Word: quang
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...QUANG TRI province, according to a Vietnamese proverb, is a place where "dog eats stone and chicken eats salt." It is easy to appreciate this bit of folk wisdom, writes Aikman. The ugly garbage of war still sprawls obscenely on either side of Highway 1, Viet Nam's major coastal artery. Thousands of U.S.-made shell casings are piled in dull gray heaps. Now and then a refugee village, with its ludicrously colored wooden packing-case houses, appears on the horizon. As one drives closer to Quang Tri city, however, nothing but the rusting carcasses of trucks, ambulances...
...Quang Tri city itself is total desolation. As far as the eye can see there is nothing but rubble-this and the protesting skeletons of former hospitals, offices and shops, as well as the blanketing mud that seems to follow lasciviously in the wake of war. Once home for 15,000 people, Quang Tri looks like Berlin in May 1945. It does, however, contain about 4,000 South Vietnamese troops, who are holding what General Lam Quang Thi, deputy commander of Military Region I, calls "the northern front." Although secure for the moment, it is a narrow front indeed. Across...
...them are some of the best troops Hanoi can put in the field: elements of the 304th, 308th, 312th and 320th NVA Divisions, recently reinforced by regiments from the 325th, which had been stationed in Laos. Both sides have suffered heavily in the fighting. During October and November, Quang Tri was shelled by 2,000 to 3,000 rounds of artillery and rocket fire every day; more recently, 500 rounds a day has been the average figure. The South Vietnamese estimate that their losses have been around 200 a week; air strikes and suicidal attacks against well-held South Vietnamese...
...South Vietnamese seem to be winning the battle for Quang Tri city, but they still have some major problems. The airborne division and the marines are the only strategic reserves that Saigon possesses. If there was a troop breakdown in other sectors of the South-the Delta, say-both units might well have to be pulled out of Quang Tri and thrown into the breach, thereby calling into question the gains so far attained on the northern front. Supplies and reinforcements must be flown from Saigon by U.S. Air Force C-130s operating out of Thailand. Reason: there...
Nonetheless, South Vietnamese troops in Quang Tri are prepared to fight hard in spite of the peace talks, about which they remain highly skeptical. Said one lieutenant: "It is all a game to deceive...