During the monsoon season, most of the swampy land north of Route QL-4, generally called the Plain of Reeds, was inundated, especially when alluvial waters raised the level of the Mekong River from July to October.

Other undeveloped swampy areas along the coast had turned into havens that sheltered Viet Cong (VC) main force units just as the scattered bases inland offered good refuge for local guerrillas.

In the coup attempt of 1960, the loyalist Colonel Huỳnh Văn Cao used the 7th Division to storm into Saigon to save President Ngô Đình Diệm.

9 disseminated in 1969, emphasized the strategic importance of the Mekong Delta and conceived it as the principal battlefield where the outcome of the war in South Vietnam would be decided, the PAVN/VC infiltrated the 1st Division Headquarters and its three regiments, the 88th, 101D and 95A into IV Corps.

Not until after the PAVN/VC's sanctuaries beyond the border had been destroyed during the Cambodian Campaign and their capability to resupply from the sea eliminated were these 1st Division forces compelled to break down into small elements and withdraw.

Its efforts during the year consisted of continuing operations on Cambodian soil to assist the weaker Khmer National Armed Forces and interdicting PAVN/VC supply routes into the Mekong Delta.

The four-year Community Defense and Local Development Plan that the government had initiated in March 1972 presaged an even brighter future for the farmers of the Mekong Delta.