Plei Me

The Civilian Irregular Defense Group (CIDG) program was devised by the CIA in early 1961 to counter expanding Viet Cong influence in Vietnam's Central Highlands. Beginning in the village of Buon Enao, small A-Teams from the US Army Special Forces moved into villages and set up Area Development Centers. Focusing on local defense and civic action, the Special Forces teams did the majority of the training. Villagers were trained and armed for village defense for two weeks, while localized mobile strike forces called "Mike Force" would receive better training and weapons and served as a quick reaction force to react to Viet Cong attacks. The vast majority of the CIDG camps were initially manned by inhabitants of ethnic minority regions in the country,especially Montagnard tribesmen who disliked both the North and South Vietnamese and therefore quickly took to the American advisers. The program was widely successful, as once one village was pacified, it served as a training camp for other local villages

Plei Me camp (above) was established in October 1963 by Special Forces 40 kilometres (25 miles) south of Pleiku city and less than 20 miles (32 km) from the Cambodian border in the Central Highlands of South Vietnam. Plei Me was one of many Special Forces camps scattered around the Central Highlands and charged with gaining and maintaining the support of the Montagnards for the South Vietnamese war effort and gathering intelligence about the infiltration into South Vietnam of North Vietnamese soldiers along the Ho Chi Minh trail.