IVS

Something from an old International Voluntary Service member, an interesting chap I met at the old soldiers reunion. The final thought is not particularly encouraging to a young fella trying a new thing, just because he wants to.

Think midwestern farm accent while reading this transcription. Kansas farmboy.

Begin transcription:

Well, what happened after I left Laos and went back to the united states?” Anti-waaar! What are you doin? What are you doin over in Laos?”
“Well, I taught’e to raise pigs.”
“Oh. Okay”
They didn’t give a shit.. So most of them just went into a cave. And said,
“I dunno anything about Laos.” And even I told them anything, they’d say,
“Oh! You’re part of the Waaar! You’re one of those sonsabitches.” But whatever. But what did, what all of Vietnam come back to the US was all about.
“You work for the military, you work for the war. You’re one of them.” And so, I had friends, they’d even, didn’t want to talk about it for ten years. Where you been? Whatd’ya been doin? And so, the post Vietnam, you didn’t talk about it. Two of these people that I knew of that spent a lot of time in Vang Pao’s area, if you may… And they said,
“I’ve been back, people spit on me. They didn’t want to hear about it, so I forgot about it.” They didn’t wanna talk about it. They just went into a cave, and said, I don’t wanna talk to you about it. You don’t wanna hear about it? I don’t wanna talk about it. It’s starting to kind of come out. Some of these people are saying maybe it’s ok to talk about it. I can think of any number of people, they were, take your pick, they were AID, they were IVS, they were USIS; a lot of those people just kinda said,
“You don’t wanna talk about it? Lets go onto something else. How’s your kids? How’s your wife? And so, you know, my part was the same thing.”
“How was Laos?”
“Oh! I did such and such…” And they said,
“Did you see the game last night? The Yankees were loving it! The Dodgers are losing!” Whatever. And I would argue that they’re still saying it. People are saying to me when I go home, I say, Oh I spent some time in Laos. But they don’t give a shit. So I guess my response to you is maybe, nobody gives a shit so why talk about it? And my question is who’s gonna buy your book? Who’s gonna read it?

End transcrition


Perhaps Larry's right; perhaps nobody gives a shit. No one gave a shit when it was current, according to him. We've got new wars. We've got lots of dramatic international intrigue on these days. Will anyone want to know about a little forgotten war up in the mountains of Southeast Asia? We'll see. In any case, I do.