Correspondents' Correspondence Men Without a Country
ABRAMS, ARNOLD
Correspondents' Correspondence BRIEF TAKEOUTS OF MORE THAN PERSONAL INTEREST FROM LETTERS AND OTHER COMMUNICATIONS RECEIVED BY THE EDITORS. Men Without a Country Ben Tre-Among the many people in...
...They'll always be plagued by their past, and the government doesn't seem to care...
...And the most reliable...
...The Thieu government has largely ignored them...
...I wouldn't say that about many ARVN units...
...Whatever happens, these guys will be in for a lot of trouble," says Sergeant Mike Isenhour, a U.S...
...Although no decision has been made yet in Saigon about the scouts, they are likely to be disbanded as provincial groups and either reformed as smaller Regional Force companies or absorbed into regular Army units...
...All of their supplies, their air support and medical treatment, even their name, come from the Americans...
...They get American films, too, and having seen their share of John Wayne movies they put much stock in an aura of machismo...
...Partly from pride and partly as a defense, they flaunt toughness, symbolized by their skull-and-crossbones insignia, and rarely are they known to back away from a brawl...
...It's not just a pose," say Isenhour, a 20-year-old-North Carolina native who accompanies the Kien Hoa scouts on every combat mission...
...It would be nice to go back home, or even start all over elsewhere, without any worry," says Bo, whose wife and three children live with him and other scouts' families in the binding but comparatively carefree world of the Kit Carson compound...
...It looks like they're going to be left high and dry on their own...
...As a result of their American ties, the scouts receive higher pay, and have better equipment and more supplies...
...The scouts' general conduct is not particularly conducive to good community relations either...
...Many Vietcong families are here, and they know all about me...
...Nevertheless, they seem destined to remain alienated from society...
...adviser with the Kien Hoa group...
...Despite their achievements, these soldiers are distinguished less for present skills than previous records: All are defectors who once fought with equal daring for the other side...
...Marked for death by their former comrades, they are feared by government forces as well...
...Arnold Abrams...
...I cannot ever go home again," says 28-year-old Nguyen Van Bo, leader of the 75-member Kit Carson contingent in Kien Hoa Province...
...The Kien Hoa contingent, like many others throughout South Vietnam, is housed in a heavily barricaded, semi-isolated compound on the outskirts of Ben Tre, the provincial capital...
...In effect, they are men without a country, and they wonder what the future will hold more than most...
...Men Without a Country Ben Tre-Among the many people in South Vietnam whose lives will change when the Americans finally depart are the Kit Carson scouts, seemingly fearless fighters who thrive on dangerous combat missions and difficult intelligence-gathering assignments...
...I must go elsewhere, where I'm not known, and hope nobody finds out...
...I am a dead man if I do...
...They are the toughest, most fearless soldiers I've ever seen...
...The seemingly imminent U.S...
...On or off duty, they rely only on one another for friendship and support...
...No matter how the war ends, we will always have to worry about keeping our past a secret from the people on both sides...
...Yet it will not happen...
...withdrawal from Vietnam raises equally gloomy prospects for the hundreds of Bo's Kit Carson colleagues throughout the country...
...Their reasons for joining and defecting from the other side vary greatly, but generally hinge less on ideology than circumstance...
...The scouts have had no more control over their lives than anyone else in this war-ravaged country, of course...
...They do not look forward to this...
...No matter how bad the situation, they don't lose their cool and they never leave dead or wounded behind...
...The regular South Vietnamese troops view the scouts with distrust because of their backgrounds, and with jealousy also, because of their relative affluence...
Vol. 56 • January 1973 • No. 1
