ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the creation of the armed strike force of the My Tho province. The history of the conflict is replete with abrupt reversals of fortune, a pattern well illustrated by this early period of the Vietnam War. The Communist Party had broken the hold of the Government of the Republic of Vietnam (GVN) over much of the rural area of My Tho province, and was moving from clandestine insurgency to exerting overt control over many hamlets. My-Diem viewed the strategic hamlets as the backbone of the Stalcy-Taylor plan, which aimed at resolving the contradiction between concentrating military forces to search-and-destroy and the stationing of static occupying positions, especially in the large expanses of the rural areas. The Party leadership in My Tho concluded at the beginning of 1962 that although not all the rice fields and orchards were liberated and some enemy posts still exist, the National Liberation Front (NLF) had won the people's hearts and minds.
