Word: delta
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Communist troops into South Viet Nam since January. The 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...
Some military sources feel that the U.S. will eventually need four divisions in the Delta, but the Pentagon scoffs at that figure, insists it will be much lower. The White House is also concerned by the amount of materiel now being stockpiled by the North Vietnamese in the demilitarized zone, and there is some speculation that U.S. troops may-have to go in and clean it out. Military commanders in Viet Nam are counting on a reserve call-up to make regular units available to them before the end of the year, and the Senate Appropriations Committee last week urged...
Since American manpower in South Viet Nam has been engaged most spectacularly with the Viet Cong or North Vietnamese regulars in the northern half of the country, the daily headlines tend to overlook another sprawling sector of the war: the Mekong Delta below Saigon. In terms of bullets fired and casualties recorded, the Delta is a good deal quieter than it was two years ago. But it has hardly lost its importance...
...Support Group in Viet Nam, earning frowns from higher-ups for spending as much time manning machine guns and riding helicopters as he did at his Saigon desk. On one occasion, Stilwell helped carry out the wounded after being trapped by Viet Cong fire in the Mekong Delta, later became the only American general wounded in Viet Nam when enemy ground fire riddled a chopper he was riding. An inveterate skydiver, he returned to the U.S. only to suffer fractures of the back, pelvis and both heels when his parachute failed to open properly during a free-fall jump...
...beach smashers had to learn to become pinpoint artillerists. It was no easy task. The spin-stabilized 5-in. rocket is not nearly so accurate as a naval rifle shell. Moreover, no one knew if the squat, underpowered ships could safely negotiate Viet Nam's tortuous Mekong River Delta-a prime necessity if their rockets' five-mile strike range was to be applied effectively against inland Viet Cong installations. Slowly but steadily, the rocket men overcame the built-in limitations of their ships and in the process wrote a new manual on shore bombardment...