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In hindsight, use of the B-52s had been an expensive means of hunting guerrillas, and the scheme's only real merit may well have been psychological. Hanoi could hardly fail to notice how quickly and easily SAC's huge squadrons had been brought into the Viet Nam battle. The B-52s would, of course, be enormously effective if turned onto the cities or factories of the north. But the jungle strike also served to prove once again that the war in South Viet Nam can be won only by foot soldiers, closely supported by tactical air strikes.
Also, the cost of ground war is high. Last week Saigon revised its casualty totals for the bloody battle of Dongxoai. The toll: more than 700 government troops and 150 civilians dead v. an estimated 700 Viet Cong. But Saigon's new military leaders seemed ready and willing to keep up the grim ground battle. To buttress their fighting force, 600 U.S. paratroopers of the 173rd Airborne Brigade were now holding a vital flank of Route 14, at the same time guarding the airstrip at Phuocvinh, a few miles from Bencat and Dongxoai.
Among the riflemen were lots of would-be Wyatt Earps, backed up by 300 impatient gunners of a U.S. artillery battalion. But so far, there was not a sign that the Viet Cong would test their perimeter, and through the long, hot days the troops were getting bored. As a precaution they were digging their foxholes a little bit deeper. As one paratrooper put it: "The longer we stay here, the more of a target we become."
* Named by U.S. officers for the scene of the Old West's most famous gunfight, the livery stable in Tombstone, Ariz., where Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday gunned down three bad-men in 1881.