I’ve been enjoying reading about Linh Dinh's adventures in Laos on his blog, and, more especially, looking at his photographs of the country, which show a normal "third world" nation, peaceful and reasonably prosperous, all things considered.
My impression of Laos, very much different from the country I see in Linh's photos, was formed by a conversation I had with my uncle some years ago.
After a backcountry off-roading accident that saw us upside down at the bottom of an arroyo in his old International Scout with gasoline pouring out of the ruptured fuel tank and the engine roaring, wheels spinning and smoking as they rubbed against crushed sheet metal, a perilous situation from which he extracted us with calm efficiency, we had a long walk back to our camp. During it, he told me how important it was not to give in to fear and to keep your wits about you in a dangerous situation, and to illustrate that, for the first and only time, he spoke to me of his experiences as a helo pilot during the Viet Nam War, and in particular his participation in an operation called Lam Song 719, an attack on powerful North Vietnamese and Pathet Lao forces in Laos in 1971.
His job was to ferry ARVN troops to the battle zone. He told of going into a hot LZ and seeing ahead of him five helos on fire and spinning down, with South Vietnamese troops hurled out of them and flying through the air. He made it safely down to the LZ, hovering as the troops jumped out, but upon trying to lift off he was hit by enemy fire and crashed back onto the LZ, his crew chief being killed in the crash. The survivors were unable to move more than a few feet from the wreckage due to the intense fire poured into the LZ by the enemy. He said the noise of gunfire was louder than that of the firing range at Fort Polk and even shouting it was hard to talk to others. The ARVN troops could not move off the LZ due to the intensity of the fire, and every minute they took casualties even though they were
just lying flat on the ground.My uncle and his crew were finally extracted when jets blasted the whole area with napalm so close he could feel the heat wash over him and the hairs on his forearms were singed off. Only then did helos have a brief window of safety to slip into the LZ and pick up the survivors before the enemy recovered and resumed fire.
So that’s been my lasting impression of Laos — some remote hell, existing eternally in a murderous war. And then along comes Linh Dinh and his bus ride into a bucolic backwater with the usual crummy hotels and restaurants, littered with the dregs and echoes of the mass global culture that could be just about anywhere — Guam, Guatamala, Ghana. No signs of the mad fury of war, no armies hurling themselves at each other, using every weapon human genius can contrive to slaughter and destroy.
It leaves me wondering what it was all for. And glad that it is now ancient history, forgotten by all but a few old men who sometimes tell their stories, but mostly never do.
Stranger, go, tell the Spartans --
No; simply say "We obeyed"....
Make us sound laconic and all iron.
Well ... what are you waiting for?
Report only what you were bade; then find yourself
Some strong wine or busty girl in that narrow city.
What truth soldiers would speak
None would hear, and none repeat.
~ Howard Lachtman, "News From Thermopylae"
