Help For Vietnamese

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30982, 11 February 1966, Page 10

Help For Vietnamese

The help that the New Zealand artillery battery is giving towards medical care and the building of a school in a village near its base in South Vietnam is in the tradition of many New Zealand units abroad. It has a special significance in the Vietnam campaign, for it becomes part of an effort to maintain the confidence and affection of an oppressed people. The predecessors of the artillerymen, an engineering unit, were wholly engaged in civilian construction work. By all accounts their contribution was greatly appreciated. The frustration of their work in one area held an important lesson about the Vietnam war. The engineers could help to supply the needs of the Vietnamese only while the people were safe from the threats and incursions of the Viet Cong. However great the need for civilian aid programmes, these mean little without security from sabotage and from outright attack. Civil aid projects are prime targets for the Viet Cong, for their subversion is calculated to undermine confidence in the Central Government and the military protection it can give. The artillery battery, working in the relatively secure area of Bien Hoa, has seized an opportunity to do practical and constructive work for the villagers. It is to the credit of the New Zealand troops that they are carrying on the tradition established by the engineers and are sharing in the efforts of American and Australian troops to improve the lot of the people on whose behalf they are also fighting.