Word: ragtag
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...Nigeria last year led to the civil war, and the Northern-dominated army has given Biafrans little cause to believe that they can escape the same fate. Major General Yakubu Gowon, the head of the federal government, has tried to keep his men in line, but without much success. Ragtag recruits who "mop up" after Gowon's armies have joined local tribesmen brandishing machetes and cutlasses in "Ibo hunts." In the Midwest, they rounded up thousands of Ibo and marched them into the bush for slaughter...
Less fortunate were several thousand Egyptian soldiers still in Sinai. Trying to make their way home, they wandered in ragtag bands, thirsting and starving in the choking wastes, often lost, wounded and without shoes. Israeli loudspeaker trucks roamed the Sinai urging them to surrender. When they did, they were given food and drink...
...bicycle parts; a water pipe frequently became a mortar. Then Soviet and Red Chinese arms began trickling down the Ho Chi Minh trail, and the gradual buildup began. Lately, the buildup has intensified, bringing the Viet Cong an abundance of modern weapons and ammunition. "There is no longer anything ragtag, bobtail or worn out about their main-force weapons," says Major General Joseph A. McChristian, senior American intelligence officer in Viet Nam. "They are first rate." What is more, says McChristian, "we rarely receive reports now of any Viet Cong shortages of small-arms ammunition-or any kind of ammunition...
...heroine is Fullie, who is convinced that she turns into a tree on fine spring nights and hasn't a single human friend in the world. She goes to camp hoping to find a few, but of course finds herself instead. A ragtag regiment of girls from eleven to 13, led by captains and lieutenants of 16 or so, pitch camp for two weeks on the Isle of Wight. They leave half their supplies behind on the boat, neglect to put the kettle on for tea; on the second morning, all that is left to feed the whole Brownie...
...been fought to a standstiil by tribesmen loyal to the ousted Imam Badr, who holds the hills and sustains his ragged army with supplies and arms from Feisal. Of late, however, Nasser has had less trouble fending off Feisal's royalist friends than in keeping in line the ragtag republican regime he sponsors in Yemen's capital...