Friday, May 19, 1972
What War Means To A Viet Village
By Lynn C. Newland
LOC GIANG, Vietnam (AP) --The twisted and scorched ruins of this once-prosperous farming hamlet still smoulder (sic).The carcasses of pigs, animals highly valued by the Vietnamese farmers, lay grotesquely in the scorching midday sun.The 3,000 people of Loc Giang have fled, joining the thousands of South Vietnamese whose homes have been destroyed and lives have been torn by the war.Loc Giang, about 30 miles northwest of Saigon, has been a battleground for warring North and South Vietnamese soldiers for the last six days.Many villagers fled to nearby Trang Bang when the first enemy rockets slammed into their hamlet. Some remained behind until the planes came, dropping bombs.Late this afternoon South Vietnamese infantrymen were battling enemy soldiers on the hamlet's perimeter.The fight at Loc Giang is a small one and probably will not generate much publicity compared with other battles in Vietnam.Yet the desperation and fear of the people show as they hastily pick through the rubble of their homes and rush down a long dusty road carrying whatever they can.The young boy dragging a bag of rice, the woman racing from gunfire with pots an pans on her shoulders, the man leading a squeaking pit -these are the victims in whose name the war is being fought.Tran Van Bay, a 49-year old farmer, waited in his fields near by hoping the fighting would stop so he could return home.He said his house was destroyed but does not remember if it was the result of enemy rockets or allied maneuvers. He also lost a water buffalo, some rice and chickens.Bay wants to return to Loc Giang and work his fields but he waited on the roadside staring in the direction of the smoldering hamlet."It's always the same old story," said an American adviser in the region. "The NVA come and tell the people to come with them to a liberated area. The people, of course, don't buy that. They want to stay where they are in their homes. Then the fighting starts and they leave.""What War Means to a Viet Village, by Lynn C. Newland, published in the Pacific Stars and Stripes Friday, May 19, 1972 and reprinted from European and Pacific Stars and Stripes, a Department of Defense publication copyright, 2002 European and Pacific Stars and Stripes.