SOUTH VIET NAM: HU

EVERY war leaves to history its particular symbols of destruction-Verdun in the first World War; Coventry, Stalingrad and Dresden in the second. In Viet Nam, the enduring symbol is likely to be Hue, once the imperial capital and long the fountainhead of the country's intellectual and artistic tradition. A year ago, during the Communists' Tet offensive, Hue was battered as was no other city in Viet Nam. It took 26 days of house-to-house, block-to-block fighting to drive out a tenacious 6,000-man invading Communist force. The U.S. Marines had not fought that way since Seoul in 1950; the South Vietnamese had never experienced sustained street fighting in all their years of war. Some 350 South Vietnamese and U.S. soldiers died in the battle, along with an estimated 4,100 civilians and more than 4,300 Communist troops. When it was over, Hue lay in smoking, putrescent ruin. Some 80% of the city's homes were either destroyed or damaged. Parts of the city were without water and power, and bodies rotted in the streets, nibbled at by rats.

Scars Remain. A year later, Hue is alive again, filled with barefoot children, busy street vendors, Buddhist priests and swarms of bicycles. But the scars, both physical and psychological, are still there. Reconstruction has been slow--despite more than $2,000,000 and the efforts of thousands of Vietnamese and Americans. It was not until last August that the effort picked up momentum.

American Seabees opened two bridges across the river to one-way traffic. U.S. and Vietnamese army engineers advised citizens on how to rebuild or repair their homes. The government pitched in with $85 allowances, the Americans with metal sheeting and cement to anyone who wanted to replace his lost home. Hospitals, schools, pagodas and churches were given priority for restoration. By Christmas the Phu Cam cathedral, partly destroyed in the battle, was reopened for Mass. Hue's isolation eased last month when rail service to Danang, 75 miles to the south, was restored.

Ducks on the Courts. But much remains to be done. Hundreds of people have refused to start rebuilding. Explains a student: "Some just take the government money and go away. Would you build a new house in Hue?" Of the original 115,000 refugees created by Tet, some 60,000 still subsist in camps. Hue University, once the pride of the old capital, has reopened, although still in temporary quarters. A professor says sadly: "We have more than 3,000 students again. But we are not yet a university. We lack books, facilities and teachers--most of all we lack spirit." At the once gracious Cercle Sportif, ducks waddle across the abandoned, waterlogged tennis courts, and club members sip their aperitifs against a curtain of bullet-pocked walls.

There has been little restoration inside the Citadel, the 2 1/4-sq.-mi. complex of huge fortified walls, moats and gardens that shields the old Imperial City. The fighting was heaviest inside its walls, and so was the damage. TIME Correspondent David Greenway, who covered some of the grimmest fighting a year ago, returned recently to Hue. He recalls crouching in a house near the Citadel's east wall while waiting for an air strike. With him was a grimy U.S. Marine sergeant. Amid the noise of small arms and mortar rounds, the Marine muttered, "We sure are shooting the living hell out of them." Outside, a Marine tank grinding through the rubble took a B40 rocket in the turret and pulled back. The crew climbed out, wounded, and were immediately replaced by others; the new men did not even bother to wipe the blood from the inside of the tank. The house Greenway took shelter in is empty now, and a woman nearby shrieks at a visitor: "All dead, all dead! Go away."

A little farther on stands a house that at one point in the battle served as the command post for a Marine company. A batch of tired newspapermen, including Greenway, rested there one night during the fighting and someone found a bottle of whisky and passed it around. The owner of the house is back now and, when told about the bottle, she smiles: "I suspected it was the Marines, but I didn't mind," she says. "The ARVN paratroopers took everything, you know. They came around with great sacks and took my husband's clothes, his shirts, his ties, all my clothes. The Viet Cong took nothing."

Pillboxes on the Walls. Strangely enough, the people of Hue rarely blame the Americans for the damage caused by heavy U.S. firepower. Those willing to talk at all criticize both sides, and ultimately blame the war. Next time, they intend to be better prepared. Hue's citizens are hoarding extra stocks of rice and water, and have built professional-looking bunkers in their backyards, using layers and layers of sandbags. Some 12,000 allied troops and 13,000 civilian self-defense men guard the city--compared with a bare 2,500 troops last Tet. The bridges are flanked by bunkers, and the Citadel's blasted walls bristle with squat pillboxes, ready should the war ever again come to Hue.

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