Civilian Irregular Defense Group

Training of the CIDG at Camp Trai Trung Sup by the 5th Special Forces Group in 1967

The Civilian Irregular Defense Group ( abbr .: CIDG ) was a program launched by the CIA in 1961 in the run-up to the Vietnam War . The plan was to smuggle irregular South Vietnamese troops into the highlands around Tây Nguyên in order to counter the increasingly influential Viet Cong .

mission

Starting with the village of Buon Enao , small A-teams of the Green Berets were formed who tried to set up development and defense centers in the villages in the highlands. The main focus was on training the villagers and local rebel groups for two weeks for defense purposes and equipping them with better weapons in order to arm them like a vigilante against the Viet Cong. When a village was pacified, it served as a training camp for neighboring village communities in the highland plain.

The vast majority of the CIDG camps were inhabited by regional ethnic minorities, especially the Montagnards , who had a negative attitude towards both South Vietnamese and North Vietnamese politics and were therefore very receptive to the US offer to support self-defense.

When the military described the program as a complete success in 1963, however, it criticized the fact that the CIDG units and the Special Forces units did not have a structural level of command, which led to the instruction on Operation Switchback , the code name for the transfer of responsibility for the CIDG program to the CIA to the MACV .

The CIDG program expanded significantly after the entire 5th Special Forces Group arrived in Vietnam. As a result, the formerly active CIDG units were given new conventional tasks, in particular border surveillance and reconnaissance. These duties were entirely taken over by the United States Army Rangers Corps until 1970 .

Butcher

These CIDG units were involved in various relevant battles in Vietnam. Please refer: