Bob Kaszer, John Reid, and George Groom from my radio class at Fort Gordon were also transferred to the 1^st Group on the same orders as me. Bob, John, George, and I were assigned to A Company, but we were all on different teams. All of our teams were due to be sent TDY [temporary duty] to White Star [White Star Mobile Training Teams] in Laos for six months, except George’s team. George’s team was being sent TDY to South Vietnam for six months.

Sergeant Major James A. Tryon was A Company’s Sergeant Major. Tryon had a speech impediment-he stuttered. One day a new sergeant reported in to Tryon. Tryon said, "W-w-welcome to A Company S-s-ser-r-rgeant" and the new sergeant replied, "S-s-s-er-r-r-geant P-p-p-eter-r-rs r-r-reporting for-r-r duty s-s-s-er-r-r-geant major." This enraged Tryon so much he leaped clean over his desk after the new man who was making fun of his stuttering. Witnesses separated them before anyone got hurt and that’s when Tryon learned that the new man also stuttered. The two soon became fast friends.  [Peters was not the man's real name-I do not remember knowing the man's name.]

Speech impediments have caused problems in the military before and also provided another source of entertainment. A story on this subject from the Korean War goes like this:

"An infantry unit coming back from night patrol in Korea was halted by a friendly sentry on an outpost and challenged for the password. The enemy were always hiding near outposts so they could hear the passwords and use it to get into our positions so our guys started using passwords that the orientals would have difficulty in pronouncing. The password for the patrol that night was ‘Rasputin.’ The point man on the patrol said, ‘Ra-ra-ra-spu-spu-spu-, Aw fuck it. Shoot!’ The sympathetic sentry responded, ‘Pa-pa-pass Fr-fr-friend’."

When we were alerted that we were going on a mission to Laos, they informed us that we had to use some of our "per diem" money to buy a wash and wear suit, just in case we had to attend a formal affair. Yeah, right. The per diem rate at that time for Laos was $18 per day, tax free. Back then that was more than my base pay after taxes.

We were going to be the first SF to wear their military uniform in Laos. Everyone else before us had worn civvies, but they had not worn suits. Being a professional soldier, I took some of the advance per diem money and spent it on a brand new suit. Unfortunately, the Sukiran PX did not have my size at the time and we had some boozing and bar-hopping planned for the balance of the advance money so I grabbed any suit off the rack, regardless of size, style or color and bought it. They had one suit on sale so I took it, as I recall it only cost about $25. The pants were so small, I couldn’t even get my leg into them, but I didn’t care because I had a wash and wear suit, as instructed. As soon as we hit Laos, I gave my handy dandy wash and wear suit to one of our smaller team members with the agreement that it was still mine, should we have to produce one. From talking to guys who had been to Laos, I knew that we would not need a damn suit anyway.

Since we weren’t taking our issued weapons with us, I used some of the advance money they paid me to buy a sidearm. We weren’t supposed to be armed because we weren’t supposed to be on a combat assignment. That was a joke and everyone in an SFOD [Special Forces Operational Detachment] knew it. The best choice that was on hand at the PX was a Ruger Blackhawk .357 revolver, so I bought it and a leather holster that I could slip onto just about any kind of belt. It looked just like the old Colt Peacemaker. John Leid also bought a .357 Blackhawk. Ed King, who was on my B Detachment bought a .44 caliber Blackhawk with a western quick-draw belt and holster. We thought that we were cool. I would have rather had an army forty-five and a couple of months later, I was wishing that I had one. Hell, I would have settled for just about any kind of automatic that came with a couple of extra magazines.

We also took language training. Boy, I really was motivated for that. After serving two tours in Germany and not knowing the language, I knew that ignorance had caused me problems downtown and on maneuvers. Group couldn’t find any instructors for Laotian, so they did the next best thing, we studied the Thai Language. It is very similar to Laotian but definitely not the same language and there was no way we could use it to communicate with the average Laotian. As it turned out, we didn’t even get enough Thai language training to communicate in Thai much less Laotian. We trained about two hours a day for about two or three weeks. So much for language training, but I did learn how to sing the Thai National Anthem. I hoped that would be enough to duly impress the commie hordes.

Before we left, we had to make three parachute jumps to cover us for jump pay while we were gone because most of us would not have the opportunity to make a parachute jump while we were in Laos. This introduced me and the other new 1^st Group arrivals to Yamitan DZ.

Yamitan DZ was on a small flat plateau on the west side of the island, just a few miles from Kadena Air Force Base. During WWII, it had been developed as an airbase for Japanese fighter planes. The original runways were still there, except we had paved them and it was used by civilian private pilots. There was a rock quarry on two sides, an ASA [Army Security Agency] antenna field on another side and ASA’s garrison was squeezed in between the DZ and the ocean on another side. Okinawans grew sugar beets between the runway strips. A beet field is full of big, hard lumps. This was Yamitan. Yamitan was so small only one plane could drop troops at a time. That was my first tour with the 1^st Group on Okinawa and over the years I was to hear many horror stories about this DZ. Landing on that DZ was considered only a slightly better deal than missing it. The terrain was bad enough but the wind patterns made it much worse. Now and then, some teams managed to get permission to use the golf course as a DZ. Landing in their "rough" was a good deal compared to landing on Yamitan DZ proper.

Yamitan was the highest place in this particular area of Okinawa and being an island, the wind blew constantly, changed direction frequently, and it was always very strong. It was not unusual for an entire plane load to miss the DZ and land in a quarry, power, lines or in the ASA garrison. Yamitan DZ was so bad many jumpers waited for water-jump training to get in all of their required jumps and one 1^st Group Commander, Colonel Francis Kelley, made only water-jumps the whole time he was our Group CO. He did this because, according to him, "As the Group Commander, I am much too important to the unit to risk being hospitalized on a parachute jump." That was good for a laugh every time anyone repeated it. Naturally his nickname became "Splash" Kelley. So far as I could determine, each special forces group only needed one "commissioned" officer and that was only because army regulations required a "commissioned" officer to sign all the paperwork. Other than that, for the most part, they just seemed to get in the damn way.

Before we left for Laos, all of the Go Teams had to participate in an Unconventional Warfare [spelled guerilla warfare] FTX on Northern Okinawa.  It didn't last long, but for some reason, I was selected to be the B Team Radio Operator Supervisor for this FTX.  That slot calls for an SFC E-7 and I was still a Buck Sergeant E-5 and I was also an SF newbie and a commo newbie to boot.  Hell this was the very first SF Operational Detachment assignment!  The most experienced ranking radio operator in the A Teams under the B Team should be that B Team's Radio Operator Supervisor.  [I learned later that this was the norm.  The ranking radio men and/or the most experienced radio men were almost always assigned to an A Team.]  Anyway that should give you a good clue about what kind of radio operators we had in our B Team at that time.  I think we were short one or two radio men on the B Team also.  I did not have the slightest idea what I was doing, but I tried to make the best of it.  After we got to the field, I discovered that the C Team Radio Operator Supervisor had not given me crystals for my AN/GRC-109 radio receiver or he had given me the wrong crystals for both the transmitter and receiver.  I can not recall which it was.  But I do recall me knowing I was in deep shit.  Apparently our team sergeant or team leader had planned ahead because here came SSG Harry P. Clark.  Harry P was, I believe, assigned at the time to the 1st SF Group Signal Platoon.  I have no idea why Harry P was assigned there because he was formerly an A Team radio man.  Harry P took mercy on me and gave me a couple of suggestions on how to make do until we could get the correct crystals.  As I recall we were assigned the 109 and the old AN/GRC-87 radio set and we had brought both along.  I hated the damn 87, but we didn't have a choice and set it up and used it instead of the 109.  Harry P was a good soldier as well as a good radio man not to mention that he was also a damn good guy.  I hoped that Harry P would become our B Team radio operator supervisor, but that was not to be.  Except for that one screw up, I don't recall any thing major happening during that short FTX.  [I realized later that the only men that got any training that they could use in Laos during that FTX were the radio operators.  In other words, the pre-mission training we received was not mission-oriented.  Much later, after repeating this over and over, I realized that this was the norm.  Very little of our pre-mission training was actually mission-oriented and useful once we were committed.]

Finally, off we went to Laos with me as a radio operator on a B Team and I was jacked up [excited]! Laos was my first trip into Southeast Asia, my first war and my first operational mission with SF. I was in Soldier Heaven.  Sergeant Major John W. "Pappy" Burdge was our Team Sergeant, Staff Sergeant Kenneth W. Miller was my Radio Operator Supervisor, and Major Gordon M. Ripley was our Team Leader.

Pappy Burdge was a short, quiet, easy-going, gray-haired, slow-talking, pipe-smoking fellow that never got shook up about anything. Pappy was so cool butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth. Pappy had survived all four combat jumps with the Eighty-second Airborne Division during World War II and I believe that he entered SF in 1952 when it was first formed. That was at least four years before I even knew there was an SF. While we were in Laos, Pappy told me a little about the Normandy invasion. He said, "The morning after we had parachuted behind enemy lines, an officer gave me a bazooka and a couple of rockets and sent me, just me, to blockade a train track. He told me to fire on any trains that tried to pass. Shortly afterwards, a long train loaded with hundreds of German soldiers came along. That train was so loaded with soldiers they were even clinging to the engine." I asked him, "What the hell did you do Pappy?" "Well, they were headed to the rear and away from the battle anyway so I just stood up and waved as they went by!" I asked, "Pappy, what did they do?" He answered, "Oh, they waved back. I was sure glad because I sure didn’t want all of those damn krauts chasing me."

Major Ripley was an old-time SF officer also and well liked by the enlisted men. If my memory serves me right, Major Ripley had also been an original member of SF also and he was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel while we were in Laos.

Ken Miller was a tall, slim, quiet guy. Ken made friends with a local group of Philippino technicians after we arrived in Laos and bought extra whiskey for them. They loved American whiskey. Of course they reimbursed Ken for the booze. Ken spent time almost daily with the Filipinos and one day he invited me to join him. When he brought me to visit, that was deemed a special occasion and they opened a fresh quart of whiskey and threw away the cap. That was their custom. It was considered impolite for a guest to leave before the bottle was empty or for the host to cap the bottle in the presence of a guest. That was a no-win situation. They were very friendly people, but I never visited their house again. Hell, I’ve been known to pop a cork or two and I enjoy it as much as most, but I don’t like anyone forcing me to drink, custom or no damn custom.

Other members of that B Team were Captains Herman E. "Luke" Lukow, James A. Wyatt and Theodore Wilson; Lieutenants Harvard R. "Harvy" Munson and Merlyn Pugh; Sergeants Edgar A. Thomas, Larry Brown, Jr., James C. Moore, Richard L. Thomas, William S. Yarborough, Roger F. Craft, William "Ma" Baker, Jr., Edward King, Robert G. Crabb and Donald B. Brown; and Privates First Class Paul M. Lauzon, Stephen B. Moore and Kenneth P. Vivio.

Laos had formerly been a part of French Indochina, but it was once again just plain Laos. Laos was a wild, but beautiful country. If the damn communists would stay at home and stop shooting at you, it would have been even more beautiful and enjoyable. It is mostly mountainous jungle and high plateaus that are covered with tall elephant grass. In the bottom land along the rivers were plantations and rice paddies.

The Plaine des Jarrs is a plateau in central Laos. According to what I have read and what I have been told by other SF who have been there, the elephant grass there is littered with tens of thousands of huge clay jars, some taller than a man. No one knows who made those jars and put them on that plateau or why they did it. The Plaine des Jarrs is also the home of the Gar, but I may be wrong, their home may be on the Plaine des Bolovens. Anyway, a Gar is an enormous wild water buffalo that stands six to seven feet high at the shoulders.  The Gar has shorter horns than the average water buffalo.

The Plaine des Bolovens is so thick with elephant grass and bamboo, it is almost impenetrable. They do not have flooded rice paddies in the mountains instead they raise rice in fields. The Capital of Laos, Vientiane, is located in the western part of central Laos near the banks of the Mekong River. Thailand is almost directly across the river from Vientiane.

Northern Laos is mountainous jungle that is split by the winding Mekong River that flows from north to south. The Mekong River flows south and it is usually very muddy. The river borders on Burma, China, Thailand, Laos and Cambodia. Our B Team was stationed in northern Laos in LP [Luang Prabang].

LP is the religious capital of Laos and is on the Mekong River about 100 miles north of Vientiane. The river did not mark the border at LP. Being a rookie radio operator and a rookie SF soldier, I was assigned to the B Team at LP instead of to one of the A Teams out in the boonies. The B Team maintained a 24 hour radio station for our A Teams.

Some of our A Teams were TDY from the 1^st Group and some were TDY from the 7^th Group at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. All of our Field Training Teams or simply FTTs were "split A Teams." A split A Team means that instead of 12 men, the team only had six. Most of our FTTs operated out of a fixed location, a camp. But one FTT never had a base camp, they were on the march their entire six month tour. When those poor bastards finally left Laos, they really looked like scarecrows.

During my tour in Laos, I lost more weight. My weight dropped from 205 pounds to about 175 or 185 pounds, but I developed my basic SF radio operating and cryptography skills as a base station radio operator at LP. In fact, I got to where I could receive an encoded message and decode it in my mind. Instead of writing down the encoded message and then decoding it after I finished copying the entire message, I just wrote down the plain text [decoded message]. Eventually, I was able to do this at a speed of about 18 words per minute. There were very few code combinations that I did not have memorized.

Those skills later got me assigned to an A Team and to combat. Which is what I really wanted at that time. At least that was what I "thought" that I wanted. Very soon, I discovered that one should be very careful what one "wants" in this world because, if you want something strongly enough, you will surely get it.

Meanwhile, the army, at the direction of President Kennedy, was busy building up SF. New SF Groups seemed to be formed every year at Fort Bragg for example the 3d, the 6^th and the 8^th were formed during my 18 month tour on Okinawa. For some strange reason, the army had already re-named the old 77^th SF Group and it had become the 7^th SF Group. That had happened just before I entered SF.  Why they didn't keep the 77th and name one of the newly activated groups the 7th, is still a mystery to me.  Since they had already renamed the 77th prior to all the new groups being formed, I would think they would have re-activated the 77th as one of those groups.

Young SF soldiers that were assigned to the units at Fort Bragg were getting promoted so fast it made our head spin. It was not unusual to see young SF soldiers come into Laos TDY from SF units at Fort Bragg and get two promotions during their six-month tour with us. I saw several SF troops that were TDY from Fort Bragg come to Laos wearing one stripe less than me and leave wearing one stripe more than me.  At the time, I had four years time-in-grade as a Buck Sergeant, but I was still number 132 on the 1^st Group’s promotion list for Staff Sergeant. The SF units at Fort Bragg came under the SWC [Special Warfare Center and SWC came directly under DA [Department of the Army]. But the SF Groups stationed permanently overseas, like the 1^st and the 10^th, were not directly under the SWC or DA. Those groups were in the normal chain of command of the local command.

The only decent Royal Laotian Army unit that I heard about was the original paratroop battalion. It had been commanded by Captain Kong Lee. Kong Lee, who was probably the best officer in the entire Laotian army, rebelled long before our team ever entered Laos. Kong Lee took the entire battalion for his own private little army and promoted himself to General. According to what I was told at the time, "Kong Lee doesn’t fight against the US-advised field units, he’s against the Laotian royal family and foreign intervention." Kong Lee tried to overthrow the government, but failed and withdrew his battalion into the jungle where he held out until the truce was signed. The royal family did not select military leaders based on ability. Instead, commissions, appointments, and promotions went to members of the royal family. You can only imagine what kind of army that produced.

I was told that the "volunteers" in the other paratroop battalions were criminals, political dissidents and street punks that the royal family arrested. They then "volunteered" for paratroop duty. Our FTTs trained them and at least one FTT stayed with them afterwards.

These Laotian paratroop units were really something to behold. When one was sent to re-enforce the northern mountain stronghold of Nam Tha, they used the LP airfield as their marshalling area. Their howitzers were very beautiful. They were waxed and had clean white-sidewall tires. Instead of keeping them restricted to camp the night before their jump, as a US unit would have done, they let them go anywhere they wanted. The troops went to town and when they ran out of money, they swapped their boots for more booze and women. They jumped into Nam Tha wearing thonged sandals. The sandals resembled our shower clogs. The FTT radioed us later and requested that we load up the ammo for their artillery. It seems that their battalion did not have any ammo for their pretty little cannons. They had forgotten to rig any ammo to be parachuted in with their artillery.

Someone told me that the Laotian jumpmasters did not normally jump with the troops. Their only job was just to make sure everyone either jumped or died on the plane. The Laotian jumpmasters stood near the jump doors with a loaded and cocked pistol and shot anyone who refused to jump or hesitated too long in the door. If this was true, I strongly suspect being a "jumpmaster" was also a "royal family" position in the Lao Army. Other than Jumpmaster, I doubt if there were any "Royal Family Positions" in the Laotian Paratroops. This technique did not produce fearless paratroopers. It just got some scared street punks from the plane to the ground.

That battalion set their artillery up so far behind their troops their shells were landing on or behind friendly positions. The FTT asked the artillery commander to move closer to their troops so they could reach the enemy positions. The commander replied, "Oh no sir. If we can shoot them, they can shoot us." There may have been more than one FTT at Nam Tha at the time but one FTT there was commanded by Captain Charles L. Johnson.

Our teams encountered many problems in training the indigenous troops. One team reported problems with land mines. It seemed that they had some troops that went out to plant land mines in front of their position. The troops planted the mines on their way forward. When they finished planting the last mine, they tried to walk back to their lines through their own mines. It didn’t work out very well. They also had a problem planting the small plastic mines, the "toe poppers." After they had buried a toe-popper and thrown dirt over it, they tried to "pat" the loose soil down nice and neat on top of it. That little trick didn’t work out very well either.

Lao money was called a "Kip." We called their bills "blankets" because of their size. They were about 2 or 3 times the size of our bills. The Lao army, like many armies, including ours up until the early 1960s, paid their troops in cash. They would send the paymaster detail out to pay the troops with a huge pile of duffle bags that were full of money. The field troops were lucky, if they received any money. It was common practice for the paymaster to take one entire bag of money for his pay and give a bag of it to his detail for their pay and the battalion commanders and their staff did the same thing. This usually resulted with the troops in the field not getting paid.

Just before we arrived in country, the battalion stationed at Ban Houie Sai rebelled because they hadn’t been paid in several months. They took their SF FTT hostage, killed their battalion CO and his entire staff and demanded to be paid. They got paid and fast.  Most likely, the good old US supplied the funds to get our guys out safely. All other in-country FTTs were assembled and ready to go after the SF hostages. As I said, it was settled just before we hit country.

One of the radio operator’s duties was to send a daily weather report to headquarters at Vientiane. This was usually done shortly after daybreak. Radio operators were also responsible for being weathermen. As I recall, we had a thermometer, but we just guessed at the altitude of the clouds and visibility. If we had a "milk run" due that day, I can’t recall ever reporting the weather being too bad to fly. [A milk run is a flight that delivers mail and/or chow.]

All of our air support, which was minimal, was supplied by Air America. Air America is owned and operated by our CIA and that is probably the worst kept secret in the world. In Laos, Air America consisted of C-119s, C-47s and H-19 choppers. Each chopper crew only consisted of one pilot and a crew chief, never a co-pilot. Air America planes were never armed.

Those Air America guys made the big bucks when compared to our puny salary and per-diem. Crew chiefs drew about $1,800 per month and pilots drew about $3,600 per month, tax free. Anyway, that was big bucks to us back in 1962. One crew chief I talked with was on his second 18 month tour there. When I asked him, "Why did you return?" He said, "I saved almost all of my money on the last tour, but as soon as I hit the states I went on a drunk. When I sobered up 30 days later, I was broke." He said that he thought he had a great time but wasn’t really sure. Of all the Air America men that I worked with, I can only remember one pilot’s name — "Shower Shoes Wilson" and one nickname, one of the chopper pilots was called "Red." Shower Shoes flew fixed-wing aircraft, mostly C-47s and C-119s. He was nicknamed that because he always wore shower clogs even when he flew. Of course that was not regulation dress and his superiors finally "ordered" him to wear regulation leather footgear while in-flight. Which Shower Shoes did—of course they were tied together by their shoe strings and draped around his neck. [Rumors had it that Shower Shoes was killed in a plane crash a short time after we left Laos.]

We set up our radio station in the Maggot [Military Assistance & Advisory Group] Headquarters in LP. The Maggots in LP consisted of Lieutenant Colonel Chaplan [not his true name], another Lieutenant Colonel Elmer Fudd [not his true name], and one fat Staff Sergeant. The Maggots seldom left LP. Our 24-hour, 7-days-a-week, radio station served the Maggots also. Chaplan and Fudd very shortly became infamous for their lengthy messages. They always wrote a very wordy and very long message. They both sent at least one message every day. Every message that we sent was required to be encoded. We had to encode and decode messages by hand and then transmit them, usually manually by a telegraph key. We did have a Single Side Band voice type radio but we preferred to use morse code for encoded messages because it was usually faster. At first, when they gave me those messages, I would try to get them to let me edit the message to shorten it without changing the intended meaning, but they refused.

Exactly how many FTTs we had under us in our radio net, I don’t remember, but it seems like maybe there were six. The three that I remember were located at Ban Houie Sai, Sayaboury, and Nam Tha. Every now and then a total stranger would enter our net and send us a message. It wasn’t long before I learned that this was a resident CIA agent’s radio operator. That CIA radio operator had an oriental "fist." Every telegrapher develops distinct transmitting techniques or habits, regardless of how hard they may try not to, and these habits could be used to identify a telegrapher, like "fingerprints." We called these habits, his "fist" and that guy’s fist sounded just like the asian radio operators, which is good, if you want to blend in. He was also fast, very fast.

Sometimes transmitting and receiving morse code over the radio could be very difficult and frustrating. It was usually due to operator incompetence on either end or interference due to the weather, other radio signals or other people around the radio operator. Staff Sergeant Robert G. Crabb was a heavy set, muscular, radioman on our B Team. Crabb had already served on one FTT TDY from the 1^st Group. One day while on that first trip, Crabb was trying to copy a message through lots of static and his young Lieutenant, the Team Executive Officer, kept tapping him on the shoulder and talking to him. About the third time he did this, Crabb spun around and punched him right on the tip of the chin as hard as he could without getting up. Crabb picked up his pencil and started copying the message again. When the Lieutenant came to, he complained to the Team Leader and was told, "Don’t fuck with the radioman when he’s operating that damn radio." That was the end of that.

The only people who had a full-time job on our B Team were the radio operators, the medic and the assistant supply sergeant, who was also our "acting" mess sergeant. Believe it or not, no one else had a full-time job. Our B Team had four radio operators and a Radio Operator Supervisor, but only one medic, Sergeant First Class Richard L. Thomas. As I recall, the TO&E [Table of Organization and Equipment] for a B Team at that time called for two medics.

The dispensary stayed busy. Doc Thomas held sick call seven days a week. There was always a long line every morning before he opened his shop. Some of the mountain natives walked for as much as two weeks to reach our dispensary and some were even carried that far. Doc treated every kind of disease, illness, and injury you can imagine and some you couldn’t imagine, including dental problems. He was swamped every day. He really needed help. Being cross- trained in emergency medical care, I could have helped, but I was already tied down with a rotating 24-hour radio shift so he got our Asst Demolitions Man, Stephen B. "Stevie" Moore, who didn’t have a job, to help him. He gave Stevie some quick lessons on how to pull teeth and made him his dentist. Stevie must have pulled a thousand teeth during that tour. After I witnessed some of Stevie’s work and I really felt sorry for his native patients. Stevie was a slight-built man with dark hair who looked like he should be selling time-share condos. [Stevie later attended the SF Medical Course and became a fully qualified medic and stayed in SF. That was a missed opportunity for me. If I had a choice then, I would have much rather been a medic. At least a medic learned skills that he could use in civilian life.]

Most of the natives had never seen a doctor before. Doc Thomas said that you could give them antibiotics and just stand back and watch them heal right in front of you. Their body had not built any resistance to it as in western countries.

When it came to prolonged treatment with pills or liquid medicine, he had a problem. When Doc told the patient to take two pills in the morning and two at night for 14 days, some of them would walk about a mile down the road and then take all of the medicine. They had reasoned, "Why wait two weeks to get well, when I can take all of the medicine now and get well now" — so that’s what they would do.

The mountain natives in our part of Laos were mostly members of the Meo Tribe. The Meo culture and living conditions were very similar to that of some American Indians during the 1700s and 1800s. They had no concept of time. The number of days were determined by suns or moons. Time that was less than half of a day, and sometimes a day, seemed to be a mystery to them. They had no need to be that precise. All of the mountain natives in Southeast Asia were like this. The aboriginals in the southern pacific islands were even more backward.

While I was in Laos, I pulled field duty with the FTTs three times. Before I went out the first time, I rummaged around in our supply room and found a 12 gauge pump shotgun and a box of double-ought shells that no one had yet claimed and this, along with my personal revolver as a backup, became my chosen weapon. Both proved to be a bad choice.

We were not supposed to be armed or involved in fire fights. If we were involved in a fire fight, we were not supposed to fire unless we were fired upon. "If we aren’t supposed to be armed in the first damned place, what the hell are we supposed to fire back with?," I thought. At any rate no one paid any damn attention to that stupid order so it didn’t matter. It was just a political CYA [cover your ass] and something to joke about and we all knew it.

When you are in foliage so thick the enemy could ambush you with machetes, nobody I knew was dumb enough to give them first shot. Besides, the idiot Maggot General who issued that order was in Vientiane and like all of his other Maggots, he never ventured out into the jungle.

There was one exception, Colonel Kaplan tried it once, but even he wasn’t dumb enough to go unarmed. Everybody was armed and most were like me, they had a rifle, sub-machinegun, carbine, and/or a pistol. I was the only one that had a shotgun. I soon learned that a 12 gauge riot gun attracts attention. My shotgun gave everyone a big laugh: my shotgun and I became a source of entertainment. [Later on, after the shit hit the fan, I noticed everybody wanted me beside them, especially when we were in thick underbrush or tall grass.]

Three of our B Team radio operators served on FTTs while we were in Laos Crabb, Miller, and myself. Crabb replaced a radioman on one of our FTTs and I later replaced Crabb because he came down with hepatitis. Also, I replaced Homer Rice when he went on R&R. Homer was with the FTT at Ban Houie Sai and I can not remember the name of the hell hole where Crabb’s FTT was. The FTT at Ban Houie Sai later requested a backup radioman when they got into a bit of trouble and asked for me by name so I went back there. Then I later requested a backup and they sent my B Team Radio Supervisor, Ken Miller to help out.

The FTT that Crabb went to lived in tiny bunkers on a small mountain top somewhere in that damned jungle south of LP. It may have been located along the highway between LP and Vientiane, but I can’t remember. The term "highway" is used very loosely here. You needed four wheel drive to travel it. All I can remember is they had terrible living conditions and even worse chow, but I never mentioned it. They took turns being the cook. How they picked the first cook, I don’t know, but I do know how they chose replacements. The first person to bitch about the food became the next cook, regardless of rank. This was the only team rule that I remember and they were kind enough to inform me of it as soon as I arrived — after all, that was only fair. Try as I may, I can not recall how long I spent with those poor guys, but whatever it was it was too damned long. Unfortunately, I also can not remember anyone who was on that FTT.

Homer’s FTT in Ban Houie Sai was quartered in Dr Tom Dooley’s former bungalow. It was on top of a hill next to a one room, one story block building that had served as his hospital. About 200 yards away was an old abandoned French Fort. The Royal Lao Army had ammunition and some other supplies stored there. Tom Dooley’s old hospital building still served as a hospital for the Tom Dooley Foundation. There was one german doctor, Doctor Carl M. Wiedermann and he had a young American assistant, Al Harris, who was an ex-Navy corpsman. Doctor Wiedermann was a very frail, skinny guy with dark shaggy hair and he wore glasses. The FTT had hired a local Laotian man to be their cook and a local Laotian woman to clean their clothes and house. The Ban Houie Sai FTT had a good deal for a little while.

The Mekong River was about a mile down the hill from the team house. The main part of Ban Houie Sai was down by the river. Almost all of the buildings in Ban Houie Sai were thatched huts but some were frame houses with metal roofs. Some of the homes were built on stilts. If you owned one of the frame houses you were really considered to be "shitting in tall cotton."

Nam Tha was about 100-120 kilometers to the east of Ban Houie Sai. To reach Nam Tha from our Team House, you had to turn left on the main road at the bottom of the hill. To go to beautiful downtown Ban Houie Sai and the river bank, you turned right at the bottom of the hill. The airfield was on the banks of the river about three kilometers south of the team house. To reach the airfield, you took the Nam Tha Road and then turned off at the first fork to the right. The airport facilities consisted of World War II portable metal runways and one shed with four bamboo poles and a tin roof. If you wanted to fly, you paid the pilot in cash.

While I was there, I made two trips across the river into Thailand to a small village that was just a couple of miles from the river. Other than the thatched homes, I only recall that they had a general store and a whore house or at least that’s what I was told it was because I never found out for myself — honest. On my first trip to that village, I went with one of the other team members, but I don’t recall why we went, to get supplies I guess. The second time, the team needed some food items and everyone else was busy so I "volunteered" to go alone.

I had to walk from the Thailand side of the river on a narrow clay trail through the jungle to reach the village. That trail was worn as smooth as a baby’s butt. On the way back from the village it was getting dark; it gets dark early in the jungle. A strange feeling came over me; I had the feeling that "something" was watching me. Glancing from side to side, I kept walking, but I didn’t see anything. Then I looked behind me right up into the eyes of a damn elephant that was only about ten feet behind me and I nearly shit a brick. Then I saw this little boy sitting atop the elephant. The boy couldn’t have been more than four foot tall and that little shit was grinning from ear-to-ear. He looked as if he was thinking, "Boy, I really pulled a good one on that dumb round-eye."

Okay, I knew that there were wild elephant herds in the area and that wild elephants are extremely dangerous, but I figured I could spot an elephant a mile away. I swear that I did not know elephants could walk that damn quiet. Never again did I travel alone in the jungle. I made that rule right then and there. Most of the mountain natives traveled in pairs when they made long trips. If you are alone deep in the jungle and fall and break a leg or severely sprain an ankle, it will most likely cost you your life. That little boy sure wasn’t alone, his "buddy" was with him and his buddy was the biggest, baddest dude in the jungle. My hearing also greatly improved over the next few years. From then on, when I was in the jungle or any combat zone, I was much more attentive.

The six-man FTT at Ban Houie Sai was led by Captain Henry L. "Hank" Ellison. Captain Hank was tall, medium build and a damn good officer. Sergeant First Class Robert L. Derringer, a quiet, short, wiry man with a dry sense of humor was the Team Sergeant. Sergeant First Class Virgil Murphy, a fun-loving, medium height, medium built man was the medic. Sergeant First Class Francis E. Russell, a short, comical guy was the weapons man. Staff Sergeant Homer L. Rice, a very quiet, tall, slim guy was the radioman. Sergeant Merle E. Loobey, a tall, slim, very quiet soldier was the demo-man. Russell, Rice and Captain Hank were black men and the other three were poor white folks. Russell and Rice were as black as the ace of spades. Homer’s nose was more like a Roman nose than a negro nose. Now Captain Hank was altogether different, he was as white as I am. [I didn’t discover Captain Hank was legally considered to be black until we were back on Oki. It didn’t make any difference to me, it just surprised me because I had never encountered that before.]

Out of three scheduled radio contacts each day, we had to make at least one contact with LP so they would know that we were okay. When I was due to make my first radio contact, Captain Hank gave me a message to send. It wasn’t like the ones I had been accustomed to getting from those two Maggots. The message was fairly brief, only thirty or forty groups. A group consists of five characters. A character could be either a number or a letter of the alphabet. When I got out the code books to encode it, Derringer picked up the code card and sat down beside me. Apparently, Derringer had helped Homer encode and decode messages. While working at the base station in LP, I already had ninety percent of the seventy eight possible combinations memorized. While encoding the message, I only asked him what the code was for about three combinations. He gaped at me, but he stayed there until after I transmitted the message. LP had said they also had a message for me so I guess he figured to help me decode it. As the encrypted message came over the radio, I decoded it in my head and wrote it out in plain English instead of writing the encrypted text, except for a few of the tough combinations that I hadn’t memorized. When LP finished sending their message, I told them to wait. Again, I asked Derringer for the answer to about three combinations. After about ten or fifteen seconds, I called LP back and acknowledged receipt of their message and turned off the radio. Derringer dropped the crypto card and went to talk to Captain Hank.

From then on I had a second home with that team. SF respected guts, loyalty, and job performance. If you also performed good in combat, you could almost get away with murder between missions. They didn’t much care how well you marched or how pretty you dressed. Homer was only gone about five days. When it was time for me to leave the Ban Houie Sai team and go back to LP, I really hated to leave Captain Hank's team, but I had no choice in the matter.

Only a week or two after I was back in LP, I think it was still May, the team at Nam Tha reported that their entire force, paratroops and all, had "bugged out" [fled]. It seems their fearless buddhist fighters had hastily departed in the middle of the night before a shot had been fired. They had deserted the FTT without any warning. They also left the artillery guns behind. The FTT awoke when about 5,000 Vietminh and Pathet Lao attacked at the crack of dawn. The FTT barely escaped and evaded the enemy until they could contact LP and request help. Members of my B Team got our guys out okay. I am a little fuzzy on the final disposition of the artillery, but they either managed to save the guns or destroyed them — I just can’t remember which. Because I was already back at Ban Houie Sai at the request of Captain Hank, I didn’t take part in the Nam Tha rescue. Captain Hank wanted an extra radio operator, just in case and he had asked specifically for me. When they told me that Captain Hank had asked specifically for me, my chest swelled until its a wonder all my shirt buttons didn’t pop off. Ol' Val had finally found himself a home. Maybe it was a dangerous home, but it was a home and at the time, I wouldn’t have swapped it for being President of the United States because an SF A Team wanted me, nobody else, just me. Besides, being on an SF A Team gave you much more esteem than being president because we weren’t politicians. Our fleeing Laotian warriors shot their officers if they had a vehicle, and took it so they could make better time.

The nearest safe place was across the river in Thailand. The nearest place to get a boat across the Mekong River was at Ban Houie Sai so that is where our fleet-footed warriors headed. Our fearless warriors walked so fast many of them died of heat stroke along the way. Almost all of the heavy weapons were thrown away to lighten the load. Those guys were giving a new meaning to "traveling light." The deserters who had vehicles spread the word of the retreat ahead of the main body of retreating troops. All of the villagers between the deserters and Ban Houie Sai also fled for Thailand. The panic-stricken villagers became a mob when they all came together at the river bank in Ban Houie Sai.

We learned later that the enemy had used one of their favorite tactics. They had radioed the Lao Commander of our troops directly and talked to him. They told him how many troops, mortars and cannons they had and that they would attack at dawn. They also said that a Vietminh unit was with them and they were going to eat the livers of all of our dead and wounded. Well, let me tell you that usually worked like a charm and it did this time. Usually our fearless warriors wouldn’t be there at dawn and Nam Tha was no exception.

I heard that was how Sergeant Orville R. Ballenger and his Team Leader, Captain Walter H. Moon were captured. [They were kept in holes with bamboo bars above and the Pathet Lao used their hole for a latrine. Ballenger survived more than a year of that hell and became the only US soldier ever to survive being captured in Laos. How he did it is beyond me. Moon tried two stupid escape attempts, then went crazy and attacked his guards. They were tired of fooling with Moon so they executed him. Ballenger became an instructor in the Special Warfare Center Survival Course.

One of the Sergeants on Moon’s team took off without his boots because the enemy were only about 25 yards away when he awoke. He walked barefoot for three days and when he was finally picked up he was in bad shape. Long before I had volunteered for SF duty, I had decided to learn from the experience of others. From then on, except to change my socks, I never removed my boots when I was on an operation. When I changed socks, I never had both boots unlaced at the same time. Always, I tried to learn from the other guy’s mistakes, maybe that’s one reason that I was so "lucky."]

In fact, as a general rule, SF tried to learn from their mistakes. Every time an SF team went on an operation, they had to write an After Action Report. This information was supposed to be made available to the leaders of any subsequent SF team that was scheduled to operate in that same area. Hopefully, the next team leader and team sergeant would try to learn from a previous team’s mistakes. The conventional units did not do this.

The next morning after I returned to Ban Houie Sai, Captain Hank sent Staff Sergeant Homer Rice and I down to the river bank with the radio set. We were supposed to make contact with LP and send a message that he gave us and then remain there until someone came to get us. Some of the guys were going to take a jeep up the Nam Tha Road a ways to try and get a handle on the situation. The rest of the team were going to evacuate our equipment via chopper to a Thai military base not far across the river. Whether that was an army or border guard post, I do not remember. Anyway, choppers started flying in and out and that kept up all day.

Refugees were pouring into that tiny village by the thousands. More rumors spread that our fleeing warriors were close behind them and the enemy was nipping at their heels. The more refugees that packed into the village the wilder the rumors and the more panicky the mob became. An estimated 15,000 people fled through Ban Houie Sai to Thailand in that one day. It was literally a hell on earth. Homer and I set the radio up near where the boats docked. People were packed into the paths and dirt streets shoulder-to-shoulder and belly-to-butt. You never saw such a pitiful bunch of people in your life. They were running, crying, screaming, pushing and fighting their way towards that riverbank so they could catch a boat to Thailand. That small village and especially that tiny boat ramp area was literally swarming with people. The ones who were too feeble, crippled or blind were left on their own. One blind, legless man drug himself along the outskirts of the mob crying something, I guess he was pleading for help.

Later in the afternoon, we began to hear random shots and short bursts of automatic weapons fire. Gradually the shooting came closer; I never turned my back on that mob. I sat on the generator seat facing them with my shotgun across my knees and the muzzle pointing in their general direction. They never came close to us. Then the first of our brave fleeing warriors appeared. They were the only ones that were armed. The soldiers forced their way to the front of the mob and then held the villagers back at gun point so they could evacuate in the first available boats. This was the same army that was supposed to have been protecting those poor natives. It was sickening to watch.

Several of the soldiers ranted and raved at us and waved their rifles in our direction. We couldn’t understand Lao, so we had no idea what was going on. The muzzle of my 12 gauge riot gun was still casually pointing in their general direction. Rant and wave was all they did. They left us alone. Homer’s only weapon was an M-2 Carbine. That piddly-ass thing doesn’t put the fear of God into anyone. However, the big hole in the muzzle of a 12 gauge does get respect and most of those jerks were within 30 feet of me.

Homer and I did not like our situation. Scattered shooting continued as long as the soldiers kept coming in and as long as there were soldiers yet to cross none of the villagers were allowed on the boats. Captain Hank had put us there because he was unaware of the true situation. If the enemy did suddenly appear on the outskirts of Ban Houie Sai, we had a better chance of saving our radio equipment, the code books and code instructions and of course ourselves.

For the first time in my life, I really wanted to kill somebody and it wasn’t even the communists. I wanted to blast our own Lao soldiers so damn bad, I could taste it, but there was nothing that we could do. We didn’t even speak their language. If I started shooting those damn soldiers, I would have had to shoot all of them and they were a few thousand too many for that. So Homer and I just kept separate from that mob.

In the late afternoon, the last soldiers loaded up and the villagers swarmed the boat ramp again. Some tried to drive their livestock across the river. The river at this point was over a mile wide, very deep, and had a very swift current. They drove livestock into the water and then climbed into the boats and tried to drive their livestock to the opposite bank of the river by beating them with sticks; it didn’t work. It was about a five mile trip by boat from dock to dock because they were not directly across the river from one another. Our side of the river was full of drowned horses, cattle, and buffalo. Then they over-loaded some boats and sank them. Some of the passengers were very, very old and some were very, very young. Some survived and some didn’t.

This was my first taste of war and I have to tell you, it really sucked. Try as I might, I can not think of a word that adequately describes that scene or how I felt. That scene is still burned into my mind. [Surely I have forgotten a lot, but there are some things I will never forget. Afterwards, I vowed that I would never, under any circumstances, panic. Hopefully, I learned something from witnessing that fiasco. Ever since witnessing that panicky mob in Laos, I hate to be part of a large crowd of people, especially strangers. It is just unbelievable how easily they can be panicked and become a violent mob.]

Finally just about sunset, there were only a handful of villagers left on our side of the river and the pet dogs that had been left behind. There were lots of dogs. Every dog within fifty kilometers must have been there. Just as it was growing dark, one of the Thai boatmen made it clear by sign language that his boat would be the last one across the river that day. We had not heard anything from our team since we came down to the river bank early that morning. It had been several hours since we had seen a chopper and it was heading for Thailand. We had no idea what was going on or where any of our guys were. We had the code books and radios with us. Homer was the ranking man, so I asked him, "Homer, do we take that boat or stay put?" Homer finally decided, "We better take the boat to make sure the code books are safe." That was fine by me, but I have to admit that I wasn’t worried about the code books, I could have easily tossed them into the river from where we were.

The Thai Border Patrol had a pile of weapons as large as a good-sized house on the far riverbank. They had disarmed our fearless warriors as soon as they hit shore. They made a motion for us to add our weapons to the pile. I didn’t speak Thai, but with one motion I made it perfectly clear that they were not getting my damn weapons. The shotgun was laying in the crook of my left elbow and pointed directly at them, the only motion I made was to shake my head. We kept our gear and sat with it until Captain Hank picked us up later that night and took us to our new camp. Murphy and Loobey stayed behind to blow up the supplies at the old fort and some abandoned vehicles and came across later that night.

The next day, I received a message from our MAAG-Laos Commander in Vientiane, I believe it was a General Tucker. He ordered the Ban Houie Sai FTT, "with or without" Laotian soldiers, to patrol up the Nam Tha Road until we made contact with the approaching enemy.

Remember, we had originally been ordered not to participate in the combat, now we were being ordered to go out looking for a fight. This shit they called war, was getting better all the damn time. Its a damn good thing that we had "armed ourselves."

Captain Hank made several trips to the refugee camp to talk with the ranking Lao Officer to try to get some troops to go with us. He wasn’t having any luck. Finally after another day, he managed to get 50 Laotian "Commandos." Captain Hank’s six-man FTT went on the patrol. They were flown back across the river and started walking. The day before they left, Colonel Chaplan decided to benefit us with his expert leadership and flew in on a chopper. Captain Johnson’s six-man FTT that had been at Nam which had been sent to reinforce us. Captain Johnson’s team was TDY from the 7^th Group at Fort Bragg.

Captain Johnson was a good natured man of medium height and build and another damn good officer. Their Team Sergeant was Sergeant First Class Edmundson, who was of average height and slim build. Their weapon’s man was Staff Sergeant Vincent O’Rourke, who was short, dark and slim. Private First Class Edward F. Eckerman, who was average height and build and a quiet guy, was their radio operator. Their medic was Staff Sergeant Ed L. Miller, who was taller than average, of medium build and an ex-marine. Their demo-man, Specialist Fourth Class Robert H. "Tex" Simmons, was a very tall, slim Texan who was completely covered with freckles and filled with humor. Captain Johnson was black and the rest were poor white folks. All damn good men.

They left me, as the only radioman at the Thai camp to operate the radio there so they could relay messages to and from LP. Also, I continuously monitored the radio for calls from the patrol. Shortly after they left, I informed LP that I was alone and needed another radio man. That dipstick Chaplan never once asked me if I needed anything to eat or drink when he went to the village to get something to eat. He just left, stuffed his face and returned. LP finally sent Ken Miller to help me. Almost as soon as Ken arrived, I collapsed and was asleep before I hit the floor. After all, I hadn’t slept in three days.

On the third day they swapped FTTs on patrol so they could get some rest, except for the radio operators. They had decided to rotate FTTs frequently to make it as fair as possible. That’s like playing Russian Roulette. The patrol had covered 75 kilometers without meeting any enemy and spent that night in, Ban Phoung, a deserted village. The next day, Captain Johnson’s FTT walked right into the enemy’s lead element. They were about 80 kilometers from Ban Houi Sai at the time. [Just in case you didn’t catch it, I’ll repeat it, "The enemy were still 80 kilometers away from that damn river where so many people and animals had died because of rumors and panic."] The enemy on point had pulled off to both sides of the road and were eating.

Tex Simmons and Ed Miller were on point and walked right into the middle of the enemy and all hell broke loose. Our guys back-tracked post-haste returning fire as best they could. Tex and Ed Miller were both armed with M1 Garands. Tex swears that Miller shot at least three enemy soldiers. Tex got a bullet through the front pocket of his fatigue pants. He swore that the bullet spun around in there and stayed in his pocket and bruised his thigh, but I still don’t know about that tale. Those Texans can spin a yarn. They pulled back five kilometers to Ban Phoung and set up a roadblock on its outskirts.

The next morning, Captain Ellison’s FTT relieved Captain Johnson’s FTT and I "volunteered" to take Homer’s place. Damn, I still had that bad habit, it must have been a nervous tic in my right shoulder that caused my right hand to jump higher than my shoulder. Mostly, it happened when I was terrified. I made a mental note to have a doctor check on that for me. This time I was the only radioman sent on the patrol but we had an extra medic, Donald L. Wellington. Doc Wellington was the medic on Lieutenant Ammerman’s team.

Doc Wellington was the only one, other than me, who was dumb enough to volunteer so I guess it was natural for us to buddy up. We hit it off right away. Doc and I were the only ones "attached" to the FTT on the outpost. Everyone else in the FTT had already "buddied up" a long time ago so it was a good thing that Doc and I hit it off. We didn’t have much choice anyway.

When we arrived, Murphy and Loobey were out on a roadblock with the light thirty and about a dozen of our fearless Lao Commandos. The rest of us were in the tiny village that consisted of about five or six thatched huts on stilts. The roadblock was only a few hundred yards away towards Nam Tha at a junction where the trail to Ban Phoung meets the Nam Tha-Ban Houie Sai Road. Everyone wondered what the enemy was up to. We didn’t have to wait very long to find out.

Doc and I went to a nearby creek to fill a five gallon can. On the way back, we heard a fire fight breakout at the roadblock so we ran like rabbits the rest of the way. Captain Hank told me to try to get a message to Ban Houie Sai. Try as I might, I could not get Ban Houie Sai to answer. Finally, someone came on the air using a call sign that I did not recognize and said that they would relay. Still, I have no idea who that was. At any rate, Ban Houie Sai never got the message and did not know that we were under attack. [That failure still bugs the hell out of me to this day.]

When I looked around me again, I saw that our fearsome Lao Commandos were fast disappearing in the distance heading for Ban Houie Sai. Two commandos apparently didn’t get the word because they were rushing out of the village right by me so I grabbed them by their collars and kept them with me to help carry the 109 radio set. They didn’t like that one little bit, but they stayed. After all, I still had that damn shotgun and its huge muzzle just happened to be pointing in their general direction.

We withdrew to a trail junction just south of the village where the trail from the village re-joined the Ban Houie Sai-Nam Tha Road. Captain Hank was determined to wait right there in hopes that Murphy and Loobey would appear. That’s where we were supposed to meet in the event we got separated.

We knew there was no way that we were going to stop a whole damn army. We just hoped that our two guys would show up before the enemy did. The firing stopped before we reached that trail junction. We waited and waited, but Murphy and Loobey never showed up. A couple of the Laotians that had been on the roadblock with them came along. One of them had one cheek of his ass shot off and a big, fist-sized chunk of meat was dangling down behind him. It didn’t surprise me that he was hit in the backside, that seemed to be all they ever showed the enemy.

Meanwhile, one of our choppers flew over and we made contact and he went back to Ban Houie Sai for help. Shortly they radioed that they were bringing reinforcements. Somebody swore, "If more damn Laotians get off that chopper, I’m going to shoot them on the spot." When the choppers landed, off hopped Captain Johnson’s FTT and the next chopper brought in Lieutenant Ammerman’s FTT. Captain Hank decided that Murphy and Loobey had probably been captured and taken into the village. He decided to attack the village, all 19 of us, and hope that Murphy and Loobey could escape during the confusion. They left O’Rourke and me along with the remaining Laotian "commandos" to guard the landing zone at the road junction.

Because I wasn’t going, they had Doc Wellington carry the field radio set, a Prick Ten [AN/PRC-10]. When I loaded the Prick Ten onto Doc’s back, he immediately started bitching. He said, "Its undignified for a man of the medical profession to be burdened like a damned mule." I could still hear him mumbling to himself as they marched off to do battle with the commie horde.

Almost as soon as they left, the chopper returned and of all people, off hopped Chaplan and a another squad of Lao Commandos. We informed Chaplan of the situation and he decided that he would take his brave warriors and catch up with the other group and up the trail they went towards the village. The chopper took off and circled the area watching the action.

The first group turned off the trail to the left and cut cross-country around the village. Chaplan and his brave little warriors did not know this and continued on up the trail. The first group spread out along a hedge row and opened fire across a pasture on the enemy in the village.

Naturally they drew a lot of return fire. There was at least a company of enemy troops in that village and more in the general vicinity. The return fire got pretty bad. Bullets were flying all over the damn place, even where O’Rourke and me crouched along with our little group of "commandos."

Chaplan and his Laotians reached the outskirts of the village without being seen, everybody was shooting at the first group. The village was between the two groups. He spotted a mortar crew about 75 meters away between them and the village setting up their gun to fire on our troops. He tried to get his Laotians to fire at them and one said, "No, No. Vietminh." Then they bugged out and left him all alone. Chaplan said that he emptied his forty five at them and then fled also. That pistol was the only weapon that idiot had brought. That’s like taking a willow switch to a knife fight.

O’Rourke became impatient and wanted to know how his team was doing, after all there was one hell of a lot of shooting going on. He radioed the chopper, "What’s happening? Where’s our men?" The chopper pilot told us, "Our troops are running to the rear." Instantly, Doc Wellington’s voice came on the air, "We..puff-puff — are not — puff-puff — running — puff-puff — we are — puff-puff — walking hastily." We got a big laugh out of that.

Shortly afterwards our gallant troops, not much worse for wear, showed up. A few minutes later, the Laotian commandos led by Squad Leader Chaplan returned. They soon discovered that we were missing two more SF. They were the ones that had been carrying a light thirty . Well, that immediately made me feel guilty because I knew that I had more experience with that weapon than anyone there. Private First Class William F. Smith, who was average height and build and an ex-Navy Frogman from way back in the 1940s, and his assistant machine gunner, whose name I can not recall, showed up about ten minutes later and they were no worse for wear. That raised my spirits. Meanwhile, I had noticed a bullet hole dead center in the back of the radio’s battery case that Doc Wellington was still carrying strapped to his back. I said, "Doc, does your radio still work?"

Doc said, "Sure, it works just fine. Why?"

"I was just checking because there’s a bullet hole dead center in the back of it," I answered.

Doc asked, "Val, do we have another one of these radios handy?" I told him, "Doc, your’s still works so just keep that one." Doc laughed, "Hell, I fully intend to keep this fine radio strapped across my ass, I just wanted another one to strap across my damn chest."

When Doc Wellington had first entered SF, he became interested in snakes and started collecting them. He spent many weekends hunting snakes. Doc kept his snakes in cages at his home off post. On one weekend hunting trip, a black snake got loose and crawled up behind the dash of Doc’s car. There was no way Doc could get that snake out without destroying his dash and all of the electrical wiring and he knew it. Doc decided to let it stay there until it got hungry or thirsty and it would come out on its own. No sweat, it wasn’t poisonous. One day Doc’s wife needed the car so she drove him to work. Enroute home, the snake decided it was time to come out of its hiding place so it crawled up the steering column. When Doc returned home that evening, his wrecked car was setting in his driveway. All of Doc’s clothes were piled on the porch on one side of the front door and his snake cages were all stacked on the porch on the opposite side of the door. His very hostile wife was standing in the doorway with her arms crossed. She told Doc, "One of these piles is leaving here today, take your choice which." That was the end of Doc’s fascination with snakes.

Still no sign of Murphy or Loobey, but I was getting anxious to move. We were gathered at a trail junction that was on every topo map. Having been a mortar man at one time, I remembered that we had used such terrain features as reference points when we first set up and fired on them to zero our guns. Since, I did not like the idea of sitting on a mortar reference point, I laid in the ditch along the edge of the road. I was the only person lying down. I asked Captain Hank, "Sir, if its alright with you, I would like to take my R&R when the next chopper comes in." He broke out laughing, evidently he thought that I was kidding.

A West Point tactician I wasn’t, but I had read a book or two. From some of those books I had learned about a favorite tactic of the communists and Genghis Khan. It went something like this, "When their lead element made contact with the enemy, the point maintained contact with them. Meanwhile, two other elements quickly flanked them and cut them off." Finally, I got to Captain Hank’s ear and we shortly pulled back a little farther down the road [away from that damn mortar reference point] and waited for a while longer for our two MIA. Still no Murphy or Loobey came.

I warned my fellow team members, "If we come under fire and I yell ‘glasses,’ that means that I have either lost my glasses or they are steamed up and anything that I see moving, belongs to my damn shotgun. So make damn sure that I know where you’re at." It got a good laugh, but I wasn’t joking. That was one reason that I had selected the shotgun in the first place. It was almost impossible to keep your glasses from becoming steamed-over in that damn humidity. That’s one reason that I always carried several pairs of glasses with me when I was in the boonies.

At about sunset on that day, Captain Hank called in the choppers and started loading us up. Tex Simmons and Eckerman went out on security to guard the LZ while everyone was loading. When we got back to the Ban Houie Sai airfield and unloaded, we counted noses. We were now missing "four" noses, instead of only two. Simmons and Eckerman had been left on the LZ and it was now dark. Air America did not allow its pilots to fly after dark. They did not allow them to knowingly fly into a "hot" LZ either. The pilots were all ex-military, mostly ex-marines. The pilot we all knew as "Red" said he would go back for them. Captain Johnson went with Hank because they were his men, but Hank wouldn’t let anyone else go. When they finally got to where they thought they had left them, Red turned on his landing lights so he could see and out of the trees came Simmons and Eckerman racing towards the chopper.

According to Tex, the Vietminh were sweeping through the jungle on each side of the road. Tex told me, "Me and Eckerman hid in the brush. Just as the skirmish line got near us, the chopper turned its lights on. I jumped up and trampled one Vietminh getting out of there. I bowled him right over. I had a good head start on Eckerman. I thought my long legs could haul my skinny butt pretty darned fast, but that Eckerman went by me like I was standing still." [That’s when Tex found out that Eckerman had been a 100 yard dash man on his high school track team.]

We set up shop back on the Ban Houie Sai side of the river. The two doctors for the Tom Dooley Foundation also returned and set up their hospital again. Some villagers returned also, but not many, Ban Houie Sai was still deserted. We moved into one of those frame, stilted houses down near the boat ramp in Ban Houie Sai.

The next day while I was alone in the hut, I reached for the coffee pot on the burner. It was setting back against the wall where a large beam was. A large reptile’s head popped out from behind that beam about three inches from my hand. Before I realized what I was doing, I had jumped back, drawn my pistol and shot that damn thing’s head off without even aiming. Hell, I thought it was a cobra. It turned out to be the largest Gekko lizard that I had ever seen. Because it had only exposed its head, that’s all that I had seen. Ed Miller poked his head through the door to investigate and laughingly said, "We lost all of our remaining commandos and some of the villagers that had returned. When they heard your shot, they hit the river and headed for Thailand."

Later that night, the main body of our commandos who had fled from Ban Phoung tramped through town, found some logs, pushed them into the river for floats to cling to, and started across the river. Maybe, all of the crocodiles were farther south — too bad. It was certain that the LP area had crocs. The rumors that these troops spread as they fled through town caused another round of panic and everyone fled across the river again.

The Tom Dooley doctors closed up shop and relocated again. It was about this time, that the rumor started that I had shot one of our commandos in the ass with my shotgun and that’s what caused that one Lao soldier to lose the cheek of his ass. My buddies also began calling me "Shotgun." But I swear, if he was shot by a shotgun, it wasn’t by me. That thing was never out of my hands. The rumor soon died a natural death for lack of witnesses and due to my constant denials.

Captain Lukow, one of our B Team staff officers, sent a message to Captain Hank and requested a detailed inventory of our "training aids." Captain Hank ignored it.

We relocated to cheaper quarters in a low class neighborhood that was nearer the airfield — back to the bamboo huts. Oh well, living high on the hog was to rich for my blood anyway. We kept a couple of guys with our only jeep on guard on the Nam Tha Road just outside town for early warning.

Captain Lukow repeated his request. Captain Hank ignored it again.

Then I received another brilliant order from General Tucker, "No US personnel will cross into Thailand again. Regardless of what happens, you [all 21 of us] will defend the Ban Houie Sai airfield." Since we already had information that we were facing approximately 5,000 enemy, that news did not make our day. Somebody decided that we should relocate again the next day and we kept one FTT on the airfield with their backs against the riverbank. The other guys were to stay on an island that was in the middle of the river out of range of small arms fire. Captain Hank assumed that the island was not in Thailand, at least it was not "across" the river.

We soon ran out of food and I only had four shotgun shells, six rounds for my .357 revolver, and two hand grenades. No more ammo was to be had for my rather unconventional weapons. This was when I discovered that I should have chosen one of the M-1 Garands; we had plenty of ammo for them. Yes sir, I was wishing that I had a nice Garand Rifle and an army-issue forty-five automatic pistol with plenty of ammo for both. Oh well, that's how rookies learn, assuming they survive the experience of course.

No field rations were available and we were not supplied with any kind of food through military channels. We were the only humans around so there were no stores or farmers from which to buy food. We definitely had a problem. Captain Hank requested food and we waited.

Captain Johnson’s FTT was the first to pull duty on the airfield. Colonel Chaplan stayed with me and my trusty 109 radio set. Chaplan still loved to have me encrypt and transmit those damn novels that he called messages. The first thing that we did was dig some holes in an "L" shaped mound of dirt that was near the riverbank. That was the area where the airport people had stored gasoline drums. Securing the left flank was my responsibility; it was level and open for about fifty yards, except for some thick tall grass. The other guys covered the airfield area with their rifles and carbines, and I think O’Rourke covered the thick underbrush along the river on the right flank with his sub. No one watched our rear, we were backed up against the river. The riverbank there was very steep and about 15-25 feet above the river.

Tex set about making some improvised grapeshot charges to string out in front of us. In flew a light airplane and out jumped the civilian pilot, an American, and three reporters, also Americans, from the English paper in Bangkok. Those reporters nosed around and asked us all a bunch of questions, but we weren’t interested in giving them any information. Mostly we referred them to the officers. One stopped and asked Tex, "Whatcha making buddy?" Tex smiled and replied, "Mud pies!" Tex strung his blasting line, but just connected blasting caps. Tex wanted to test the circuit without charges to make sure that it would handle that many blasting caps. Then Tex set off the caps.

A detonated blasting cap sounds like a .22 caliber pistol muzzle blast and this was several caps all at once. Those reporters scrambled for their plane. They grabbed their pilot, who was laughing so hard he could hardly walk much less run, and drug him to the plane and off they went. The next day that same pilot returned without any passengers to pay for the flight. He just wanted to bring us a copy of that day’s paper fresh off the press. That was about a six hundred mile trip from Bangkok. I do not recall which page it was on, but there it was, a small article about the "terrible mortar barrage" that we had suffered while they were there. It was worth another laugh.

In the meantime, we had been searching by chopper all day every day for Murphy and Loobey. We took turns going with the choppers. On the third day after we had lost them, we found them. They were hungry, but otherwise okay. They had a villager’s abandoned pet dog with them. The dog had took up with them and they didn’t mind because he was potential food and they didn’t even have to carry it. They had decided to eat him that night, if they weren’t picked up. That was one lucky dog.

When the enemy started to flank them, they field-stripped their machine gun, threw the parts into the brush and then tried to evade the enemy. All of their troops had already bugged out. They mostly hid. When they decided to move again, Murphy crept through some underbrush and came face-to-face with an enemy soldier. Murphy and the Pathet Lao soldier were muzzle-to-muzzle. It was a no win situation, without saying a word both men backed off until they were out of sight of each other: then they both fled. We were sure glad to see Murphy and Loobey, especially the guys on their team.

In flew the choppers with several cases of C-Rations that had been found with some team in southern Laos. It had been three days since we had eaten. We issued the rations and I opened mine. The rations were dated 1952. In my can of crackers there was only dust and dead moths. I have no idea how those moths got into a sealed can. The C-Rations were inedible so we were still hungry.

We also had no fresh drinking water. The temperature was over one hundred degrees fahrenheit day and night. There was no well or spring anywhere near the airfield and the village was too far away because we had no idea where the commie horde was located now. A water party could be cut off and never get back to us. So we filled five gallon cans from that muddy river — boy, was it muddy. We spiked it with enough water purification pills to kill a horse and then let it set for a couple of days, hoping that the mud would settle to the bottom. It didn’t and it tasted like shit and I tried not to think of what I had seen in that damn river just a few days ago.

Captain Lukow repeated his request again. Captain Hank was hot, hungry, tired, thirsty and pissed-off. This time Captain Hank wrote a message for me to send to Captain Lukow. It read something like this, "To Luke the Gook! Our training aids consist of the following: One battalion of Laotian Soldiers who just finished practicing their river crossing techniques using motorized boats, canoes and logs. Said battalion enjoyed it so much they never returned; Two men have just field-tested our Escape and Evasion Course; Ten cases of inedible C-Rations; and 5,000 pop-up, shoot-back targets of various calibers. If you ask me for an inventory again you skinny son of a bitch, I promise you, I will kick your ass all the way back to Okinawa, if I survive this damn fiasco. Hank Sends."

We got no more silly requests from Captain Lukow after that. The same day, Captain Hank made what is commonly referred to in the Green Machine as a "command decision." He sent our interpreters to Thailand with all the money that we had to buy food. Our interpreters were Thai, not US. So that night we finally ate. I don’t remember what we ate and I’ll be honest with you, at the time, it didn’t really matter very much.

Chaplan sent everyone back up the Nam Tha Road on a short patrol to see if they could find the enemy. Everyone went except Chaplan and me. That was the hottest day yet. LP notified me that the choppers were coming and Elmer Fudd, Chaplan’s Maggot buddy, was aboard. They also said that the chopper would be returning to LP immediately. Novelist Chaplan sat down and started writing another one of his infamous messages. It must have been every bit of 500 groups [words] long. When he finally finished it, he brought it to me, "Here Sergeant Valentine, send this to LP right away." I suggested, "Sir, why don’t we send this message back with the chopper? It will arrive in LP about the same time by chopper as it would by radio by the time I encode and send it and the guys in LP decode it." Chaplan puffed up, "Oh no, it has to go out right away." "Yes sir! I’ll get on it right now.," said I. When I said that, I must have been grinning like a cheshire cat.

Let met tell you, I encoded Chaplan's latest novel in record time, all the while hoping that our guys would not return before I had finished. When I finally had it encoded, I told Chaplan, "Sir, I’m ready to send your message. You can come on over here and have a seat on the generator now." [How I got that out without busting a gut laughing, I don’t know, but I did.] Chaplan looked puzzled and asked, "What do you mean?" I explained, "Sir, unless you know morse code and special forces radio procedure, I am going to transmit this message and you are going to crank the generator."

Let me take the time to explain about a hand-cranked generator and the effect that morse code transmissions have on it. If you just hold down the telegraph key, our strongest man can barely move the handles on that generator. It’s much like a really hard-frozen hand-cranked ice cream churn when the ice cream is done and you "stop" cranking. The faster you send code, the lighter you touch the key and the shorter time you hold it down, but the slower you send code, the heavier you touch the key and the longer you hold it down. If I wanted to, I could transmit about 22-25 words a minute and I knew that our guys in LP could copy that speed. However, there is a time and a place for everything in this world and I knew that was not the time or the place for me to send fast. That was a time for revenge.

Chaplan sighed, "Oh all right, let’s get this over with." He sat down and started cranking and I started slowly sending his latest damn novel and I mean very, very slowly. My transmitting speed was only about five words per minute. After just a few minutes, the sweat began to pour off my dear little budding novelist. The operator at LP interrupted me; he told me that he could hear my signal loud and clear and then requested that I speed up. "Negative, Negative. Chaplan is cranking," I tapped out. Then I continued sending at the same speed. It took me a long, long time to finish sending that message.

Chaplan turned beet red and then as white as a sheet, but he kept cranking, I’ll give him that much. Hell, I thought that novel-writing son of a bitch was going to have a heat stroke because we were sitting in the sun and it was well over a hundred degrees at the time. It didn’t make a shit to me if he did, I was loving every minute of it. That son of a bitch was getting a lesson in message brevity that he would never forget, assuming he survived of course. When we finally finished, Chaplan literally crawled from the generator into the shade under his tin-roofed shelter. Where he laid and panted like a damned old Tennessee soup hound.

Almost immediately, in flew the choppers and out jumped his Maggot buddy, Elmer Fudd. Fudd marched his fat little pompous ass directly to where I hunkered down, oriental style, and handed me a five-page message that he had written on the way from LP and ordered, "Sergeant send this message to LP immediately."

[I have still not figured out what in the hell that fat fucker could possibly have discovered while he was on that flight that was so damn important that he just had to immediately notify LP about it.]

Fudd spoke a few words with Chaplan while I unloaded supplies and then he headed back to the chopper. Chaplan’s eyes never left the handful of papers that Fudd had given me, except to glance desperately up the road for any sign of our troops returning. The road was empty except for the heat waves rising from it. Suddenly, Chaplan got a wild desperate look in his eyes. He snatched those papers out of my hand and raced after Fudd. Their conversation was short, very shot, but I could tell that it was heated. They did a lot of arm-waving and Chaplan pointed several times at me and that damn generator. Shortly afterward, Fudd left with his message still in his fat little hands. Apparently, Chaplan had learned his message writing lesson very well, at least while he was the Crank Man, he had. All the while, I was grinning like a possum with chicken feathers on his lips. Don’t let anybody shit you, revenge is sweet! The guys got a big laugh out of that when they returned.

Counting the two interpreters and Chaplan, there were 21 of us. We were the only humans on the Laotian side of the river in northern Laos, except for the enemy and the Chinese. The Chinese lived in the jungle somewhere north of Ban Houie sai and they had not fled to Thailand. They lived separate from the Lao and were considered by Laotians and Thais alike to be bandits and maybe they were. They were not allowed to settle in either country. They were descendants of followers of Chang Kai Shek and had fled from the communist Chinese back in the forties. They sure were not going back to China. That would be suicide. They moved back and forth between Thailand and Laos depending on the military strength where they were at the time. Captain Hank met with their leader and tried to recruit them to help us defend our little airstrip. The Chinese leader dearly wanted an excuse to kill some Vietnamese and swore that they would not take the airfield, if his troops defended it, but we could not negotiate a deal. I forget exactly what the Chinese wanted, but whatever it was we could not or would not give. But I do know that neither the Thai nor Laotian government wanted those dudes well armed and I suspect they had put a stop to our plan.

So, the only thing that ruled the Ban Houie Sai area were the dogs. The hundreds of pet dogs that had been abandoned went wild and roamed the area in large packs. You could hear them all night, every night. No one ventured out afoot anywhere alone, day or night. A large pack of domestic dogs that have gone wild is about the most dangerous wildlife in the world.

Doctor Wiedermann and Al Harris of the Tom Dooley Foundation returned and tried to re-establish their hospital once again. They had fled and returned three times. Each time they returned, the natives had been there and had shit on their operating table and generally desecrated the place. These were the same natives that he had devoted his life to help. This time Doctor Wiedermann went nuts. He tried to cut his wrists. Our medic, Murphy, took over and stood guard over him. Somehow while Murphy's back was turned, the Doctor swiped Murphy’s forty five and blew his own brains out.

Chaplan got into a discussion with some of our guys about the soldiering ability of our Lao soldiers. He was the only one that supported them with, "All the Laotians lacked was leadership." One of our sergeants, remembering that Chaplan had just led a squad of Lao, asked him, "Sir, what do they need for a Squad Leader, a damn general?" Well sir, let me tell you that ended that discussion right then.

This fiasco caused the Laotian Government to agree to a Coalition Government with Kong Lee, the Royal Family, and the Pathet Lao all having an "equal" vote. This agreement was signed while we were still guarding that stupid airfield and I, for one, breathed a sign of relief. Earlier, I had laid me out a large dry log down by the water at the bottom of that 20’ riverbank, just in case.

[General Tucker later issued a "Certificate of Achievement" to all of the guys at Ban Houie Sai during that period and in it he made some statements that made it a "classic" that was worth keeping. Of course, I lost my copy. Most US officers during this period were butt-kissers by nature, especially generals, and would die before doing anything controversial, but this letter stated that "your Laotian troops had deserted you." It is doubtful that you will find another one like it and that’s what made it a collector’s item — and I lost mine. That figures.

 I can’t remember which Maggot it was nor which radio operator was involved, but one of the B Team operators received a message from one of our FTTs that the Chinese were building a major highway through Laos from China and they had a Russian advisor with them. The Maggot tore the message up and instructed the operator not to forward the information to Vientiane because it might cause an international incident. To the best of my memory, this happened early in our tour or it could have even happened to the B Team that we relieved and their radioman just told me about it.]

Back to LP I went. Most of us did not have a job anymore, but we remained in Laos until October anyway. Major Ripley’s team was the last B Team out of Laos. We helped to process our FTTs out of country one at a time and then we finally left. In the meantime, we still pulled radio shifts, but we didn’t have nearly the same amount of traffic, so life really became a bore for everyone except for Doc Thomas and his Demo-dentist. They still had plenty of patients. I almost asked Chaplan to write me another novel so I would have something to encode, but I decided that would spoil his training in message brevity that I had given him. [I still wonder, if he ever figured out that I had gotten even with him.]

We traded for about twenty muzzle-loaders from the mountain tribesmen. They were all hand-made by a village blacksmith. Some were flintlocks and some were percussion caps and they varied greatly in caliber also from about .30 to .50. I brought one .30 caliber flintlock with powder horn and shot bag home with me. We traded M-2 Carbines with magazines and ammo for them. A couple of the weapons were very old British Brown Bess muzzle-loading, flintlock, rifles. The Brown Bess was the standard rifle that was issued to soldiers in the British Army almost two hundred years ago. We had no idea how the Meo tribesmen came to have them. We figured that the mountain natives would need better weapons because that new coalition government meant that the commies would soon rule Laos and they hated the mountain natives because they were too damned independent to submit to slavery. Just like our hillbillies here at home. [I later gave Uncle Glenn the Brown Bess and I donated the flintlock with the pistol grip to the Special Warfare Center Museum at Fort Bragg.]

Staff Sergeant William "Ma" Baker, our Assistant Supply Sergeant and Kitchen Supervisor, managed somehow to get the B Team some movies now and then. We showed them outdoors and the Lao swarmed in and watched them with us. They dearly loved movies.

[Later, I learned that the mountain natives in Vietnam really got into a good movie. A western was their very favorite movie. They loved action movies, especially the westerns. They easily recognized the good guys and the bad guys according to the plot and if a bad guy was slipping up on a good guy and the good guy didn’t spot him and shoot him quick enough to suit our natives, they would shoot the bad guy for him, literally. The bed sheets on which the movie was shown was sometimes shot up so bad you could barely see the movie.]

Ma Baker, who was of medium height and a tad on the chunky side, was from Kentucky where he used to work for the railroad. He was nicknamed Ma because he acted like your mom. He lectured you on Supply Economy every time you requested anything, but if you patiently endured his lecture, repented, and promised to mend your wasteful ways, he eventually relented and gave you whatever you needed.

One day Ma served pizza for supper. Two pieces per person. The topping was from a box that he bought at the commissary in Vientiane. About an hour after supper, I started itching all over. Large welts appeared all over my body, I could barely breathe and nearly died. Doc Thomas thought it was nerves, but I didn’t because I’ve never been what you would call a nervous person.

The next night we had pizza again. Same reaction. Same diagnosis. Doc was afraid that I wouldn’t survive and I was afraid that I would. When I recovered that time, I decided that I didn’t need anymore of that damn pizza. That was the only connection that I could make between the two attacks. When I asked Ma for a box of that damn pizza mix, he didn’t have anymore and the garbage had already been burned. But I decided that there must have been some kind of preservative in that pizza topping that I was allergic to. So, because I never knew for sure what was in that pizza mix that I was allergic to, I stopped eating pizza of any kind for the next twenty years.

This was never put into my medical records because our records were not with us and I never requested that it be included after I returned to Oki because SF had to be able to eat any kind of food and I was afraid that they would kick me out of SF. At that point, I would have risked death before voluntarily leaving SF. I had found a home in SF — they were family.

One night a bunch of us went to Mimi’s Restaurant in downtown LP. For a Lao, Mimi was as cute as they come and she owned and ran a very tiny restaurant. You have to understand, by this time the south end of a northbound water buffalo looked cute. We sat next to a table of Lao Officers. She served them a large steaming platter of something and shortly afterwards the place was filled with an awful sulphur-like smell. We couldn’t figure out where that awful smell was coming from until I glanced over my shoulder and saw a huge plate of boiled eggs sitting in the middle of the table behind me. I saw one of the officers crack an egg and eat it; it was "rotten" with the boiled chick or duck still inside. Come to find out they consider that crap a delicacy. They lay the eggs out in the sun for several days until they are rotten and then they boil them. Ugh! That called for more booze.

Mimi ran out of the local beer so we drank local whiskey. That is even worse than the local beer. The next morning, I awoke in a GI canvas cot in the back room of Mimi’s with Mimi lying atop me. We were both buck naked so I guess something had happened. What ever it was, I figured it was better than eating those damned eggs.

A couple of days later while I was taking a shower, I noticed a lot of small particles of dirt in my pubic hair and dutifully began scrubbing away at the dirt. Much to my surprise, those damn dirt particles began to race around my crotch like crazy. "Oh shit, mechanized dandruff [crabs], ala Mimi." I ran to Doc Thomas for some Crab Powder. He did not have any crab powders and could not get any until the next milk run — maybe a week. "Shit, the whole team will be infested with crabs in a week. I can’t have that."

Next, I went to Ma Baker for help. Nothing, all he had was a couple of army-issued DDT Bombs. Being desperate, I took one. Hell, anything was worth trying so I stripped and sprayed it all over my crotch and ass — balls and all. You could see those damned crabs doing swan dives off of my body. About two seconds later, the pain hit me and I wished that I could do a swan dive off of my body too. I started running and as I ran by a table, I grabbed a magazine and started hopping all over the place fanning my crotch and cursing at the top of my lungs. My teammates found my antics very entertaining. The treatment worked and according to Doc Thomas, it worked a lot faster than GI Crab Powder, but I can’t say that I really recommend it. [Ma Baker retired from the army and returned to Ravena, Kentucky where he went back to work for the railroad and later retired from it also.]

This was about the time that we received a couple of cases of green berets. They were our newly authorized headgear. After trying mine on, I stuck that funny looking thing in my footlocker and left it there. My camouflage-colored, Australian-style bush hat was much better. That was a real hat and it had only cost me about a buck-fifty.

We were each allotted three days R&R to Bangkok during our tour so I put a little extra money aside and went on R&R. The guys going on R&R had to be processed out at our C Team in Vientiane. The C Team Sergeant Major, Curtis Carroll, informed me that my flight to Bangkok would depart from the local airfield at 0900 hours the next morning. Until then, I was on my own so I rented a samloy, which is really a ricksha, except the cabbie doesn’t walk he rides a bike. They are called by various names in the orient. He took me to the hotel that the Sergeant Major had recommended.

Before I left LP, an A Team that was due to leave Laos was staying with us and their commander asked me, "If you see our radioman, Bill Bascon [not his real name], tell him to get his ass back to LP pronto. He left for a weekend in Vientiane three weeks ago and we haven’t heard a peep out of him since."

Shortly after I got a room at the hotel, I ran into my next door neighbor. He was none other than the infamous Bill Bascon. Bill was drunk, naturally, and very glad to see me because he had ran out of money and everyone that he knew had just left. I did my duty and informed him that he was three weeks AWOL and his Team CO dearly wanted to see his ass and then he informed me of the most wonderful restaurant in the whole wide world that he had discovered right there in Vientiane. It was called the "White Rose." "Well, why not," I thought. "I’m hungry. First things first." We toasted the White Rose a couple of times and then hailed down a couple of cabbies.

As I recall, we decided that the cabbies were not moving fast enough to suit us. The White Rose really was a great restaurant and we were in a hurry, at least I was, so we had the cabbie stop. Bill and I hopped out and put our cabbies in the back seat and we pedaled those damn contraptions; that was our first mistake. Bill and I got into a race; that was our second mistake. Be yee warned, it is very difficult to negotiate a ninety degree corner with one of those stupid tricycles. Mine hit the ditch at the first intersection; I did a flip over the handlebars and bent the front wheel double in the process. My cabbie was about to have a heart attack until I gave him a handful of Kip and told him I was sorry and jumped into Bill’s cab. Apparently, I gave him enough to replace the whole contraption because he just stood there grinning like a well-fed bear. Hell, maybe he was going to retire.

We finally arrived at the White Rose. As I just typed the words "White Rose," it brought back a warm feeling after all of these years, but I can’t remember exactly why. All I know is that Bill was right, that was, and still is, the best damn restaurant in the whole wide world. It was a restaurant, bar, dance hall, hotel, steam bath, massage parlor, and whore house all rolled up into one. All of the women who worked there were imported from Bangkok and Thailand is famous for beautiful women. To the best of my memory, the food was great also.

It took us three days to run through my money and I dimly remember a lovely lass taking us by the arm and escorting Bill and me outside and bidding us farewell. When we finally found our way back to the C Team, I had to face Sergeant Major Carroll, who was somewhat pissed-off because I had missed my R&R flight to Bangkok — three days ago. Try as I might to explain to him that I didn’t have to go to Bangkok because it had came to me, it didn’t seem to come out right. My head was at least three times as large as the normal human head and all of his screaming and threats really hurt. He yelled, "You will go directly to the airport and catch the next plane back to LP which will be leaving in about an hour. You will never return to Vientiane again and I don’t care how damn long you are in Laos. You will stay in the damn jungle." It all seemed a bit harsh to me, after all I had been sent on R&R and I had found R&R, so what if there were a few hundred miles difference between my intended destination and my final destination? Oh well, Sergeant Majors tend to be a picky lot anyway. There’s just no pleasing them. Besides my head really did hurt something fierce.

Bill never let the Sergeant Major see him, he hid outside in the hall until I came out. Bill returned with me I think, but I’m not sure. Bill was a real chicken shit tour guide, if I ever saw one, hiding from the sergeant major like that. Maybe he found another SF enroute to R&R and gave him the White Rose tour also. Bill’s expenses were minimal and well worth the tour and he didn’t eat much. If it is still there, I highly recommend the White Rose. It must be a tourist favorite — male tourists, that is. In fact, all male chauvinist pigs in the world should unite and fund the construction of a 100’ marble monument to honor the White Rose.

Later, I discovered where Bob Kaszer’s B Team was stationed in Southern Laos and relayed a message to him through the C Team in Vientiane. We agreed to meet at, where else, the White Rose. We managed to spend a couple of days together in Vientiane. Of course we kept this meeting hush-hush and Sergeant Major Carroll never found out that I had slipped into town again. At least I don't think he did because I never heard from him about it. [Bob later went to Officers Candidate School [OCS] and afterwards attended the University of South Florida in Tampa. Bob set academic records in both schools.]

There were a group of Italian priests in a monastery in LP and they invited some of us to supper one night. Pappy Burdge included me as one of the dinner guests. It was a fantastic dinner and the priests had prepared it themselves. It was really great. Other than the rice, I had absolutely no idea what I was eating. If I had their recipes, I could make a fortune.

After the meal, the head priest challenged us to an arm wrestling contest. Pappy selected me to represent us. The proper etiquette for arm wrestling went out the window because my opponent was a priest — a priest that cheated. This rascal came up out of his chair and grabbed the underside of the table with his free hand and violated every rule that I have ever heard of that pertains to arm wrestling. Naturally, I finally lost the match. It got a lot of applause and fresh bottles of their homemade wine all around, so I guess losing was good. [Do priests that cheat at sports and drink wine, really get into heaven? If so, that priest business doesn’t sound like such a bad job.]

In those last couple of months, our only enemy was boredom. We watched movies when we could get them, played badmitton and poker and of course, we drank. While playing poker in LP, I got the first "four of a kind" of my life. We were playing pot-limit five card stud and I "lost" with that hand because I'll be damned if Dewey Denson didn't have four aces.

Doc Wellington and I played "bookmitton" and some of the guys bet on the "spider-lizard" fights.  Doc Wellington and I invented bookmitton to fight our boredom.  Doc and I shared what was formerly our living room at the time. Our bunks were directly across the room from each other. We put a table in between and loaded it with books, magazines, anything to make it high enough to become an obstacle and that became our net. Then we played badmitton using books for paddles and a badmitton shuttle cock. The only rules we had were: Both players had to be drunk, a player could not raise up off of his bunk, if the birdie hit the floor on your side you lost a point, 15 points was a game and the loser bought a round. Doc Wellington and I would meet only once more during our military career.

There were all kinds of small gekko lizards and spider webs in our house. Some times the spiders were larger than the lizard, but that did not prevent the lizard from trying to have him for supper. A desperate fight would result and then we would bet on the outcome of the fight. It would be reasonable to say that we were desperate for entertainment. This game didn’t last long, because regardless of the size difference or how ugly or ferocious looking the spider was, the lizard always won.

Finally, after seven months, we left Laos . Compared to my former self, I was so skinny I looked like death gnawing on a saltine cracker. We had to land in Bangkok at the USAF Base to refuel and get a quick mechanical check before we headed for Okinawa. A bunch of our guys got the ear of the crew chief. He promised us that our plane would have "mechanical problems" and we would have to RON [remain over night] in Bangkok. He kept his word. They quartered us at the MAAG-Thai compound in Bangkok. They had a PX and a cafeteria. The cafeteria even had milk, de-hydrated milk maybe, but it was milk to us, and cheeseburgers. Me, I ate three cheeseburgers with fries and drank a quart of milk and then leaned back and patted my belly. For months, I had actually been dreaming about milk and cheeseburgers. Some of the guys really got into a food orgy and ran outside and threw up and then came back in and filled up again.