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In his eight months in office, Ky has encouraged a number of plans for building that new society. By far, the most successful has been the Political Action Teams (PATs). Recruited from the countryside, PAT members undergo vigorous nationalist indoctrination (one of the slogans: "I'd rather be a dead man in Viet Nam than the emperor of China") at three training camps in Phuoc Tuy province, drill to deadeye perfection in the use of small arms, and master nursing, farming, and teaching skills. They learn to pursue their goal of defeating Communism according to the three Ts: Than<> (victory), Thuong (love) and Thanh (sincerity). After graduation, the PATs (Biet Chinh in Vietnamese) return to their home areas.
Dressed in the ordinary black pajamas of the average peasant-and of the average Viet Cong-the PATs hunker down and talk politics with the local folk, and move from village to village, listening to grievances about government abuses (PAT reports have caused the sacking or transfer of many South Vietnamese officials) and gathering information about Viet Cong activities. Packing impressive firepower (BARs, carbines, grenades), the PATs are first-class fighters. One PAT unit of 40 men in a village in Quang Ngai province went unassailed for three months before it came under attack one night by a battalion of Viet Cong. After fending off the assault for three hours, the PATs split into three squads. Two squads evacuated the 383 villagers across a river to safety while the third fought a rearguard action, finally grabbed a sampan and, using it as a shield, swam safely across the river.
Legends & Leaflets. In addition to PATs, other propaganda troops are hitting the road. Pretty girls sing plaintive love songs, imploring their Viet Cong husbands to return and "take care of me." Storytellers recount misty legends of Viet Nam in hopes of awakening a sense of national destiny in the peasants. Sample legend: when Chinese invaders inundated Viet Nam in the second century B.C., the Vietnamese king demanded a hero to save the realm. None could be found. Finally, the king's men found a three-year-old mute, a boy with a sullen face who suddenly spoke. "Forge me an iron horse." he demanded. The king's men, nonplussed, complied. Then the child ate enough food for ten men at one sitting, grew instantly to heroic proportions. He mounted the iron steed and rode off to battle. When his sword shattered on Chinese helmets, he snatched up an entire clump of bamboo-roots and alland carried through to victory. Then, deigning honors and adulation, the boy rode off to a high hill, and disappeared. As the modern-day Vietnamese tell it in the hamlets, his sullen silence in the beginning of the tale represents Vietnamese apathy; his later heroics the heights to which Vietnamese spirits aspire.
How many of the peasants get the message is hard to tell. Psychological warfare units, both Vietnamese and U.S., drop no fewer than 3,000,000 leaflets weekly over Viet Cong strongholds. An ever-increasing number of Viet Cong are defecting each month (1,672 in January), and one-quarter of them testify that the leaflets helped influence their decision to switch sides.