It was one of the ugliest things I had ever laid eyes on. The sergeant said I better get used to it because I was going to be on one of them. Recently choppers hit a VC position near Ben Hoa, tallied up 47 bodies so the folks at home can keep score, and captured several rocket launchers. The poverty in this abused country is intense. Many Vietnamese live off the residue of the American occupation and have become dispossessed in their own land.
Small figures crowd the rim of a garbage pit.
An American cigarette hangs from a sullen adolescent mouth, old women stare idly into the distance, motor bikes stand burnished under the sun. There is little sound or movement while the Americans are present, kicking trash into the pit from a deuce and a half. The truck leaves and, far away through billowing clouds of dust, one can discern small figures clambering into the pit. ARVN soldiers are also stationed here but they are separated from the Americans with barbed wire because their wives live in camp with them. For the past week I have been working on a bunker, digging and carrying sandbags in the tropical heat.