Word: mekong
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Through the years, however, both sides observed certain tacit rules. The Pa thet Lao, backed by seasoned North Vietnamese regulars, did not challenge the government's hold on the Mekong Valley, where two-thirds of Laos' 3,000,000 people live. The U.S.-backed government of neutralist Premier Prince Souvanna Phouma permitted American bombing of the Ho Chi Minh Trail in eastern Laos, but allowed no major allied ground forays. Warfare Laotian-style also developed seasonal cycles. The Communists struck during the dry season, phasing their offensives out just be fore the rains came. The government, because...
...trouble centers on Muong Soui, an important garrison on the northwestern edge of the strategic Plain of Jars. It straddles vital Route 7, the only good east-west highway in Laos, and controls the gateway to the Upper Mekong as well as access to Route 13, which links the royal capital of Luang Prabang with the administrative capital of Vientiane. Before this year's Communist spring offensive, it was one of three major government outposts in Communist-controlled northeastern Laos. Then, last April, Communist forces began moving on Muong Soui. To relieve the pressure on the garrison, government troops...
...decision to withdraw some of their units came as a surprise to both the Army and the Marine divisions. The Marines occupy battle posts near Viet Nam's northern borders and have been involved in frequent clashes recently. The upper Mekong Delta, where the 9th is stationed, is a logical place from which to withdraw two brigades, since it is the only area where the South Vietnamese army (ARVN) already does the lion's share of the fighting. But the 9th is the only major U.S. unit in the heavily populated and strategically important delta, and one of the most...
...late novelist, has dropped out into a dingy Saigon flat in order to follow his yen for Zen. His teacher: Nguyen Thanh Nam, a mystic generally known as the "Coconut Monk," after his habit of meditating perched atop a palm tree in the middle of an island in the Mekong River. Young Steinbeck and his guru have pursued the cause of peace by presenting U.S. Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker with a peeled coconut, and were last seen marveling at the white elephant at the Saigon...
...Viet Nam, Laos and Thailand, and has become the prime commercial charter carrier in an area where ground travel is usually difficult and often impossible. In Viet Nam, which is home for half of its 50-plane fleet, CAS links dozens of airstrips from the DMZ to the Mekong Delta. Each month it carries 20,000 passengers and some 1,300,000 lbs. of cargo. Its customers, mainly U.S. contractors in Viet Nam, do not demand much in the way of frills. "Here you keep up your image by keeping your planes flying," says CAS Administrative Manager Jim Eckes...