606th Air Commando Squadron Civic Action Team

[USMarineCorps]

Hi all,

 

I wanted to post this patch here because I was unable to find another example anywhere else.

These declassified files give a nice summary of the important work these Air Commandos did during the war: https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA586311.pdf

 

"With the deployment of the 606th ACS to Thailand in mid-1966, the first fully equipped USAF Civic Action team began operations. The squadron was assigned a myriad of tasks, only one of which was to conduct Civic Action programs in Thailand in conjunction with local authorities and assist RTAF in training to perform these programs on their own behalf. To accomplish these

aims, the Civic Action Branch of the squadron was initially authorized 9 officers and 42 airmen, Before the end of 1966, justification for an increase in manning had been submitted to 13AF. Ultimately, the branch was authorized a total of 97 spaces: 15 officers, 13 translators, 69 airmen."

 

In addition, there is another great reference here: https://www.afsoc.af.mil/Portals/86/documents/history/AFD-131112-026.pdf

 

"Just the term Air Commando! brings forth popular images of daring missions and courageous airmen fighting in the midst of mortal danger. These heroic images however, tend to obscure more durable Air Commando contributions made to the people the U.S. sought to help in the first place; contributions appreciated long after the last Americans have left.

This chapter describes one such contribution, Military Civic Action, made by Air Commandos in the heat, rain and mud of rural Thailand. 

 

Unlike similar U.S. Army and Marine efforts in Vietnam, the Air Force Military Civic Action Officer (MCAO) program conducted in Thailand during the war in Southeast Asia received relatively little publicity. In retrospect, this probably facilitated their success. Using an intentionally low-profile approach, hand-picked officers, assembled and trained in small teams, labored throughout the 1960-70s in duty that often seemed more appropriate to the Peace Corps than the United States Air Force.

 

But unlike the Peace Corps, the humanitarian programs of the MCAOs were motivated by a much more pragmatic rationale than altruism. With continual patience and ingenuity they implemented a classic Foreign Internal Defense program that proved exceptionally effective in reducing the insurgent threat to U.S. airbases in Thailand.

Once in country the MCAOs quickly prioritized the areas they needed to influence, with basic security considerations to the large airbases determining which areas came first. Those villages within a sixteen kilometer radius of the airbase got top priority for available civic action resources. Why 16 kilometers? Sixteen kilometers is the maximum effective range of the deadly, Soviet-made 122mm rocket, used so effectively against U.S. airfields and bases in neighboring South Vietnam. But important as this determination was, identifying this "security ring" was by far the easiest part of the MCAO program.

 

To the casual observer the ingredients for a successful civic action program appear deceptively easy. What could be more basic that building roads, hospitals, schools? Add to that some combined Thai-U.S. mobile medical teams giving vaccinations, engineers for digging wells, and perhaps a few Civic Action volunteers for supporting the local orphanage, and the program would seem well positioned to claim success."

 

 

 

 

[USMarineCorps]

Several Air Commandos of the 606th ACS Civic Action Team (from https://www.afsoc.af.mil/Portals/86/documents/history/AFD-131112-026.pdf, page 65):

 

 

[USMarineCorps]

Does anyone have any other examples of this patch? I can't seem to be able to find another on Worthpoint or any other resource.