Word: thieu
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When the French came back in 1945, Thieu, like so many of his countrymen, chose patriotism over ideology and enlisted in the Viet Minh, the forerunners of the Viet.Cong. He was a district chief, but his awakening came quickly: "By August of 1946, I knew the Viet Minh were Communists. They shot people. They overthrew the village committee. They seized the land." Thieu decided that the Communists were Viet Nam's real enemy, and he sneaked off to Saigon. There he tried the merchant marine and won an officer's rating, but he turned down a billet...
...Chicken Vendor. The French were just then opening up their first officer class for the newly created Vietnamese army. Thieu enlisted and graduated at 26 with a second lieutenant's commission and orders to take command of an infantry platoon in the Delta. It was Viet Minh country, and the platoon got a hostile reception. For two weeks, the peasants would not even sell it any food. Then one day the Viet Minh mortared Thieu's little camp. After the bombardment, an old man suddenly appeared with eggs and chickens to sell. "I knew why he had come...
...Thieu was neither stupid nor sentimental in the field. In 1954, promoted to major, he found himself leading an attack on the Viet Minh in his own village, Ninh Chu. The Communists retreated into Thieu's old home, confident that he would not fire on his own house. Says Thieu with grim satisfaction: "I shot in my own house." The only cause for criticism the young officer ever gave his superiors was an innate caution that made him less aggressive than they sometimes would have preferred-a reluctance to commit his troops to battle unless he felt absolutely sure...
...provide him with a reservoir of support among many middle-grade officers who look up to him as their teacher. His entree into politics came in December, 1962, when Diem assigned him to the command of the 5th, or Anti-Coup, Division, strategically positioned just north of Saigon. Thieu was put there because Diem did not trust the previous commander, Nguyen Due Thang, now Thieu's Minister for Revolutionary Development and one of the ablest Vietnamese officials around...
Diem's trust in Thieu was misplaced. Only eleven months later, the young colonel led one of the 5th Division's regiments in the coup against Diem. In the wake of Diem's overthrow, Thieu won his general's stars and the secretary-generalship of the junta that took over...