Word: conge
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...weeks, according to the American estimate, the number of North Vietnamese and Viet Cong dead by actual body count since Jan. 1, 1961, will pass 600,000 men and women. There have long been honest doubts about the accuracy of the body counts, and despite all the genuine efforts of the U.S. military to verify tolls and improve the accounting techniques, the doubts are not likely to vanish. The odd thing is that the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong may have suffered even more heavily than the Allied tallies indicate. American figures do not include the thousands of dead enemy...
Counting their battle dead, their captured, victims of fatal disease and the 140,400 who have deserted to the Saigon cause, the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces have probably been drained of about 1,640,400 men during the war. Applying such a loss to the U.S. population base (there are 21 million people in North Viet Nam, plus over 100,000 Viet Cong, v. 200 million in the U.S.), that would be the equivalent of about 15,500,000 Americans lost. And this does not even count the Vietnamese who have died in the U.S. bombings...
Strange Accent. Giap's biggest headache is manpower. The Communists have lost nearly 600,000 men since January 1961-comparable to a U.S. loss of more than 6,000,000 troops. Viet Cong units are so depleted that Giap must furnish at least 70% of the guerrillas despite his dwindling reservoir of manpower. Increasingly, both North Vietnamese and Viet Cong units are composed of teenagers. What is more, many of the Northerners are being sent to the southernmost Mekong Delta, a sector that is unfamiliar to them but is rapidly becoming one of the most crucial areas...
...Viet Cong fighters resent the intrusion of the Northerners, who often assume command positions despite their youth and inexperience. Delta peasants mock their strange accent, and resent their condescending manner. Captured Communist documents tell of locals who refuse to give shelter, medical treatment and even directions to Hanoi's soldiers. One document mentioned a shop owner who raised food prices 15% whenever a Northerner walked in. A defector interviewed by TIME Saigon Bureau Chief Marsh Clark said: "Not only was my unit not welcomed by the peasants; we weren't even allowed near them...
...still grow there. Twice the creatures died-as had corn seeds, and even sturdy coconut shoots. Stubbornly convinced that the earth would revive, the farmers tried a third time. Early one morning, as soon as Regional Force troops had cleared the mines and booby traps set by the Viet Cong the night before, the village elders made their way to the small plot where the earthworms were waging their struggle to survive. Writes Chu Thao...