That's the Spirit

Time and again, President Kennedy last week underlined the fact of growing U.S. military strength—and his determination to use that power if necessary.

The President announced that retired Army General Maxwell Taylor, now serving as his military adviser (TIME cover, July 28), would go to South Viet Nam to survey the mounting Communist offensive, report back on whether or not the U.S. should intervene with its own troops. Kennedy also recalled from retirement General James A. Van Fleet, 69, hero of the free world's 1948-50 victory over Communism in Greece and commander of the United Nations Korean forces from 1951 to 1953. Van Fleet's new assignment: to help the U.S. Army train for anti-guerrilla warfare.

During the week, the Defense Department also announced that 10,000 more men would go to Europe, boost the number of reinforcements for the Seventh Army from 40,000 to 50,000 since the Berlin crisis began. At his press conference, Kennedy took special pains to detail the buildup in U.S. military strength in recent months: a $6 billion jump in the armed forces' budget, a 50% speedup in the contruction of Polaris submarines, a 400% increase in production of the M-14 rifle, the calling up of two divisions.

"Airborne!" The next day the President took advantage of a long-scheduled speaking trip to the University of North Carolina (see EDUCATION) to see an Army division at close hand. The division was the lean, tough, combat-ready 82nd Airborne at Fort Bragg. For Kennedy, the excursion into the field was his first as Commander in Chief, and he enjoyed it thoroughly. Kennedy rode slowly past the massed units of the 10,268-man division. When the inspection was done, Kennedy praised the 82nd for doing "in peacetime what other men do in war, and that is, live hazardously in defense of their country. This is a division which is all American—and as an American, I am proud of it." In answer, the entire division shouted its motto: "Airborne! Airborne, all the way!"

With that, the paratroopers began a show that wowed the President and his party. After fighter-bombers had seared a jump area with Napalm and blasted it with 500-lb. bombs, six C-130 transports lumbered overhead at 1,250 ft.—and the sky turned alive with paratroopers from the 101st Airborne, the sister division of the 82nd. Behind the men floated the equipment of war—a 105-mm. howitzer, a self-propelled antitank gun, an 18,000-Ib. bulldozer dangling from six 100-ft. chutes that blossomed like giant flowers.

All the Way. Moving to the target range, Kennedy watched delightedly as one 82nd paratrooper smashed all the red water-filled heads on his dummy targets with his .45. Blazing away with a newly issued M-14 rifle, another marksman so fascinated Kennedy that he called for the target, grinned as he held it up and displayed the riddled bull's-eye.

Before leaving Fort Bragg, President Kennedy visited 300 men of the 82nd who had not participated in the performance; they had been on combat alert. One paratrooper startled the President by shouting in his face: "Airborne, all the way!" Replied the President of the U.S., with every reason to mean what he said: "That's the spirit."