A tragic but inevitable feature of the ground war in Viet Nam is that civilians are all too often caught up in the shooting. Time and again U.S. troops are fired upon from the huts of peasant families, from villages that the Viet Cong have commandeered. Should the response be a blast from every deadly weapon available? Or should the troops hold their fire for fear of hitting innocent civilians, and risk letting the Viet Cong escape?
Last spring, when the U.S. tried one alternative—harmless tear gases—an A.P. reporter latched onto the story, and from the hue and cry that followed, one...
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