Word: laotians
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Each morning the 35 fighter-bomber pilots of the Royal Laotian Air Force file solemnly into the office of their commanding general and remove their personal horseshoes from pegs on the wooden wall. Then the pilots trot out to their American-built T-28s for an other crack at the Ho Chi Minh trail...
Elephants & Trucks. Since 1959, the 800-mile labyrinth of jungle tracks, muddy rivers and bamboo way stations within Laotian territory has been the major route south for some 45,000 Communist infiltrators heading to battle in South Viet Nam. This, despite North Viet Nam's solemn signature on the 1962 Geneva accord guaranteeing Laos' neutrality and barring foreign troops from Laotian soil. The infiltration now comes to an estimated 4,500 bo dot (regular infantrymen) a month. More than one third of the "trail" has been converted into broad-shouldered, two-lane dirt highways. Truck convoys move...
...blatant violation of the Geneva agreement, several thousand North Vietnamese soldiers are now permanently stationed in the Laotian "panhandle" to keep the route secure. At the same time, they plunder rice from surrounding paddies to feed the infiltrators. Said U.S. Army Vice Chief of Staff Creighton W. Abrams last week: "The road net can now move sufficient supplies to meet the requirements of all North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces in the northern two-thirds of South Viet...
...Laotian troops trying to maintain a semblance of sovereignty over their own territory also hit tough resistance when they pushed toward the trail around Thakhek and Savannakhet. Last month Royal Laotian T-28s trapped a company of mixed Pathet Lao and North Vietnamese troops in the open near Thakhek, killing dozens of the "Laoviet" with their 500-lb. bombs, while ground forces pinned another 40 in a nearby cave. Last week 14 of the North Vietnamese prisoners were on display in Vientiane...
...those who believe in the need for good men to resist the excesses of bad, this is a satisfying book. For those who see the Communists in Southeast Asia as simple, guileless and misled peasants, the descriptions of Laotian guards spitting into a cup of cold rice before giving it to the prisoners or shrieking with laughter when one of them looses a burst of machine-gun fire above the heads of the squatting, dysentery-stricken Americans should be enlightening. So, in a different manner, should be the details of the chill and efficient command role played in Laos...