Kids from Song Be

 This snapshot was taken at Firebase Buttons near Song Be in April, 1970.  The kid on the left is holding a knife of some sort to the temple of the kid next to him.  He was trying to be funny though it didn't seem that funny to me.  Why was a kid that age carrying a knife; I don't know.  They are all wearing cast-off or stolen U.S. Army clothes to some extent.  The kid on the pointed end of the knife is wearing an Army jungle shirt that is too large for him and some old jungle boots.  All of them seem to be wearing Army hats.  You can see that their clothes are filthy.  I'm sure that what they were wearing is all they had.  If you look at their faces , you see that they are street-smart.  

I wonder why those kids were there in the middle of the day.  Why were they not in school?  It looks like they were filling sandbags.  At least that is what they are sitting on.  We used to pay the Vietnamese to fill sandbags.  Sandbags were used everywhere on a firebase for protection.  Better that a sandbag catches a bullet or piece of shrapnel than a US soldier.  

What a world of difference between these kids and those I saw earlier in Bien Hoa. In Bien Hoa, the kids were innocent looking, well groomed and respectful.  Not so with these kids.  Song Be was much closer to the fighting.  Maybe that was the difference.  I wonder what became of kids like them?