Corps Competency

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.

Throughout America's history, U.S. Army officers have played an integral role in the formulation and execution of its national security policy. Future national security challenges will be markedly different from those which were met so successfully in the past. Such challenges demand a comprehensive Officer Corps strategy recognizing the interdependency of accessing, developing, retaining, and employing talented people, officers with high learning and problem solving aptitudes, whose mental acuity and intellectual agility allows them to master diverse competencies demanded now and in the future. Such a strategy would position the Army to compete with the civilian market for talent, translate directly into better officer development and retention through increased job satisfaction, and move the Army beyond personnel management to talent management. Such a strategy will create institutional agility, allowing the Army to achieve the right breadth and depth of officer competencies to meet evolving requirements--"the right talent in the right job at the right time."

The last twenty-five years have witnessed an explosion in the field of leadership education. This volume brings together leading international scholars across disciplines to chronicle the current state of leadership education and establish a solid foundation on which to grow the field. It encourages leadership educators to explore and communicate more clearly the theoretical underpinnings and conceptual assumptions on which their approaches are based. It provides a forum for the discussion of current issues and challenges in the field and examines the above objectives within the broader perspective of rapid changes in technology, organizational structure, and diversity.