'A Ripple' In Vietnam

SAIGON-The nation-wide anti-war demonstration in the United States caused a ripple but apparently no waves Wednesday among the half-million American troops whose presence in South Vietnam was at issue in the Moratorium Day protest.

The only battlefield protest reported was the wearing of black armbands by members of a platoon of U.S. infantrymen on patrol near Chu Lai, some 360 miles northeast of Saigon. There was no way of knowing immediately, however, if there were similar anti-war expressions by other GIs scattered throughout the country.

Associated Press photographer Charles Ryan said more than half of the 30 men in one American Division platoon wore the anti-war armbands and the platoon leader, 1st Lt. Jesse Rosen of New York City, told him:

"It's just my way of silently protesting. Personally, I think the demonstrating should go on until President Nixon gets the idea that every American should be pulled out of here now."

Earlier in the day. Rosen's men had killed two Viet Cong, one a woman armed with a Chinese-made rifle. Four troopers in an adjoining platoon were wounded by a grenade booby trap.

A group of 20 American civilians assembled at the U.S. Embassy to deliver a petition with 32 signatures calling for the immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from South Vietnam.

Four demonstrators were received by Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker, and a spokesman said Bunker agreed to transmit their one-paragraph petition to Nixon.

Gen. Creighton W. Abrams, commander of American forces in Vietnam, said he did not expect the anti-war moratorium to make any difference on the battlefield.

He spoke briefly with newsmen at Tan Son Nhut airfield where he was given a resolution passed by the Mississippi Legislature praising American troops in Vietnam for "the sacrifices they have made and are making in behalf of their country."