Those Who Must Die

Dongxoai was buttoning up for the night. A few hundred yards down the road from the tiny district capital, 55 miles north of Saigon, 24 U.S. seabees and soldiers were resting after a hard day's work building a Special Forces fort. Suddenly the radio in the darkened home of the district chief crackled, and a sentry on Dongxoai's unfinished airstrip blurted: "The Viet Cong are all over." In an instant, everything came unbuttoned: Communist mortar fire sent hot shrapnel up the village streets, recoilless-rifle shells slammed home, the night air buzzed with bullets. Then out of the ground fog swarmed wave upon wave of Viet Cong shock troops--some clad incongruously in breechclouts and steel helmets, all armed either with grenades, automatic rifles or Chinese flamethrowers.

The defenders fell back on a wall and wire-bound compound as the Viet Cong slaughtered women and children hiding in nearby dugouts. Though U.S. and North Vietnamese planes arrived with the dawn, rolling great red gouts of napalm through the Communist positions and lacing the underbrush with white phosphorus and cannon fire, the Viet Cong hung on. A relief force fluttered in by helicopter, but was quickly pinned down and wiped out by the attackers. Other chopper-borne rescuers were driven off by ground fire. Dongxoai seemed ready to fall.

Deadly Draw. Then, in a bold gamble, Army Brigadier General Cao Van Vien, commander of South Viet Nam's III Corps, employed the rarest of weapons in the Saigon arsenal: imagination. Guessing that the Viet Cong had already overrun the protected jungle clearings where relief helicopters could be expected to land, Vien sent 40 choppers loaded with troops swooping suddenly onto a soccer field adjacent to the defenders' compound. Before the Viet Cong could react, the bulk of the 52nd Ranger Battalion was on the ground and fighting. By the following morning, the Communist attackers had had enough. They faded like smoke into the jungle, leaving behind 700 dead. The defenders' toll was terrible too: at least 108 dead (including 18 Americans), 46 wounded, 126 missing and presumed dead. Along the defense perimeter lay twelve disemboweled children. An American, his body as black and twisted as a burnt match, sprawled among the debris in the Special Forces camp, his dog tags soldered to his bones and his charred pet monkey clinging, even in death, to his back. The Dongxoai church was cluttered with severed heads; bodies of South Vietnamese soldiers used as human shields lay bound and eviscerated.

Relief troops arriving to press the retreating Viet Cong looked around, vomited, then ate their rice and moved out. Marching through the monsoon rain past giant anthills and through a sepulchral rubber plantation, they came on the rolling field where the first relief force had been surrounded and wiped out. Sixty bodies lay beneath the bright green trees, while wounded flapped like broken butterflies.

Dongxoai was another savage battle in an ever more savage war and, as usual, neither side could claim a clear-cut victory. But the deadly draw at Dongxoai last week proved one thing beyond dispute: when he has to, the South Vietnamese fighting man will stand and die with the bravest. No matter what the ultimate U.S. ground role in Viet Nam becomes, it is the forces of Saigon that will carry the brunt of the battle--and of the dying. To that extent, victory or defeat rests in the hands of South Viet Nam's 580,000 soldiers, sailors, marines, airmen, and militiamen. Who are they, and how well do they perform?

The Regulars. Most impressive are the regular ground forces, consisting of the 227,000-man Army of the Republic of Viet Nam (A.R.V.N.) and the 6,500-man Marine Corps. Best of the lot: the airborne brigade, whose six battalions are kept in reserve to cool hot spots all over the country. Airborne officers adhere to the old French traditions of never firing their side arms in combat and never taking cover under enemy attack. As one Australian veteran, watching them in action last week, remarked: "They're bloody good troopers, but they tend to solve every tactical problem by charging."

Running a close second to the airborne brigade in fighting effectiveness are the marines--formerly the Tonkinese Commandos, as the French chose to call them. Currently the pride of the marines is Major Nguyen The Luong, 32, known to his American counterparts as "Laughing Larry." A slender little man with a nervous giggle, Laughing Larry wears a chestful of decorations (including Viet Nam's Medal of Honor) and scars from a Viet Cong 60-mm. mortar shell. His 3rd Marine Battalion was the only group involved in the disaster at Quangngai (TIME, June 11) to emerge in good shape. Larry kept his casualties down by constantly moving his men back and forth along the barbed-wire lip of a water-filled moat to avoid Red mortars. In the interim they killed 200 Viet Cong --including a battalion commander carrying plans that pointed out Red buildup zones, supply areas, aid stations and reserve locations.

Laughing Larry Luong fights the Viet Cong because he is a professional soldier, and also because the Communists killed his peasant father by dragging him across a thorny durian patch, then burying him up to his neck for several days before decapitating him. Larry customarily shoots Viet Cong prisoners, giggling the while, not because he is cruel, but because he knows that if he hands them over to local authorities, they would only be released to rejoin the Communists.

The Militiamen. Largest and longest-suffering of Saigon's forces is the paramilitary, which takes an estimated 65% of South Viet Nam's annual casualties.

Paramilitary duty is also the loneliest and dreariest, since the militiamen--Popular Forces (150,000 men), Regional Forces (105,000), Federal Police (50,000) and Civilian Irregular Defense Group (15,000)--are primarily guards in back-country bogs infested by the Viet Cong. They are the first to be hit.

A typical militia outpost is Tanlong, some 20 miles southeast of Saigon. At night the capital's lights loom on the horizon, but none of the 14 men on duty can afford to look at them: the Viet Cong snipe constantly. The Tanlong outpost consists of six foxholes, all half-full of slimy water. A mortar pit, with its precious weapon covered carefully in canvas, stands near by, flanked by four ancient Vietnamese graves whose massive headstones provide the outpost's only cover.

In the evening, before the Communists begin shooting, the voices of men, women and children in Longthu village, just 1,000 yards away, drift clearly over the paddyfields to Tanlong. This is the toughest part of the day for Corporal Bui Van Tu, at 40 the oldest member of the platoon. Submachine-Gunner Tu's wife and two children live in Longthu, and half of his $34-a-month pay goes to keep them in rice. Tu has not had any leave since the three days off he got in 1963, sees his family only once every five weeks. But Tu is philosophical about it. "We had to choose one side or another," he explains candidly, "and we chose the government side. It's too late to change even if we wanted to."

The Airmen. Most rapidly growing of Saigon's military arms is the Vietnamese air force. Two years ago, it mustered 6,000 men and 185 aircraft --many of them ancient T-28 trainers converted to fighter-bombers. Today the air force has 12,500 men and 350 planes. The T-28s have been phased out and replaced by the A-1H Skyraider attack bomber, a brute of a plane that pilots fondly call "a truck--but what a truck!" The air force's primary mission is to fly close support for the army, and, operating in close cooperation with U.S. pilots, it has developed into Asia's second best air force (only Nationalist China's is better equipped and better trained) under the flamboyant leadership of Air Boss Nguyen Cao Ky, who regularly flies strikes in his Skyraider.

Ky's stamp is clearly visible on the 83rd Detachment at Saigon's Tanson-hut airbase. Like their commander, the 83rd's pilots wear black flying suits with purple scarves. They call themselves Than Phong ("divine wind," the translation of the Japanese "kamikaze" of World War II). Boss of the 83rd is Hanoi-born Major Luu Kim Cuong, at 32 a 13-year veteran of Viet Nam's long war, and a confidant of Ky's. Cuong has logged more than 8,500 flying hours, taught himself to fly the Skyraider in a mere three days. He flew behind Ky in the first raid on North Viet Nam last February, returned with six holes in his plane. "I never look at the ground fire," he says. "If you do, you lose the target. And, to be truthful, I do not like to think about ground fire."

The Sailors. Strangest of South Viet Nam's services is the navy, whose duty it is to patrol 1,000 miles of cove-pocked coastline and almost 3,500 miles of inland waterways--rivers, creeks, canals, irrigation ditches and tidal bayous. In the flat, checkered Mekong Delta, waterways have been the main routes of travel for centuries. The 9,000 officers and men of South Viet Nam's navy keep these arteries open with 600 curious vessels, ranging from sampans and junks to converted landing craft. Armed with 20-and 40-mm. cannon, heavy machine guns, even 81-mm. mortars, the squat boats are practically floating tanks, and the Viet Cong have a healthy fear of them.

The Communists have special respect for Lieut. Commander Nguyen Thanh Chau, 32, and his 25th River Assault Group, a flotilla of gunboats headquartered at Cantho, 100 miles southwest of Saigon, but ranging through the whole delta. Born in the delta district, Chau knows every bridge, every bend in the waterways, every likely crossing point for Communist guerrillas. Chau prefers to conduct his fire fights with the Reds from the bridge of his command ship, a gunned-up LCM. "It's too hot below," says he, "and you can't see anything." Over the past year, Chau has lost only two boats, five men killed and eight wounded. By contrast, in a recent afternoon Chau's guns killed 33 Viet Cong. Chau himself took a bullet through the leg. He was back from the hospital in a week, on crutches and ready for action.

The Effects of Despair. In terms of overall performance, South Viet Nam's military establishment cannot be rated as anything better than middling. After all, it has neither won nor approached victory in eleven years of existence. Many units break and run in battle, as did the 39th Ranger Battalion earlier this year. The 39th became known as "the roadrunners." But during the Quangngai fight "the roadrunners" stood their ground on a conical hill called Nuitran. There 108 of them were wiped out, erasing in the process the slur on their battalion's name.

What are the faults of the South Vietnamese fighting man and how can they be corrected? The biggest problem, all observers agree, is leadership. Few field-grade officers are selected for know-how and courage; too many are chosen on the basis of family or political connections. Even officers with physical courage (and there are many) live under the fear that they will fall victim to the constant search for scapegoats by their superiors. Best way to avoid this: stay away from the fortunes--and misfortunes--of battle.

But even when they have good leadership, South Vietnamese soldiers are often too tired to fight. Many of them have been on line ten or 20 years without respite. As one retired army general put it: "It's impossible to understand the kind of fatigue a man feels after that much combat. It gets down deep into your bones and leaves you with no real hope." A side effect of that despair cropped up after the U.S. began its strikes to the North in February. Army desertions rose to more than 5,000 and paramilitary absenteeism jumped four times that high. The reason: South Vietnamese believed that U.S. airpower alone would win the war; hence, they were no longer needed. But when the Viet Cong stepped up their attacks at the beginning of the monsoon season, many of the deserters returned. The army's AWOL level alone has dropped to 3,200.

For all their failings, the South Vietnamese are still killing nearly three Viet Cong for every loss of their own (see chart). And despite the grim headlines about Quangngai and Dongxoai, the Reds have yet to capture and hold a district or provincial capital for more than a few hours. What South Viet Nam's fighting men need is relief, however momentary, to shed the fatigue and despair of too much combat. Only the U.S. and its allies can provide that respite. When they do, the leadership and combativeness exemplified by Corporal Tu and Laughing Larry Luong, Major Cuong and Lieut. Commander Chau, may well exert themselves in every service.

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