There's Still a War On

WITH the next-to-final phase of the U.S. withdrawal from Viet Nam in sight at last, the war suddenly appeared to be not dwindling down but rapidly building up again. Last week, even as President Nixon was announcing the pullout of 70,000 more G.I.s by May 1, the North Vietnamese were carrying out an ominous new offensive in each of Indochina's major battlegrounds. > In Laos, Communist troops scored a stunning victory by forcing the evacuation of Long Cheng, the celebrated CIA base near the Plain of Jars. They also scattered the battered remnants of the U.S.-backed army of Meo tribesmen that was, until recently, the only force that could keep the Communists in check in Laos.

> In Cambodia, government troops continued to give ground to the North Vietnamese troops, who now control most of the northeastern countryside. At Krek, 2,500 Cambodian troops simply fled when the 10,000 South Vietnamese troops that had been operating with them in the former Communist "sanctuaries" were abruptly called home by Saigon. The Cambodians reportedly left so much equipment behind that U.S. aircraft were called upon to bomb it before it could be captured by the North Vietnamese.

> In South Viet Nam, Saigon forces took up defensive positions, primarily astride infiltration routes and around major cities and military bases, to await a sizable flare-up in Communist activity that is expected to peak at the time of the Tet holidays, which fall in mid-February. Meanwhile the North Vietnamese moved mobile missile launchers right up to South Viet Nam's northern frontiers, and the air war continued. The U.S. last week conducted its seventh "protective reaction" strike of the year against SAM sites in North Viet Nam.

Despite the poor results of the recent bombing, U.S. military officials insisted that the enemy was capable only of "cheap victories" in unimportant territory. Perhaps so, but the renewal of the ground war should dispel the notion, widespread in the U.S., that the fighting is over, at least for the American G.I. Technically, U.S. troops are indeed in a "defensive" posture, as the Administration calls it, because their main job is to protect American facilities. But for a good number of the 139,000 G.I.s still in Viet Nam, that job means endless patrols out in the boondocks under conditions that look very much like war.

In all probability, the last U.S. Army combat unit in Viet Nam will be the 7,000-man 3rd Brigade of the First Cavalry Division (Airmobile), which is responsible for the security of a vast area of Vietnamese countryside surrounding the huge American installations at Bien Hoa, Long Binh and the Tan Son Nhut airbase outside Saigon. Recently, TIME Correspondent Rudolph Rauch joined one 3rd Brigade company as it pushed off from a fire base 35 miles east of Saigon to begin a patrol in search of North Vietnamese infiltrators. His report:

Nobody in Charlie Company wanted to be where he was, and when we walked off Fire Base Hall and into the jungle, it was easy to sympathize. We marched as a company for an hour, then divided into three platoons. After two miles, the jungle gave way to incredibly thick undergrowth--not high enough to block out the sun and too dense to move through, either quickly or silently. Napalm strikes had killed all the tall trees whose shade once kept down the growth on the jungle floor.

Charlie Company was fresh from a weekend in the seaside resort of Vung Tau--a prized opportunity for revelry and relaxation that comes only once every 45 days. The company has no barracks, no dress uniforms (they are stored in boxes at Bien Hoa) and no personal possessions (letters are the only personal items allowed in the field). The Vung Tau weekend, which the men enjoy in fatigues, is the only break in an endless cycle of ten-to 15-day patrols and three-day rests on a fire base with no hot showers and few other amenities.

No Hammocks. We are supposed to patrol until 5 o'clock, when the rules say that the night defensive position should be set up. If a unit moves after 5, there is a danger that a contact might run on after darkness, making air support more difficult. But at 5 it is pouring rain, and we are still in scrub, which is not good for a night position because there are no trees big enough to stop enemy mortars. It is close to 6 when we find a few trees, and everybody starts putting up his hooch. I pull out my hammock. "No hammocks," says Sergeant Henry A. Johnson, a Virginian who has a master's degree in communications. "The C.O. doesn't allow them. Too vulnerable to mortars. The C.O. believes in being cautious."

"Line One." When we move out at dawn next morning, everyone is a bit more nimble, perhaps because the Vung Tau hangovers are gone. We walk all morning, stopping for a ten-minute break each hour. At the noon break, the radio sputters with orders from the battalion commander to a unit that has made contact with the enemy five miles away. There was an ambush; one American was killed when he walked into an NVA bunker complex. Another is wounded and a helicopter is down. The battalion commander, flying overhead in his helicopter, says he is going in to pick up the downed pilot. His chopper is loaded with electronic gear and it is too heavy for any task that requires acrobatics. "Jesus, Colonel, be careful," whispers the radio operator, Pfc. Erik Lewis, 21. The rescue is successful.

Lewis tells me that a "Line One" (meaning a G.I. combat death in army jargon) "happens just rare enough so that nobody at home knows about it. But if you're out here, your peace outlook goes straight to zero." And, he adds, "I'm going to kill as many of those mothers as I can."

Charlie Company's commander. Captain Thomas D. Smith, was a young lawyer about to open an office in Omaha when he was drafted in 1966. Since then Smith, who is about to turn 30, has seen a number of "Line Ones." In the first two weeks of the new year, the 3rd Brigade suffered two killed and 34 wounded in skirmishes with its chief opponent, the 33rd NVA regiment, which prowls the jungles east of Saigon. The only way to stay alive in the jungle. Smith believes, is to keep moving. "You stop pushing and they'll walk all over you," he says.

At 10 a.m. on the third day, we are crouched over a small stream refilling canteens when the radio crackles: we are going to be dropped by copter into the area where the G.I.s had been ambushed yesterday. We move to the nearest landing zone --and wait. Finally, at 1 p.m. the helicopters show up to ferry us in a flotilla of six-man groups to the assault landing zone. I ride in the third chopper (the fourth or fifth is thought to be the most desirable) with Sergeant Henry R. Campbell of Newington, Conn., who won a Bronze Star in a firefight last October. Campbell is modest about his star ("Hell, all I did was put out all the firepower I could"), but he is also wryly amused by the Stateside impression of the nature of the war.

"My mother can't believe I'm in danger," he says as he sits in the door of the chopper with a machine gun across his knees. "She says the President says it's all defensive now, so how could it be dangerous?"

We land in elephant grass in a clearing. The only thing to be heard besides the rotor blades is the feeble stutter of the door gunner's machine gun. The landing zone is "cold" --meaning that there are no enemy about--but the troops find fresh tracks almost immediately. We follow the trail until shortly after 5. when another night position is set up. The forward artillery observer calls in artillery strikes on an area that he thinks the enemy might have moved into. He orders the strikes for 10 p.m. --like booking a telephone call--and waits up for them. Everyone else sleeps.

Too Much Rain. At dawn we set off again. When we finally reach the ambush site, we find only some rice left behind by the NVA, a pair of bloody trousers, a B40 North Vietnamese rocket case and a document nobody can read.

It is four days since we walked off Fire Base Hall. There has been no contact but several scares, a lot of heat, a surfeit of leeches, too much rain for the dry season, and a wearying round of days that begin at 7 and end twelve hours later, when the light fails. Charlie Company is one-third of the way through its patrol. Ten more days exactly like the four before, and Charlie will be taken back to a fire base, to stand in reserve in case another unit needs assistance. Three days on the base, and ten more in the field. When I get a helicopter to leave, I am handed letters to mail from more than half of the company. "If we're not here," asks Sergeant James Wiggins, "how come they're getting these?"

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