A Thousand Vietnam "Indians"

Over one thousand Indian T-shirts may give rise to a junior Dartmouth Club, colorful if somewhat unofficial, in the tiny South Vietnamese village of Trung Phuoc.

Responsible for the green and white "blossoming" is Major William B. DraperJr. '57, counsel with the Ist Marine Division's legal office in Da Nang. When January's monsoons turned the area cold and wet, Major Draper wrote to The Daily Dartmouth:

"I have noticed hundreds of children who are literally without a stitch. Just like everyone else, the children get cold. How can we go about putting a shirt on their backs?"

Among those who saw the letter was Major Eric H. Wieler, senior Marine officer in the Dartmouth ROTC, and he suggested Lawrence McArthur '67 of Delmar, N. Y., as organizer of a fund drive.

McArthur worked through the Interfraternity Council, whose members contributed, along with dormitories, the NROTC, Hanover stores, and individual students. The total was enough to buy 1,040 shirts which arrived in Vietnam in July.

Major Draper's headquarters battalion chose Trung Phuoc, a few miles west of Da Nang, as the spot to distribute the shirts. Any Dartmouth man who happens to pass through the area is sure to experience nostalgia, a double take, or both.

There were enough shirts for all the children in Trung Phuoc, and it was possible also to send some to the nearby Marine Corps children's hospital.

Bill Draper '57, Marine Major, with some of the children of Trung Phuoc who gotDartmouth T-shirts after his appeal to The Dartmouth sparked a successful NROTC-managed fund drive.