Word: saigon
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...SAIGON, MAY 1 (AP)-US B-52 BOMBERS FLEW MISSIONS IN SOUTH VIET NAM'S NORTHERN SECTOR FOR THE THIRD STRAIGHT DAY, AIMING BOMB DROPS AT DIRT ROADS AND TRAILS USED BY THE ENEMY. FOUR FLIGHTS OF THE EIGHT-ENGINE JETS, A TOTAL OF 12 PLANES, UNLOADED 360 TONS OF EXPLOSIVES...
...most ubiquitous-and most poignant-victims are the children (see color pages). Some are orphaned, some maimed, some merely lost. Only 50% attend the first three grades in school. A professor at Saigon University remarks, "When I was growing up, the rice fields were full of herons and cranes. These are things I can never show my children."Denied their traditional birthright, many of Viet Nam's youngsters are spending their childhood cooped up in cities that have become seemingly permanent bomb shelters...
Children of War. The streets of Saigon contain an incredible panoply of Hieronymus Bosch figures-limbless veterans stumping about in camouflaged fatigues, hideously napalmed women nursing children on the sidewalks, deaf-mute prostitutes selling their wares in sign language, and lepers holding hats in gnarled, swollen hands. But few are more poignant than the ever-present "street children...
...Many Tears? Each boy's life story is a vignette of the war. Hua Ket, 12, survived an attack on his village by U.S. planes because he was playing in a distant field; an old woman sent him to Saigon, and for three years he shined shoes and slept on the streets until he moved to Hughes' "Hope 5" hostel. After his father was killed by the Viet Cong, Nguyen Van Thanh. 12, ran away from his village and met a bar girl who brought him to Saigon; there he ran away again and moved to the streets...
...effect of war on Viet Nam's preadolescents is just as devastating. The records of Saigon's Center for Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery are full of case histories of childhood gone awry. A 13-year-old named True was running in the fields outside Nha Trang when he stumbled upon a fountain pen. Shouting to his friends, he placed the pen in his mouth and bit into it; it turned out to be a Chinese-made plastique bomb that destroyed half his face. Similarly, a 15-year-old named An was raiding a garbage heap...