Not Quite So Fond Memories of Vietnam

[RSL]

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[Rob C]

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Kinda points up the nothing much left to lose aspects of the third world. On the other hand, it focusses the mind on necessities: when you've nothing much left to lose, what vou still have assumes a different value.

[RSL]

I hope these kids made it, Rob. This was 1965, about two and a half years before the Tet offensive. I often think about a half-dozen or so South Vietnamese I knew well enough to be concerned about later on. In 1973 I went back to Thailand to command the outfit that owned our remaining southeast asian radar sites. Our military had just pulled out of Vietnam, and there were some hairy stories among some of the troops who'd been pulled out of Monkey Mountain at the last minute. I came home in April 1974. Things were dicey then, and a year later Saigon fell.

[chez]

I've been to some remote villages in Northern Vietnam, right on the Chinese border and things have not changed much from the posted image. The men in the villages basically have given up and make rice wine along with opium to make it through the day. Many still live in one room bamboo houses and the better off families have a buffalo to help with the rice fields. In the winter, the Buffaloes stay indoors ( one room house ) so they can survive the winter. If a family loses a buffalo, they will never afford another.

Good rice harvest allows the family to sell some of the rice at the market and maybe buy some clothes. Bad rice harvest and its a rice meal every day and old clothes for another year.

Opium addiction runs high in these remote villages.

[RSL]

This was in a remote village in southern Laos, 1964, Chez. From what I saw, these were the wealthy ones, even though the women weren't wearing flip-flops.

[chez]

This was in a remote village in southern Laos, 1964, Chez. From what I saw, these were the wealthy ones, even though the women weren't wearing flip-flops.

Yes, their clothes tell me they are wealthy...in relative terms.