Word: bai
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...wiry little peasant women in circular straw hats, chocolate-colored jackets and black trousers pitpat swiftly along the roads in bare feet, carrying produce to market in baskets balanced on poles over their shoulders. As my jeep left the road and followed the twisting, hedged lane that led to Bai Trang, war -or preparations for war-sprang to view. A rough stone wall protected the village. It bore the crudely painted inscription: "Da dao bon pha dinh pha dinh chua ro nha" (Down with the men who make the misery of the people, who destroy the temples...
...honor was drawn up-a dozen boys and young men in rumpled Stetsons. The smallest, aged 14, whose head barely reached above my thigh, beat a drum; the tallest, who came up to my chin, proudly carried an old but carefully polished rifle. This was a detachment of Bai Trang's Anti-Communist Youth and Children's Leagues...
...Uproot Communism. Members of Nguyen Van Tin's league have to take an oath of allegiance and swear "to search energetically day and night for the means to uproot Communism." Two hundred men of Bai Trang have taken this oath. A hundred and fifty of them are used to protect the village against Communist night raids. Of these, 90 have only clubs and knives, 40 have rifles given by the French, and 20 have sporting rifles bought out of village funds...
Fifty times in the last year, Bai Trang has been attacked by Ho's guerrillas. Another attack could come at any moment. But for three months now there has been no attack. Says Nguyen Van Tin: "I think they have learned the lesson that in this village we are organized. If one of Ho's men hides his arms, the French soldiers can't tell whether he is a guerrilla or a harmless peasant. But I know them all -for miles around. The Communists we shoot on sight, Mister Reporter. The others, who are only...
Rifles held in readiness, the anti-Communist youth of Bai Trang stood with their backs to the village, scanning the fields for marauders. The black-gowned notables clasped hands between their knees and bowed from the hips. As my jeep rattled off, Nguyen Van Tin shouted...