Word: mekong
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...plate. As seat pads, the pieces of steel are not much comfort. But as protection from Red bullets, they often mean the difference between life and intestine-ripping death. "Pucker up, and pray," is the cry over the intercoms as the brave men who fly the choppers into the Mekong Delta head off toward the land of vertical gunfire...
Last week, neither steel plates nor prayers helped the hapless men who died in the biggest helicopter airlift of the Viet Nam war. Wave after wave of choppers-27 in all-droned onto an island in the mouth of the Mekong River 60 miles south of Saigon and disgorged 1,500 South Vietnamese marines, paratroopers and rangers. Simultaneously, in from the South China Sea swarmed an armada of junks and landing barges with another 1,000 men. On hand to observe the most ambitious strike against the Viet Cong in weeks were top brass, led by General Paul D. Harkins...
...commander in chief to Defense Minister General Tran Van Don. The latter, in turn, handed his post as chief of the joint general staff to another general, Le Van Kim. General Ton That Dinh gave up his command of the III Corps, which covers the northern half of the Mekong Delta; he had been trying to hold down the troop command along with the post of national security chief. Dinh was named Interior Minister, which gives him responsibility for the fortified hamlet program...
...Saigon airport before dawn, a swarm of helicopters sputtered to life, their whirling blades churning up misty contrails in the cool, damp air. Soon a formation of 13 "Hueys" (UH-1Bs) was airborne and droning away at 2,000 ft. Below, the light of day broke over the Mekong Delta, turning rivers and canals into silvery ribbons among the green paddyfields. Inside the choppers, men long hardened to possible death carefully crushed out their after-breakfast cigarettes...
...sprawled dead within the post: 16 women and children. The government chased the attackers in an operation involving 3,000 men, but the guerrillas vanished. Five more Americans apparently lost their lives -a sergeant shot in an ambush and four airmen aboard an RB-26 that crashed into the Mekong River...