Daydream

Back to Ko Pha Ngan, what my sister described once as, "the island that exists only in daydreams." Taking a work-and-play retreat. Frankly hadn't gotten much done lately except for the reunion. Brought my computer though, I'll be doing some work with the material I've got when I'm not enjoying seeing my old friends again or the little tropical island paradise. It breathes happiness into your soul, getting out of places like Bangkok and Vientiane, back to the jungle, the sky, the sun, and the sounds: the constant humming vibrating backdrop to everything, the grunting lizards, the whistling birds, the crking frogs, the insects, the insects, the insects. I missed all those sounds when I left the first time, three months ago now, hard to believe as it is. Widget,the ugliest puppy in the world has grown up into a reasonably ugly dog, but not a contender for the title. So she's doing better. Unfortunately not the same story for two of my favorite dogs, who were killed by cars in my absence.

Off to cook a feast for my friends.


love to all from daydream island. Tom

Reunion

Tidbits galore from the reunion. Acronyms gone mad, stories that only seem absurd outside of their original context of a quiet but nasty flareup of the Cold War.

One acronym that seemed particularly odd was the one given to the Thais and Hmong who had to do one of the most dangerous jobs imaginable. They ran around on foot behind the very hot and hostile front lines, finding enemy positions and calling in airstrikes practically on top of themselves. If that was your job, you were called a "FAG". Forward Air Group.



The reunion itself:
Forty or fifty old soldiers getting back together in a hotel meeting room for three days, from about ten in the morning til a bit past midnight. Interesting process getting people used to the idea of a stranger wanting to hear their stories. Certainly a bit of an exclusive club of which I was not a member, but it went fairly well. This club is composed of everyone who were involved in the second Indochina war, but mostly the non-Vietnam parts. As it was explained to me, there are all kinds of Vietnam vet groups, but they snub the guys from the other areas a bit sometimes. Here, there were mostly guys from Laos and Cambodia. Air America pilots were the biggest group present, then a bunch of the Thai volunteers/mercenaries, lots of USAID and IVS guys, lots of kickers and flight techs, Filipinos who were brought in to train the Lao, and a few guys who were around in the Cambodia days, one of the Raven FACs, some intel guys, but it was hard to tell who did that. Not many US military guys; but as it was explained to me, their tours were shorter so they didn't get as close as the Air America guys and aid workers.

The group who put it together was the TLC (Thailand-Laos-Cambo"dia) Brotherhood, a group of vets who do humanitarian aid work in Thailand and Laos "In memory of our brothers who didn't come home".

Caught a bit of shit for admitting my voting record. Certainly an occasion where I agree with the statement that no good can ever come of talking politics. Which I ordinarily think is bullshit, but in this case I had a clear agenda and essential to said agenda was earning the trust of these guys so they'd tell me their stories. Being a journalist with a lefty voting record isn't usually helpful in a roomful of soldiers. It does vary though; in one little discussion there was a gentleman who made two remarks on the topic. The first was that, "I hope that the state of American civil discourse has not fallen so far that we can't buy each other drinks!", and also "I agreed with this guy in his first term, but he really lost me in his second term." Not a knee-jerk single-issue voter.


So many interesting stories, but I haven't transcribed the ten hours of tape yet.

Coup

Wow, interesting morning. Arrive in Bangkok early AM just in time for a beer and a coup, but not in that order. Um....

Callback

One little bright note the other day- I was sitting bullshitting with Howard and my phone rang. Someone witha Lao accent said, "Is this Mr. Tom?" I said sure, who's this? He said, "I am Manophet's student. You paid for my education. I called to sya thank you very much."

Wow. Who knew. I donated a few hundred bucks to my friend's school up in Phonsavanh a couple of years ago because he had several students who couldn't afford the tuition. It's a private english school. So the proof is there before you: The student called me and spoke to me in decent English to thank me for paying for his English-language education. It worked. He speaks English. I'll meet him when I go up to Xieng Khouang/Phonsavanh in early October.

That was nice.

Lonelyhearts

There's a regular event around here. Howard and I are walking back late at night to the Phet Phim, our guuesthouse, and invariably we hear a motorbike cruising up behind us. Then we make a quick bet whether it's gay boys, hookers, or ladyboys coming to try and pick us up. Without fail, I tell you. Every time. At least one of the three groups, members of the Vientiane latenight lonelyhearts club. Although one night we were coming home late enough that we heard the throb of the giant monastery drums and the sonorous chanting from inside the walls of the Wat. Pictures to follow shortly. 4 AM is the beginning of the day for the monks.

Waste

Got to get out of Vientiane for a bit. My productivity and motivation have sunk like a stone since I got back from Xepone, haven't really gotten much done. And I've come to accept that the government is by and large useless in setting stuff up for me. I've been sitting here for weeks, waiting for a few intervies that they said were in the immediate offing. But no dice. Fine. Whatever. Going to Bangkok tomorrow night to buy a laptop and to attend a three-day reunion of old Second Indochina War vets from all venues, Americans, Vietnamee, Lao, Thais, CIA, you name it. Who knows who'll be there. Certainly worth my time and my 1000 Baht. And after that I'm going to go for a little breather to Ko Pha Ngan to see my friends again, bring my laptop, do a some work in the day whnI'm not snorkelling or hiking or swimming or going out to the Village of the Damned at night. Sorry, Haad Rin is half village of the Damned, half Confederacy of Dunces. It'll be a laugh. I miss my friends. I need a change of scene. My motivation was unstoppable for quite a while, but... I don't know. Something happened. I figure it'll return after a break.

Funny thing happens out here wandering, something kind of based on the solitary traveling experience. You're looking for company much of the time, and then sometimes you find some and you get sucked into it, your own agenda getting subsumed into that of whatever little group you;ve joined. Then periodically your own needs reassert themselves forcefully and you bounce out suddenly. Howard and I are both leaving Lao. He's my roommate here. It's time to go for both of us. He's been here 2 1/2 months, I've been here 2. Time to go, at least for a little bit.

Cheers.

Vacation

Took a weekend completely off. But nothing seems to have happened in my absence. An American vacation-hanging out with an American in my guesthouse. But it makes sens- motivation to work was flagging after my intensive session in Xepone on the Ho Chi Minh Trail. So now, theoretically recovered from that burst of waning motivation and back to it.

Heading to Bangkok on the 20th- there's a reunion of old sodiers from the entire second indochina war theater of you-name it, a bunch of old men getting back together to get drunk and tell stories. And excellent opportunity for me tp pick up some stories. Buy a computer in Bangkok, then I might take a little retreat to Ko Pha Ngan to see my friends and work and catch up. I do miss my friends. Wanting some regular familiarity is somewhat normal, I think. These temporary social pods that form are entirely deliberate: solo travelers looking for some stuff in common, some company.

Trail

I just got back from a week on the old Ho Chi Minh Trail. Thing is, there was no trail. The trail was more of a concept, an agreement between the Lao government and the North Vietnamese government. The Lao revolution got military support and financial assistance from the Vietnamese, and the Vietnamese got untrammeled access and logistical support from the Lao. There was no one specific road, with green signs saying, "Ho Chi Minh Trail exit 23". It was a web of paths and roads and villages and foxholes and tunnels and caves and jungles and ponds and paddies. The US really tried, really tried so hard to interrupt the flow of goodies down this network. Dropped a lot of bombs.

That's one of the reasons I was there, I was out following a bomb disposal team for a week. Learned a lot; I guess I know a lot of the basics of demining now. Saw a lot of hardware and an unbelievable amount of scrap. You have to wade through mountains of fragments and tidbits to find and neutralize the still-active munitions out there. The deminers work hard. I sweated a lot; I wasn't even digging or working, just watching and shooting. What's the translation from Celsius to Fahrenheit? I don't know, but I know now that 41 degrees is furnace-hot and it's so moist that you could be sandwiched in a boxer's armpit.



Wanna see some bombs? Here. Look. The little one's a BLU-26 bomblet with the exterior skin rusted away, just showing you the casing of ballbearings that spray everywhere when it explodes. The big ones are 500-lb MK-83 general purpose bombs. They make a big crater, except when the fuse fails and they lie buried deep in the dirt. Still active; you wouldn't want to bang on the silver bit with a hammer, that would be rash, but you can kick the side of it and nothing happens.

UXO(unexploded ordnance) isn't like landmines; it doesn't tend to go off unless you molest it with a bit of fervor, such by digging a hole or plowing a field.

What really blew me away was the scale. The volume of shrapnel that the detectors find is immense. but each little squeal of the detector has to be treated with the same care as if it were a live bomb. Think about it: imagine a little bomb the size of your fist, coated in ball bearings. When it explodes, those several hundred ballbearings go everywhere. And this little bomb is one of 500 that came out of the same cluster shell, one of four shells dropped by that Phantom, that Phantom being one of the four Phantoms flying that bombing mission, that mission being one of 580,000 flown. So they weren't all Phantoms, they weren't all BLU-26 cluster bombs, etc. etc. But you get the idea. There's a lot of scrap metal making it difficult to pick out the shit that didn;t go off and is still there. Oh- there's a bunch of crap left over from the ground fighting oo, not to mention the odd nail or piece of wire that someone might have lost at some point. In any case, it's a pain in the ass, it's semi-dangerous, it's hot and nasty, and there are bugs crawling on you. And some annoying journalist taking your photo.

I'm very grateful to the guys who brought me with; I understand it can be annoying to have a non-worker on a work site. I'm doing a little publicity blurb for them, and I shot some stuff for them that they needed for their own purposes. It's the least I could do.