Walter Cronkite (WC): A few weeks after the election the nation paused to observe a quiet thanksgiving, in Vietnam thanksgiving was not so quiet. Don Webster reporting.

Don Webster (DW): For thanksgiving all servicemen in Vietnam have a turkey dinner, in remote areas they may get it a few days early or late, but the military goes out of its way to provide the best meal possible under the circumstances. This dinner is being prepared by the first air cavalry division for Alpha company second of the fifth, a unit which went out on patrol the day before. Unfortunately Alpha company is too busy for dinner right now.

[VISUAL AND SOUND OF ARTILLERY]

[VISUAL OF RESCUING SOLDIER TO HELICOPTER]

DW: They've just been attacked by the Vietcong, they've taken some casualties, but right now everyone is too busy to count how many. Alpha company had sent out two patrols and the Vietcong had hit the camp just as they were on their way back. The last two hundred yards in open field are the most dangerous.

SOLDIER: Hold it up and spread it out.

SOLDIER: (Echos) Hold it up and spread it out.

DW: Alpha company had three men killed and three others wounded and the battle just ended. Instead of turkey dinner for one hundred fifty there will be just one hundred forty four. Finally, the turkey dinner arrives, a few hours late and on the same helicopter with more ammunition for Alpha company. It's all there. Shrimp cocktail, 80mm mortar shells, cranberry sauce, hand grenades, minson [SPELLING?] pumpkin pie, 7 point 62 caliber bullets.

SOLDER (LT?): Before I say grace today I would like for us to pause for a moment of silence in memory of our friends that were lost this morning. Let us pray.

[MOMENT OF SILENCE]

SOLDIER: For the food for which we are about to receive from your goodness our father we give you thanks, bless it to our lives, and us to your service through Jesus Christ our lord we pray. Amen.

DW: There is a natural tendency when the fighting has ended for the moment to relax a bit and the turkey dinner helps. For many men it's a two paper plate day. The plates are small and the appetites large. This is a chance to relax but not to forget what's just happened. One of the dead men was scheduled to go home soon.

SOLDIER: Makes you wonder what's this all about over here. And somebody like that, that you just talked to, maybe an hour before it happens, it really shocks and you don't know, you can't tell of your feelings.

DW: Life sometimes seems pretty cheap over here doesn't it?

SOLDIER: Some times it does, some times you wonder why you're over here, and then you really realize why you are over here, you're trying to save these people over here so it don't happen to us back home, to all our families.

DW: I guess on a day like this, you really have something to be thankful for.

SOLDER: Uh, yes I do, I really have something to be thankful for, that I'm still alive, I'm doing my best to stay alive for the next few days.

DW: In the bible, in Ecclesiastes, it is written For everything there is a season and a time for every matter under heaven, a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time pluck that which is planted, a time to kill and a time to heal.

WC: 1968 was almost over the American build up had reached its peak. But the war was not yet won or lost or ending. The time to kill, the time to die, to continue for years to come. This is Walter Cronkite and this has been another in our continuing series of video cassettes on the Vietnam War.