But not all the American advisers to the South Vietnamese Army shared this optimism.
The goal was to gradually build up the South Vietnamese Army so that it could fight the war on its own.
At 6.30 am remnants of the South Vietnamese Army gave up and ended their resistance.
Before the explosions, perimeter security was the responsibility of the South Vietnamese Army.
Her family fled, she says, when her father, an officer in the South Vietnamese Army, was killed.
But "times have changed now," said a young woman whose father had been a high-ranking general in the South Vietnamese Army.
The regiment returned to resume ambushes of the South Vietnamese Army in 1962.
And we state that the South Vietnamese Army "collapsed."
He was a teacher, then served in the South Vietnamese Army as a political officer, learning a working English.
He was the youngest Major in the South Vietnamese Army at age 24.