For those who aren’t old enough or who have forgotten, the Phoenix Program is usually referred to as an assassination program and was the subject of investigation by the Senate’s “Church Committee.” Indisputably, thousands of South Vietnamese civilians were killed under this CIA directed program. According to Marine Lt. Col. W. R. Corson, a Combined Action Platoon Commander in the Vietnam War: “Almost immediately in the wake of the first operations of the Phoenix hit squads in I Corps, the rapport in the CAP hamlets between the Marines, the PFs, and the people, as well as the intelligence flow dried up. Upon examination we found out that the people and the PFs were scared shitless that the Phoenix hoodlums would come and take them away, or kill them.