Word: conge
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Back in Saigon, fellow correspondents concluded that the Viet Cong had captured the Dudman group after it finally got past the roadblock. Morrow, whose wife was born in Hanoi, speaks Vietnamese, so there was hopeful speculation that he could explain their noncombative role as journalists. In fact, each of the three has criticized U.S. military involvement in Indochina. In 1963 Dudman was even refused a visa by South Viet Nam after he wrote articles unfavorable to the Diem regime...
Unhappily, Operation Ranch Hand also undermines the allies' efforts to win the minds of the Vietnamese. "The Viet Cong have made tremendous capital out of defoliation," says Jean-Paul Poliniere, agronomist with Viet Nam's Technical Service Institute. "They've told the peasants, The Americans want to take all your food away so you will be dependent on them for all time.' Sometimes the peasants believe them...
...Vietnamese survivors viewed the attack. "I have no idea why the G.I.s come and do this thing," said one despairing grandmother, who had watched much of her family perish. "I am too old. I just want to die." Most of the survivors had been told by the Viet Cong that Americans would rape and kill them if U.S. forces ever reached their village. Ironically, they had doubted the Viet Cong charge because a number of G.I.s had come through before and handed out candy to the children...
Wrong Village? How could American troops behave that way? Hammer contends that the attack was partly a mistake; misreading their confusing maps, Charlie Company hit a hamlet occupied only by civilians, instead of another that was near by and known to be held by tough troops of the Viet Cong's 48th Battalion. When the G.I.s met no resistance, they did not stop shooting. Both writers quote members of the company who claim that Captain Medina ordered them to kill everything in the village, and some who declare he took part in the killing himself. Both books quote soldiers...
...perspective. He argues, surprisingly, that for most rural Vietnamese the years of warfare have rarely affected daily living. Only the nature of village tax collectors changed with the change of regimes-from the French, years ago, to various Saigon governments. There was not even much difference when the Viet Cong began controlling the village. The big change came, Hammer contends, when massive American forces transformed guerrilla warfare into a conflict in which killing became impersonal-with napalm attacks, free-fire zones and search-and-destroy missions like the one conducted...