10. US Army Advanced Infantry Training simulated the landscape in Vietnam
Army Advanced Infantry Training (AIT) was the destination of those recruits designated to be assigned to the infantry after completion of boot camp. One such destination was Fort Polk, Louisiana, which upon the recommendations of advisers to Vietnamese troops was designated as a training area which simulated conditions in Vietnam in 1962. There the soldiers encountered Tiger Land, a simulated Vietnamese village covering about four acres of ground. There were other villages in the Fort Polk facility, and the defenses the advisers had seen in Vietnam were created in an attempt at realism. They included tiger traps, sharpened bamboo stakes, and various forms of traps designed to cripple or kill.
Infantrymen were trained to search the villages for supplies and weapons caches, with role players present representing villagers. Secured villages were prepared to be defended, with foxholes and other defensive positions established and manned. Other role players, representing Viet Cong or North Vietnamese Army troops, would reconnoiter the area at night. Over the course of American involvement in Vietnam, approximately 1 million US Army infantrymen were trained at Tiger Land, helping prepare them for the conditions they would encounter and the duties they were expected to perform in Vietnam.
