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derivative filename/jpeg
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363-08254 to 363-08261.pdf
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Digital Object Identifier
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363-08254 to 363-08261
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Title
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Part seven of an eight article series on Danang
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Description
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Original title: "subterraneans - article 7 of 8 article series", Keever's title: "The Subterraneans", Part seven of an eight article series on Danang, for an Unknown Publication
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AI Usage Disclosure
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Draft transcripts were automatically generated via Google Document AI and are currently under review. Please report significant errors to Archives & Special Collections at archives@unl.edu.
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Transcript
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deepe
subterraneans--article 7 of 8 article series
page 1
august 25, 1965
THE SUBTERRANEANS
DUONG SON I, (SUN HILL), SOUTH VIETNAM--The
small Vietnamese boy in a floppy-doppy U.S. Marine Corps cap
stood in the shade of the typical village shack and explained,
"I'M not afraid of the American Marines.
"But they do steal our ducks. When they see the
villagers watching them steal the ducks, they put them back
in the rice paddy waters. But when we're not looking, they
go ahead and steal them."
(More)
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deepe
subterraneans--article 7 of 8 article series
page 2
both men
A group of eight other Vietnamese villagers,
watched the youngster and then began reeling off
their own grievances against the American Marines.
and women,
"We can't buy enough rice and shrimp paste in the
district market," one of the women chewing blood-red betel nut
explained. "If we buy too much, the police confiscate it and
say we are supplying the Viet Cong." She used the word for
Viet Cong--ac ong giai phong--which means literally, "Mr. Liberator.
"The Marines out down our bamboo trees," one of the
"In one case they cut down more
younger housewives explained.
than 30 bamboo trees--and I can sell each of those trees for
25 piastres in the local market."
An older man in tattered shirt and baggy-pajama-like
pants continued the conversation with, "the Marines eat our
bananas--they cut down one clump of bananas which would sell
for 80 piastres ($31) in the market."
Another chimed in,
"Yes the Marines cut down our
beat up the people and stop us
He was asked whether had had
bananas, beat up the women,
from going to our rice paddies."
seen this with his к own eyes.
"Yes,
I've seen the Marines cut down the bananas,"
he explained nonchalantly.
(More)
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deepe
subterraneans--article 7 of 8 article series
page 3
Continuously, the complained. "We have to work in
the daytime; in the night-time we have to stay in the house
or we will be shot. We even have to urinate inside our own
house in the night-time; our house is our jail.
"We are so unhappy--we work all day for only enough
to eat--just like the water-buffalo,"
The discussion in the village is the Communist political
which is always of more importance, and in fact
determined, the Viet Cong military tactics.
struggle,
The villager's conversation reflected elements of
the truth--with large doses of untruth added.
The grievances
are part of the Communist political struggle, which illustrate
the totality of the war now engulfing and encircling the
American Marines--and which they don't even see or comprehend.
Young Marine troopers sat in sandbagged foxholes to
protect this former Viet Cong combat hamlet after the Viet Cong
units had been driven out. Yet, nightly, the Marines received
sniper fire from within the village; which is part of the
small-scale military action, but simultaneously,
themselves had unleashed a tornade of dangerous political
agitation, which were much more dangerous than the bullets.
the villagers
(More)
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deepe
subterraneans--article 7 of 8 article series
page4 4
The simple fact is that the most pro-Communist
elements fled the village before the arrival of the American
Marines to secure this village several weeks ago.
This village,
which once contained a population of 1,200, was reduced to
a maximum of 500 before the arrival of the Marines. A few of
the equivalents of a millionaires fled to the city%3B the youth,
wives of Communists and able-bodied men fled with the Communists
to the jungled mountains.
But, even those who had remained behind have both
physically and politically gone underground. Through a labyrinth
of tunnels, the armed military snipers can easily sneak under
the American Marine foxholes and enter into the heart of the
village to terrorize the population at night and to fire at
the backs of the Marine troopers.
But, politically, their underground activities are
much more dangerous, for some of the remaining villagers are
considered--by the villagers themselves--to be secret Viet Cong
agents. Other Viet Cong political agents have already surfaced
in the village which the Marines protect--they are seen by the
villagers, but not by the Marines or the Vietnamese village
who visits the village only with a heavily armed squad
chief,
of troops.
(More)
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deepe
subterraneans--article 7 of 8 article series
page 5
These villagers' indictments were designed to
manufacture the most dangerous weapon of all-hate--to give to
the villagers all the justifications to hate the Americans who,
as one intellectual explained, "will always be a stranger in
the villages, like the spirits or the devils. The villagers
can't get used to the American's nose, their clothes, their
looks. They will always be like phantoms or demons; but more
than being a stranger, they will always be foreign."
It was the explosion of hate in the Indo-China War
more than a decade ago that lead to the defeat of the French
troops.
The Communist political struggle is divided into three
inter-related aspects: the legal political struggle, the semi-
legal and the illegal.
All three aspects can be clearly illustrated by such
a simple item as Coca-Cola, --which is the symbol of American
in Vietnam. Some ofthese incidents happen repeatedly in the
Marine area.
(More)
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deepe
subterraneans--article 7 of 8 article series
page 6
Thelegal, direct, face-to-face political struggle--
to sell Coca Cola to the Marines, but to be sure the young
Vietnamese vendor haggles about the price, thus creating friction
between the Marines and the Vietnamese.
The semi-legal--to sell cokes to the Marines, but to
accept payment in nickels and dimes, instead of piastres (which
the Marines are not issued), which created much a violent insult
to Vietnamese nationalism that Prime Minister Nguyen Cao Ky
mentioned the phenomenon in a Saigon press conference, While
technically it is illegal to accept foreign currency in Vietnam,
the Vietnamese government, because of the immensity of the problem,
which has met to be solved--has in effect closed its eyes on
the matter.
Another example of the semi-legal struggle is to sell
cokes to the Marines, in an isolated outpost, to sit down and
talk with them for sometime--and then the vendor--usually small
boys--have a head-ful or intelligence information and can return
to draw sketches of the Marine defenses. This happened in the
Marine outposts only 5 miles from the center of Danang city.
(More)
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deepe
subterraneans--article 7 of 8 article series
page 7
Another coke
The illegal political struggle--to sell cokes to the
Marines, but to have the cokes poisoned. The coke of a Seabee
was filled with acid--his stomach was burned out.
was filled with powdered glass; the buyer died. In another example,
small boys selling cokes carried cokes in small baskets and
followed a Marine patrol--the vendors dropped in the Marine
footsteps Viet Cong leaflets reading "Hail to the Liberators
of the Danang Airbase," referring to the mortar and suicide
who sabotaged American aircraft.
Other examples of the Communist political struggle:
the night before the Marines arrived in one small district town
less than five miles from Danang, the Viet Cong political agents
called a meeting of villagers, told them not to cooperate with
the Marines--and raised the Viet Cong flag as the government
district chief and his platoons slept only three blocks away.
In another case, the Marines began to be accepted by one village
by the use of their medical corpsmen; three Viet Cong appeared
to be treated and told the villagers that anyone who accepted
the Marines medical help would be killed. The number of sick
in the village dropped drastically.
(More)
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deepe
subterraneans--article 7 of 8 article series
page 8
One incident in this small village illustrates how
military actions by the Viet Cong may be effected for political
ends. Shortly after the Marines had secured this village, several
aircraft were flying overhead to bomb a neighboring village
totally controlled by the Viet Cong. Suddenly, a red E smoke
grenade used to signal the target--puffed out of the heart of
this Marine-controlled village; the plane swooped down and u
unleashed. 20mm. rocket fire. Fortunately, the flight was
aborded before the 500-pound bombs were expended--nonetheless,
three Vietnamese villagers were wounded.
"Imagine, we almost bombed our own village," the Marine
regimental commander explained. "We still can't understand how
it happened--no Marines had any red smoke grenades in the village;
none of the government forces did either. There must be a Viet
Cong in our village who monitored our radio."
Even as Marine troops sit in sandbagged positions around
the village, the disgruntled citizens and Viet Cong propaganda
agents are still in a state of toal invisible war against them.
"The Communist political arguments are designed to arouse
emotion--to control the heart, the heart is the subconscious
and another kind of underground, which unflods in dreams but
not when you're awake, one Vietnamese explained here.
So far, neither the American Marines nor Vietnamese
government have even become aware of this--and haven't begun to
counter it.
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Date
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1965, Aug. 25
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Subject
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Vietnam War, 1961-1975
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Location
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Da Nang, South Vietnam
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Coordinates
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16.0545; 108.0717
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Size
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20 x 26 cm
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Container
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B5, F7
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Format
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dispatches
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Collection Number
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MS 363
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Collection Title
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Beverly Deepe Keever, Journalism Papers
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Creator
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Keever, Beverly Deepe
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Collector
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Keever, Beverly Deepe
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Copyright Information
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These images are for educational use only. To inquire about usage or publication, please contact Archives & Special Collections.
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Publisher
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Archives & Special Collections, University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries
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Language
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English
