Last Taps

The U.S. Armed Forces are leaving Viet Nam the same way that they came in eleven years ago--quietly. There has been virtually no pomp or ceremony. Though the 4,000 remaining Army troops will not be completely gone until the end of March, the U.S. Army command in Viet Nam officially folded its colors last week in what may be the most phlegmatic farewell to arms ever. If the event seemed a little premature, it was because, as one Army colonel put it, "It would've looked sort of funny to have six people lined up on a parade ground somewhere."

At a base movie theater in Saigon, amidst dormant popcorn machines and the empty "coming attraction" windows that had once trumpeted the derring-do of the Green Berets, some 200 soldiers, secretaries and journalists listened to the disembodied voice of an Army public affairs officer hidden behind a stage curtain, explaining that the Army had come to South Viet Nam to "defend against external aggression" and "had decisively defeated the enemy." After a few more words, a 26-man Vietnamese band played ruffles and flourishes, USARV'S blue banner was furled and stuffed into a canvas bag for eventual shipment to the Pentagon, and the few U.S. generals in attendance slipped through the doors. The ceremony had taken just 20 minutes. The last man out, a Vietnamese janitor, turned off the lights.

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