Why did the United States have a policy of one-year combat tours during the Vietnam War?

That was their policy, I think afterwards, they realised this was a mistake, as if your tour is 6 months, it reduces the risk of PTSD. The US Marines, served 13 months.


However, 12 months is not a long time, but in war, it seems a lot longer, it would usually take a newly trained recruit at least 8–12 weeks to learn the basics, as the ‘short timers’ those with not much time left, didn’t want to get to know ‘new guys’ as due to the lack of experience, most ‘new guys’ got killed due to making simple mistakes, that a veteran, would know not to. So if you managed to last 6 months, without getting injured or killed, by then, you would be very experienced, and have already experienced, most combat situations. On average, in the bush, a US soldier would hit contact once every two days. I am in this case referring to infantry soldiers/marines, many that served in support units, supply etc, may serve a 12 month tour without seeing any action, however, as Vietnam was in some aspects a counter insurgency, the VietCong would often carry out attacks on any US/Alliance target, especially during the Tet Offensive, when the VC even managed to attack the US Embassy. This is a reason, all servicemen, must go through basic infantry training, before taking up their role, whatever this may be.

 

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