During their three and a half months at Soc Trang, Lieutenant Colonel Clapp’s men had contributed significantly to another facet of the war effort--one usually considered unrelated to normal combat operations. Sensing the unique links between the political and military aspects of the struggle in South Vietnam, Colonel Carey had initiated a “People-to-People-Program,” the objective of which was to assist the Government of Vietnam in winning the allegiance of the Vietnamese people. Within a few days after occupying the Soc Trang airfield, Colonel Carey had ordered the task unit’s medical facilities made available to Vietnamese civilians requiring emergency medical treatment. U.S. Navy doctors and corpsmen began visiting nearby villages to hold “sick call” for the local inhabitants. On an average visit these medical teams would examine around 60 Vietnamese of all ages. They would then dispense soap, vitamins, and aspirin--commodities which some rural Vietnamese had never seen. Gradually, the medical teams expanded their operations until by mid-June they were being flown by helicopter as far away as Ca Mau. HMM-362’s departure from Vietnam coincided roughly with the departure of most of the Marine task unit’s senior officers--the men who had directed the efforts to win the “other war” for the allegiance of the Vietnamese people. On 30 July, Colonel Julius W. Ireland, another Marine aviator who had seen combat in two previous wars, relieved Colonel Carey as the task unit commander. The new commander was one of few Marines who had been in Vietnam previously. In April 1954 he had landed at Da Nang (then known by its French name, Tourane) as squadron commander of Marine Attack Squadron 324 (VMA-324) and delivered 25 F4U/FG Corsair fighter bombers to the French who were in desperate need of attack aircraft to support Dien Bien Phu. Five days after Ireland assumed command of Task Unit 79.3.5, Lieutenant Colonel Ralph R. Davis replaced Lieutenant Colonel Eldridge as commanding officer of the MABS-16 sub unit. On 13 August another change occurred when the executive officer of the Marine task unit, Lieutenant Colonel Harry C. Dees, was relieved by Lieutenant Colonel Alton W. McCully. Except that it left few original members of the task unit, the departure of these Marines for new duty stations in Okinawa, Japan, and the United States did not affect the operations at Soc Trang. Thoroughly briefed on their responsibilities, the new officers would continue to direct Marine support of the Vietnamese government on both the battlefield and the psychological front.