Correspondents' Correspondence

...Healing the Enemy Pnompenh-Mre than any other place in this peaceful capital, Monivong Hospital shows the effects of the war that has engulfed Cambodia Its wards are filled with wounded soldiers, some still wrapped in the blood-stained bandages applied m 'the field Women with stricken faces pace the corridors, waiting to see their sons or husbands--sometimes both Although the wounded and their women suffer in stoic silence, room 206 is particularly quiet Its patients never receive visitors, yet are never left unattended They are the enemy Since three of the five North Vietnamese m the room are severely injured, it is unclear whether the armed guards are there to prevent their escape or to protect them from other patients "As Cambodians, we hate them," says the hospital's director...

...Lieutenant Colonel Tip Mam "But our first duty here is that of doctors, and we must treat them as we do our own " The prisoners are grateful, if hardly effusive "We are treated well, we have no complaints," says Pham Dinh Hien, who describes himself as an uneducated, 30-year-old private from Hanoi "Our doctors are kind and decent men " They are also wiser than he realizes The doctors understand Vietnamese, and have overheard Hien giving orders and political lectures to his roommates They are convinced he is a university-educated officer who served as political commissar in his unit "I have no idea why we were fighting in Cambodia," he said to me through an interpreter "I was just a draftee, and I did what I was told" He plays it a bit too dumb I was later informed that after I left he warned his fellow prisoners "That probably was an American intelligence officer posing as a journalist Be on your guard at all times " The sixth North Vietnamese prisoner among the hospital's 210 patients, 25-year-old Nguyen Van Nam, is kept in the emergency ward He is in critical condition with a shrapnel-punctured lung Breathing laboriously, Nam lies alone in the middle of the ward, surrounded by the grieving families of the other casualties—four Cambodians, two of them dying from their wounds, and a badly hurt South Vietnamese officer They seem to ignore him, although they all know who he is When I ask how they feel about him, their hate spills out "If I could get out of bed, I would kill him," whispers Deng Roen, a 38-year-old Cambodian infantryman "When I get well enough, I will" He is not likely to get well enough The hospital's chief surgeon, Major Tran Ky, turns to the critically wounded Cambodian soldier "You think I am wrong for treating him...

...The chief surgeon sighs "Because I am a doctor," he says "But don't think I am not troubled by this I am Cambodian, too, you know" Major Ky turns to me "These men have been in the field," he says in excellent English "How do you explain to them that for a doctor professional duty must take precedence over such feelings...

...he asks "Go ahead, say what you think " Roen, exhausted by the effort of talking, shakes his head and says no more But the Cambodian in the next bed suddenly sits up "I don't understand why you care for him," the other soldier says "He is our enemy Why should he have our medicine and take up bed space9 He should be killed Why don't you kill him--just as he tried to kill Cambodians...

...The North Vietnamese soldier says nothing He does not understand Cambodian or English, but he knows what the discussion has been about He looks at me, as if seeking help Obviously, I can offer nothing Nam turns on his side, away from the dying man, and closes his eyes He looks as lost and lonely as a man can possibly be in a room full of people --Arnold Abrams...