Word: guam
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Down the gangplanks of the first rescue ships to reach Guam filed thousands of refugees who had fled the Vietnamese coast in small boats-barefoot, poor and bandy-legged, bringing little more with them than the soiled, flimsy clothing they wore, carrying infants and small bundles of belongings. They were not the endangered elite of a fallen nation, but instead plain soldiers, fishermen and gnarled farmers. One wealthy Vietnamese immigrant who watched them said superciliously: "You can tell by their accents that they are only peasants. They are the wrong people. They should never have come. They will only make...
...citizens or permanent residents. Another 34,000 were quartered temporarily at the three resettlement centers: Eglin Air Force Base in Florida, Fort Chaffee in Arkansas and Camp Pendleton in California (see following story). The remaining 67,000 refugees were still at or en route to U.S. bases on Guam, Wake Island and the Philippines...
...first refugees to reach the U.S. came largely from Viet Nam's professional classes-doctors, dentists, lawyers, office workers, military officers, and their families. Said one U.S. Army doctor at the refugee center on Guam: "They were the VIPS, the cream of the crop, all first-class passengers. Some of the women even wore jewels to the physicals." But last week the rest of Viet Nam's uprooted were making their way to a new life in the U.S. They presented a much different sight...
Despite the screening in Guam, some obviously unqualified refugees reached the U.S. Parts of Pendleton resembled Saturday night in Saigon, as bar girls clad in tight-fitting slacks flirted with Marines. An Air Force officer admitted that the eight women accompanying him were not, strictly speaking, dependents. "I'm not married to any of them, and I'm not related to any of them either," he said. "I met them when I was stationed in Nam, and I felt I had to get them out. The authorities must have known I was lying, but they realized...
Stretching the Legs. The Sixth Fleet also boasts amphibious forces, which can land 2,000 combat Marines supported by helicopters and vertical-takeoff harrier planes from small mobile carriers like the Guam. Every two months or so, the landing force "stretches its legs" with an amphibious exercise in Spain or Sardinia...