Word: patheticness
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Hawks & Doves. The neutralist government of Prince Souvanna Phouma, shaken severely by a right-wing coup last April, had been jolted further by a series of sharp Pathet Lao attacks that forced Kong Le off the Plain. If the precariously balanced Laotian coalition was to hold, outside help was needed. A month ago, unarmed U.S. jets began flying reconnaissance missions over Red territory in hopes of intimidating the Pathet Lao. When one of the slow-flying Navy recon planes was downed by Russian-made antiaircraft guns, the U.S. decided to send armed jet fighters to escort the reconnaissance craft. When...
...monsoon mud, Souphanouvong was in a well-tailored snit. He greeted his guests with indignant demands for an immediate full-dress conference of the 14 Geneva agreement signatories who had guaranteed Laotian neutrality two years ago. Such a meeting could only confirm the status quo for the Pathet Lao, who have grabbed a lot of territory in recent weeks, and Neutralist Souvanna at U.S. urging had refused any new Geneva-level conference unless the Pathet Lao first withdrew from the Plain of Jars. As Souphanouvong argued his case, the thump of antiaircraft guns sounded in the distance, followed...
...fighting or defending. "You have to give a man something to live for," he said, "before you can ask him to die." To the tough paratrooper, as to most Southeast Asians, the cold war was a puzzlement. Neutrality seemed the answer, and Kong Le gladly included the Pathet Lao within his amiable embrace. But, battle by battle and defection by defection, Kong Le and Laos learned that not even a neutral could stand safely beside the Pathet...
...losing battle against the Red Viet Minh. As a sergeant, he quickly learned the taste of defeat. After the French withdrawal, he transferred to the Royal Laotian Army as a paratroop lieutenant only to taste more of it. Kong Le's was a battalion of troubleshooters. Whenever the Pathet Lao got particularly obnoxious, he and his men were sent out from Vientiane over jungle villages to float down silently and kill. Often they dropped without supplies, fought their way back on a bullet a day, gratifying their taste for toads and bamboo shoots along the route. Kong Le perfected...
Waiting for Neutralism. Back home, Captain Kong Le was promoted to command of the 1st Parachute Battalion of the Royal Army. But the promotion did little to ease his growing dislike of conditions in Laos. The 1954 Indo-China armistice had handed the Pathet Lao two sections of the country-Sam-nueua and Phongsaly-bordering Communist China and North Viet Nam. The International Control Commission, made up of Polish, Indian and Canadian delegations, was theoretically responsible for keeping any faction from bringing in more troops and arms, but the Pathet Lao ignored the ban; Viet Minh cadres poured across...