Chu Lai TAOR

		Chu Lai TAOR
		When Starlite was over, the 7th Marines moved into the expanding enclave of the Chu Lai. Their supporting artillery, the batteries of the 3d Battalion, 11th Marines, joined them there. If you look today at a map of Vietnam, you will not find Chu Lai. It is not a Vietnamese name, but one given by the US to that location. According to Jack Shulimson and Major Charles M. Johnson, USMC, in US Marines in Vietnam, the Landing and the Buildup, 1965, History and Museums Division, Headquarters, US Marine Corps, Washington, DC, 1978, Lieutenant General Krulak, USMC, had picked the location for a base. When a naval officer accompanying the general noted that the place was unnamed on the map, General Krulak responded that it was "Chu Lai." Later, General Krulak commented that the words "Chu Lai" were Mandarin Chinese characters for his own name. This illustration is from US Marines in Vietnam, an Expanding War, 1965, Jack Shulimson, History and Museums Division, Headquarters, US Marine Corps, Washington, DC, 1982.