Kit Carson Scouts

This photograph was taken on Hill 190, 17 miles northwest of Da Nang, in 1970. I was with my scout team, made up of three Marines, and two South Vietnamese scouts.

These two men had been captured by the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) during the 1968 Tet Offensive. Eventually they escaped their captors and became Kit Carson Scouts, a unique tactical program developed by the Marine Corps in Vietnam.

I was a team-leader in the S-2 battalion intelligence section. The Kit Carson Scouts acted as invaluable guides, interpreters and anti-guerrilla forces for the American infantry units.