Word: arvn
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Nine Dragons. In the Cambodian countryside, ARVN's 40,000 troops were the biggest armed force around−except for Phnom-Penh's own ragtag army of 150,000, most of whom undergo no more than a few days of training before being sent against seasoned Communist troops. Lancing deep into two previously untouched Communist areas, ARVN troops opened the twelfth and 13th fronts of the border campaign. Northwest of Saigon, 5,000 ARVN troops on Operation Pacify West III rode tanks and helicopters into a North Vietnamese base opposite the Central Highlands. Far to the south, another...
...Cambodia's broad flatlands, ARVN commanders could wage a conventional, European-style war of maneuver, using textbook tactics that the Communists chose not to test in determined combat. Only four days after Nine Dragons began, ARVN General Ngo Dzu's armored columns had effortlessly swept light Viet Cong forces from the towns of Takeo and Kompong Trach and the key ports of Kep and Kampot. Equally facile was ARVN Task Force 318's high-speed dash 75 miles down Highway 1 toward Phnom-Penh. TIME Correspondent John Mulliken joined General Tri as he directed the drive alternately...
Confident and even cocky, ARVN officers have begun to sound like Americans discussing the vicissitudes of the Vietnamization program. One senior South Vietnamese officer told TIME Correspondent James Willwerth: "The Cambodians wanted us to do their fighting for them. I said to one general, 'Sir, if you are not willing to fight for yourselves, we will not do your fighting for you.' Then I realized that this is what the Americans had been saying to us−and suddenly I am very ashamed. We, too, must fight our own battles...
Naive Suggestions. More and more, it seems clear that many of those battles will be fought on Cambodian soil. Speaking in Saigon last week, Vice President Nguyen Cao Ky openly jeered at the idea that ARVN 'has to withdraw" when the Americans do. Said Ky: "These are naive suggestions coming from naive people. Our armed forces are strong enough to carry on independent operations on Cambodian as well as Vietnamese territory...
Suggested Scenario. Actually, there is plenty of reason to believe that the last thing the U.S. wants is to pull ARVN back from Cambodia. The country would probably fall to the Communists in short order if it were left to fight the Communists on its own. One scenario suggested by observers: The U.S. formally asks South Viet Nam to withdraw its troops by June 30. Thieu refuses, thereby guaranteeing continued ARVN support for the Lon Nol regime, while dissociating the U.S. from any further violation of Cambodian "neutrality." The U.S. throws up its hands, noting that it cannot order...