Akkrat and the PARU

I have spoken many times in my posts about Akkrat, a Thai mercenary and part of Bill Lair's clandestine army in Thailand.  I knew what his last name was, but it was multi-sylable and even if I knew it, I couldn't spell it.   He was my indigenous (indig) counterpart when I was in Laos.  We became good friends and each of us understood the other's job.  When it came to ground operations, he was the team leader.   I respected his intuition and savvy.  When it came to the air operations, I was in charge.  Together, we made a really good team.   He was a seasoned fighter having been at war for four years.  He was six years older than me, and had a lot of experience in fighting the Pathet Lao.  In our military terms he was probably a sergeant, certainly not an officer.  He spoke his native tongue of course, but also English, French, and Lao.  All PARU personnel were at least high school graduates, and most spoke a language from a neighboring country in addition to Thai. They were trained at a jungle camp in central Thailand and organized like the US Army Special Forces.  Akkrat was the indig equivalent of Lt. Peterson, the 1-0 of Team Falcon.  He had been to the U.S. Army Ranger School in the states in  either 1959 or 1960.  Counter-guerrilla tactics were one of the PARU specialties. Akkrat's  father had been employed by the French as an interpreter during the French wars against the Vietnamese and Laotians in the late 1940's and 1950's.  Bill Lair had been asked by Tony Poe, one of the CIA station chiefs in Laos, for some of Lairs mercenaries.  Akkrat had been one of the first to be sent north to Long Tieng.  The PARU could be found all over the southern part of Laos working with various CIA operations, U.S. Army Special Forces units, and Gen Vang Pao's Hmongs.

Akkrat was married and had several children.  When he wasn't on a hump somewhere, he was at home with his wife and children or training more PARU mercenaries. He was with me on most of the operations I was involved in but his team changed constantly as he trained new personnel in this specialized type of warfare.  I rarely saw the same indigs on consecutive missions except for Akkrat.  I once asked him if he could trust all of these different trainees and his word to me was this:  "If I didn't trust them, they would be dead. Then, I could really trust them."  I learned over a short period of time to trust his instincts and experience.  He had a second sense when it came to knowing where the enemy were hiding or setting up an ambush to kill or capture us.  He taught me that you need to become one with the jungle, one with the mountains, one with the people.  I tried to be like that, and in some areas I was quite good at it.  But in others, I was too much of a flatlander to get all of it.  In return he learned from me the world of handling tactical air assets over the insertion and extraction sites.  Akkrat was cool under stress and it was if being in combat was normal to him.  Every time we engaged the enemy, he took it almost as a personal quest to kill them all.  He wasn't about to leave anyone behind that could carry a weapon against him ever again.  He was absolutely fearless in the face of death.  I have no idea how many times he was wounded, but I saw enough scars to know he had been shot several times and survived.  He was wounded four times on our operations, mostly from shrapnal, and I have no idea as to how many other times he was wounded when working with  Bailey.  I once told him he was living a charmed life with so many bullets trying to find him and few doing so.   He replied that he was alive because it just wasn't his time to die.  But, he knew that one day he would be killed by the enemy he hated so much.  That would be when it was his time to die.  I, on the other hand, figured that there was a bullet with my name on it and I was going to get it at some point so why worry about it. I didn't think this bullet would  necessarily be in Laos.....that bullet could be cancer, heart attack, or a traffic accident.   No matter what, a "bullet" would find me someday.  What I really worried about was the bullet that had written on it, "To whom it may concern."  Most everyone that experiences combat knows about that bullet.  It's also called the "golden BB."  It's not necessarily aimed at you but it is just randomly fired and finds you.  That bullet I worried about.

Akkrat was a Buddhist.  I saw him burn incense several times and I know he prayed to Buddha.  He once explained to me he was a Theravada Buddhist.   And all I know about that you could put in a thimble.  I know that it pained him to harm animals or innocent people, but I don't think it effected how he dealt with the enemy  in Laos at all.  I never mentioned my own faith....as I thought I had none at this time and didn't really try to find out much about his.  He had learned English at a Catholic School near his home in Thailand so I know he was exposed to Christianity.   After he had graduated in from high school, he joined the Thai army.  That is where he was selected by Bill Lair for the PARU.  The PARU were held in high esteem by their countrymen and were paid substantially more money than the regular Thai army troops.  This tended to cause them to remain PARU for several enlistments or until they were disabled or killed.  By the time I got to Laos, Akkrat had lost close friends and family to the war in Laos.  I was so impressed with him that I arranged with Col. Bradley to get him any materials and weapons he desired for himself and his team.   Of course, they preferred the AK-47 and so a ready supply of these was made available plus all the ammunition they needed.   And as I mentioned in another post, they could always pick up ammunition from the dead enemy soldiers who used the same weapons. Akkrat had his team set up much like the SF SOG teams.  He was effectively the 1-0, although he never used the term.  His radio operator was the 1-1, and his weapons specialist was his 1-2.  Akkrat usually walked point with one of the PARU walking trail.  The other team member might be behind Akkrat or it could be me.  We were always about 10 yards apart.  Again, this early into the war, the trails were not as booby trapped as they would be later on.  Even so, we avoided them when we could.  I spend a lot of time working with Akkrat and his 1-1 on radio operations and procedures just in case I went down for the count at some point.  At least they could make do and call for help.  It actually worked out that when Lao pilots were overhead, I could use Akkrat or the radio operator to talk to the pilots in their own language which was really beneficial.  It prevented a lot of miscommunication. 

On a side note, this might be a good time to mention the people of S.E. Asia in general.  This would include the S. Vietnamese, Laotians, Thais, and Cambodians.  They were, for the most part, a simple and wonderful group of people.  They were a kind an gentle people.  None of them wanted war.  They could care less who was in charge of the government as long as they had a small piece of land to grow what they needed to survive.  These people were locked in a time warp.  They were living as they had for centuries with no desire to modernize. They didn't care if the government was Capitalistic, Communist, or whatever.  They just wanted to live in peace and be left alone to live their lives.  I have got to tell you the truth here, I learned to respect those people and I loved the beauty of their countries.  It was if you stepped back in time when you were out away from Vientiane, the capital city and CIA hub.  The jungle was absolutely spectacular with its flowers and greenery and birds and animals.  I could easily have just stayed there....except there was a war gong on and that created an ugliness that took away from the beauty of it all. 

I knew what my job was and it wasn't running Akkrat's team.  That was his job.  My job was to provide for insertions and extractions and controlling aircraft overhead.  His job was to keep me alive to do my job.  The SF guys also respected Akkrat and leaned on him for a lot of information about the area we were dropped into.  Holding the LS and keeping the enemy at bay was also our job.  The SF guys, ran the recon missions and prisoner snatches.  Several times the SF guys would be running hot, meaning the enemy was in close pursuit. Our alternate job was to provide cover fire and/or merge with them to defend the LS and push the enemy away from the site.  Fortunately for us, at this early point in the wars in S.E. Asia, the Pathet Lao were not as well organized nor as dedicated as they would become later on in the war. We also did not have to confront large contingents of NVA troops.  On occasion we ran into them as I mentioned in a previous post, but it was not the norm.  They tended to remain close to the Ho Chi Minh Trail, and not push out into the surrounding mountains.   This wasn't always the case, but for the most part it was, especially in 1963 and 1964.  They were trying to move into the PDJ, but their success in that effort would not bear fruit until the late 60's.  By 1968, from what I have been able to discover, the NVA had literally thousands of troops all along the HCM and up into the mountains surrounding it.  Many SOG teams disappeared into those jungles in 1968 and beyond  and were never to be heard of again.  Most of those teams ran into heavy concentrations of NVA and by that time, the NVA had their own hunter/killer teams tracking SOG guys.

Anyway, Akkrat was a really good guy and family man.  He talked about his kids and wife.  His father had taught him much about the jungle and the Ranger School in the states had taught him a lot about war and survival.  I have no idea as to what happened to Akkrat.  Probably, only the jungle knows.

Odds and Ends

I thought it was about time to add some stuff I missed earlier in my posts.  Someone sent me an email and asked me what we carried in the field.  That's a good question because what my team carried on a hump was different in many respects from what the SOG teams carried.  Where the SF SOG guys would carry up to 90 pounds of gear, we carried 60 or 70 at most.  Thais were smaller people so they had to carry smaller loads. 

WWII BAR Cartridge belt and suspenders.

My Thais carried  AK-47s, smoke grenades, M-26 fragmentation grenades, and anywhere from 200 to 600 rounds of ammo each, depending on the length of the mission and where we were going.  Akkrat told me many times that they didn't need a lot of ammo because they could always pick it up off dead enemy soldiers.  The Thais carried some rice and dried meat, usually enough to get them by for three to five days.  They carried one or two canteens of water and some water purification tablets.  One of them carried my PRC-10 or 15 radio.  Another carried my GRC-109 HF radio and antenna system.  They did not carry sleeping bags, hammocks, or other bedding stuff. They also had, but did not carry very often, a poncho.  None wore metal helmets.  They, more often than not, dressed in NVA or Pathet Lao uniforms, because at a distance, they couldn't be identified as Thais.  They wore locally manufactured sandals and not combat boots.  The tracks they left were just like the ones the Pathet Lao would have left.  One of their mainstays were their knives and each one had two.  One was usually a stiletto of some kind and the other a locally manufactured very sharp knife heavy enough to  cut through most anything.  They also had machetes.  

Now for the stuff I carried.  First off was my Swedish SK or my FN-FAL Rifle.  I also occasionally carried an AK-47 but not normally.  I frankly didn't like it's feel, its accuracy, or its lack of long range impact.  I usually managed to carry 500 rounds of ammo for the SK, less for the larger FAL.  I wore a WWII and Korean War vintage BAR belt and suspenders.  The ammo pouches were really good for carrying ammo and other items.  I carried two canteens of water and water purification tablets.  I carried the same rations the Thais carried, but occasionally I would sneak in a can of fruit from some C rations.  I carried a compass around my neck and only a portion of the map I was given for the mission.  All that was necessary was the actual area we were going to operate in.  I carried anywhere from four to eight M-26 frags plus at least one white phosphorous grenade.   Two smoke canisters.   A UC-10 emergency radio and an extra battery was carried in my pack.  I did wear high top German made jump boots because I could tuck my pants legs into the tops of them to discourage the leeches from crawling up my leg. It rarely made any difference because the leeches seemed to always find a way to attach themselves to you.  I also had some kind of military insect repellent that you could spray the leeches with and make them fall off.  I learned early on that you didn't pull a leech off once it attached itself to you because you would bleed for an hour or more after doing it.  Once it attached itself, just let it feed and once it has it's meal, it will fall off on its own with a lot less blood loss.  I carried a camo towel that I put around my neck and tucked into my shirt for the same purpose; to keep the leeches off.  Believe me, no matter what you did, you were going to get leeches on you, especially during the rainy season.  I also used friction tape to close my cuffs on my sleeves that helped to keep leeches off your arms and upper torso.  It would have been great to have had some velco attachment tape but it wasn't invented at this time.

I carried a small flashlight and extra batteries.   I had a Beretta Model M1951 9MM automatic pistol and holster with six clips.  Either, I, or Akkrat, would sometimes carry a 22 caliber pistol with silencer for taking out guards and finishing off wounded enemy soldiers.  I carried a tube of waterproof matches, but I never lit a fire the whole time I was in and out of Laos...at least not on a hump.  I wore German military fatigues with no patches or identification at all.  Sometimes a bush jacket.  I had a set of green leather work gloves.  Sometimes I wore a bush hat, but mostly an old Marine Corps cover (it's a hat, but the Corps doesn't like it called that) . On occasion, when Bradley thought it would appropriate, I wore a  PL uniform. .  After all, I was tanned and only five foot seven inches tall.  Fit in real well with the Thais.  There was one thing I learned from the SF guys.  They told me not to wear socks or underwear.  We stayed wet all the time and because your underwear and socks would never dry out, you ended up with some kind of jungle rot that there was no cure for.   I learned that lesson a little late.  I still have a foot fungus that no doctor has been able to get rid of.  It's controllable, but if you forget to treat it every month, it comes back with a vengeance.  A Navy corpsman first aid bag was tied to the pack.  I carried a sweater because at the higher altitudes we operated in, it could get down right cold at night, especially after a rain.  You wouldn't think that would be the case in SE Asia, but it was.  I carried pen flairs and 25 feet of green parachute cord.  I also had my trusty K-Bar knife and a really sharp bayonet from an M-1 Carbine.  While the Thais carried machetes, I carried pilot's survival tool which I had been given by an Air America pilot.  Turns out, it was a very early model of the Frank and Warren Survival Axe.  It was really good at cutting through razor or elephant grass and sticky vines.  A picture of it is below.  It is not the same one I had but very close in appearance.  

Frank and Warren Survival Axe.

Something I didn't have originally, that the SF guys did, was Claymore mines.  At some point, Lt. Peterson gave me a dozen with some detonators and some 5, 10 and 30 second fuses and he had one of his guys show us how to use them.  They were devastating on enemy troops.  If the enemy was in pursuit of you, this was one really good option to slow them down.

Claymore Mine

Everything we carried had to be sound proofed.  You taped ever thing that could clank or clink against anything else,   We threw away the cup in the bottom of the canteen cover because the canteen rubbing against it would make noise that could be heard at quite some distance. We removed the canteen lid and cut the chain to eliminate another noise factor.  Anything that would reflect light was covered with tape.  I wore my watch upside down to prevent the radium numbers and hands from showing in the dark.  I carried my K-Bar knife taped to my suspenders upside down.  I did not carry a poncho or rain gear.  I mentioned the Thais didn't carry any either and there was a reason for that.  Rain, falling on a poncho makes a very audible noise in the jungle.  It's a different sound that any tracker would know wasn't natural.  It was a huge risk to wear one or to cover yourself with one when it was raining and if it wasn't raining you didn't need it anyway.
There were four priorities on a hump:  Weapons, ammunition, water and radios.  You could go with out food but to run out of ammo or have a radio fail was truly a bad thing.  Ammo and radios gave you a chance of surviving  enemy encounters.  You surrendered the creature comforts for more ammo, grenades and radio batteries in every case.

As to the SF guys, they carried a lot of ammo, grenades, claymore mines, C-4, radios, batteries, and their weapons.  They went light on creature comforts  as well.  They did carry C and K rations.  I never saw any MRE's so I don't know if they existed that early in the war, but they could have had them.  Sometimes they had a M-79 grenade launcher with ten or twelve rounds of ammunition.  They wore military uniforms but no rank or other identifying patches were on them.  They also packed a sweater or jacket for the cool temperatures at altitude in the mountains of Laos.  One SF guy on a team I worked with twice, carried a sawed off 12 gauge pump shotgun.  The SF guys probably had stuff I never saw and was never intended to see.  They all had a side arm of some kind, mostly Colt 1911 45 caliber automatics.  They also carried K-Bar knives.   So, that is how we were equipped.  I am sure I have missed something, but its been a long time since I had to carry that stuff into the field.  If I think of anything, I will add it later in an edit.

Another Point

There has been some controversy over whether or not I was a combat controller.  Some CCT's have said that since I didn't go through the Hurlburt pipeline, was not assigned a CCT MOS, or did the more conventional things that other CCT's did,  that I was not one of them.  Because I operated in a war that didn't exist, the records were scrubbed and that was what I was told would be the case.  That was reiterated in my first briefing with Col. Bradley.  These CCT;s attitude is that I was an air traffic controller working in a combat setting.  Others said that I was a tactical air/ground controller, more or less an SF guy or a Army Pathfinder, but in the U.S.Air Force.  One said that I was just an Air Force SOG Team member.  On the other hand, some CCT's  have said that they had heard of our operations, but didn't know who was doing them or what unit they were with.  To put the record straight as best I can, I was recruited to be a combat controller.  Because of the nature of where I was intended to be posted, in a war that didn't exist, Bailey and I were trained differently so that in effect we didn't exist.. There were two others being trained as well, but they came somewhat after Baily and me so I am not sure who they were or exactly where they went.  I was trained by, whom I was told at the time, were older seasoned combat controllers.  I knew them by their call signs and the word sergeant .Maybe they weren't.  They could have been CIA or Army Special Forces personnel for all I know.  Hell, I was eighteen years old when I started training for Laos and probably would have believed anything they said.  We were not trained at Hurlburt but rather at Webb AFB in Texas where they had a number of T-28's and some Laotian and Thai pilots who were being trained to fly them there.  That was not by accident that we were receiving our training at Webb.  I would be controlling these same pilots in Laos a year or so later.  The Laotians and Thais could speak passable English, but there were times when some language issues existed.  We tried to work those out in the training.  The same thing with Ft. Bragg.  We did most of our weapons, escape and evasion, and jump training with Special Forces Teams, especially the guys who would eventually make up some of the SOG teams.  They would be the guys who I would work with 90 percent of the time in Laos.  Since we trained some Hmong soldiers to be FAGs (Forward Air Guides), I suppose we could have been that as well.  If I wasn't a combat controller, I have no idea as to what I should be called.  Maybe the title tactical air/ground controller is more suited to what I actually did.  But, it doesn't bother me either way.  I did what I did thinking I was a combat controller.  If I wasn't, then, so be it. Whatever you called what I did, it was pretty darn dangerous. 

Main Gate Webb AFB  About 1962 or So.

I do know that later on, the SF guys actually called in their own air strikes and carried out their extractions with American Armed Forces personnel rather than how we had to do it using Air America.  I did a little research and they had what they called Covey Riders who rode with the FAC's and directed aircraft to targets.  They also were able to keep FAC's (Forward Air Controllers) orbiting overhead directing air strikes against enemy positions for long periods of time.   We had no so availability.  Just the Lao Air Force of a few planes and Air America's helicopters and fixed wing STOL aircraft.  I can only remember one time that I was able to call in F-100's on a target and the AAR (after action report) had to state that they dropped their bombs by accident not knowing exactly where they were.  I believe the F-100's were part of the 524th Fighter Wing out of Udorn or Tahkli.   Not real sure about that, but they were in the area during that time period.  And their bombs saved a SF SOG team for extermination. 

AAR's or After Action Reports

After each operation both the SF 1-0 and I had to fill out what was called an AAR.  This "after action report" would be reviewed by the CIA and MACV in Saigon.  Since I did not go on many complete missions, but was responsible for the LS, I never knew exactly what the SF 1-0 would put in his report.  My AAR would detail out what my team's part of the mission encountered and accomplished.  You had to note on a map where you encountered and/or engaged enemy troops.  I had to indicate on the map any kind of AA or AAA fire we saw our aircraft encounter.  You had to note who was injured, wounded, or killed.  You had to make as accurate count as possible of enemy KIAs or those wounded that may have gotten back to their own people.  It was a the responsibility of the PARU, if they had time, to get as much information off the enemy bodies as they could.  If it was NVA troops, they tore or cut off any unit chevrons so we could develop intel on their units.   I had to review how the Air America pilots handled their ends of the mission and also how the PARU responded  in combat situations.  I always had to make suggestions on how we could improve what we were doing.  I always said we needed more air power over the LS when we were making insertions and extractions.  I also always added that we needed heavy lift helicopters besides the H-34's and Bell 204's.  We never got any of the heavy lift stuff, but I still asked for it time and time again.

After the AAR was filed, it was not uncommon to have someone come get you and take you to some building somewhere in Vientiane (it was never the same building or even on the same street) and you would have to answer questions for several hours about the mission.  I don't know who those folks were, but they were in suits and ties, not military uniforms.  But that would not have been all that unusual in Laos. They wanted to make sure that what you put on the AAR jived with what you actually saw or encountered in the field.  It was like taking a test in high school, but all the questions had to be answered "yes" or "no."  Something like this: "Your AAR says that your team took fire from 12.7 AA weapons.  Yes or no?   On your AAR you state that you did not see any indication of 37 MM AA weapons, yes or no?"  And that is how it went for one, two, or even four hours.  I hope that gives you an indication of what an AAR is and what it is supposed to tell the higher ups.

 

Life, Death and Faith on the Battlefield

Growing up in the 40's and 50's was a great thing.  It was a wonderful time to be a kid and living out in the countryside.  I had uncles and cousins that had come back from WWII and each had numerous stories to tell about their time in the military and WWII.  Some of their stories I didn't understand at the time and some were so scary I couldn't sleep on some nights after hearing them.  Not only that, but all my friends had fathers who had fought in WWII in one capacity or another.  My best friends father was exempt, I think, because of some health problem.  The father of two of my friends was a B-17 pilot and rose to the rank of Colonel in the 8th Air Force.  He was one of those who flew to the end of the war no matter how many missions that he had completed.  I had friends whose fathers had been in the Navy, Army Air Corp, Marine Corps, and U.S. Army Infantry.  I lived in the age of real heroes.  Not athletic heroes, but warrior heroes.  Patton, Nimitz, Eisenhower, Bradley, and MacArthur, to just name a few.  I dreamed of someday being like them and being a hero myself.  I must have had at least 500 of the little toy soldiers and tanks and artillery pieces.  I played war constantly as a kid, plotting strategy and operations.  I knew long before I knew a lot else that I was going to go into the military when I got out of school.

And from a very early age I heard the old adage, "There are no atheists in a foxhole."  Well, I was never sure that was correct, but I would get to find out for myself 12 or so years later in S.E. Asia.  I grew up in a household that consisted of my mother, grandmother (my mother's mother), my stepfather (who I thought was my real dad for many years), and my sister.  We first lived on a 12 acre parcel that my grandfather gave my grandmother when they divorced.  I was born in the old farmhouse on that property in December of 1942.  My grandfather then sold the rest of his land and bought a farm  in Kaufman, Texas, where he lived until he died in 1965 or so.  My grandmother sold the last 12 acres to a real estate developer and bought two houses on a street just about a quarter mile from the old homestead.  We were not a family of faith although my grandmother believed in God, but not necessarily did she believe in Christ.  I don't think I can remember her ever going to church although I know she did when she was young.  My stepfather grew up in a family that went to church and believed in God and Jesus Christ.  However, he didn't often go to church when he was living with us.  

However, they did make me and my sister go to Sunday School and sometimes church.  Occasionally, my mother and stepfather would go, but it was a rare event.  In this little Baptist Church, the children's Sunday School stressed memorizing the scriptures.   I hated it...boy did I hate doing that.  But, you had to do it or get ridiculed for not doing it.  I remember at the age of 7 or 8 memorizing The Lord's Prayer and the 23 rd Psalm.  And, of course we memorized some of the sayings of Jesus.  A note is needed here:  I hated going to Sunday School and Church in general.  Just hated it.  Didn't want to be there at all, especially on really pretty Sundays when I could down at the creek fishing or out in the fields hunting jack rabbits.  I was not an inside person.  I liked being outside and church was inside.  Didn't like it ..... didn't want it.... thought for sure I didn't need it.  Heck, no warrior needed the church....church was for weenies.   And I certainly didn't see myself as one of those.

At some point, I found out my stepfather wasn't my real father and that started a rebellion on my part that eventually caused my stepfather to leave and get a divorce from my mother.  I was eleven and I raised so much hell over their not telling me the truth, that there was no way they could have stayed together unless they got rid of me.....and I am sure they thought about that at some point.  I got to a point where I actually hated my stepfather (and he was always good to me, I have to say that because it is true) and my mother.  It eventually got to the point that I had to move out and move in with my grandmother.  I still have a rage within me about the lies they told me as a kid.   All their lies just encouraged me to lie as well.  It was an unhappy ending to a family, and I think my sister still holds that against me.  She was actually my half-sister, my mother's daughter but my stepfather was her father.  I could never get anyone in my family to talk about my real father and his family.  A lot more lies were told trying to keep me from finding out who he was.

My mother went through a series of boyfriends and finally married a man who was an alcoholic but quit drinking when he married my mother.  At least, we all thought he did.  I had moved back in with my mother at this point, but I was never really happy in that environment.  I once again moved back in with my grandmother.  I went to church for the last time when I was 11 years old, at least as a worshiper.  I was in the Boy Scouts by this time and we were sponsored by the Methodist Church in our town and so there was always programs at the  church I had to attend that had to do with Scouting.  Scouting and baseball were my two escapes from my family realities.  I eventually, with no help from my family, made Eagle Scout.  I worked as a counselor at summer camp several times and made a trip to Philmont Scout Ranch, the highlight of my scouting years.  There are two mottoes I still live by even today and they are scout mottoes:  Be  Prepared and Do a Good Turn Daily.  I kind of take the "Be Prepared" one to the extreme even today because I have backups for everything.  I almost two of everything just to make sure I have one that works.

Its just the way I'm wired.

When I graduated from high school, I immediately went down to the recruiting office in Dallas, Texas, and tried to join the Marines (that is a story in itself).  They said I was too small and that I needed to grow some more before I could become a Marine.  Talk about a put down.....I was down in the dumps for several days over that incident.  Then I decided, what the hell, I'll just go join the U.S. Air Force.  ( That is also another story).  I finally was able to sign up and was told that I would leave for basic training in September.  Well, that was okay with me because it gave me some time with my girlfriend and the whole summer to enjoy doing what I wanted.  In September I left for basic training at Lackland AFB in San Antonio, Texas.

Now, we'll jump to two and a half years later in Laos.  Faith is a funny thing.  I never thought I had any.  I was always suspicious of most folks and I never allowed anyone in real close to me and I certainly didn't trust any overly religious Christian.  I trusted very few people outside my small circle of influence.  I did trust the SF guys I worked with and my own PARU's. I never trusted Colonel Bradley, Tony Poe, or any of the CIA personnel.  And.....I certainly never trusted in God....any god of any kind.  By this time it had been almost ten years since I had been to church.  I didn't believe that God existed and Jesus Christ was just another man who had some strange philosophy that I didn't like.  Love your enemies.....right!  Do unto others as you would have then do unto you....yeah, that works real well in this hell called Laos.  But, at the time I had even forgotten those verses.  

Then there was LS 224.  I am not really sure that was the LS.  It could have been 284.  It's been a long time since then.  We were called and told that we needed to go to this LS. I was to take seven PARU with me and we were to land and hold this particular LS until a SF Team arrived that was "running hot."  "Running hot" meant that the team was in contact with enemy forces and  making a run for it with the enemy in pursuit.  I was told by Col. Bradley to carry extra grenades and ammo.  I was told this might be an extremely dangerous operation.  I would have four T-28's overhead for air assets.  I met my team on the tarmac at Wattay and boarded two choppers and headed to the site.  It was over an hour's flying time there.  When we arrived it was pretty quiet on the ground.  I assumed this LS was under Gen. Vang Pao's control.  Bad assumption.  While there were no enemy troops in the immediate area, it wasn't under the general's control. Akkrat was the indigenous team leader and he had a few guys I had not seem before.  Akkrat told me he was training some new members of his unit and they needed some real experience in the field.

After landing we set up our radios and I notified Vientiane that we were on the ground.  I then tried to contact the SF team to find out what their situation might be.  After several tries I finally made radio contact and was told that they had been ambushed and had wounded with them.  I gave them the map reference as to the location of the LS.  They told me they were at least six hours from our location and would try to get there sooner if possible.  Akkrat set up a defensive perimeter with his men on the upper side of the LS.  You always assume that you have been spotted by someone friendly with the enemy if not by the enemy themselves.  The helicopters had by that time headed back to Wattay to refuel.  However two other choppers were on the way just in case we had to get out before the SF team made it to our location.  If they were not needed by the time they reached us, they would land at an LS 30 minutes away at an LS controlled by Vang Pao's troops and refuel as they were carrying extra fuel with them. Everything was pretty quiet for the next four hours.  We had good cover and a good defensive position.  There was nothing to do but wait for the SF guys to arrive.

About 1600 hours (4PM) we hear intermittent gunfire below us.  I got in contact with the SF radio operator, the one two in SF terms, and asked him their ETA.  He said they could see the LS from their location and would be there in an hour.  What he didn't say was that the PL also saw the LS.  However, they did not know we were there.  They assumed, as they often did, that the SF team was all that were going to have to overcome.  It was apparent that the PL troops saw the LS as they were trying to flank the SF team.  I happened to catch a glimpse of them and realized what they were up to.  I radioed the SF team that they were being flanked to the north.  The radio operator said that his 1-0 told him to tell us to deal with it best we could.  That must be a standard SF saying.  I heard it a lot when I was in Laos.

From previous experience I knew they would try to get above the LS so they could be firing down on the SF team as it came to the LS.  I called Akkrat over and told him the situation.  We needed to get higher up because my guess was they they would come to this very spot we were defending.  We made a mad scramble up the mountain about 50 yards and repositioned ourselves for what might come our way.   Boy, it would have been nice to have some claymore mines, but we didn't.  It wasn't long until the PL troops showed up and did exactly what I had thought they would do.  They moved to the position we had just left.
There were at least twenty of them.  Akkrat gave the signal to use hand grenades.  Everyone put two of them in front of their position.  When they PL troops looked like they had settled in, we pulled the pins and tossed them down on the unsuspecting PL soldiers. Then hell broke lose.  The grenades went off and immediately the remaining PL soldiers turned and opened fire on us.  Tracers were flying around everywhere, but mostly over our heads.  Some of the PL guys tried to climb up towards us, but one of Akkrat's men dispatched them with a burst of AK fire.  I saw a grenade thrown our way but it landed way short of us and went off harmlessly.  The rifle fire was so intense that leaves, limbs and grass fragments were flying around everywhere, not to mention the bullets.  One of the PARU took a bullet to the head and died before he hit the ground.  It was at this point that I can remember saying this:  "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.  Though I walk through the valley of the shadow, I will fear no evil."  It had been ten years at least since I had heard or said those words.  In the midst of all this mayhem, here I am spouting Bible verses and I don't even believe in God.  It's a funny thing, but I remember this moment more than any other from my time in Laos.  Here I was, a so-called atheist, saying Bible verses I learned in Sunday School.  Bullets, grenades and I'm in a  hell on earth and I am saying Bible verses.  A few moments later the SF team made it to the LS and joined in the battle.  I was able to crawl over to the radio and call the support aircraft and told them I needed them to drop their ordinance 200 yards east of the smoke.  I pulled the pin on the smoke canister and threw it as far down the mountain as I could.  A T-28 peeled in and dropped some 100lb bombs right where we needed them.  Then I heard the helicopters to our west.  Another T-28 made a pass and dropped his bombs.  By this time the SF team had finished off the remaining PL troops immediately in front of front of us.  I didn't see any others below.  The choppers swooped in, we loaded the wounded and the dead, jumped in ourselves as the last T-28 made his pass over the enemies position.  And then, we got the hell out of Dodge.

When we arrived at Long Trieng, the SF team had been pretty well shot up.  Everyone on their team was wounded in some form or another.  They had lost their 1-1 weapons specialist and three of their six indigenous S. Vietnamese SF team members.  Our team had four wounded and one dead.  One of the remarkable things about this incident was that I didn't get so much as piece of shell fragment off the ricochets as they hit the rocks and trees.   Another funny thing about all of this is that it bothered me to talk about the Bible verses.  It was like it made me less of a man because I was saying this stuff...you know what,  I wasn't saying it, I was praying it.  Did God save me that day?  I don't really have an answer for that, but I can hope that he did.  After I became a Christian, I told this story in front of church congregations and most believe that God preserved me just so I could tell this story. 

Whatever the case may be, I am glad I was on that mountain that day.  What I learned about myself has lasted a life time. 

Shot Down at Ban Hoeui San

Here is the story of the time we got shot down looking for an Air America C-46 that was shot down near the hamlet of Ban Hoeui San.  In the previous post I sent you to the Air America web page where you could read about this crash of this aircraft after receiving AAA fire while making a food drop to the Hmongs in the area.  There were at least two and maybe as many as four attempts to find the aircraft and recover the aircrew.  None were successful, but there had to be an effort because some of those in the aircrew were Americans. 

This event happened on September 5, 1963.  I, with my PARU team had just come back from an operation near the HCM Trail with an Army Special Forces team.  I was told that Col. Bradley wanted me to return to Vientiane with my team immediately.  When I arrived at Wattay Airport, Col. Bradley was waiting on me.  I old Akkrat to stand down and I went with Col Bradley to his office north of the airport.  He told me about the downed aircraft.  I was also told that one aircraft had tried to get to the site from Savannakhet, but encountered too much AAA fire to proceed.  Two T-28's had also tried to get near the site and were almost shot down themselves.  Col. Bradley asked if I wanted to make a run at it, but do it from the ground rather than try to fly to the site.  I was not ordered to do this, but volunteering would be a good course of action, whatever that meant.  The colonel said he would send in Peterson's Special Forces team and attach me to it if I was up to it.  Of all the SF teams I had worked with, Peterson's was the most experienced.  This was the legendary SF team, code named "Falcon" that ran as many missions in Laos in the early days of the war there as any other team in the history of the secret war in Laos.  Bradley said that there was a small landing site within ten miles of the crash site guarded by Hmong tribesmen and that it would be pretty safe to get to there.  I would have four T-28's out of Savannakhet for air support which meant they would be approximately an hour away from start up of engines to being overhead.  For us, the problem would be getting from the LS to the crash site. I could use my PARU team and we would be supplied some Hmong soldiers when I got to the landing site.  Up to this point he had not said who it was that had gotten shot down.  When he did, I was surprised at the names.  I knew both the pilot and the copilot. 

The pilot was Joe Cheney and the copilot was Charlie Herrick.  I knew of the loadmaster, but had never met him.  His name was Gene Debruin.  Col. Bradley said that there were others on board the aircraft serving as assistant loadmasters, but the number and nationality was unknown at the present time.  As far as he knew, it could be two, three, or four other persons involved.  What was needed to find is out what happened to the aircrew, how many there really were and were there any survivors.

C-46 at LS20A, Long Trieng

Because I knew these guys, my very first inclination was to say, "lets do it."  My second inclination, more thoughtful than my first said, "Why would I want to do this?"  This was a dangerous adventure at best.  We would be operating in Pathet Lao territory with only a few places held by the Hmongs.  He handed me a map and pointed to where the crash site was supposed to be.  He pointed out the presumed locations of Gen Van Pao's troops.   At least, that is where they were the last time they got information on them. He advised me that he had already briefed Peterson and that his team would meet my team back at Wattay. Then it was back to Wattay airport in Vientiane where my team was waiting for me.  My team was helping to refuel the chopper we had come in on and there were two Air America chopper crews standing around. I briefed Akkrat (my Thai sergeant and over the other team members) on what we were about to do.  I told him to prepare some Thai rations, more ammo, grenades, and be prepared to leave within a couple of hours. I told him to prepare for a two day mission close to the HCM trail.  He would brief his team later after the refueling was complete.    Because of his name, I usually called him "Rat Man."  One of the pilots came over and said they would be the main transport to the landing site within a few miles of the supposed crash site. I asked about the other AA crew and he said they were going to pick up some equipment to help us in our endeavor and they would be our backup in case of trouble.  While I was waiting for the SF team, I had one of my more lucid moments.  Here we are, soldiers who don't exist, going into a dangerous area looking for Americans who don't exist in a plane that doesn't exist in a country we weren't in.  How could we fail!  Nothing was real here!

Shortly, another vehicle pulled up and four heavily armed Americans got out wearing foreign uniforms.  I recognized Lt. Peterson as I had worked with him several times before.  He would be the 1-0 on the mission and we would be under his command on this mission.  He decided that we would wait until late evening and make a run at the Hmong village near the LS we were going to. The Enemy would think it was a food run and probably not pay much attention to us.  Extra cans of gas were loaded into the second chopper in case we needed it.  The second chopper  would to go to LS 383 and await our call.  LS 383 was just about 20 minutes flying time to where we were going.


The flight to our destination was uneventful.  No ground fire at all that we could tell.  We landed a few hundred yards from the Hmong village of Ban Wat and were met by a Hmong officer.  He said he could supply a few men to go with us who knew the area and would be of great help in reaching the crash site.  I radioed Vientiane and advised them that we were on the ground and proceeding with the operation. It was decided by the lieutenant  that we had better go now and get as close to the crash site as we could before daylight.  The Hmongs took the lead and we just followed them at intervals of about 5 yards.  We did the standard Special Forces combat march thing, ten minutes of movement and ten minutes of stop and listen.  I never worked with an experienced SF team that didn't do it this way.  Of course, it started raining but that was not a bad thing as the rain would muffle our steps and wash away our footprints.  After about a four hour hump, we were stopped by the Hmongs who told us, through Akkrat, that this was the line that divided what was controlled by General Van Pao's army and the Pathet Lao.  From now on we were in Pathet Lao territory.  We pressed on for another hour.  The SF guys decided this was far enough to go for the night.  We would stop and set up a RON (remain overnight) in which Lt. Peterson then set up a defensive perimeter and he sent some Hmongs on ahead as a sort of trail watch system. One of my Thais would watch the trail we had just come down.  Now I called a RON ( SF acronym) a "hide."  It means that you find a a place off the trail you are traveling that is well concealed and easily defensible.  Peterson had his team set up some claymore mines around the perimeter just in case trouble came our way.  Peterson actually taught me a lot during this mission in particular, especially about this RON thing. 

PARU Shoulder Tab

We began to talk to the Hmongs through one of the Thais and the told us that they had people who had seen the crash site but had not been able to get close enough to determine if there were survivors or not.  There were just too many Pathet Lao in the area.   Only two captives had been reported in the area and had been seen in the adjacent hamlet.  One was Caucasian  and one was either Thai or Laotian.  Besides that, they were being moved towards the east and the HCM trail.   The lieutenant nixed any idea of a rescue as we just did not have the personnel to be successful.  What he was really saying was that he didn't think his four man team and our five man team was enough to catch up with and overcome a force moving captives daily. Our job was to find out who was alive and who was dead and we couldn't be sure the two mentioned above were even part of the aircrew of the downed C-46.  After about 30 minutes of chatting with the Hmongs, some of us tried to get some sleep while we could.  The rain continued throughout the night.  We got in about two hours sleep each over the next four hours.

At dawn the lieutenant called me over and told me that he had given this project some serious thought.  He felt it was better to split up the force.  He wanted me and my team to follow some Hmong guides and go to a place that could support helicopter landings.  It would be in General Vang Pao's control area, but barely.  He would take his guys and a few Hmongs with him and try to get to the crash site.  In case of trouble, he would radio me and make a run for the site.  I was to call for extraction and air cover if needed immediately after he had contacted me.  Two Hmongs were pointed out by him and they then led us away from our location.  Peterson and his team disappeared into the jungle. 

It was a good half day hump to the proposed landing site (LS).  I looked at my map but could not find any indication that this was a known LS.  I later found out there were a lot of CIA landing sites not marked on any maps and known only to a few people.  This was one of those.    The landing site was about 1500 feet long and by the tracks in the mud, Helio Couriers and Porters had been coming in here on a regular basis.  It had about a 15 to 20 degree slope.  It was obvious that the fixed wings had been landing up hill and taking off downhill.  It was certainly adequate for H-34 and Bell 204 helicopters.   By this time the rain had stopped and the skies has cleared to some extent.  All that was left to do was wait.

I contacted Vientiane and let them know the situation and what the lieutenant had told me to do.  This was now September 6, a full day after the aircraft was shot down. It was just after dark when the radio came to life and the SF radioman shouted out my call sign over the air.  "Navigator, we've gone hot.  Could not get to crash site.  Made contact with enemy force of unknown size.  Two Hmongs are dead and one wounded.  On our way to you.  Eight hours out.  Over."   I rogered his transmission and asked what they needed me to do, but there was no response.  I then contacted Vientiane and advised them of the situation by coded CW message.  I advised them that they needed to have the extraction helicopters and aircraft in the air in 7 hours.  They came back about 30 minutes later and asked me where I was.  My exact words were, "I have no idea. I am at a LS not marked on my map but approximately 25 kilometers west of  LS363.  On the map I am approximately 18 degrees 35 minutes north by 104 degrees 18 minutes east.  Over."   They came back a little later and said they knew where I was and would launch the extraction aircraft at 0600.  Again, now it was time to wait for the SF team to get back in touch with me.  And the wait was not long.

The radio once again came to life and the radioman said that they were in contact with a sizable enemy force but it wasn't as sizable as it had be an hour ago.  I think you can get his meaning.  He asked if I was in a position to see the valley below and I rogered that I was.  He said they would fire a pen flare and I was to let them know which direction they needed to go to get to our location.  I again rogered the transmission.  A few seconds later I saw the flare and looked at my compass and gave them a heading to our location.  The radioman rogered the transmission and again the radio went silent.  From where I saw the flare, they were a good six kilometers from my location and in heavy jungle.

I need to make a note here that I should have made earlier.  During this time in Laos (and as far as I know the way it was even later) three types of distance measurements were used in Laos.  The standard measure was kilometers and that is what the military on the ground used.  And the indigenous people used kilometers.  However, there were civilian contractors and operatives (CIA, USAID) who tended to still use regular miles for measurement purposes.   The USAF and Navy used nautical miles with a nautical mile slightly longer than a mile, with a mile longer than a kilometer.  Some of the maps I carried were in miles, some in kilometers, none in nautical miles.  One NM equals 1.85200 km or 1.15 miles.  When making computations, I had to convert one to the other.   An easy task with the EB-6 flight computer but a little more time consuming with a pencil and paper.  So, in this case I had a CIA  map in in statute miles and I had my EB-6.  I made mental notes and then converted all the numbers into kilometers for the SF team and then back to nautical miles for the aircrews.

About an hour later we could hear weapons going off, both 9MM sub-machine gun fire, BAR  and AK-47. There was a lot of gunfire in valley.  It was distant, but very distinctive coming out of the valley below.  I had to assume that the SOG team would come up the same trail we used so the Paru's put themselves in position to have some clear firing zones down the trail if needed.   My guys were armed with AK-47's and I was carrying my Swedish K sub-machine gun. The gunfire was intermittent and seemed to lessen as time went on.  I again radioed Vientiane and advised them of the situation.  I asked if they could have the choppers overhead  by daylight.   The rogered that they could.

A little later the 1-1 radioman called again and said that they were still in contact with a sizable force.  Also, he advised me that some had gone around them....maybe three or four, he wasn't sure, but thought that was how many there were and they would probably try to cut the SOG team off before they could get to the LS.  He told me that the 1-0 had said to tell me to be on the lookout and do what we could.  I rogered the transmission and called my Thais over to talk to them.  I briefed them on what I had just been told.  I told them that I had seen a trail somewhat parallel to ours that met this trail in a clearing about 1000 yards below.  I said we need to go to that site and hold it if we could.  We made a mad dash down the mountain and arrived at the clearing about 20 to 30 minutes later.  I hoped that I had made the correct calculations on what I thought was going to happen.

About 45 minutes later I heard noises on the parallel trail.  I radioed Falcon and asked if they were on the mountain yet.  The radioman said they had just got to the base of the mountain.  I told him I thought we were going to have company.  About then, one after another, what I thought to be Pathet Lao troops walked into the clearing.  First one, then two, then a total of six in all.   Per earlier instructions, my Thais waited until we were pretty sure this was all of them and then Akkrat and his men opened fire.  That is when all hell broke lose.

I figure that every one of the Thais fired at least ten rounds and maybe twenty in one case.  It lasted all of about 15 seconds and all six enemy soldiers went down. However, they did get off some rounds and narrowly missed hitting Akkrat.  Just about the time the firing subsided in the clearing,  I caught some movement to my right and when I was able to focus on them in the dark, it was another two enemy soldiers about fire on Akkrat.  I swung and around fired about ten or so rounds from my Swedish K in their direction.    Akkrat saw them about the same time I did and he turned and fired on them as well.  It must have caught them by surprise as they probably thought that Akkrat and his men were all of there was.   They all went down in a hail of bullets.  But that wasn't the end of it.  Another PL burst into the clearing and was almost on top of Akkrat when I dropped him in his tracks.  All three were able to get off a few rounds but they hit nothing but the jungle.  We waited to see if there were any more, but it didn't appear there were.  Akkrat sent one of his men down to finish off all the wounded which he did.  Remember, this is war and a war that wasn't.  There could be no witnesses.  It was just the way it was.  There could be no one left to tell how many of us there were or our unit makeup.  Akkrat signaled me to come down and look at the carnage.  He rolled one of the soldiers over and was I surprised.  These were not Pathet Lao soldiers.  They were NVA regulars.  I was surprised because I had no idea they were this far west or south.  I told Akkrat to reset his men and we would wait to see what happened next.

I then sent another coded message to Vientiane and told them that our force had run into regular NVA troops, not PL troops. They radioed back that they would get back with me.  About that time we saw someone coming up the main trail.  It was Team Falcon and a few Hmongs.  When Peterson stepped into the clearing and saw the dead NVA laying there, he too was surprised.  He said, "No wonder they kept coming at us earlier this morning.  These guys are "hard core NVA regulars."  Peterson acted like he was surprised that they were regular NVA, but I don't think he really was.

We made it back up to the LS and waited for daybreak.  Peterson sent a couple of Hmongs down the trail to watch for enemy troops headed our way, but none ever showed up.  Eventually, the Hmongs came back up the trail and said it didn't appear that any other NVA were on the mountain.  It was now just getting to be daybreak and about 20 minutes later we heard the first chopper as it approached the LS.  As the helicopters began to make their approach, Peterson sent the Hmongs back where they came from.   The first chopper  landed and the SOG team boarded it and took off.  The second chopper landed and the pilot said I needed to talk to Vientiane.  The pilot handed me his headset and I heard Bradley's voice on the other end.  He asked me if I was sure those were NVA.  I said yes I was.  He then asked me if I still had some smoke with me.  I looked at my PARUS and they had one canister each plus the one I had.  That made four.  I told Bradley that is what I had available.  He then said that we needed to make a pass down through the valley and drop smoke where we thought the NVA were.  He would provide some close air support to drop ordinance on the sites I marked.

I asked Bradley how I was going to know exactly where these folks were.  He said and I quote: "Fly down the damn valley and when the shoot at your chopper drop smoke on them."  Well, hell, why didn't I think of that!  Just get shot at so we would know where they were.  He told me that he would have air assets overhead in 30 minutes.  When they contacted me, we were to take off and fly down the valley and draw fire.  I rogered the transmission and signed off.  I asked the pilots if they were aware of what we were about to do.  They said they had a feeling this was the plan.  The pilot told me that we would fly low and fast and when we encountered fire, we would drop the smoke and get the hell out of the valley.....if we were still in one piece that is.

The next voice I heard over the UHF set was a Laotian I knew very well.  He was a major (I think) at this time and he was an excellent pilot and leader.  His name was Thau Ma. He eventually became a general of the Laotian Air Force and attempted a least two coups against the Laotian government before he was finally killed in 1973.  His first words to me were, "Navigator, this is Blue Leader with three friends.  Waiting for your run.  Over."  I rogered his transmission and told him we were starting up and would be airborne shortly.  I asked him his location and he told me he was at my 8 o'clock position at 5000 feet.  I finally saw his flight as we were getting airborne.  The pilot said he would go around the mountain and come in from the north and make the run south.  He told me make as small a target as we could.  I collected the four other smoke canisters and got ready.  I decided not to sit in the door but behind it as that would make at least some protection against ground fire.  We made it around the mountain and then took off down the valley.  About a mile into the run we began to see tracers from the east side of the valley.  The pilot make a turn slightly to the east and  then banked back to the west and said, "Drop them now, this is a close as we are going to get."  I pulled the pins and  threw all four out the door, one right after another.  I then got on the radio and told Thau Ma that the enemy was firing at us from about 800 meters east of the smoke.  The helicopter pilot then made a sharp turn to the west and began to climb for altitude.  Just as we cleared the mountain I saw the first T-28 make a run down the valley.  A lot of fire was coming up at him and it wasn't all small arms.  I saw the explosions from his bomb drop and then he went out of view as we went beyond the mountain.

Well, we had gotten away with that somehow.  There were a few holes in the chopper but I thought we must have been high enough that small arms didn't do too much damage.  Wrong!  Just as I had that thought, I heard a loud squeal and smoke started filling the chopper's cabin.  I heard the pilot say some curse words and then he yelled back to get ready for a hard landing.  We flew for about another three or four kilometers as we lost altitude.  The pilot tried to find a clearing and settled on one that wasn't quite big enough for the chopper.  He pulled the chopper up at a steep angle just above the trees and we went straight down and hit the ground.  The blades hit the trees on either side of the chopper and flew into small pieces of shrapnel flying off into the trees. Just as we all got out of the chopper it caught fire.  My experience here is that where there is fire and smoke, soon there will be enemy soldiers if we happen to be in their territory.  I told the pilots to head down the mountain led by one my team members.  Akkrat, the two other PARU and myself, would follow them at a distance to make sure no one caught up to them.  The pilot had said that he had issued a "Mayday" call and gave Vientiane our approximate position.  I had salvaged our radios so we would at least be able to talk to any aircraft in the area. 

As it turned out, and, as fortune smiled on us, we had crashed in an area held by the Hmongs of General Vang Pao.  It wasn't long until they made contact with us and told us they would meet us at the base of the mountain.  After we met with them, they led us to an LS.  A couple of hours later we were on our way back to Vientiane.  I had nothing but praise for the Air America crew.  How we managed to get back in one piece although our transport was trashed was a miracle and a great feat of flying.  I also have nothing but praise for Team Falcon.  They were truly professional soldiers and never showed fear in the face of extreme danger.  I will always remember those guys. and finally, my PARU's.  These guys were outstanding and absolutely fearless.  The all assumed they were going to die in this war, so why fear death.  It was coming to them anyway.  We did lose some of them later, but for now, we were all okay and heading back to our respective bases.

My Very First Briefing

Everyone probably remembers their very first in-country briefing.  On my first trip into Laos, I was called into an office in the Air America complex at Udorn and a uniformed officer was sitting at the table at the opposite end of the room.  I walked to his desk, stood at attention, and saluted him.  He told me to sit down and not do that again.  "We don't acknowledge rank here.  It can get you killed, " he said.

He then began to tell me what I had not even surmised all this time as I prepared for this strange business.  He said, "Naylor, from now on your code name will be "Navigator".  You will never use your real name for any reason whatsoever, especially in Laos.  You will use your code name when making any radio transmissions to pilots, ground forces, or the operations center in Vientiane. When not on the air, use a nick name or something else when talking to troops, indigenous people, CIA personnel, Vientiane operations or anyone else you might run in to.  Richard Naylor no longer exists once you enter Laos."  Later, not of my own volition, I ended up with the handle "Snakeman," or in the Thai language, "Nguu Chaai."

"Regardless of what you might think you know or may know, we are not in Laos.  There are no American personnel, either attached to the U.S. Government or free lancing in Laos.  Once you cross the border 50 kilometers north, you don't exist.  The airplanes and helicopters you fly in do not exist.  The pilots and aircrews of those machines don't exist.  Any U.S. Military personnel you may encounter don't exist.  Any CIA personnel you may run into don't exist. Any questions, Naylor?"  I shook my head and told him I didn't have any at that time.  He continued, "You will leave everything that could identify you as an American or U.S. Military operative  behind.  No dog tags.  No letters from home.  You will wear either civilian clothing or generic military clothing, preferably from another country.  No rank chevrons, no jump wings, no nothing on the uniform if you wear one.  All your money will be changed into the kip notes usable only in Laos. No identification of any kind.  You will not keep journals, carry a camera, submit to any photographs of yourself.  Any notes you make during briefings will be memorized and the notes burned.  We would prefer you just memorized it in the beginning, however, so that the notes never leave the briefing room.  Got that?" he asked.  I nodded that I did.   He continued, "You must not say anything about this place in letters home, phone calls, or other forms of communication.  You cannot tell your wife, girl friend, mother an any other person about his place...period.  That goes whether you are at Incirlik, here at Udorn, or in Laos.  You cannot talk to anyone especially at Incirlik about what you are doing.  We will fabricate some stories to cover you absences from that base."  Then he told me that I would be working primarily with U.S. Army Special Forces personnel who don't exist and some indigenous troops who do.  "Your main transport will be via Air America, CAT, or civilian transport.  Of course, according to the records, CAT and Air America are both civilian airlines."   He went on to say that for the most part, I would be relying on General Vang Pao's Hmoung forces for help in the field and my team would be made up mostly of Thais and Hmongs.  The Thais were members of an elite unite known as the  PARU.  The PARU, as I mentioned in a previous post, were really good soldiers.  Maybe the best of the best in Thailand.  I didn't know that at this time, but I was soon to find out the truth about these special soldiers.

He then pushed a piece of paper toward me and said I need to read it and sign it.  It was an official U.S. Military document called a Confidentiality Agreement.  As I read this document it stated such things as that I could not mention any of what I saw, heard, or was involved in for 30 years after I left the country or after the conflict ended, which ever was the latest.  It also stated that this could be amended by the Joint Chiefs of Staff or by presidential order.  All this would be voided if the information about this nice little war was ever declassified.  Of particular notice was the penalties for revealing this information.  First, you could be arrested, court-martial-ed, and imprisoned.  If out of the military, you could be arrested and charged with sharing confidential information necessary to the  security of the United States.  Second, you could lose any military benefits you might have coming, could not hold a government job, not receive any government aid of any kind and could be fined thousands of dollars.  To me, that was plenty of incentive to keep my mouth shut about this place. And in fact I never spoke of this stuff until the last few years.  I began to see information about people I worked with in Laos and Thailand being posted on the internet.  That spawned research as to what was still classified and what wasn't.  And there are some things that are still classified about Laos, believe it or not, fifty years later.

After I had signed the document and handed it to him, he made his final statements.  "Navigator, you will be operating in hostile territory.  You will be the only ground air link that some of these teams will have.  You are the only voice most pilots are going to hear in their earphones in Laos. You will be directing air strikes against enemy forces and directing aircraft in and out of combat zones.  If you are captured, you will be tortured and probably killed because they will not consider you to be regular military since there are none in Laos.  They consider all Americans working in Laos to be spies or saboteurs.  They know how to kill you a thousand ways and make it last a long time.  I am not an Indian Fighter, but I would save the last bullet for myself."  He then continued with these words:  "If you are captured try to escape as soon as possible because they will weaken your body and your spirit over just a few days.  It is very difficult to escape after you have been in their hands any time at all.  Assume all Laotians to be your enemy unless you know better from personal experience with them.  You will be confronted with Pathet Lao, North Vietnamese, and Khmer Rouge  communists.  For the most part, the Thais are really safe to work with as well as the Hmongs who hate the communists. If you are seriously wounded on an operation, you will probably die.  There will probably be no way to evacuate you to help.  If you are bitten by a poisonous snake, same outcome.  There are no real hospitals in Laos or Thailand.  If you find a way to get yourself killed, for a while you will just be listed as missing in action.  After a time, the military will declare you were killed in an aircraft accident or automobile crash.  You body will be sent back to the U.S. as non-viewable remains and because of where you were killed, you will not be eligible for burial in any National Cemetery.    Any questions?"  I stated that I had none but might have some later.  He then said this to me, "Ask now, you will never see me again.  This is our one and only meeting.  Never shall we meet again."    I certainly had some, but my mind was spinning as it was and couldn't think of anything.  He got up, shook my hand, wished me luck and left me alone in the room.  I left the room and indeed, I never saw the officer again.

Don't be Taken Alive!

This was one of the first things I was told at my initial briefing on my first trip into Laos.  Col. Bradley made it very plain.  It was better to die in a battle or a firefight than to be taken alive by the Pathet Lao or North Vietnamese.  Of the many people lost in Laos and named as MIA's, few ever surfaced again.  Only now, with the cooperation of the North Vietnamese government are we able to begin to understand what happened to these people.  Real numbers are hard to come up with because of the skewing of statistics.   Some 450 military personnel, USAF pilots, FAC pilots, Special Forces personnel, and various military advisers were lost in Laos never to be heard of again.  Yes, there were a few miraculous escapes, but not many and you could number them on two hands. 

There are some statistics that need to be stated here.  Of the losses in Laos, either aircrews shot down or special forces personnel in untenable positions , 61 percent were rescued.  Now, the term rescued can have two meanings and in Laos this was particularly true.  Being rescued either meant being rescued by SAR activities or taken alive by the Pathet Lao or North Vietnamese troops.  Because of this skewing of statistics, accuracy is hard to present.  I don't know how they managed to make those kinds of calculations, but they did.  After the war was over, the U.S. government said that 2 percent of American personnel captured in Laos by the enemy were returned.  I don't think it was that high.  That means that 37 percent of captured U.S. military personnel did not return and were listed as MIA's.  Later some of these were determined to be KIA's reducing slightly the MIA numbers.  As I wrote above, close to 450 Americans serving in the military were listed as missing in action in Laos. (If any one reading this blog has some different numbers, I would be glad to see them.) Literally scores of Special Forces troops went missing in N.Vietnam and along the Ho Chi Minh Trail.  Take into account that this does not include CIA, Air America, or indigenous troops that also went missing in that war.   Over the last few years Laos has allowed some Grave Registrations Teams to search Laos for remains at known crash sites and some remains have been returned to the United States.  It is much harder to track and find information on the Special Forces personnel that were lost as well as CIA and Air America people.  This doesn't account for many of those quote-unquote "rescued by the enemy" aircrew members.

Pathet Lao Soldiers

Col. Bradley told both Bailey and myself that you were as good as dead if taken captive.  You would be mistreated, abused, beaten, tortured, and after all of that, they would do it all again until you died from your injuries.  Or, if they saw you didn't have any information forthcoming, they would just take you out and shoot you.  There were a few who escaped, but with most cases of those who escaped and survived the ordeals of capture, it was because they had a will to survive. They were able to endure the beatings and mistreatment and never give in to despair or depression.  They waited for that one moment of inattention by the guards, or an unlocked cage or building to make good their escapes and most always had a plan on what they were going to do once they escaped.  They probably spent what time they had between beatings and interrogations to develop a plan of survival once out of their captors hands.

NVA Soldiers

I don't think any soldier, sailor, airman, or marine worries a lot about dying.  It's going to happen someday, someway, no matter how you try to avoid it.  What worries us all is how we are going to die.  I always figured, that if I took a bullet in the bush, it was probably better than dying of cancer or some other horrible disease. But, after hearing Col Bradley, I was convinced I did not want to be captured, that was for sure.  An interesting story from the Air America files is about Phisit Intharathat and how after an Air America C-46 was shot down north of Savannakhet, he survived capture, torture and injury to eventually escape his jailers.  We ran part of the SAR on this aircraft and in the process, were shot down as well.  However, we, at least, were able to crash land away from where large concentrations of Pathet Lao were located.  Plus, we were relatively heavily armed.   Phisit ws not that lucky.  I recommend you read his story at http://www.air-america.org/Articles/Phisit.shtml.  Hopefully, my next post will tell the story of our being shot down looking for the C-46.

I, like a lot of others in Laos at the time, had heard of the stories about Tony Poe.  I don't want to plagiarize anyone else's work, so I will only tell you that you can look up his name through a google search, and read about him.  I will tell a story or two about him later in this blog concerning my dealings with him.  But, I will say this, if you saw the movie "Apocalypse Now", the character of Col. Kurtz came from the life and times of Tony Poe.  The minute I saw the movie and saw Marlon Brando as Kurtz, I knew who they were portraying in the movie.  It was as if I was back at Long Tieng and reliving the past.  The one CIA person I had a lot of personal contact with, other than Col. Bradley,  was Tony Poe.  It was  ritual that when I came back to Long Tieng, I brought him a couple of fifths of Canadian Club Whiskey.  In my case, over the period that I came and went in Laos, that amounted to about 35 to 40 quarts of liquor.  He was a legend by the time I met him in 1963.

In Laos, growing rice between the mountains.  This was Pathet Lao territory in the eastern part of N. Laos. The setting
looks to made for a parachute drop, but along the edges of the rice patties were 22 an 37 mm AAA guns not to mention
the guns on the ridges.

 I am getting off track here, the point I want to make about Tony Poe is that he was doing to the Pathet Lao and North Vietnamese what the enemy was doing to our personnel.  There was a "no holds barred" kind of mentality going on. There were no boundaries you couldn't cross.  There were no stop signs when it came to cruelty on both sides.  Torture and death could await soldiers on all sides.  And, I have no idea what happened those individuals that the CIA took control of.  I will almost guarantee that they never surfaced again nor were they ever heard from.  

On the day of my first official briefing I was told something else.  Col. Bradley made a comment that has stuck with me since.  In essence, he said this: "Here in Laos we are not concerned about collateral damage.  We do what ever it takes to win no matter how many non-combatants are killed or injured.  You cannot let the collateral damage trouble your soul.  It's a fact of war."  Well, that was easy for him to say I guess, but it wasn't that easy to do.  I remember seeing the broken and torn bodies of women and children after an air strike or artillery barrage.  There is no way you can see that and not have it "trouble your soul."

One of my grandsons once asked me if I was ever afraid in Laos.  I was always afraid.  Sometimes I was scared s....less.  Anyone who was in that environment could never say they were unafraid unless they were crazy or lying. Fear is the biggest enemy anyone has to face. You were always in danger when you were in the field because, basically, you were always in enemy territory.  Sometimes you were working with indigenous personnel you had never seen before and didn't know if they were really on your side or not.  Missions originating in Saigon by MACV were always subject to compromise by moles at MACV headquarters.  The safest missions always turned out to be those run by the CIA.  They knew how to keep a secret and how to misdirect the enemy.  Afraid, yes I was afraid and I am not ashamed to say that, but in the end, you do your job, scared or not.  It was what you were trained to do, so you carried on.  It was what it was. By the time I had been in and out of Laos several times, I had the old "Indian fighter" mentality.  I would save the last bullet for myself rather than be captured and tortured.  And, like I said in another post, I really think that someone on my team had the responsibility to make sure I didn't fall into enemy hands.

Me and MACVSOG

One of the main groups I dealt with in Laos was MACVSOG personnel.  MACV-SOG stands for Military Assistance Command Vietnam - Studies and Observation Group. They were specially trained U.S. Army Special Forces troops who were trained to do a lot of covert things behind enemy lines, running ambushes, kidnappings, surveillance operations, and just being a thorn in the side of the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong.  Well, in Laos that did all that too.  Before I got there, they were running Shinning Star (I believe that was the call) missions.  Laos was known by its coded name, Shining Brass.  Officially, SOG did not come into existence until 1964, but by any classification of missions undertaken and how they operated in 1963, these guys were SOG teams that I worked with at that time.

MACVSOG Team at Nhuty Thuat, Vietnam

Most of the SOG teams consisted of four men.  Usually they were made up of two SF guys and two Vietnamese counterparts.  Soetimes it was three and three.  On occasion, it might be all SF guys, two of which were being trained by the 1-0.   I did insert teams as large as 15 members, such as the one above, on occasion.  SOG teams could be all American personnel, or like the picture above, made up of a mixture of American and indigenous soldiers. These indigenous soldiers were highly trained and motivated individuals.  A lot of teams in Vietnam were made up of Nhungs and Montagnards known for their ferocity in battle.  In Laos where I was stationed, they could be Hmongs or Thai special forces guys.   The SOG teams were typically made up as follows:  One-Zero was the team commander.  He could be an officer or a NCO.  One-One was the assistant team commander and could be any rank, but  normally an NCO.  One-Two was usually the radio operator.  He carried at least one radio and may have two or more on a particular mission depending on the mission requirements.  Other team members would carry the extra radios.  One-Two was usually a mission specialist in either heavy weapons or explosives besides being a radio operator..  Any extra members could be weapons specialists, explosives experts, or snipers.  All were highly trained and highly motivated individuals.  No doubt they were hard-core people.  Most of these guys spoke at least one, if not two, languages besides English.  I knew of one NCO who could speak 7 or 8 different languages along with a couple of dialects of the indigenous people in the area. The Vietnamese counterparts were designated as follows,  The team leader was 0-1, the radio operator 0-2, etc.  Just different from the SF guys.

Some of these guys carried M-14 rifles and 45 Colt sidearms .  Others, like those in the picture above preferred the Swedish K 9MM as did I.  Sometimes the heavy weapons guy would carry a M-79 grenade launcher.  All carried four grenades, usually two M-26 fragmentation grenades, one white phosphorus grenade and one smoke grenade.  However, there was no set number of any type of grenade I could see.  On certain missions they would carry AK-47's.  They usually had a few claymore mines as well.  C rations and water made up their mission food requirements.  Most carried two canteens.  Each carried  up to ten clips of ammo for their weapons.  One team member often carried an auto loading 22. caliber pistol with a silencer.  This was used to dispatch guards and anyone else you needed a silent kill for.  One thing I notice from looking at photos of the past is that you can pretty well date the photos by the small arms the guys are carrying.  I never saw an AR-15,  CAR-15, or an M-16 during my whole tour.  They must have showed up in late 1964 or even 1965.  Most photos dated before 1964 all feature sub-machine guns, M-1 carbines and rifles, or M-14 rifles.  I had heard that some AR-15's were introduced into South Vietnam with U.S.A.F. security personnel, but I don't know when that happened. 

AR-15 Rifle

 On the other hand, the indigenous troops either carried M-1 carbines, Swedish SK's, or AK-47s.  Some preferred the AK-47 simply because, as I said in an earlier post, it confused the enemy.  All of my PARU's normally carried AK-47's.

Some SOG teams were called "Spike Teams" or "ST", the abbreviated version.  It was a code name for "long range recon" teams.  Anyone who wasn't a member of that particular team, in other words, someone added to the team at the last minute or for a special purpose were referred to as "strap hangers."  I was called that by most SOG guys I worked with.  It more or less became my nickname.  I would hear taunts like, "Look, here comes strap hanger."  "You riding with us today, strap hanger?"  That kind of stuff.  It wasn't mean spirited or anything like that, it was just joking around, but the nickname stuck.  I did find out where the term "strap hanger" came from.  It was from NY City and people riding the subways.  The last people getting on a subway car probably wouldn't find a seat, so they would hold on to straps hanging from the ceilings of the cars, thereby they became "strap hangers."  I think you can connect the dots on this one.


Only twice, with the exception of Team Falcon, did I insert the same SOG teams into hostile territory and both insertions were along the northern border between Laos and N. Vietnam. I think these may have been the nastiest and most dangerous of missions.  The reason they were dangerous is that we were so far north and right next to North Vietnam's border with Laos.  I know of one team that we dropped into the border area that was never heard of again.  The last time I tried to find out something about them, they were still listed as missing in action. My interaction with most SF teams was sporadic and not interactive.  Not much was said between myself and the team members.  That was not the case with Team Falcon.  I ran at least ten missions with those guys. Like I wrote previously, these guys were definitely hard core and really dedicated to what they did.  If I had to be in a firefight, these are they guys I would want on my side.  On one mission, the SOG team leader looked at me and made the following statement:  "Strap hanger, we are about to be up to our asses in alligators.  I hope you are on your game today."  What he was referring to was that we were headed up to Sam Neua, one of the most dangerous places on earth for any one except Pathet Lao and North Vietnamese troops. It was the northern Laos headquarters for the Pathet Lao.  It was 24 miles from North Vietnam. Believe me, it was the place you didn't want to go.  A SOG team had gone missing in this area and MACV wanted to know what happened to them, so they were going to send in another team.  More about this in a later blog entry.

Map of N.E. Laos Showing Sam Neua

In the declassified map above, the shaded area of eastern part of Northern Laos was pretty much under Pathet Lao and North Vietnamese control.  There were some Hmong enclaves that supported the legitimate Laotian government, but they were always in danger themselves of being wiped out by the Pathet Lao.  Long Tieng (LS20-A) (located on the lower left part of the map) was basically my mission launch site when I was in Laos although I passed through Vientiane going in and out of Laos.  Vientiane was about 90 miles south of Long Tieng.

Someone has asked me about Navy SEALs.  I never ran across any of them while I was in Laos.  So I certainly never worked with them.  I looked up some history on them and found out they were in Vietnam in an advisory role in 1962 at DaNang.   I know that after the war was really underway, they were in everywhere in Vietnam.  I just never ran across them in my travels.

The firefights that Bailey or I were involved with, were, in almost every case, during the extraction faze of an operation.  I don't know about Bailey, but I had only a few problems during insertions.  However, there was one occasion when we did.  I will put that in a future addition to the blog as well as the others I have mentioned.  Normally on insertions, you got everyone down and on their way, or the LZ was too hot to even try and you just went away to try another day.

Now the nitty-gritty.  It was really apparent that the CIA and MACV were in bed together.  I was never sure who sponsored a mission, the CIA or MACV.  On a couple of occasions their personnel were mixed together.  MACV was not supposed to be involved in Laos, but the constant movement of  SOG teams  through Laos would contradict that.  There were Special Forces guys in civilian clothes walking the streets of Vientiane during every visit there.  Air America's (AA in future blog posts) airline business was a front company and owned by the CIA through connections in Taiwan.  Air America provided a means by which the CIA could move men, material and, yes, drugs, around Laos, Vietnam, and Thailand.  And whether anyone likes it or not, MACV and their SOG teams were truly involved in what was going on in Laos. 

The thing about all this is that I was a 20 year old kid caught up in all kinds of projects and missions that didn't make a lot of sense to me.  I soon learned that there would be killing and that I could be killed as well.  The term CIA didn't mean a lot to me.  I had heard about the CIA from news accounts and the Bay of Pigs invasion, but until I got to Laos, I was mentally blank as to what they really did.
It didn't take long to find out just what they were involved in.  I was really surprised to know that so much deception and lies were going on in Laos.  And, I was never in some of the loops where a lot of the more important CIA things were done.  In later blogs you will learn about a lot of different people, Tony Poe being the most prominent of the group.

Until next time.

Swedish K sub-machine gun (upper pic) and FN-FAL Battle Rifle with Full Auto
(lower pic)

The two pictures above are representative of the weapons I carried in Laos.  Notice that the Swedish K has a longer barrel that the one I carried.  The barrel ended at the front sight.