Posted by Ernie on 3/31/2007, 6:10 pm When I was there I heard a lot about these people. They are clannish and have a lot of pride and independence. I heard a lot of stories about how many of them did not join the Viet Cong (Charlie to you and me) and Chairman Ho had the whole village killed. In this story, the local Vietnamese constabulary were their oppressors. It is a shame these people could not be left alone. The village became friends to our guys and I think Horn and his little lady friend were priceless. She was a cute little thing. I enjoyed the training of the 'troops'! We heard the spiel by the trainers like we heard it in basic training at Fort Polk. But the 'raw' recruits at Polk were a little more responsive. As Tour of Duty is prone to do, we went from the joy of celebration and party to a stern reminder of the horrors of war! The James Brown of Bravo company was a credit to the Motown line up! And in all fairness, Bravo won that talent contest. Americans tried many times to teach the local people how to make life better for themselves but sadly they succeeded in making matters worse. And all of our new friends had to pack up bag; baggage; chicken and Nanny goat and trek to Thailand! It's good to have a place to go. Hopefully there won't be a Major Tong there to make life miserable for them. But with a Master Sergeant leading, maybe they won't get lost along the way. "We Americans! We have food and salt!" Well, okay! Ernie...
This week we go to Paradise Lost for our story. This is a story about the Americans trying to win friends and influence people. This group of friends were the fierce mountain people of rural Vietnam.
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