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big bunch of toy balloons and released them one by one for us to shoot at.  He looked like the pictures I was to see years later of Ho Chih Minh.  Then I learned that a whole division of them was interned, so to speak, In a camp between Cazaux and Arcachon.  They had been brought to France as soldiers and still wore uniforms, but they had proved utterly worthless as combat trooops and even for labor.  They were not sent home for fear they might spread disaffection there.  Those who worked at Cazaux were among a small minority who were willing to work. 

The Annamites no doubt felt that it was not their war.  But other French colonials must have had just as much reason to feel the same way.  Yet Moroccans and black Senegalese fought as well as Frenchmen.  I was struck by the difference between the Senegalese and our own negroes.  The latter served well as labor troops but in EE1 they [[insert]] ^[[were]] [[/insert]] not much good in combat.  We had no reason then to think that the Annamites were capable of fighting at all.  We Americans tended to regard them with a contempt which I now realize was mistaken.

Some other things I heard during that time made me feel more cheerful.  The American Second Division had gone into action near Chateau-Thierry and did valiant service there holding back the Germans as they tried to push toward Paris.  We began to hear about the Marines, Belleau Wood and all that.  And on the train returning toward Paris I met a naval officer.  He told me that American supplies were pouring into France and that, in the previous week, 180,000 troops had been landed.  It began to look as if we might [[insert]] ^[[begin to]] [[/insert]] pull a little weight.