In early January, the Vietnamese Joint General Staff assigned a Marine task force to a pacification mission in Go Cong and Long An Provinces, located just southeast of Saigon. Two VNMC battalions, controlled by a task force headquarters, moved into the operations area later in the month and remained until mid-September when the operation was terminated. The object of the Marine unit’s presence was to reestablish government control over the region through systematic small unit operations designed to deny the enemy his usual freedom of movement. [Illustration: CORPS TACTICAL ZONES AT THE END OF 1964 ] Despite the length of this particular deployment, the Vietnamese Marines fought no major engagements. Furthermore, they had not translated their improved morale into an effective pacification operation. While desertions and unauthorized absences remained low considering the duration of this particular assignment, Colonel Noren later recalled several flaws in the campaign. These operations, he remarked “were characterized by inadequate coordination of military operations and intelligence reporting ... too little operational activity ... and a seeming lack of appreciation of the objectives of pacification.”[10-6] Colonel Nesbit, who became the Senior Marine Advisor as the operation entered its final stages, tended to confirm this assessment. “The capacity of the task force headquarters in staff functioning,” he reported, “was marginal.”[10-7] [Illustration: _General Wallace M. Greene, Jr., Commandant of the Marine Corps, inspects an honor guard of Vietnamese Marines. With him are Lieutenant Colonel Nguyen Ba Lien, Commandant of the Vietnamese Marine Corps, and Major General Richard G. Weede, Chief of Staff, Military Assistance Command, Vietnam. (Official USMC Photo)._] While the drive to pacify the Go Cong-Long An areas was in progress, other Vietnamese Marine task forces were organized to undertake different combat assignments elsewhere in the southern portion of Vietnam. One, composed of two battalions, an artillery detachment, and a headquarters element, launched a brief clearing operation northwest of Saigon in heavily populated Tay Ninh Province in January. A similar operation involving another task force was conducted the next month in the difficult mangrove swamps of An Xuyen Province at the southern tip of the nation. In both cases the government offensives enjoyed local success, but failed to reduce significantly the enemy’s capabilities and influence in the area.