THE MICHIGAN DAILY TUESUAYx AUGUST 311 1965 TU I G ND l USAAUUT3.16 F Please deliver The New York Times to me as checked below: QFall term QFull year [7.Weekdays only (Mon.-Sat.) $ 8.25 $16.50I t I I3 Sundays only 7.00 14.00l I Weekdays and 'Sundays 15.00 30.00 1 ] Payment is enclosed. 7] Please bill me. (Make check payable to Student Newspaper Agency)I " I Name-*- , Campus Address__ PhoneOffice No.__ NOTE: Weekday and Sunday issues are delivered to the campus area, dormitories and along I I a specific route-on mornings of publication. Other places receive The Times by mail on the I morning after publication. Deliveries start Sept. 5. and extend through Dec: 12, including I university recesses. CLIP OUT AND SEND TO:I STUDENT NEWSPAPER AGENCYI P.O. BOX 241-ANN ARBOR, MICH.1 --------------- ------ -------.-..........--.-.-.-.-. Delta War: From Boredom to, Terror " EDITOR'S NOTE: It was really a quiet day around Cai Son-just trip grenades, tiger traps, jungle sun, afternoon monsoon, and blood in the market place. Just another day's patrol for the Americans, one more day on the road home. the VC is brazen and unafraid. Vietnamese troops love the bur- eaucracy of war. They decorate the post with enormous maps and charts on wooden tripods, as if readying the place for a sales meeting, and chatter away con- stantly on the radio and on the telephone. I"Ifyou let them, they'd talk By HUGH A. MULLIGAN themselves to death," said Capt. Associated Press Newsfeatures Writer Hail Spoons, of Ada. Oklahoma, VINH LONG, South Viet Nam- the advisor to the operations of- Junst another day of war in the ficer. Mekong Delta. Riflemen climb down from the The charts back at headquarters trucks and wade knee deep into will show seven government troops the rice paddies, moving down the wounded, one Viet Cong guerrila tree line at the edge of the fields killed, one captured and a Com- to sweep an area 1,500 yards munist weapon and a box of;wide and about 10 miles long. 11 RECEIVING A DEGREE? IN DECEMBER? IN MAY? IN AUGUST? You ic Bin YourYearbook BUT IT WILL GET THERE ONLY IF YOU MAKE A SITTING APPOINTMENT NOW Your picture must be taken by our photographers to appear in the MICHIGANENSIAN. Our photographers will take pictures only during September. Make your Appointment This Week at the MICHIGANENSIAN Sales Booth on the Biag or at the Cashier's Window in the Student Publications Building. $2.00 Sitting Fee Payable as You Make Your Appointment. While You're There, Order Your 'ENSIAN! enemy intelligence papers confis- cated. Not much to make the strategists linger over their plan- ning boards; hardly enough tol rate a new pin on somebody's map. But to the men who lived it and lived through it, it isanother day to be struck off the calendar on the long road to going home. Another day of weariness and crying desperation, of chasing an elusive enemy. This is the way. war is in the Delta, a land lush enough to feed much of Southeast Asia but now forced to import rice and other foodstuffs because the roads and canals can't be kept open. No Different This is the way this particular day went, no different from any other but numbing and maddening with what one American captain called its "periods of protracted boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror." Early in the pre-dawn dark- ness the 13th Regiment of the 9th ARVN (Viet Nam Army) In- fantry Division moves out with their American advisors on a "sweep and destroy" mission in the rice paddies south of the little market town of. Cai Son.. From the doorway ofhevery darkened grass hut, from the tiny portholes of houseboats docked along the canal, from the jalousied balconies of the old French-style colonial houses, alert black eyes are staring out of impassive faces. How many of them are friendly? 10 Killed This is route 14, the main road south from Saigon along the Del- ta. Along this same stretch of road, just a few weeks ago, 10 government soldiers were killed and 21 wounded when an armored troops carrier ran over a land mine triggered by a strand of fish net. Up ahead, less than a mile, the night suddenly comes alive with flares lighting up the sky and slowly falling to earth on para- chutes. Another outpost is under attack. C47s roar overhead, drop- ping the flares to show up the Viet Cong for the beleaguered watch tower and drive the at- tackers back into the mangrove swamps. The convoy rumbles on, heedless of the. battle that is going on. Suddenly the long line grinds to a halt. The Viet Cong knows government troops are moving into the area and has left a calling card: a crude roadblock of felled trees and piled up mud. Sometimes mines and grenades are buried in such roadblocks, but the 'minesweepers arrived with their long-handled vacuum clean- ers and find nothing. Just an- other harassing tactic, just an- other reminder to the villagers huddling in their grass huts that a Opening Barrage The artillery advisor, Capt. Ken Meiser from Shamokin, Pa., paves the way for them with an opening barrage. Vietnamese children pour out of the nearby school house to watch. The sun grows hot and the day grows long. Huynh Ngoc Diep, the province chief, comes out and sits in one of the tubular chairs set up before the charts and keeps track of the operation. Eighty per cent of the popula- tion in Vinh Long province, Col- onel Diep says, is loyal to the government, but the other 20 per cent manage to be everywhere. It's easy when you're a guerrilla. Time is on your side, you can pick your targets. Bus Trip The colonel, who was trained at Command and General Staff College at Leavenworth, Kan., chats amiably about a bus trip he once took from Kansas to California, but breaks off the small talk abruptly when the first casualty figures are put on the board. Two men have stepped on Chinese trip grenades, another has walked into a tiger trap: a sharpened spike concealed in a shallow pit. The wounded are brought down the canal on SSB's .swimmer sup- port boats), long fiberglass rafts powered by 40 horsepower out- board engines. They are laid under the sheds in the market place and Lt. Nguyen Van.Ti, a doctor trained by the French, moves among them, dressing a wound here, probing for shock and con- cussion there. High noon and an oppressive sun streams down in long shafts of heat through the palm trees. The ARVN Ranger battalion,held in reserve, sets about preparing a field dinner. Rains Before the afternoon monsoon rolls in with its enormous thun- derheads and pelting rains, the casualty board has climbed to seven. Still no contact with the Va. The camp is just up the road beyond the guns, and Col. Donald Roberts pronounces it "the lone- liest place in Viet Nam." Almost every night the VC comes calling with small arms fire and an oc- casional mortar. Capt. Richard Holbrook, from Salk Center, Minn., the advisor at the center, has - grown accustomed to his lonely life. He is almost as inured to it as he is the reality that in almost every training group one or two Viet Cong manage to slip into class. "I often suspect they're the ones that are taking notes," he says with just a trace of a smile. Just a trace and no more. Laughs are hard to come by at an out- post in the Delta. Back at the CP and there is a frenzy of activity around the ra- dio. Field telephones jangle excited- ly. Contact has been made with the VC. Capt. Tom Hendricks of Clemson, S. C., and his armored personnel carriers manage to flush them out of a hole dug in the rice paddies. Rising water with the incoming tide has forced them into the open. One resists and is killed, the other is taken prisoner, along with a box of documents. ATTENTION STUDENTS Why slave at the typewriter doing those term papers? Have them typed for you by experts. Your papers will have a neat and attractive appearance. Many satisfied students, in the past, have availed themselves of our service. Why don't you? Like the wounded, the. prisoner is brought down the canal by boat. Barefoot, wearing only a pair of scruffy shorts, he turns out to be a small boy, no more than 16. A frightened boy, shivering and almost on the verge of tears, but adamantly silent in the presence of the intelligence officer, a tall handsome Vietnamese who smiles pleasantly at him from a mouth full of gold teeth. Evening and the troops move out across the flat land silhoutted against a magnificent sunset. The operation is over, technically, but Portrait of a Day of War danger as always lurks along the roadside. The Viet Cong is fond. of am- bushing a dog-tired troop move- ment heading back from an opera- tion. Again there are staring eyes along the wayside, peering out of the hamlets, old men hunkered in the doorway, children in incredible nunibers playing on the monkey bridges. "Okay," a little almond-eyed toddler calls out, using the only American word he knows. But somewhere in the gathering, dusk of a grass hut hamlet, small boys are calling out another word. "Ho Chi Minh," they call, and the troops in the trucks stiffen and fall silent. Darkness comes on with a rush and a burst of automatic weapons fire, probably from a Communist type BAR, chatters out at the lead armored car, led by Capt. Hend- ricks. No one is hit% The column rolls home. Night falls at last. In Viet Nam, night belongs to the cri.ckets and the frogs . . . and the VC. An- other Delta day is done. Attention: Fraternities, Sororities and Apartment dwellers: Are'. You in the Market for Any of These Items? +! Interior W1all and lWoodwiork Painits 01h (Special Student Offer: Glidden Craftsman LATEX Wall Paint $3.99 per gallon. 192 colors to choose from) o Wall ilaugings * Draperies * Throw Rugs s Prints * Picture Frames Madras Bed Spreads * Carpeting ! Conversation Pieces * Room Dividers SEE US TODAY Glidden's Home Beautiful Center $5.00 NOW-But the Price Will Be Going Up. i ---' 317 So. Main Street Ann Arbor, Michigan Phone: 663-2281 . r 71 THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN OFFICE OF RELIGIOUS AFFAIRS presents its 1965 FALL PROGRAM I' Join A Dynamic Organization Student owned Student operated WC B N Radio LECTURE SERIES of 8 outstanding speakers in theology, law, literature, sociology, and psychology. Sept. 13 & 14: MILAN OPOCENSKY, Lecturer in Systematic Theology, University of Prague, Czechoslovakia. Sept. 24: RICHARD SHAULL, Prof. of Ecumenics, Princeton Theological Seminary, New Jersey Oct. 11: WILLIAM F. LYNCH, S.J., Visiting Prof. of Religion, Carleton College, Minn.; faculty member, St. Peter's College. SPECIAL CBS TV FILM: "THE BERKELEY REBELS" Thursday, Sept. 2: 4-:15 p.m.-Rackham Auditorium 7:30 p.m.-Multipurpose Rm., Undergrad Library, 3rd floor WEDNESDAY NOON LUNCHEON BOOK DISCUSSIONS 4V I . 0 i IF YOU D like meeting people want to learn radio advertising want to know the "U" from the inside QI want practical experience in engineer QI are interested in the experience of Oct. 20, 21, and 22: HANS HOFMANN, Th.D., Writer and lecturer in Theology and Psychology of Beginning Sept. 1 and continuing through November 17 Michigan League, Conference Rm. 2 12:00 Noon-1:00 p.m. ing Religion; Sometime Professor of Harvard Divinity School, Cambridge, Mass. Nov. 1: WILLIAM STRINGFELLOW, LL.B., Practicing Attorney in Harlem, Author and Lecturer. Nov. 2: C. ERIC LINCOLN, Prof. of Sociology,. Portland State College, Oregon; author: The BlackMuslims and My Face Is Black. An International Conference on "ALTERNATIVE PERSPECTIVES ON VIET NAM" Friday, Sept. 17-Open sessions and seminars "a i rwo rk" -I will call 761-3500 you will learn the details of WCBN The finest in college broadcasin g*. MUSIC-popular, classical, jazz Bring your (minimum, rough drafts 20 pages) to -.'1 11 i - v la "!