[21twelve]

“Back in those days 1967 - 1969 the anti war attitudes and the local hostility to the military was rwally bad. We were there to protect the GIs.”

I can see the logic and reason in having “courtesy patrols” to deal with drunken soldiers, etc. But wouldn’t protecting them from the hostile locals be a civilian police matter? Unless you mean just keeping the guy’s in the “soldier” bars and not having their rowdiness spill out into more civilian areas.

[Americanexpat]

In those days we had to protect the soldiers from the police too. The treatment of the soldiers at Ft. Jackson was so bad that the Commanding general placed the town off limits and threatened to bring families on base to live in tent cities. Once there was a negative effect on the local economy the community leaders were ready to help us control the abuses.