Nation: The Fightin’est Mem

To sharpen coordination between the 55,000 U.S. combat soldiers and Marines counterpoised for the enemy offensive in the I Corps Area, General Westmoreland last week dispatched his deputy commander and likely successor in Viet Nam, General Creighton W. (“Abe”) Abrams Jr., to Phu Bai to set up a forward command post. Known as “the fightin’est man” in the U.S. Army, the World War II armored-cavalry commander, a West Point classmate (’36) of Westy’s, served as the Army’s vice chief of staff before arriving in Viet Nam last May. When and if the big battle at Khe Sanh comes, Abrams, 53, will be in charge of it. Finding himself in a similar hot spot during the Battle of the Bulge in 1944, the cigar-chomping general said: “They’ve got us surrounded again, the poor bastards.”