDP.

 

Below is a copied passage with reference to the C.S.D.

 

"U.S. Army Special Forces ODAs, assigned to the CIA’s cover organization, MAAG’s Combined Studies Division (CSD), provided support with military training and advisory assistance to these minorities through the Civilian Irregular Defense Group (CIDG) program."

While this may not be conclusive it is the best lead I have seen. Hope fully others may have addtional information. The patch is hand made and has a long bent wire pin for wear. Unsure of the letter "N" meaning. And while the article above refers to this organization as part of MAAG I want to assume that it was still operational at the time of MACV's creation.

 

 

post-758-0-58623900-1406240131.jpg

post-758-0-41891400-1406240142.jpg

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River Patrol

Nice patch....seems like an early pocket patch.

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Cool patch. I wonder if the "N" might stand for "Nung?"

 

CSD is one of those organizations that is light on info. According to some of Radix Press' work, it splintered and evolved into other operations--possibly CORDS-- but remnants of the original CSD operation from 1960 were eventually a MACV (not MACV SOG) organization. PRU advisors, for instance, were assigned on paper to MACV CSD, meaning at least some Phoenix Program operations fell under CSD.

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I had also thought Nungs. This would be possible due to the CSD association with ethnic minorities and the CIDG program. Thanks for the input

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