February 2014 - Jake (Matt Jacobson) got into Long Cheng on his bike. He's given me permission to post a piece about his experience, read on:
Where the ‘Secret War’ Never Ended
Copyright 2014 Matt Jacobson
Long Cheng, Laos, had always been a fairly sleepy northern hill tribe village. That was before the United States military turned it into a top secret base for conducting their clandestine war in Laos during the Indochina War. Let’s see, a secret US base in a then rarely-named faraway place, occupied by not only secret US Air Force pilots (who came to be nicknamed Ravens) and their special purpose aircraft, but also a very large and equally secret US intelligence community of CIA operatives that had their own secret pilots and aircraft (which came to be known as Air America). You can’t get many more secrets into one sentence, although we will keep trying.
Fascinating, indeed, but all the more so because of the fact that since the time the base was overrun and occupied by the North Vietnamese Army and their communist Laos counterparts, the Pathet Laos (Country Laos), soon after the US withdrew its various contingents in February 1973 (as required by a treaty reached between the Royal Laos Government, Pathet Laos, North Vietnam and the US- named The Vientiane Agreement), Long Cheng, in Laos, as you will recall, has to this day remained a closed off, heavily guarded, top secret military base for Laos and Vietnamese military forces. Why? Do the communists actually believe the war is still going on, or that American forces must have the idea to return one day to reoccupy the base? Strangely enough, the paranoia of the communists seems to be matched by a US government and military that keeps much of the history of this place classified. Since the US has always denied having troops in Laos, as did the North Vietnamese, the thinking must be, ‘why ruin such a good ongoing lie with the truth?’
Getting into and discovering the mysteries of Long Cheng, past and present, has been etched into my brain for years, since reading The Ravens, Christopher Robbins’ excellent account of the secret group of US Air Force pilots who actually directed, while hovering around battle zones in their tiny spotter planes, the clandestine air war in Laos. But because the base is still closed off to the uninvited by guard posts located along both of the mountain-hugging, modern-day (definitely a stretch of the term) gravel access roads, this would be no easy task.
But before delving into the logistics of such an adventure, or more appropriately, misadventure, let’s back up and get acquainted with more of the history of this Secret x 10 place.
Nicknamed Secret City by US forces that had only heard rumors of a mysterious but never officially confirmed base of military operations somewhere in Laos, Long Cheng was so secretive a place that at the time it appeared on no official map of Laos (even to this day, putting Long Cheng on an official Laos country map is prohibited by the government). Located in one of country’s very mountainous regions, Long Cheng was before and during the war populated by the Hmong people, one of the many ethnic hill tribe peoples of Laos. With enough CIA operatives based there to earn it another nickname, Spook Heaven, as well as the CIA pilots that flew clandestine missions in CIA owned aircraft, Raven pilots, aircraft maintenance crews, various special force troops and, of course, the Hmong villagers themselves, which included CIA-recruited soldiers that did the actual fighting on the ground against the forces trying to topple the government, Long Cheng became, in reality, the second largest city in Laos, behind only the capital, Vientiane, while the war was being waged. Notwithstanding the lie that it really did not exist, that is.
Like the Secret City, information about the Ravens and their operations was so closely guarded that only a select few in the Air Force knew of their existence. Each of the men that volunteered for the mysterious Ravens program- mysterious because when they volunteered they had no idea what they were actually volunteering for, with only vague rumors having been heard about some strange program operating in Laos- were Vietnam-based Air Force pilots who had become disillusioned with the very strict nature of Air Force rules, especially the Rules of Engagement, which stated when you could and could not engage the enemy (the enemy had no such rules- for them it was engage when ready and necessary, as it has always been in war). As Vietnam veterans have always said, it was one hell of a way to fight a war.
Once in the program, most Ravens thought they had died and gone to pilot heaven, as they were left pretty much on their own because of the secrecy of the operation. They flew missions in civilian clothes such as cut off pants, tank tops, cowboy hats, and sunglasses. A relaxed command structure put them under the somewhat loose directives of the CIA operatives, and General Vang Pao, the Hmong leader who, with the CIA spooks, made the battle plans. Ravens interviewed for Mr. Robbins’ book said they felt their mission was “righteous” because they were playing a key role in helping the Hmong people fight against what the Hmong saw as outside invaders of their homeland.
Long-Cheng- by
Triangle Golden 007, on Flickr
The Ravens main mission was to coordinate air support for Hmong forces engaged with the enemy by flying small airplanes close enough to the ground to enable them to spot enemy positions well-camouflaged by the vast jungles of the region. They would then call in air strikes, and fighter planes would then be dispatched to the scene. A Ravens job was also to actually mark the targets for the fighter planes by hitting it with a plane-launched white phosphorus smoke rocket (also known as Willy Pete), enabling the fighter pilots to see it. The Ravens were to circle the target area throughout the operation and actually radio-direct the fighter planes the entire time they were on location (the official Air Force title for the Ravens job is Forward Air Controller- FAC).
The Ravens aircraft- small, propeller-driven Cessna 0-1 and 0-2 Bird Dogs were very slow, civilian-purpose designed airplanes that had no protective armor and no aircraft launched weapons. Their only protection from enemy ground fire was hand held weapons that they would bring with them, which they would point out their window when need be. Handguns, automatic rifles, the odd shoulder-grenade launcher was all they had. More often than not, they were the ones being shot at and shot up. The slow speed of the Bird Dogs meant they were often very easy targets, despite their skillful attempts to avoid enemy fire by using acrobatic maneuvers reminiscent of World War 1 bi-plane fighter pilots. Unfortunately, because of the totally insufficient design of their aircraft for the purpose they were being used, the Ravens had the highest casualty rate of the Indochina War- up to 50 percent.
Why all the secrets about US involvement in Laos? With an American public quite rightfully growing increasingly irritated and hostile toward its government and the idea that the country needed to be involved in faraway Asian conflicts, US involvement in trying to help the Royal Laos Government (formally requested by Prime Minister Souvanna Phouma in 1964) was kept secret from the American public by presidents Johnson and Nixon. But the idea of US involvement actually began in 1961, when a soon outgoing President Eisenhower warned President-elect Kennedy that SE Asian countries might fall one by one into the communist Soviet Union’s sphere of dominance, much like a line of dominos, if the US did not intervene to help countries that requested its assistance.
Things only became more secretive about Laos. US military and diplomatic communities referred to Laos only as The Other Theater (as in theater of operations outside Vietnam). As mentioned, both the US and North Vietnam denied they conducted operations in Laos. In reality, North Vietnam had tens of thousands of troops there, not only operating from bases they had set up in and near ranges of mountains that separate the two countries, but also deep inside Laos.
The North’s main reason for extending the war into Laos was to use the country as a safe (or safer than going through Vietnam) haven to move troops, military equipment and supplies from the North into South Vietnam, where the war against the South’s military and its US allies was raging. The trails and roads through the jungles and mountains of eastern Laos (and also to the south, in northeast Cambodia) used by the North Vietnam Army (NVA) to accomplish this came to be known as the Ho Chi Minh Trail, after the leader of the North and its efforts to unify the country. In reality, The Trail was not just one trail or road, but a series of trails and roads, which gave the North, based on conditions, options about where to enter Laos, and also options on where to exit into South Vietnam, especially when a certain route was being heavily bombarded.
Pathet Laos forces were far too few and inexperienced to topple the Laos government on their own. Such as it was, the NVA also spearheaded these efforts, and a main theater of their allied anti government operations was a vast, mountainous northern region that the Secret City is tightly tucked inside of.
Based in Cambodia, where I have long-enjoyed adventures by way of dirt (and often dirty) motorcycle to the fantastic and often remote ancient sites of the Khmer civilization (the books Ultimate Cambodia and Adventure Cambodia are the result), Laos has been another playground of mine. I spend at least a month each year riding there, in awe of the spectacular and seemingly endless mountain scenery. But one does not travel throughout the Laos countryside without coming into up-close-and-personal contact with various remnants of the Indochina War. Bomb craters still littering the countryside are seemingly everywhere, which really is no surprise, considering that 1,600,000 tons of bombs were dropped onto Laos, far more than was dropped onto Germany during World War II. Hundreds, if not thousands, of local-defused bomb shells have been used by villagers, in and around areas heavily bombed during the war, as stilts to build their houses on. Fragments of bombed vehicles, oil drums and other scrap equipment are everywhere in the old hot zones of the Ho Chi Minh trails and other places. A sad reminder of the suffering that literally rained down onto countless innocent people, it is also always an intriguing sight to behold that seemingly connects one with that place and time.
Having been exploring various remote sections of the Ho Chi Minh Trail(s) for the previous two weeks, I decided that this almost end of 2014s dry season (late February) was the time to finally make an attempt to ride into Long Cheng. Dry trail traction is an explorer’s friend. So I put on my thinking cap, which was heavily coated with a layer of dirt road dust at the time, and tried to devise a strategy to give myself the best chance of accomplishing that.
Realizing that the US military, or anyone else for that matter, had in fact not been plotting to retake Long Cheng since the war ended, I figured the now 40-year job of waiting and remaining vigilant must have been an excruciatingly boring one. Since boredom usually breeds lax habits, I figured a weekend evening would provide the best possibility of guard shacks being unoccupied. The superiors go into party mode, and of course while the cat is away, the mice will…
So I set off from Vientiane around noon on a Friday, having spent the morning going over my dirt bike to ready it for some jarringly-rocky mountain roads. But that wouldn’t come quite yet, as the day’s destination was Vang Vieng, only about 165 km north by way of a paved road. Vang Vieng would well-position me for the next day’s target, Long Cheng, the plan went. A popular destination for both local and foreign tourists, Vang Vieng is famous for its stunning limestone karst hills and the endless cave exploring opportunities within them. Arriving while the heat and humidity of the bright day was still baking Vang Vieng like an overcooked potato, a swim in clear, emerald-colored waters outside one of the rock hills yielded a cooler body, and a smile. With some decent choices for food available in town, which can be a rarity in provincial Laos (a bland, noodle soup (pho) and sticky rice is madly enough the usual 3-meal per day mainstay of Laos people), an early dinner and bedtime followed.
Morning saw my Honda XR400 fly south about 25 km on the road I had come north on the previous day, before turning east onto Route 5. This skirts the north end of a huge lake that was formed by the dam that provides electricity to Vientiane. A far-reaching, wide arm of the lake eventually interrupts the stone-clad dirt route, and a 1 ½ hour ferry ride on a boat that has seen its better days was the only option for continuing to follow Route 5. The ferry supposedly leaves at noon each day, but it was after 1 pm before we actually sputtered away from the lake’s embankment, after I had rolled the XR down and loaded it onto the creaking old boat. As long as the ferry didn’t die en route, I was still pretty much on schedule, I thought.
The old boat’s engine did sputter and cut out a few times, but we still managed to limp slowly to the other side. A fairly easy stretch of gravel road followed, which gave way to some pavement in Na Hom town, where my junction was. Turning northward, it didn’t take long for the road to turn into the rocky mountain affair I had expected. Being behind schedule and enjoying the challenge that the time and road presented, it was time to get my dirt-loving bike moving and grooving, twisting in, through and around erosion crevices and rocks, climbing and descending the steep, snaking hills, thoroughly enjoying myself all-the-while in a way that always reminds me of why I like to explore by dirt bike so much. Think of the old Steppenwolf hit, Born to Be Wild, with an exotic SE Asia jungle twist to it. It’s impossible to tire of it.
The dry season is also the burning season in Laos, as it is throughout SE Asia. The farmers that work the rice fields burn the plant’s previously cut and now dry stalks, in an effort to load the soil with nutrients, in preparation for rainy season rice planting. Loggers also burn areas that have been clear-cut (like neighboring Cambodia, there are massive, ongoing illegal logging operations throughout Laos) so they can plant cash crop plantations. Hill tribe people also start fires in areas they want to clear to plant crops, as well as to extract sap from certain trees. Pyromaniacs one and all, they seem to get an exhilarating delight watching the fire and smoke billow up and obscure what are, during the no-burn season, stunning mountain views. Having previously been a firefighter, I’ve seen these looks before- on the faces of arsonists! Because I choose to explore SE Asia during the dry season, I guess I’m still a smoke eater. Alas, the smoky haze this time of year makes for less brilliant color photos, but even through the haze the mountain scenery is impressive. Being on a journey such as this, seemingly back into time and into a past world, the smoke does- appropriately enough- give the surroundings an ethereal appearance.
As in most remote places that I ride through, hill tribe people in the occasional village along the way were more than a bit surprised to see my off-road motorcycle and I ride in (it’s a look that always reminds me of the old Western movies, when an outsider rides his horse into town and somebody says, “He sure ain’t from around these parts”). I did stop in a couple villages, looking for some form of refreshment and conversation. Since they are an ethnic minority with their own language, the Lao language is not their primary language to converse in. I generally speak enough Lao to get by and have a laugh with the majority Lao folk, but it’s even more fun to attempt a conversation when neither party (hill tribe or Westerner) is used to conversing in the language they are currently communicating in. Humor works wonders and all are soon giggling.
Back on the move, as I approached the checkpoint, the one that has armed soldiers sealing off the road to the uninvited, my mind raced, trying to decide if, when the guards came out to stop me, I should stop- which would mean turning back- or fly by them, which would lead to the alerting of military hierarchy that a Westerner is approaching. If they didn’t shoot me, that is. I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw that the checkpoint was unmanned. My weekend assault strategy was paying off!
Making my way further north, I noticed the sun was looking rather evening-ish. Just then, the road broke through into a small valley that was surrounded by mountains of many different shapes and vertical dispositions. Stopping for a moment to get a 360 view, I was struck by the sheer beauty. Reminiscent of Vang Vieng, the furthest two opposing sides had walls of limestone, some looking like rock fingers pointing into the sky in an accusatory manner, while others were knife-like shapes that seemed to cut into it. The two other, longer-but-lower sides were solid and ran east to west. All sides were clad in thick, emerald green vegetation. With the smoke haze lightly enveloping everything, I wondered if I had just arrived in Shangri La. No, I thought, I believe I have just arrived in the Secret City.
Moving along, this was quickly confirmed as wood shacks appeared, and as the view of the valley opened up I could see lines of military barracks fronting the long mountain on the north side. Next to the barracks was a tall concrete archway with the logo of the Laos Military on top, which led to the main buildings of the base. Fronting all of this was a long runway that runs in an easterly direction. Bingo! I had, in fact, made it to Long Cheng. It was 5pm.
With the runway off my right shoulder, the road then turned to pavement. I decided to stop at a shack on the left side that had a sign directly across from it that announced in Laos script (with English below that- for who, I wondered, me?), Long Cheng. It was time for a confirmation photo to take back with me. Close to the shack was a happy, laughing bunch of, what appeared to be, soldiers in various forms of weekend attire playing a game of dirt bowling. Happy, that is, until they saw me. They all looked at me completely flabbergast. Turning toward each other, they saw the same look of astonishment on their friends. It had finally happened. Forty years of vigilance, awaiting the long-anticipated return of the white devil, and all-of-the-sudden here he was, on a Saturday evening, no less. Their faces then turned to what were probably long-rehearsed looks of toughness and rage. They began talking in a very annoyed manner. The one that appeared to be a leader, of sorts, screamed above them, “Bai Laeow!”, which meant, Go Back to Wherever You Came From- Quickly! He said that in the Lao language, but I soon realized most of their conversation together was in Vietnamese. It came to mind that the NVA was still, after all this time, in charge of the Secret City. Apparently, the war never did end.
I continued to sit on my bike, which I had turned off when I stopped. Quietly watching their Keystone Cops act with a neutral face, I turned to take a couple more snapshots of the brilliant green mountain that served as a backdrop to the runway and military base. Just then an old man on a bicycle approached. He didn’t seem to notice me at first as he peddled, looking down at the road, but when he neared he looked up and saw me, and as he rode by he did a double take that was so sharp it looked as though he might snap his neck. Then the bicycle veered off the road and he fell over, all-the-while keeping his eyes on me, as he lay on the ground. Not your typical Saturday evening, he must have been thinking.
The Keystone Cops then began scrambling for their cell phones and it was all-too-apparent they weren’t doing this to order us all pizzas. So I started my XR and went down the road a bit more and stopped by a few shacks that were selling various goods and some produce. It quickly became obvious that the small shops were run by families of soldiers based at Long Cheng- this was an isolated military community. Upon hearing somebody gasp “Falang!” (Foreigner, usually meant for those with white skin), sellers and customers alike turned to look, then froze. Women who were obviously soldiers wives seemed to try to mimic the mean looks thrown my way by their nearby husbands, as if it was their patriotic duty to do so. But I did notice some younger women standing nearby, smiling very nicely as they looked at me, with one saying in Lao that the falang has a long nose and is handsome, which appeared to really irritate the nearby men that overheard, as if the women were aiding and abetting the enemy in his time of distress. I then asked these women in Lao, friendly as they seemed to be, if they had ever seen a falang in Long Cheng before. “Baw Mee” (no have), was the reply. Nearby, a young boy was walking by. Noticing the crowd gathered round, he spotted me in the middle. Then he walked straight into a sign post, face first. Maybe the women were right.
Apparently, the cell phone bearing Keystone Cops had reached the boss, as a small motorcycle carrying a half-buttoned, uniformed young soldier (weekend mode, I thought) then pulled up to the shop. The soldier got off, walked up to me and said in broken English, “You go me”, then he got back on his bike, looked to see if I was doing the same- yeah, I got it, You go with me- and drove off. I followed him to what turned out to be military police headquarters. A welcoming committee of soldiers and their bosses was assembled and waiting for me, wearing not a uniform, but the same 40-year-rehearsed angry looks that the Keystone Cops had unleashed on me.
Inviting me inside, the soldier with the broken English asked where I came from. America, I told him. Then the translation in Lao and Vietnamese began and a hush fell upon the room. Some in the group became visibly agitated, while others seemed to get some exciting, perverse feeling of satisfaction from it. They seemed to be thinking: An American! Wow! They really did return- just as we expected! Strange vibes were coming my way.
A 2 ½ hour interrogation ensued. It turned out that the English translator was very limited in his vocabulary, so another translator was simultaneously questioning me in Lao. Even with my limited Lao abilities, I still seemed to understand most of what was said and answered in kind as best I could, with the surprising part being that my Lao and English answers were the translated into Vietnamese to the guy they said was their boss- the Vietnamese commandant. He was a humorless sort that did not seem pleased at all by my visit. He tried to question me himself in Vietnamese, to which I replied in Lao, “Kway Baw Kow Jai” (I don’t understand). With that, his face turned red in anger.
He then began shouting questions to his subordinates, who would turn to ask me things like, why was I there? Followed by, no, why was I really there? I told them I was a tourist heading to the famed Plain of Jars to the north and from looking at my map this looked like an interesting route to take with my dirt motorcycle. Then I was asked why I rode through their checkpoint instead of turning back? Well, I replied, there were no soldiers there to tell me that entry is prohibited and no sign in English saying the same, so how could I have known that the road to here is off limits? The commandant then demanded to see the map I used. Not being an official map of Laos, but rather a map sold to tourists, it does show Long Cheng and the two access roads into it, also showing that both have the symbol representing no entry! The commandant knew what that symbol meant and turned to me and screamed simply, “Ahhh!” I told the translator to tell him that I have no idea what those symbols mean. Of course he was not impressed with my answer. Being dark by then, I decided to ask through the translator where a guesthouse was that I could sleep at. Upon hearing the Vietnamese translation of my question, the commandant fired me a look filled with rage and screamed, in English, “No!” I had some difficulty holding back a laugh at that.
I then decided to try a different tack with him, ever later that it was becoming. I turned to the Lao to Vietnamese translator and asked him to tell his boss that the war is really over, that I wasn’t there to make a problem, so why couldn’t we just become friends? I then stuck out my hand in a handshake gesture, to which the commandant gave a dour look, as he listened to the translation. Translation complete, his face began to twitch. Then it softened just a bit as he processed this. Then, hesitantly, almost like he was worried that I was going to pull back my hand and yell Gotcha before he was able to grab it, he put out his hand and we engaged in a handshake. Gotcha! I thought. Then I was told that there actually is a guesthouse that is used by Laos government and business types that occasionally come in from the capital, but I would have to leave Long Cheng right away in the morning. But first, I would be required to let them view the photographs that they’d heard I had taken in Long Cheng. Upon seeing them, they demanded that I delete them all, in front of them, of course, obviously paranoid types that they are. I was then told my camera and passport would have to be impounded until my morning departure, to make sure I didn’t try to take more pictures, or leave unannounced into the dark. Right.
Bags dropped off at the dark and dingy guesthouse, I headed back over to the end of town where the produce sellers were, getting lucky (?) and finding an equally dark and dingy restaurant with two tables of customers looking to be already drunk inside. Well, it was Saturday night. So I walked in and ordered some fried rice and a beer. Then I noticed that one table was filled with off duty soldiers, though a couple of the guys appeared quite sober and quite interested in watching me, more than the others. Well, in a place like the Secret City, why would there not be somebody assigned to keep an eye on me, I thought.
At the other table was a group of four Chinese guys, all drunk and partying happily. One of them then stood up and demanded that I join them, in English! It turned out that he spoke a fair amount of English, but none of his comrades did. He said they were having a weekend party. When I asked him what they were doing in Long Cheng he replied, “I can’t say.” More secrets in the Secret City; I can’t say I was surprised by that. Provoking misty eyes from them, I then raised a toast to their president, Xi Jinping, not because I like him, but because I knew they would be happy about it. They reciprocated with one for Barack Obama, probably not because they like him. And the strange evening continued. Two of them had what appeared to be Lao ladies of the evening sitting next to them. One of them, through their comrade, demanded that I take his girl back to my guesthouse. Ah, no, I can see that she is very much in love with you, I protested, as she was giving me a big smile. Pleased with my answer, he raised his glass for another brotherly toast and ensuing chug-a-lug.
Awakening with the roosters the next morning at the guesthouse that I had come to think of as Stalag (prison camp) 19, I went outside as dawn broke and found Long Cheng blanketed in fog, leaving no trace of the mountains that ring it. I checked the bike’s tire pressure and made a couple other minor adjustments. I then noticed ghost-like figures walking toward me from different directions, all stopping around twenty meters away to quietly watch me. Guessing that there is scant morning entertainment available in Long Cheng, it seemed as though tickets had been sold for the new local morning wake-up show, Keep an Eye on the Enemy.
I then loaded the bike and headed over to pick up the passport and camera. Eagerly awaiting my arrival, it seemed as though the commandant had already been busy organizing a memorable send off, although I didn’t yet know what that would be. In a calmer manner than the evening before, although equally as serious, he explained through his translators that there would be big problems if I tried to take photos of Long Cheng on my way out or anywhere near the area, for that matter. Then he said that I was the first falang that he knew of who had made it into Long Cheng since the war ended (and an American on a motorcycle, no less!) and that I had better not try it again! Well, I can’t say for sure about that, but I can say that the shocked looks on the faces of all who saw me in the Secret City indicated there certainly has been scant few falang that made it there. He then asked for “coffee” money. Knowing what he really meant, I chuckled and told him to follow me and I would buy him a cup in the village. He declined and seemed quite disappointed about my apparent ignorance as to what giving him money for coffee actually meant.
Stopping at a small shack across the street from the runway, I found a packet of instant coffee and asked the lady that ran the place if she had some hot water to make it for me. With her soldier husband not around, she seemed friendlier than the previous evening and obliged. As I sat at the plastic table in front of her shop sipping the coffee, I drank in a much larger gulp of the Secret City’s lost-in-time 1960s and 1970s Indochina atmosphere. There, on that morning, it did feel like time had stood still. Strange as it sounds, I could almost feel the presence of the colorful characters that had inhabited this place. Maybe it had something to do with the other-worldly look the morning fog and smoke from nearby burnings gave the mountains and base- or maybe it was the light fog covering my brain from the beers I shared with the Chinese the previous night. I can say for sure that I have nothing but respect and admiration for the pilots who flew in and out of Long Cheng. Watching the sun come up in the east over the tallest knife-like ‘rock’ highlighted not only the beauty of the surroundings, but also the difficulty of the pilots task, with a mere window in that limestone mountain being the only open spot they had available to get out and back in. They were good!
Departing the coffee shack, I soon noticed that the commandant had in fact already been busy that morning. Although it was a day that probably was usually a lax one, Sunday, I could see spaced sentries on duty, weapon in hand, watching me and my camera. Surprisingly enough, the last sentry I spotted was some twenty kilometers from Long Cheng, looking down on the road from a nearby hill. Suddenly, the song by the Guess Who, “We Don’t get Fooled Again”, came to mind.
It was then that I recalled reading in the book what was said by, and to, a Raven over the radio just after he had flown his last mission and would soon be departing Laos. The Raven would first radio air command and say “See you next war, baby.” Command would then radio back and say, “Alpha, Mike, Foxtrot”, which in Air Force radio jargon meant adios, mother f_ _ker. I then thought of the Vietnamese base commandant and bid him an Alpha, Mike, Foxtrot.
Deserving of more than a mere footnote to any story about the Indochina War, nothing should be written about Long Cheng without putting the Hmong front and center. It was their village, a part of their ancestral homeland, and it was their fight for the survival of their way of life, and themselves. A fiercely proud and independent people that were courageous enough to fight against overwhelming numbers of invaders, it is estimated that around 1/5th of their population was killed during and after the war. The communist regime that came to power in post war Laos, which included their puppeteer masters pulling the strings, the Vietnamese, had a self-stated policy of extermination against the Hmong. Besides the scores killed in battles after the war had supposedly ended, napalm and possibly poison gas (‘yellow rain’) were used in a bid to wipe them out. This policy was, quite horribly, far too successful. Thousands did manage to escape and make their way across the Mekong River into Thailand, only to lead a sad life as refugees in an enormous, barbed wire-surrounded camp. The really lucky ones were able to migrate as refugees to other countries, mainly the United States, where there is now a significant Hmong population. There they have faced many difficulties in a land with a culture so different from theirs. Although they still have villages scattered about northern Laos, the Hmong population there is a mere shadow of its former self.
On that note, I’d also like to bid the communist rulers of Laos an Alpha, Mike, Foxtrot. Until my next attempt to infiltrate their coveted inner sanctums, that is.
Footnote: Lao people pronounce the village the same as it appears on the village sign, in Lao and English script, Long Cheng. At the time of the Indochina War, as it was when French colonizers originally transliterated Lao into French, it was Long Tieng. For this article, we use the way it is spoken and written at this time by the Lao people.
P1010489_edited by Triangle Golden 007, on Flickr
P1010491_edited by Triangle Golden 007, on Flickr
P1010492_edited by Triangle Golden 007, on Flickr
P1010493_edited by Triangle Golden 007, on Flickr
P1010494_edited by Triangle Golden 007, on Flickr
