It was a week of arrivals and departures, of decision and determination.
Into Cam Ranh Bay on South Viet Nam's bulging east coast slipped a grey-hulled U.S. troop transport, its decks aswarm with the "Screaming Eagles" of the U.S. 101st Airborne Division. Sentries on the dock paced impassively, their faces shadowed under their helmet liners, their M-14 rifles riding taut from the slings. As the transport neared the dock, a cry went up from the 3,700 paratroopers: "Take a break! We're here!" The sentries, like veterans anywhere, smiled knowingly.
The sheer ebullience...