Word: saigon
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...quarter of a century of war has produced untold volumes of newspaper articles, magazine stones and books. It has also produced a flood of memories for the 33 reporters and editors who at one time or another covered the Viet Nam War for TIME from Hong Kong and Saigon. The following mosaic, drawn from correspondents' vignettes, testifies to the infinite variations of tragedy in war and, in the case of Viet Nam, the seemingly infinite duration...
...streets of Saigon were filled with joy and vengeance on Nov. 1, 1963-the day that South Vietnamese generals stormed Ngo Dinh Diem's presidential palace and sent him to his grave. First came the long night of siege and the thunder of tanks in battle at the palace walls. Then came the final rush through the grounds by Diem's once faithful soldiers. As the battle subsided, I caught the first glimpse of a white flag waving tentatively from a first-floor palace window. In a minute or so the air was filled with silence-and with...
...early February 1969, the 19-year-old son of the Time-Life bureau's maid was killed in battle. I attended the funeral with another correspondent, driving to the maid's home in the heart of Saigon. There we found the dead son laid out in Vietnamese burial clothes, with a smiling picture of him in his new ARVN uniform at the head of the coffin. Burning joss and flickering candles contributed to the heavy, almost mystical atmosphere of the tiny apartment...
...moaning intensified. Suddenly, other women shrieked and pulled her to the ground, grabbing at her arms. She had begun slashing her tongue with a razor blade to inflict physical suffering on herself, and they were trying to stop her. We left the funeral and drove back to Saigon, hardly speaking...
...summer of 1971, most of the fighting was being done by the South Vietnamese. But for the G.I.s in the rear areas, there was another enemy to fight: hard drugs. To find out why, I invited a "closet" addict from Army headquarters in Saigon to come over and talk. Blond, gangling and obviously underweight, my guest slouched into a chair, pulled a vial of heroin from his baggy fatigues, tapped some of the white powder into a cigarette paper and lit up. At college in Ohio he had majored in engineering, been on the debating team, the basketball team...