Word: combative
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Truth - the whole truth - is an inevitable casualty of any war, if only because it is often drowned in the din of combat or smothered by the demands of security. This is particularly so in a war as complex as that in Viet Nam, which has ignored most of the time-honored tenets of military experience. Last week the U.S. was exposed to a spate of assertions, contradictions and speculations about the Vietnamese war that illustrated both the strength of a democratic society and the frustration of searching for clear answers to elusive problems. From it all, one sobering message...
...past year, the allies have not been able to increase their troop-strength advantage of 4 to 1, despite the influx of Americans. Although the Communists in the first seven months of 1966 have had 25,250 men killed-more than three times the number of allied combat dead-and lost another 15,000 in prisoners and defectors, the latest intelligence reports put total Communist troop strength in South Viet Nam at 280,000, a net increase of 50,000 since January...
...Communists also have an effective "recruiting" program that still supplies between 10,000 and 15,000 men a month. Many of these recruits-as well as much of the rice on which the Viet Cong live-come from the Mekong Delta region, a huge area in which, instead of combat units, the U.S. has advisory teams that work with the South Vietnamese army. Because the Viet Cong are able to operate so freely in the Delta, apparently as the result of at least a partial accommodation with the South Vietnamese, the U.S. believes that the war cannot be successfully concluded...
...apparently, it was enough that some attention was being given to them. Otologist Glorig found in other experiments that factory employees made more mistakes both when noise was turned on and when it was turned off. Continuous music has been found to make cows give more milk, and to combat tedium and raise production in offices and factories. Muzak, a leading piper of auditory tonic, has different programs for factory (brassier), office (subtler), supermarket (a combination of the two), and travel, mainly for airplanes. Plane fare is carefully screened for content; Stormy Weather and I Don't Stand...
...Secret of Santo Vittoria (Simon & Schuster) by Robert Crichton, 41, a World War II combat veteran, is very likely the funniest war novel since Mister Roberts. The Troy of his hilarious Iliad is a wine-producing village in southern Italy, a town so poor in everything, including fertilizer, that its inhabitants stalk oxen with a broom and a pan. The Hector of the tale is the village mayor, a paisano whose native cunning has been reinforced by the study of Machiavelli. The Agamemnon of the story is a German captain assigned to rob the village of its only precious possession...