Word: lam
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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JUST five weeks after they plunged confidently into the jungles of Laos, the best troops of South Viet Nam were engaged last week in a perilous and bloody battle to get out. Whether Operation Lam Son 719, as the Laotian invasion is officially called, could be judged a success or a setback was still a matter of considerable debate (see box next page). Beyond debate, however, was the fact that some units of the South Vietnamese army (ARVN) had been badly cut up in the fighting, and that North Viet Nam seemed ready and willing to sacrifice casualties...
...educated Montagnard remarked bitterly that the relocation centers in Darlac surrounded by Vietnamese-occupied land "look like Indian reservations." He suspects that Vietnamese policy is aimed at making rural proletariat out of relocated Montagnards, noting that in Lam Dong Province as well, Vietnamese relocated Montagnards near a tea plantation. "They will have to sell their labor in order to survive," he said. "It will be a kind of slavery...
Teodoru asked the council to change its policy slightly and to sponsor a trip for students to which the council agreed, after Teodoru convinced Tran Van Lam, then head of the council and now south Vietnam's Foreign Minister...
...shot up. Since the Laotian operation began on Feb. 8, the loss rate of U.S. helicopters -normally about one per 16,000 sorties -has quadrupled. So far during the Laos operation, Communist gunners have knocked out no fewer than 61 helicopters, about 10% of the fleet originally committed to Lam Son 719. More than 160 other birds have been brought down but later hauled back to their bases by other choppers. A total of 31 U.S. crewmen have been killed, 44 wounded, and ten listed as missing...
Chopper pilots earn every penny they get. In one company at Khe Sanh called the Lancers, the pilots have organized a pool; the pot-$5 from each aircraft commander-goes to the ship with the greatest accumulation of bullet holes when Lam Son finally ends (choppers that crash are disqualified). Says soft-spoken Huey Pilot John Oldham. 22, of Peculiar, Mo.: "If you think about getting killed, it will screw you up. You just do the job you are trained for." Over Laos, where the elaborate Communist antiaircraft system is especially potent, the pilots fly high-but not on grass...