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Even ARVN commanders concede that draft dodging and desertion have grown to epidemic proportions. Unable to find legitimate jobs, many young runaways drift into the roving life of the Honda-riding toughs known as "cowboys." The result has been a resurgence of the kind of gang crime last seen in the ragged days of the Diem regime. In Hue last month, one exasperated army commander assembled his troops and police near a banner proclaiming that "vagrants, thieves and burglars are the nemesis of society." His crackdown orders included an instruction that every cowboy arrested be given a haircut.
Incredibly Brave. To a sometimes absurd degree, the Vietnamization of the war has meant the Americanization of the Vietnamese, who have developed a taste for the U.S. Army manner as well as for U.S. materiel. From battalion level on up, every ARVN headquarters has a full battery of plastic-covered briefing charts ready to be whipped out for visiting VIPs.
The U.S. command in Saigon is forever fending off ARVN demands for more complex gear. One U.S. general tells of having to lecture some Vietnamese generals at a recent Saigon dinner. "I told them that in 1968, General Vo Nguyen Giap [the Communist Defense Minister] had a regiment right here in Saigon. He had no helicopters, no F-4s, no MIGs, no B-52s. 'Now,' I said, 'he's Vietnamese too. So how do you suppose General Giap solved his logistics problems?' They said they really didn't know, so I told them that the most important thing in war is not equipment. The most important thing in war is men and what they think and what their convictions are."
ARVN soldiers do not usually possess much conviction, but their morale has climbed steadily in recent months, despite the low pay ($24.16 a month, including combat allowances) and the high desertion rate. That situation could be changed quickly by a few sharp setbacks in combat, or if the suspicion spreads that the U.S. is about to sell the regime out. But for the moment, says Colonel Ross Franklin, an experienced U.S. adviser, "these guys are just incredibly stoic and brave. They go out and fight in water up to their waists for weeks at a time. And they're professional, too, if they have good leaders. If they don't, they can just fall apart."
Too often, that is the case. When the South Vietnamese have done well against main-force units, American air support has been crucial. When they have floundered, the problem has been that perennial ARVN soft spot, poor leadership. U.S. military men give high marks to a number of top officers, among them General Ngo Quang Truong, commander of IV Corps, and Major General Nguyen Vinh Nghi, whose 21st Division cleared the treacherous U Minh forest in the Mekong Delta in a tough but little-noted operation last year. Even so, most U.S. advisers below the rank of major speak of their Vietnamese counterparts with condescension if not outright contempt.