Gummint

The good part about beng accredited here is it might let me get some stuff that I might have a hard time getting otherwise. The bard part is it's pricey. 100 clams to get registered, then 20$ a day per day of work, plus paying the expenses of my government minder if we're outside of Vientiane. So I made it sound like that's all I'm really doing at this point, just research and interviews in Vientiane.

I've had a good afternoon with and American Vietnam vet who's spent lots of time floating around southeast Asia and is now working on his Ph. D. in international development. I do admire folks who pick their education back up much later in life when they decide it's important again.
"When I got there, it was like, I was in high school three months ago! I went straight from reform school to Fort. Campbell, Kentucky for basic, then to Fort Lee, then jump school in Georgia, then from there I went straight to Vietnam. I turned nineten in Vietnam."
re: hairy moments that stuck with him, like scary firefights out on Long-Range Recon Patrol (Lurps)
"You piss your pants. You lose, you know, you lose all compassion for life. You really, really become so scared that you're totally concerned about life. But at the same time, you dn't give a fuck about life. It's kind of an oxymoron type thing. You worry about your mates, you worry about dying, but at the same time you think only about self preservation; you're going to do anyhting you have to do to stay alive. and there's not really no hate or animosity, there becomes that after you see a few of your friends die, and then it becomes, well, fuck it, but when you go there, when I went there, I didn't even know what Vietnam was!"