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NOT ALL GOING HOME
Joy In 82nd Short-Lived
SAIGON (AP) - They scrambled from bunkers whooping, "It's us. ..it's us!" They hugged each other. They danced and skipped like children on the last day of school. A private first class kissed his sergeant. They doused each other with beer.
Moments earlier the paratroopers had clustered around a radio, fingers crossed, hoping their unit, the 82nd Airborne Division's 3rd Brigade, would be included in the 35,000-man withdrawal ordered by President Nixon.
The newscaster on the armed forces radio started by saying the Marines up north would be going. The paratroopers groaned.
"In addition," he said after a pause, "all of the 82nd..." The rest was drowned by the sudden din of wild cheering, banging, whistling and stomping.
The scene was a highway bridge over the Hoc Mon canal, eight miles north of Saigon, being guarded by 50 troopers of the 3rd Brigade.
They had been in Vietnam from a few weeks to nearly a year, and their joy spread down the road in both directions. The GI's hoisted Vietnamese children on their shoulders. Some joined an impromptu parade. Some scrambled over a vegetable truck screaming at the driver: "Goodbye, we're going home! " |
Their celebration stopped traffic for 20 minutes on Highway 1. Bewildered Vietnamese peasants, who had no idea what was going on, joined in the dancing and cheering.
The radio lay in the sand. No one heard the second part of the news that only those 3rd Brigade troopers who had completed the major portion of 12-month tours would be withdrawn from the war zone. The others would be reassigned to units elsewhere in South Vietnam.
Then the voice reported the weekly casualty statistics 143 Americans killed in action last week but the ecstatic paratroopers didn't hear that either.
Troopers at brigade headquarters at Camp Red Ball nearby listened to the whole broadcast, and many were disappointed.
"If they pull the brigade out, everybody should go with it. and I think everyone feels that," said Spec. 4 David R. Holmberg, 21, Ridgefield. Wash. He has been in Vietnam a month and a half. "Maybe I'll be able to go by next year," said another new arrival.
The other major unit being pulled out under the withdrawal order is the 3rd Marine Division, which has been based along the demilitarized zone in the North.
But unlike the Army paratroopers, all of the 3rd Marines will be leaving.
[The Palm Beach Post, West Palm Beach, FL, 19 Sep 1969, Fri, Page 2] |
