The 5th Group, at first, was basically set up like most SF Groups and had
an SFOB (Nha Trang), which ran four C Teams, one in each of the four CTZs,
ie. (C-1) Da Nang,  (C-2) Pleiku, (C-3) Bien Hoa, (C-4) Can Tho.  Each C
Team would run four or five B Teams, e.g. Bien Hoa had B-31 (Phuoc Vinh),
B-32 (Tay Ninh), B-33 (Hon Quan), B-34 (Song Be), and B-35 (Hiep Hoa).
Each B Team had about for or five A Teams, e.g. Hon Quan had A-331 (Loc
Ninh), A-332 (Minh Thanh), A-333 (Chi Linh), and A-334 (Tong Le Chon).
Each A Team was supposed to have 12 guys, 2 ea. Officers, O&I, Commo,
Weapons, Demo, and Medic.  An A Team was capable of training up to a 1500
man battalion of guerrillas.  Each B and C Team was composed of both an
operational detachment and an administrative detachment.

In Nam, however, SF was placed in the position of trying to develop
counter-guerrilla forces, which was just the opposite of a Group's primary
mission.  Thus, they developed the CIDG program and, because of the nature
of the "conflict", had to train and develop counterparts, ie. the LLDB
(VNSF).  Lotsa problems with the LLDB program though, and all sorts of
political problems forced the 5th Group to start straying away from
guerrilla-type missions to develop many different types of "Special
Operations Augmentation" units under "C-5".  Those most commonly known were
the Greek Projects, e.g. Delta, Omega, Sigma, Gamma, etc. and they also used
C-5 to feed guys into MACV SOG, which reported directly to Washington.

Back in '64, there was a split-team from the 1st SFGA on TDY to Nam, at
Pleiku, and they formed a highly mobile recon/reaction force called "Eagle
Flight".  They didn't have LLDB counterparts to hinder them, and they
didn't have a fixed A Team to defend.  They just moved around alot and ran
either recon missions or just went in an area quickly and kicked butt.

In '65, the 5th Grp copied this concept and designated one A Team from each
Corps to be its Mike Force.  Most of the guys from back then said it stood
for Mercenary Force, even though the official designation was Mobile Force.
In III Corps, A-302 flip-flopped with A-301 and became the III Corps Mike
Force, aka 3rd Mike Force.  Each of the other three Corps had their own,
and another one was designated as the all-country Mike Force.

By '66, the Mike Forces were so successful they decided to create a couple
more in each Corps and, in III Corps, A-303 and A-304 were created.
However, at the same time COL Kelly took command of the 5th and there were
a couple changes made.  First, the LLDB got a hand in it and, secondly, he
decided to create "Black Jack" Task Forces by mixing 30+ man Eagle Flight
Recon platoons with 100+ man Mike Force companies and putting 'em on
operations, to constantly move, for up to sixty days at a time, and Kelly's
people would be in command.  The first one was up in II Corps, but the
first one in III Corps wasn't run until Jan '67.  The operation was Black
Jack 31 and was conducted by Task Force 957 (they all added up to 21),
which was a Mobile Guerrilla Force formed from one of A-303's Mike Force
Companies.

The powers that be, incl. MACV, IIFFV, and C-5 in Nha Trang, decided Project
Sigma (B-56) was to be turned over to MACV SOG toward the end of '67, so
they needed something to fill in the gap until IIFFV could come up with some
sort of permanent replacement.  To this end, in Aug '67, Project Rapid Fire
(B-36 Provisional) was created.  Project Rapid Fire used the same Mobile
Guerrilla Task Force of BJ 31 plus the one used for BJ 32 (TF 966), which
had come from A-304.  They also got 20 LRRPs from various Infantry units,
e.g. 1st, 9th, 25th Inf, 11th ACR, & Lt. Inf. Bdes.   A-303 was redesignated
A-361, and A-304 was redesignated as A-362.  A-302 continued to run
operations as a Mike Force separate from the Mobile Guerrilla Forces and
separate from Project Rapid Fire (B-36 Provisional).

In May '68, all the Mike Forces and Mobile Guerrilla Forces of each Corps
were consolidated and redesignated as Mobile Strike Force Commands, ie. 1st
MSFC (B-16), 2nd MSFC (B-20), 3rd MSFC (B-36), 4th MSFC (B-40), and 5th
MSFC (B-55).

The MSFCs were scheduled to be shutdown a/o turned over to ARVN Rangers in
the Spring of '70 and, indeed, those in I, II, and IV Corps were.  B-36,
however, remained active and participated in the big offensive into Cambodia
with the 1st Cav.  Upon completion of it's last Mike Force operation, in Oct
'70, B-36 became the foundation for the UITG/FANK TC, which was originally
created to train Cambodian troops.  When the 5th Group left Viet Nam, and
returned to Ft. Bragg, in Mar '71, many of the soldiers from B-36 remained
behind, combined with those from B-43 and B-51, and expanded the UITG/FANK
TC to include training the ARVN Infantry, which they did until they were
shut down in Feb 73.