Although its battalions were sometimes being frustrated, both in their attempts to accomplish unit training and in their attempts to fix Communist troop formations, the VNMC’s involvement in the war effort was forcing improvement of the service in other areas. Frequent inspections by U.S. advisors revealed that the Vietnamese were placing more emphasis on the care of individual equipment and weapons. Replacement items were being requisitioned with more promptness and unit commanders were beginning to show increasing concern about the slow receipt of requested supply items. The replacement of worn-out World War II trucks with new vehicles removed a long-standing source of trouble in that it greatly reduced the time consumed in performing major mechanical repairs on the older vehicles. Even the frequent deployments of the VNMC battalions were helping to improve the overall combat readiness of the service by preparing a solid core of small unit leaders and troops for operations against the Viet Cong. _Ancillary Effects of Marine Pacific Commands_ At the same time the intensified conflict in South Vietnam was forcing improvement on the VNMC, it was having a similar but less direct effect on U.S. Marine commands in the Pacific. In early 1961 Lieutenant General Alan Shapley, the Commanding General, Fleet Marine Force, Pacific (FMFPac), approved a plan to assign individual Marines from his scattered commands to temporary duty in Vietnam. The purpose of this program, which became known as On-The-Job Training (OJT), was to allow Marine officers and noncommissioned officers to obtain first-hand knowledge of the complex nature of the conflict being waged in South Vietnam. Beginning in May 1961 small groups of officers and noncommissioned officers from various FMFPac commands were sent each month to observe the counterguerrilla techniques being developed and employed in Vietnam. Although the OJTs were normally “in country” for only a two-week period, the program was gradually producing a pool of small unit leaders somewhat acquainted with the situation in the Republic of Vietnam by the end of 1961.[3-H] [3-H] The OJT program would be suspended briefly near the end of 1962 but would be reinstituted in the first months of 1963. [Illustration: _Vietnamese Marines wade ashore from a Vietnamese Navy Landing Ship, initiating a search for Viet Cong on the Ca Mau Peninsula. (Photo courtesy of Lieutenant Colonel Michael J. Gott, USMC)._]