Word: nams
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...terms of sheer size, South Viet Nam's military establishment is impressive. Counting Army, Air Force, Navy, and various paramilitary forces, it totals 1,022,000 under arms. Another 1,500,000 belong to local self-defense forces, armed with a number of outdated but still reasonably effective weapons. Regular soldiers have seen their equipment steadily improve in quality. The U.S. was slow to supply the best weapons to South Viet Nam's forces. But now all 185 maneuver battalions of the Army of the Republic of Viet Nam (ARVN) are equipped with U.S.-supplied M-16 assault...
...system was so poor that soldiers could never count on their letters and remittances reaching home. Caught in a war that promised to be endless, led by officers who often owed their jobs to bribery or political clout, yearning to return to their families and their hamlets, South Viet Nam's soldiers fought either poorly...
...Before, every man averaged 20 days a month on operations; now, they average 28. This means that men are on patrol, on search missions or night ambushes, almost every day." So far, there has been little combat-in keeping with the recent passivity of the enemy throughout South Viet Nam. But two North Vietnamese regiments (about 1,200 men) are reported to have infiltrated into the Delta since the G.I.s departed...
...DEMILITARIZED ZONE: Far to the North, near the 17th parallel, there is concern as well. By Dec. 15, the 18,500 men of the U.S. 3rd Marine Division will have been withdrawn, leaving the gap to be filled by ARVN's 1st Division. The U.S. Commander in Viet Nam, General Creighton Abrams, calls the 1st the equal of any American division in the country. In line with its slogan, "More sweat in training, less blood in combat," it gives each trooper an extra five weeks of special training, and its combat record is excellent. Though it is twice...
SAIGON: Spotted around the capital are three divisions that are generally conceded to be South Viet Nam's most ineffectual. A U.S. general calls the 5th "absolutely the worst outfit I've ever seen," and a Vietnamese General Staff member was quoted as saying that until last year the 25th was "the worst division ever to enter any battlefield east of Suez." In the past year, both divisions have improved slightly, as has the lightly regarded 18th Division. Now that the U.S. is withdrawing the 3rd Brigade of the 82nd Airborne Division, the defense of Saigon rests...