SLOW ROAD BACK TO THE REAL WORLD

WHEN the President's Midway announcement crackled over transistor radios tuned to the Armed Forces Viet Nam Network last week, few G.I.s even paused in their tasks to listen to it. Rumors of troop withdrawals had been making the rounds in the war zone since peace talks got under way in Paris a year ago; when nothing happened, the results were skepticism and indifference. Then word reached the men of the U.S. 9th Infantry and 3rd Marine Divisions that some of them would be among the first 25,000 to be replaced by Vietnamese troops. Green second lieutenants and combat-toughened veterans ran through their unit areas, shouting and weeping for joy at the realization that, for them at least, the war would soon be over. "It's wonderful," said Specialist 4/C Charles M. Greene, 22, of Chicago, who was due for rotation in three days anyway. "I'm just sorry that it didn't come earlier so it could have helped some of my buddies who already got it."

Back home as well as in the field, the President's decision was both hailed as a constructive step and attacked as a token maneuver of little significance. Americans in uniform and in mufti have seen too many false starts toward peace to be carried away by what at best is a cautious attempt at disengagement. One cynical draftee dismissed it as "strictly political." Another G.I. saw the move as evidence that "something is being accomplished." That division of opinion spoke for the capital and the country at large.

By itself, the subtraction by August of 25,000 men from the 537,500 Americans now in South Viet Nam hardly represents an overwhelming change in the arithmetic of U.S. commitment. Yet it is a tangible and substantive measure that is part of a larger strategy. For the first time since the initial contingent of 35 American military advisers arrived in Indo-China in 1950--it was the French-Viet Minh war then--the level of U.S. participation in the conflict is going down, not up. So is the draft call, which is dropping more than 3,000 in July to the lowest monthly figure so far this year. Richard Nixon's approach may fail. The effect on the Paris negotiations may be nil (see following story). The North Vietnamese could choose to increase rather than reduce their military effort. Despite these caveats, it is also possible that Nixon's tactics could start a downward trend on the violence scale.

Formless and Ferocious

The individual fighting men, like soldiers in all wars, are relatively unconcerned with the big picture. In the 9th Division, which will part with its 1st and 2nd Brigades, and in the 3rd Marines, which will detach its 9th regimental landing team, some men began packing their bags. Many were already nearing the end of their tour; others still had several months to serve. Fighting in a war of attrition, in which kill ratios are more important than territorial objectives, they have come to believe that their one-year tour of duty is something to be endured. For most, personal survival is victory enough. Thus, for the ones ticketed to leave, a kind of happy ending to this formless, ferocious war has approached.

For the 512,500 men who will remain behind when the first chosen units depart Viet Nam for other stations in the Pacific, or in the case of 8,000 men, for the U.S., the war goes on. To the majority, the withdrawals remain little more than a gesture. Those just beginning tours in the combat zone might hope for future troop cuts. But few look beyond the next patrol. "Man, it doesn't mean nothing," said a member of a 25th Division weapons platoon on hearing the news, and his remarks were echoed by most of the men in his unit. Some servicemen share the views of Sergeant Merle Edmunds, 34, a twelve-year veteran whose unit has been "taking a hell of a beating up there" at Dak To. "It sort of looks as if we ought to be putting some more troops in," says Edmunds. Specialist 4/C Francis E. Rodriguez, 21, of San Juan, Puerto Rico, a rifleman in the 9th's 2nd Brigade, agrees. "I think our biggest mistake was stopping the bombing up North," he says. "As soon as we pull out, there's going to be beaucoup trouble."

To most G.I.s, the withdrawal is a political rather than a military move, and one that will have little immediate effect on either them or the war. "This business is meant to pacify the folks at home," commented a military policeman in Saigon. "We're going to stay here for a long time." Pfc. Jimmy Poston, born in Guam, a 20-year-old draftee who serves as an assistant gunner in a mortar platoon, is also unfazed. "All the political speeches and stuff don't mean anything when you're over here," he says. "Boy, you know they were talking about Viet Nam when I was 15."

Movie Theater Meeting

The first phase of the withdrawal was worked out during a three-day meeting at the Hawaii headquarters of Admiral John McCain, Commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific. A team of 100 military and civilian Defense Department experts, who gathered in a movie theater, reviewed the already prepared top-secret folders and quickly made the decision on which troops to start pulling out of Viet Nam. The two 9th Infantry brigades and the Marine regimental combat team include roughly 17,000 men. They will be joined by about another 8,000 rear-echelon and naval personnel. The total number of American servicemen in the country will go down by less that 5%--but U.S. ground combat strength will be reduced by nearly 10%.

The decision to withdraw some of their units came as a surprise to both the Army and the Marine divisions. The Marines occupy battle posts near Viet Nam's northern borders and have been involved in frequent clashes recently. The upper Mekong Delta, where the 9th is stationed, is a logical place from which to withdraw two brigades, since it is the only area where the South Vietnamese army (ARVN) already does the lion's share of the fighting. But the 9th is the only major U.S. unit in the heavily populated and strategically important delta, and one of the most efficient in the country, using such hit-and-run tactics as night raids and ambushes to rack up the highest kill counts of any allied outfit.

Many G.I.s question whether the Army of South Viet Nam is ready to take up the slack. "I won't say the ARVNs won't do nothing," says Pfc. Willis V. Tapscott, a 20-year-old draftee from Yuma, Ariz., "but you gotta kick 'em in the ass to fight. When you go on a sweep with them, they spend their time picking fruit and stealing chickens." High-level officers disagree, but few U.S. servicemen in the lower ranks feel any real kinship with their Vietnamese allies, and fewer still believe in the cause for which they are fighting.

What they do believe in is the "real world"--the Viet Nam G.I.s' way of describing home, or any pleasant place outside the war zone. For those about to become Viet vets, homecoming promises to be quiet. Unlike his World War II counterpart, who was welcomed back with speeches and victory parades and given an eagle to wear in his lapel, the alumnus of the inconclusive Viet Nam war can expect little more than a grateful welcome from his family, an occasional harangue from a college cousin, and a few questions or silence from everyone else. Those who have already returned quickly learned that lesson.

Robert Hammer, 26, of Austin, Texas, who served as a clerk-typist at Chu Lai, found neither flags nor bunting on his return to civilian life recently. "I didn't run into a single person who felt that the war was a good thing," he says. "They reacted to me like a flu victim--someone who has undergone an unfortunate experience and then recovered." Former Infantry Captain Michael McGreevy, 27, of San Francisco, found his friends generally unwilling to discuss the war and unable to understand his reasons for volunteering to fight in it. "I usually avoid all arguments on it," McGreevy says.

Most of the returned G.I.s seem to be making the adjustment from military to civilian life with little difficulty. Dozier T. James, 26, a Negro alumnus of the 25th Division, has overcome his dread of nightfall and finds it takes far less discipline to step aboard a city bus to go to his post office job in Atlanta than it did to -lead a patrol into a dark, enemy-infested jungle. Rich Magoria, 23, of San Bruno, Calif., a former 9th Division machine gunner whose career as a college football player was cut short when a Viet Cong mine shattered part of his skull, has enrolled at the College of San Mateo and has resumed his service-interrupted social life. He supports the war effort, is disheartened by those who oppose it, because "they don't know too much about it."

The rapid demobilization that followed World War II, releasing millions of men into the economy in a short period of time, threatened severe economic dislocation. No such problems are anticipated from the gradual withdrawal planned by the Nixon Ad ministration. The Veterans Administration is currently at work processing -- and the booming economy is absorb ing -- 70,000 new veterans every month. Unemploy ment is now at a record low of 3.5%, so that even if the Government were to release 25,000 men into the 77,264,000-man labor force at once, their numbers would be statistically insignificant. As it is, men leaving Viet Nam normally serve out the remainder of their hitch in the U.S. before being discharged.

Public and private agencies, meanwhile, are helping veterans to make the transition from soldier to employee. The Pentagon and Labor Department, backed by the unions, are cooperating with companies like Ford, General Motors and IBM to train unskilled G.I.s as auto mechanics, business-machine repairmen and pipefitters under "Project Transition." The Greater At lanta Veterans League has been helping from 30 to 40 discharged servicemen find jobs each month. The Urban League has an active employment program for black veterans. New York City's Division of Veterans Affairs has found jobs as taxi drivers for 180 recently dis charged veterans who were in immediate financial need.

Education Programs

The country's educational institutions, nearly inundated by ex-servicemen after World War II, are expecting no similar invasion by Viet Nam returnees. Where 50% of World War II veterans took advantage of the G.I. Bill of Rights to get themselves a college education, only 19% of eligible veterans are presently enrolled in Government-sponsored education programs. College officials, pointing out that liberal student deferments have allowed a greater number of draftees to finish their education before entering the service, predict no sizable increase in this figure. Nor are most schools prepared to give Viet Nam returnees any special consideration. U.C.L.A. Admissions Officer Wesley Robinson anticipates that "all things be ing equal, we would give veterans a break in deciding who gets accepted and who doesn't." But he notes that only 12% of California's graduating high school seniors are even eligible to apply for admission, and stresses that "veterans with poor records will not get in."

In fact, only highly motivated veterans with good part-time jobs or parental sup port are likely to even apply for admission to most tuition-charging schools. While servicemen returning to the campus after World War II found the Government willing to pay for their tuition and books and provide them with allowances of $75 a month and up, campus-bound Viet vets will get only a basic $130 a month for everything, a sum that will not even cover full-time tuition in most private colleges.

Same Status

Senators Jacob Javits and Ralph Yarborough have filed a bill that would hike basic college benefits to $190. Nothing has been done, however, to make another G.I. Bill benefit--the G.I. mortgage--more available. Back in the years following World War II, some 5,388,000 veterans used the Government-guaranteed loans to purchase homes. But today, few if any G.I. mortgages are being written at all. Banks, which blame tight money, say the mortgages are unprofitable business. Milton Williams, a 21-year-old Negro, had hoped to use the $1,000 he managed to save from his Army pay to buy a home in Queens and escape with his parents from Brooklyn's Bedford-Stuyvesant slum. Although he works as a meter reader by day and a taxi driver at night--and goes to Queens Community College in between--no bank will write him a G.I. mortgage.

The experience of Williams arid others suggests that the majority of veterans return to civilian life at roughly the status they left it. Despite the tremendous impact of the war on national life, the country as a whole has managed to maintain a peacetime psychology. Prosperity, rather than his military service, assures the typical veteran of a job. Most of those who end up in college or vocational training programs would probably have had the same opportunity without Viet Nam. It has been a nasty, inglorious war that most Americans did not understand and would prefer to forget. Of necessity, some of this negative feeling rubs off on the men who have fought valiantly in it. But for them, it is enough to be back in the real world.

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