Vietnam War remained in the field for four days. Tellingly, South Vietnamese forces were again defeated in June 1965 at the Battle of Đồng Xoài. On 8 March 1965, 3,500 U.S. Marines were unilaterally dispatched to South Vietnam. This marked the beginning of the American ground war. U.S. public opinion overwhelmingly supported the deployment. The Marines' initial assignment was defensive. The first deployment of 3,500 in March 1965 was increased to nearly 200,000 by December. The U.S. military had long been schooled in offensive warfare. Regardless of political policies, U.S. commanders were institutionally and psychologically unsuited to a defensive mission. General William
Personnel Armor System for Ground Troops Personnel Armor System for Ground Troops Personnel Armor System for Ground Troops (PASGT, pronounced ) is a combat helmet and ballistic vest that was used by the United States military from the early 1980s until the mid-2000s, when the helmet and vest were succeeded by the Lightweight Helmet (LWH), Modular Integrated Communications Helmet (MICH), and Interceptor Body Armor (IBA) respectively. Designed in the mid-1970s as a replacement for the M1 helmet and previous fragmentation vests, prototypes of the PASGT were tested in the late 1970s before being fielded in the early 1980s. In the early 2000s, the PASGT vest was