V.C., R.I.P.

An infantry company from the 1st Air Cavalry Division ambushed a team of Viet Cong tax collectors recently in the jungles northeast of Saigon. After collecting the enemy's weapons, the G.I.s dug the customary shallow mass grave for the five slain V.C.

What followed was not so customary. After covering the enemy corpses with a green rubber poncho, the men who had just killed them stood with bared heads as an Army chaplain conducted a brief funeral service. Intoned Chaplain Michael Chona: "May they rest in peace. O Lord, we implore you to grant this mercy to our dead brothers that they who held fast to your will by their intentions will not receive punishment in return for their deeds."

It was like a Southeast Asian version of The Grand Illusion. The weird gallantry seemed even more bizarre after years during which both sides have sometimes collected the ears of the dead and otherwise mutilated corpses. Perhaps with the end in sight, there is some impulse to introduce a belated battlefield politesse. The new policy of helicoptering in a chaplain to hold funerals for the enemy took effect when Brigadier General James F. Hamlet assumed command of the division's 3rd Brigade. Said one brigade officer: "The general feels it is the humane thing to do."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.