Posted by Lorna on 4/1/2007, 2:13 pm, in reply to "We Have Food!" It seemed wrong for the brass to attempt to alter the way of life for the Montagnards,these indigenous people had been living their own lifestyle for many years and as was ultimately demonstrated, the attempt to bring them into the 20th century resulted in death and destruction and displacement. --Previous Message--
Well, here we are at last at "Paradise Lost", how many times have we in the chatting community strayed from the episode in discussion, over to the village where our guys lost their inhibitions, shed most of their uniforms and gave us the ultimate 'Nam fashion statement...knee-length sarongs, bare legs, socks and of course boots!
A mission, undertaken with good intention which did not, on this occasion, reflect well on Bravo Co.
: 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.
:
: 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...
:
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