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50s Frogs Magazine Vol 12 The PRUs were paramilitary with one being assigned to each Province in South Vietnam. Their missions was to target the Viec Cong Infrastructure, not to fight military units. They were led by PRU Chief and normally had one or two American military per unit. The units were made up of 50-150 people with most being 50 to 100 men from many different back-grounds. A lot of them were ex Viet Cong who came over in South Vietnam. The units in the provinces along the Cambodian border had a lot of Cambodians, and many of the PRU operators were Vietnamese who lived in that Province were the unit had located. They also had some Vietnamese who deserted from the No. Vietnamese by joining PRUs and were able to avoid being arrested. They clearly were a mixed group but they all had one thing in common, and that was that they all were experienced and proficient fighters.
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The PRUs were equipped and funded by the CIA. Initially they had WWII weapons, such as M-1 Garands, M-2 Carbines M3A1 Submachine guns and Browning Automatic Rifles (BARs), however later when newer weapons were available, they were issued M-16s, some M-60s and M79 Grenade Launchers. Also, the PRUs kept what ever weapons that they captured from the Viet Cong, such as AK 47s and SSKSs, and PUR Advisors, being very resourceful would often trade for anything they needed. With regard to uniforms PRUs had a type of camouflaged green that they wore for formations, pictures, as seen in the attached pictures. In the field, however, they wore pretty much what they wanted. Some wore Tiger Stripe camis, some wore other types of camis, some wore jeans, and on some occasion they would wear
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