Word: home
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Back home as well as in the field, the President's decision was both hailed as a constructive step and attacked as a token maneuver of little significance. Americans in uniform and in mufti have seen too many false starts toward peace to be carried away by what at best is a cautious attempt at disengagement. One cynical draftee dismissed it as "strictly political." Another G.I. saw the move as evidence that "something is being accomplished." That division of opinion spoke for the capital and the country at large...
...most G.I.s, the withdrawal is a political rather than a military move, and one that will have little immediate effect on either them or the war. "This business is meant to pacify the folks at home," commented a military policeman in Saigon. "We're going to stay here for a long time." Pfc. Jimmy Poston, born in Guam, a 20-year-old draftee who serves as an assistant gunner in a mortar platoon, is also unfazed. "All the political speeches and stuff don't mean anything when you're over here," he says. "Boy, you know they were talking about...
What keeps Jaramillo going, he feels, is the letters that his girl, Lydia Terrazas, writes almost daily. Frantic with concern for his safety, she writes him: "Artie, you have so much to come home to, please don't be foolish, come home to me." Jaramillo saves the letters in an old ammunition case, reads them as many as 25 times, then burns them because he knows he has more coming. They provide a link with the "real world." Like most G.I.s, Jaramillo also strings good-luck medals around his neck -including, in his case, one blessed by the Pope...
...since coming over here. I got more responsibility-'cause it's my own ass I've gotta protect." If he succeeds at that task, his happiness at getting out alive will probably conquer whatever bitterness that Viet Nam may have left. "When you're flying home you feel like crying 'cause they got it so beautiful back there," he says. "Someday it will all be over...
...Vietnamese, Nixon advertised U.S. confidence?such as it is?in the combat readiness of Saigon's forces. He aims to convince the Communists that they must negotiate with Thieu and not hold out in the expectation of dealing with a more malleable successor. If Nixon can dull dissent at home while maintaining pressure in the field, the Communists may become more amenable to concluding a settlement in Pans or at least to scaling down the level of fighting...