MOUNTAIN OF MISSING MEN

Remote Annamite Mountains of Northeast Laos. Few foreigners come here.

I'm way off the tourist trail, maybe the only westerner for many miles. Where I'm going, there are no amenities. I’m heading east out of the Plain of Jars, into a part of Laos even more remote. This half sized, bare-bones bus is taking me into Houaphan Province, towards the Vietnamese border. Few foreigners go there. 

As the rickety local bus chugs along, we rumble our way over the rolling hills east of Phonsavan. But these relatively easy roads don’t last. Soon we are off the Plain of Jars, curving in and out of the Annamite Mountains. Meanwhile, our little chicken bus stops in just about every roadside village along the way. Soon every seat is taken, and the undersized bus is packed. 

Since this bus was made for Asians and not westerners, I don't have much leg room either. With my knees jammed into the seat in front of me, I pull my knees up in a vain attempt to get comfortable. With no seats left, a teenager stands by the open side door, giving us a fresh breeze of air as we drive on. 

This poor guy got sick out the door

There’s no air conditioning on this bus, but since we are in the cool air of the high altitude, it isn’t really needed. The views are gorgeous. Most of the surrounding mountains are covered with trees or overgrowth, and there are few signs of civilization. Looking away from the highway into the distance, few highland villages are visible at all. Even for Laos, the population density in this region is very low. 

The curving, sloping roads of the mountains make some on the bus queasy. As we descend and curve around the swtichbacks, the standing teenager vomits more than once. Now I know why the poor kid was standing by the door.

In some areas, we pass brand new, thin power poles that have just been installed. Strangely, they are painted blue. They don’t have power lines on them yet, but they are coming. It’s an encourging sign of development. First come sturdy bridges, and then a paved highway. Next comes electricity, and improved communications follows. Hopefully more schools, and access to better markets for the farmers will be next.

The highland peoples who live up here, are very different from the lowland ethnic Lao. This is hill tribe country. There are many different ethnic groups here, and some don’t even speak Laotian. The differences up here extend far beyond language, with numerous cultures and religions. Rather than Buddhism, many of these hill tribe folk still practice Animism. 

Old war weapons, some US made, on wall of a northern Laos restaurant today

Driving along one remote hill, our bus passes four teenage hill tribe boys walking by the roadside. Two wear camouflage shirts, and one carries an old US made M-16 rifle, slung over his thin shoulder! The boy is so short, that the M -16 almost looks larger then him. He is dwarfed by the old weapon. 

Further down the road, the bus passes three Hmong men carrying crossbows. Despite seeing these armed men, I don’t think that there was any local unrest going on, at least not today. They were probably just out hunting, since they didn’t even look up at the bus as we passed. In poor remote areas such as this, men have to rely on wild game to round out the family diet. Still, there have been occasional uprisings by the Hmong here, notably back in 2004. 

According to a US State Department report: “Ethnic Hmong in Houaphanh Province launched a series of coordinated attacks on government outposts in an apparent effort to seize weapons located in a government arsenal in Viengsai town. The attack against the arsenal was repulsed, but in the aftermath, the rebels fired on a bus and motorcycle traveling to a market, killing five passengers. Five of the attackers were also killed when security forces caught up with them shortly after the vehicle ambush. Following this incident, fighting broke out between rebels and government troops in several areas of Houaphanh Province; at least 13 soldiers and probably several dozen Hmong rebels were killed in this fighting, and over 100 Hmong villagers suspected of supporting the rebellion were arrested...”

Secret mountaintop American base called "Lima Site 85" (Photo: Wikepedia)

This is one of the most remote regions of Laos, and back during the Vietnam War years, it saw plenty of fighting. Just north of here, not far from the Vietnamese border, is a mountain sacred to the Hmong known as Phou Pha Thi. This mountain also became very valuable to the US during the war, as it housed a secret base. The site is now overgrown and abandoned, so I won’t be able to get any closer to it than the highway, but Phou Pha Thi may have been America’s most secret military installation in all of Southeast Asia. Even more secret than Long Tieng, it was known as 'Lima Site 85'.

This remote mountain housed a small radar installation. Used for tactical air navigation, it was operated by a small group airmen from the US Air Force, working undercover. Since the tall mountain was so close to the Vietnamese border, the radar could reach all the way to the skies over Hanoi, about 160 miles eastward. This remote little base in Laos was an important key, for the American bombing campaign over North Vietnam. 

As secret as this base was, it wasn’t long before the Vietnamese found it. With so many North Vietnamese (NVA) soldiers running around northern Laos at the time, they must have been astonished to find this base so close to their own border. Once located, they quickly set out to destroy it. 

Captured US gear & NVA soldier(Photo:Vtn Archive)

Soon after, the skies over Lima Site 85 were the scene of perhaps the most improbable aerial dogfight of the entire war. The North Vietnamese sent three old Russian Antonov 2 biplanes to attack the remote radar site. When this surprise attack occurred, there were no American fighters nearby to fight them off. So an Air America pilot counter-attacked with the only aircraft available: a Huey helicopter! Since the chopper was faster than the biplanes, an accompanying crewman was able to shoot down one of the biplanes from the door, using only a rifle. Like everything else related to Lima Site 85, the story of this bizarre aerial battle remained an official secret for years. 

With the failure of their air assault, the NVA sent in thousands of Vietnamese soldiers to take the base from the ground. The small mountain installation was defended by outnumbered Hmong militia. When the NVA made their final assault on the radar base one night in 1968, fighting was fierce. As the situation deteriorated, the American airmen joined the battle. 

When NVA commandos managed to climb the mountain and reach the radar site, the airmen’s time ran out. As the base fell into enemy hands, some of the radar technicians attempted to rappel down the steep mountain cliff. But they were killed by the NVA before they could reach the jungle below. 11 of the brave airmen lost their lives, while only five Americans were rescued. 

It’s only recently that the US government publicly honored the men lost on that night so many years ago. In 2010, President Obama awarded the Medal of Honor to the family of Chief Master Sgt. Richard Etchberger of the US Air Force. Etchberger had fought bravely on the mountain, managing to call in air strikes, while protecting other wounded Americans around him. But he didn’t survive. After boarding a rescue chopper, he was shot as the helicopter lifted off from the mountain. Most of the other Americans that died there are still listed as Missing in Action today. Hundreds of Hmong, and North Vietnamese soldiers also died in this unknown battle for this remote mountain, deep in the northeast of Laos. 

DONG HA AND CAMP CARROLL'S BETRAYAL

Ngoc, my fixer, travel agent & waitress

Dong Ha today, in central Vietnam. This was a strategic crossroads town during the war.

After you’ve been in Asia for a while, you get to learn that through western eyes, most of the people that you meet here are actually older than they appear. Ngoc, my local fixer in Dong Ha, is a good example. This young lady looks fresh out of high school, appearing to be all of 18 years old.

“I am 25,” she tells me. Maybe it’s her petite size that throws me off; she’s barely five feet tall. I’m glad to hear she’s older than she looks, since I need to consult someone with experience. Ngoc is my travel agent for the old De-Militarized Zone (DMZ), the infamous Highway9, and everything else I’m doing in this part of Vietnam.

“I work here two year,” she tells me, in between taking and making phone calls in Dong Ha. Ngoc is a busy woman. In addition to arranging my route and driver, she also takes my lunch order. In this junction town, she works in a combination restaurant and travel office, making her both waitress and travel agent. Speaking passable English, Ngoc has found me good deals, arranging reliable guides during my stay. She’s one of those rare people you find while traveling. A little ball of energy, she has the ability to multi-task. Bright, friendly and energetic, she has enough smarts to get ahead in any corporation, but she’s stuck here in Dong Ha. Still, for this town, she has a well paying job.

I come into the restaurant/office at early and late hours, and she’s almost always there. “I work 12 hour every day,” she tells me. As if that isn’t enough, she only gets one or two days off a month. I’m reminded that despite communism’s promise of helping the workers, in today’s Vietnam there is little done to give laborers sufficient days off, or overtime pay.

“My grandfather VC. He die from Americans,” Ngoc told me. She never knew her grandfather; he was killed before she was born. She says she doesn't have any problem with Americans today; Ngoc has arranged many trips around the DMZ for returning American war veterans. Soon after, Ngoc hands me a plate of chicken fried rice at my table. I wolf it down, just as my driver arrives.

“You go with him,” she tells me, pointing out the door. I look at my vehicle for the day, and groan. There are few taxis in Dong Ha, so I’m stuck hanging onto the back seat of a motorbike, and today it looks like rain. My new guide is Nguyen. His English isn't fluent, but he’s able to get his point across. Nguyen is a former ARVN soldier; he was drafted near the war's end.
 
“I work(ed) in office," he tells me, "I work maps." Rather than a frontline soldier, his job was at a base in Quang Tri. Nguyen was luckier than most. Working inside a base, he was relatively safe from the fighting. “(When) I have 18 year, war finish,” he says. His unit surrendered to the NVA when Quang Tri fell. Like the soldier Duc I knew in Saigon, Nguyen was sent to a ‘reeducation’ camp. But since he had only been a soldier and low ranking private for six months, he was released in less than a year.

Bizarre sight: Vietnamese home built right next to old US built hangar on former Dong Ha Air Base

Nguyen hands me a helmet, and off we drive into Dong Ha’s streets. Located near the coast, Dong Ha is just 12 miles south of the old De-Militarized Zone that formerly divided North and South Vietnam. Trucks barrel through town on Highway 1, the main roadway along the coast. This throughway intersects with the westward reaching Highway 9, and from here the Laotian border is only 33 miles away as the crow flies. During the war, that proximity to the borders of North Vietnam and Laos made Dong Ha a very strategic place.

Nguyen winds the scooter through Dong Ha streets, before stopping in a residential neighborhood. I hop off, and I’m puzzled by what I see. I’m right next to one of those old half-cylinder shaped, US built concrete military hangars. These are the exact same kind still in use at Ton Son Nhat airport, but this one is different. It isn’t intact. A large hole has been blown into the side of it, almost big enough to walk through. The concrete on these protective hangars is very thick and strong, this hole must have been created by a massive explosion. 

Vietnamese memorial by ex-Dong Ha Air Base hangar

This was the site of Dong Ha Airfield, once a forward US Marine base. Since Dong Ha was so close to the DMZ, it was well within range of North Vietnamese artillery and it was attacked many times. During one heavy shelling in 1968, the base’s ammunition dump was hit, and the flames and explosions here continued for hours. Most of the aircraft parked here, and much of the base, were destroyed.

I walk around to have a look inside the old hangar. Not surprisingly, there are no traces of aircraft left. Inside I see a couple of workmen doing carpentry in the hangar’s dim light. They don’t even look up, they’re so engrossed in their work. Piles of building materials and other junk are stacked up inside.  Since the damage to the hangar wall wasn’t repaired, that hole in the wall probably occured during the 1972 spring offensive, after the US Marines had already turned the base over to the ARVN. During fighting that year, much of Dong Ha town was destroyed by the advancing North Vietnamese Army (NVA). 

Dong Ha Air Base  was not surrendered back to nature like other bases. Strangely, it was turned into a residential neighborhood. It’s a bizarre sight to see this old military airport hangar closely surrounded by small family homes. One house was built so closely, that it nearly touches the hangar itself. Dong Ha Airfield exists no more, but the town has been rebuilt into a transportation hub. All this areas imports and exports going to and from Laos pass through here, as well as all of Vietnam’s north – south road traffic. There’s a memorial next to the damaged hangar, and at its base, I find a small ceramic bowl, filled with the remains of incense sticks from Buddhists praying here. This used to be an American base. I wonder, who were they praying for?

Decaying memorial on former Camp Carroll

There’s much more to see outside Dong Ha, so we climb onto Nguyen’s scooter, and head out of town. I lean forward as Nguyen tells me about the rural roadways back then. “In the wartime, it was bare. No trees, no houses,” he tells me. The NVA laid mines along the roads, hoping to disable American tanks or trucks. These were sometimes detonated by civilian vehicles. “We had buses, but we afraid of the mine,” Nguyen continues. “Sometimes bus hit the mine, and people die.”

We buzz along Highway 9, and I look at the skies, which have been gloomy all day. They finally open up. Nguyen pulls over, and pops open the seat compartment. I’m relieved to see that he has raingear for both of us. We don ponchos before we get too drenched; soon we’re back on the road. 

He turns south off highway, and his scooter struggles to carry us both up a long hill. Then he pulls to a stop next to some kind of strange, artsy concrete sculpture that appears to be  under construction. I think this is a strange place for a sculpture, out in the middle of nowhere. Then I look at it closer. What this really is, is a war memorial that is falling apart. In recent years, local people came and carted away parts of this memorial to sell for scrap. Most of the surrounding fence is gone, and they’ve cut away all the metal pieces that they that could get. I had already seen this done to old buildings and bunkers on old bases, but this is the first time I’d seen a memorial made by the post-war communists defaced for scrap.

One of the informational plaques has been torn away, but the other is still there, and Nguyen translates it for me as follows, “This Hill 241, had very strong American artillery army base along Highway 9.”

Aerial view of Camp Carroll during the war. (Photo: USACMH)

Hill 241 was the NVA’s name for this post; American troops remember it as Camp Carroll, a heavy artillery base inhabited by US Marine and Army troops. Like many American bases in Vietnam, it was named after an American soldier killed near the base. In this case, it’s named after Marine Corps Captain James Joseph Carroll. During NVA attack, he was mistakenly killed when fired on by an American tank. This type of combat casualty was known as ‘friendly fire’, a really self-contradictory military euphemism. 

Walking around the former base, I see sections of sandbags lying in the dirt, like those I found in the highlands. We encounter one concrete foundation, which is the former foundation for the base mess hall. This strategic base once had 16 heavy cannons, including the feared 175mm artillery guns. These massive cannons could fire 174 pound projectiles as far as 20 miles away. As American troop numbers were reduced towards the war’s end, Camp Carroll was turned over to South Vietnam’s military (ARVN) in 1970. Later, the ARVN colonel in command surrendered the entire base to the NVA, without firing a shot. That same colonel now owns a hotel in Hue today... At the top of the memorial here, the stone lists the year of his surrender, 1972.

Camp Carroll today. It's been reduced to farmland.

On one of the dismantled concrete friezes lying flat on the ground, I can make out the frightened face of an ARVN soldier, with his hands in the air as he surrenders. More than 400 ARVN soldiers were taken prisoner here. After Camp Carroll was taken, Dong Ha, the town I was in earlier, fell soon afterwards.

Nguyen tells me that in the post-war years, the only visitors that bother to come all the way up here were American war veterans that served in Camp Carroll. That explains the dilapidated state of the memorial. The government had no interest in preserving the old base, it is more useful now as a farm. Rubber trees, pepper plants, and cassava grow on a hill that used to be covered with bunkers, tents and artillery. On this gloomy day there aren’t even any farmers present, only a water buffalo chewing on grass.

I ponder the difference that I saw between Dong Ha, and here. Dong Ha is at a major crossroads, so it has been rebuilt. But since Vietnam is now reunited, Camp Carroll’s location is no longer strategic. With the heavy guns long ago captured and carted away, this former military base is now nothing more than a quiet, unimportant hilltop in central Vietnam.

BIZARRE RUNWAY, BIZARRE BOOZE

The runway of Dak To 2, once used for secret missions. But what's that brown powder covering it?

I’m looking at the most bizarre sight I’ve seen in Vietnam yet.

I’m only a few miles from the Cambodian border, on another former US air base known as Dak To 2. This is one very long American made runway I'm standing on, lengthy enough for heavy cargo planes to use, though it hasn’t seen a take off or landing in years. Abandoned after the war, all the base's bunkers and buildings have been torn down, much like I had seen at Camp Enari. The looted building materials were recycled or sold long ago.

But that’s not what is so bizarre about this airfield. The strangest thing about the runway here, is not the runway itself, but what lies on top of it. I look down where the blacktop should be, and see it’s covered by a light brown substance. This isn’t the tarmac at all. I look from one end of the nearly mile long runway down to the other. The entire runway is covered with powdered cassava!

The source of tapioca, cassava is a plant grown in Vietnam for its starchy roots. After it’s been harvested around Dak To, it’s ground into a fine powder, and then poured out here all across the runway. The whole airstrip is now used for drying out the powdered plant. This is the strangest use of a former military base that I’ve ever seen. I scrape away at the layer of powdery substance, and find that the blacktop is still there underneath. Running the cassava through my fingers, I find it’s not quite dry yet.

The runway is now used for drying cassava for animal feed!

Way down on the other end of the runway is a farm tractor, driving back and forth with a scoop, turning over the cassava to dry it out. Sitting on the runway beyond, is a pile of powdered cassava two stories high. This is the finished product. From here the cassava is loaded onto trucks and sent for packaging. This doesn’t look like a very sanitary way to process food, and my guide Mat explains. “This not for people,” he says. “They make food for animal.” So this mile long stretch of cassava is for animal feed. I believe him, I think.
 
Leaving the main runway, we walk onto the old taxiway. Mat says, “American airplane here.” What he meant, is that US aircraft used to park here. The taxiway leads to a line of berms that were used to surround aircraft to protect them from attack.
I recall a conversation with Phillip, the war veteran I knew who had spent time here. “There were Special Forces guys based over there,” Rick recalled of Dak To 2. “Their planes were unmarked. We thought they were going into Laos and Cambodia.” This runway sits only six miles from the Cambodian border, with the Laotian border just to the north. Special Forces soldiers flew out of here on secret missions to attack North Vietnamese Army (NVA) supply lines, disrupting the ever changing network of jungle paths and roads, known as the Ho Chi Minh Trail. 

With this strategic base so close to Cambodia, it made a tempting target for the NVA, and it was shelled often. There were a lot of landmines and unexploded bombs across this property from all the fighting here before, but most of them were cleared after the peace. Mat walks up a berm, telling me that it’s safe. “Here, see?” Mat says, and he picks up a piece of rocket shrapnel. Scanning the ground further, he finds a section from an M-60 ammunition belt. 

Holes on the old base are from scrap metal hunters. Sometimes they find unexploded bombs.

This base and others around Dak To were attacked often. Occasionally they faced so many enemy troops, that they were cut off and under siege. To keep them from being overrun in 1967, the Army brought in a special unit. 

“The 173rd Airborne went in there, pushed out the NVA. A lot of them got killed,” Phillip told me. The Air Cavalry flew in the Airborne troops, and some of the most ferocious battles of the war took place in those highland hills.

“It was terrible up there, man,” Phillip remembered. His unit had to resupply the Airborne troops on the battlefield, and evacuate the wounded. One day they had to airlift out the most grim cargo of all, the bodies of 30 American soldiers.

“Their hands were bound behind their backs,” he says, recalling how the bodies were found. “They were shot in the back of the head.” This was a unit in a heavy firefight that had been running out of ammunition. They had surrendered to the NVA, only to be executed. The NVA had even taken their boots. 

After taking the hills and forcing out the NVA, the remote, vulnerable hill posts were abandoned. Later after things quieted down, they were re-occupied by the NVA. “Then they had to come back, do it all over again,” Phillip said of the Airborne. “I had a lot of respect for them.”
American Generals boasted of killing thousands of enemy troops, but the fact was that they still were fighting to take the same hills over and over again. “The war was a total waste,” Phillip told me with scorn. Even with a high enemy body count, it was becoming difficult for the American war effort to show real progress in Vietnam.

I walk with Mat across the berms, and find there are holes everywhere. But these weren’t from bomb craters, they're fresh, dug by post-war scavengers. “They look for metal,” Mat says, making a digging motion. Scrap hunters with metal detectors combed through here, digging up whatever they could find to sell for recycling. Between the berms, I notice that most of the old blacktop for the taxiway has also been torn up and removed.

Charlie Hill, which ARVN troops defended to the last man. It's still covered with UXO and landmines today.

From up here, I get a great view of the surrounding landscape. There are farmers fields near the cassava covered runway, and across the Dak Poko River to the south is a beautiful mountain ridge. Mat tells me we can’t walk up there, since there are still many landmines.

“There was a lot of fighting up there,” Mat told me of the former firebases on the ridge line. the These mountains overlooking Dak To 2 were key to defending the highlands. By 1972 American ground troops had left the area, leaving ARVN troops in control. Although the ARVN soldiers were often accused in the past of being unwilling to fight, one unit fought bravely to hold one of the posts I see, called Charlie Hill. They fought for days, and refused to surrender to the communists, who had them surrounded. The ARVN soldiers made their last stand on Charlie Hill, and the 150 soldiers there fought to the last man. With the firebases taken, Dak To fell soon afterward.

By the time Dak To fell, Phillip the door gunner had already departed Vietnam, and returned to California. He left the military behind and became a corrections officer. While working at a California prison, he guarded over prisoners such as Sirhan Sirhan, and Charles Manson. After having already faced the NVA, they were easier for him to deal with.

But Phillip never forgot Vietnam, and he looked for an opportunity to come back. In the 1980’s he was among one of the first groups of American war veterans to return. “I came back because I wanted to see what it was like,” he told me.
 
Phillip returned many times and traveled throughout Vietnam, even to Hanoi. But he still hasn’t come back to Dak To. Like some other US war vets who have returned to Vietnam he hasn’t revisited the places where he had his worst experiences. That’s certainly understandable.

Mat says to me, “I don’t see my father in three months, stop my father’s house. You want to eat lunch?” I eagerly agree. I haven’t been in many Vietnamese homes, and his father’s house is close by. I’m curious to see how someone lives on the land of a former US base.

'Snake wine', a preferred alcoholic drink among Vietnamese men

We pull up, and his father comes out to greet us. He’s darker skinned than most Vietnamese, and a former engineer. He moved here from North Vietnam to work right after the war. Now comfortably retired, his well built house is larger than most in Dak To.

Mat shows me around, and out in the backyard, he points out a a pile of torn up asphalt. This was taken from the old base. Now I know where that blacktop went that was removed from the taxiway. I wonder how they are going to sell, or recycle it.  

We sit down on a floor mat in the kitchen, and his mother serves us a traditional Vietnamese lunch. There’s loads of rice, salad, stir fried vegetables and fish. I eat my fill, it's delicious. It’s one of the better lunches I’ve had in Vietnam. Then his father takes out a large diabolical looking glass jar. Inside is a dark liquid, with herbs and other contents I can’t make out.

“Snake wine,” Mat tells me, and his father pours the strong liquor into tiny cups for the three of us. We clink glasses and drink. It’s strong, and tastes much like vodka. His father immediately pours out more. I’m the first American guest he’s had here, and he’s in a hospitable mood.

I hold up the jar and peer in, looking for the snake inside. It's usually a curled up cobra. I don’t see one.

“Snake eggs,” Mat says, pointing out the two eggs in the bottom. This should be more accurately called, ‘snake egg wine’. I shouldn’t be surprised. I’ve seen snake wine before. Besides containing coiled up snakes, they  sometimes have other dead animals fermenting inside the bottle along with them. I’ve seen scorpions in snake wine, and even a bird that still had feathers.

“My father drink snake wine every day,” says Mat. “he says this keep him healthy.” I wonder how true that is. His father lives in a home built on a former military base, a place that was probably contaminated with Agent Orange. Yet here he is in his 60’s, and he’s still healthy.

Although Mat and I are done drinking, his father downs another shot. “You should drink this every day also,” his father recommends to me. I don’t argue with him, but I think I’ll stick to vitamins. I didn't mind sampling his wine, but for me, drinking remains of snakes is not really my cup of tea.

SPECIAL FORCES AND LOST GRAVEYARDS

I’ve gone deeper into the highlands. I’m standing atop a hill, looking across a broad valley leading down to a scenic, remote highland community. Beyond are more multi-colored mountains, colored with varied hues from high altitude farming. It’s another beautiful view in Vietnam.

Years before, my friend Phillip experienced this highland scenery, often while standing as an M-60 gunner in the door of a Huey helicopter. It wasn’t a view he relished back in wartime.

“It was horrible there,” he told me. “A lot of guys died up there in the hills.” This is Dak To, close to the Cambodian border. Some of the bloodiest battles of the Vietnam War took place up in the highlands surrounding this remote town.

Old North Vietnamese Army tank in Dak To

As a young recruit from California, Phillip was here in the 1960’s, when warfare in this region was almost constant. “I was Air Cavalry, I was in a support unit,” he told me. "The 5th Air Cavalry. You know, the one with the horse on the patch.” Originally manning mortars, Phillip later became a Huey door gunner. His unit often flew in to resupply American and South Vietnamese army (ARVN) units at firebases all over these mountains.

Next to me on this hilltop is a small abandoned airstrip. This was known as Dak To 1. “Special Forces had their own base,” Rick told me, and this old runway marks the location of one of the earliest American bases here. This was a CIDB camp, which stood for 'Civilian Irregular Defense Group'. Each camp was led by a team of Green Berets, a small unit made up of 12 men. These hardened soldiers fought alongside 200 local Montagnard militia. When the number of enemy in the mountains grew and the war escalated, Dak To 1 was abandoned for a better location, since this spot so close to town wasn’t as easily defended.

“They were tough,” Phillip told me about the Special Forces soldiers, and they were tough enough to back up their reputation with their fists. In the local bars of Dak To, Green Berets were the top dogs. “They’d walk in, and I’d give them my seat,” Phillip recalled. “I respected them. Some guys thought they were tough, and wouldn’t give up their seat.” Inevitably, the soldiers would fight, and the Special Forces soldiers always won. All those old bars are gone now, and so are the hard partying Americans.

A cemetary for Vietnam's communist soldiers now occupies  a former US Special Forces base

I turn around from the abandoned runway, and right next to it today, is a military cemetery. This isn’t an ARVN graveyard; it’s for the soldiers of the communist side, who fought and died by the thousands from American firepower in these surrounding mountains.

This somber place is nothing like US military cemeteries. The main feature is a small Asian style pavilion, with pillars, a sloping rooftop and dragons at the corners. Sheltered beneath are two dark obelisks, inscribed with the names of hundreds of communist soldiers. Most that died trying to take Dak To weren’t local Viet Cong, they were soldiers of the North Vietnamese Army, also called, ‘The People’s Army of North Vietnam’.
 
Just behind the pavilion, are row after row after row of crimson grave markers. Many are nameless. Unlike headstones at Arlington, these lie flat on the ground, each with a small incense holder in front of it. It seems that the communists of Vietnam aren’t atheists after all.

There’s no grass to mow here either; between the headstones it’s all concrete. They are also packed so tightly together, that it seems that there isn’t enough space between them to bury a whole set of soldier’s remains. Then I learn the reason why; it’s because most headstones don’t have remains buried beneath them.

There are some remains interred here, but since the NVA and VC fought and died in South Vietnam on land that they couldn’t hold onto, most of their dead ended up buried in unmarked graves in the countryside. Their bones are occasionally still found by farmers digging up new fields, but since NVA and VC fighters didn’t wear dog tags, identification is difficult. Since the government has no money to pay for DNA testing, most remains that are found remain anonymous, and are reburied with military honors.

Traditional highlander 'rong' house in Dak To

I’ve seen many of these military graveyards throughout Vietnam. They have so many fallen soldiers to remember, since they fought the armies of the French, Japanese, Americans, Chinese, and Khmer Rouge. Most have a prominent memorial tower in the middle, written from top to bottom with the words, “The Nation Remembers”.

The bizarre thing, is that more than three decades after the American war ended they are still building graveyards in Vietnam for dead communist soldiers. I recall passing a cemetery in the Mekong Delta that was still under construction. It had the familiar memorial tower, but scattered haphazardly across the ground in front were memorial gravestones. They hadn’t yet been put into place.

During the war far more ARVN soldiers died than Americans, and I ask my translator Mat where the graves are for the soldier’s who fought for South Vietnam. His answer: “Their graves in the regular cemeteries, with the other people.” It’s the first time I’ve caught Mat in an outright propaganda lie.

After the war ended, the communist government tore up and destroyed every single ARVN graveyard they could find. As horrible and insensitive as that sounds to westerners, it is even worse to the Vietnamese. Theirs is a culture where paying homage to your dead ancestors is very dear to them.

The southerners of Vietnam, may never forgive the northern communists for that post-war atrocity. 

HIGHLAND TOWN OF PLEIKU

Arriving at Pleiku Airport in the Central Highlands

I’m airborne again, only this time I’m not flying on a big comfy jet. Today I’m only in a two engine propeller plane, just a puddle jumper really. This trip will be much different then my earlier destinations. On Vietnam’s coast I had plenty of tourists to keep me company, but there are few westerners where I’m headed. I’m about to enter a more remote region of Vietnam. The seatbelt sign comes on, and we start our descent near the southern end of the Truong Song Mountains. I'm arriving in Pleiku, in the central highlands.
 
Looking out the window, it's not what I expected. I thought I’d be surrounded by rugged mountains, but there are only a few mountains off in the distance. The altitude here may be higher, but topography around Pleiku is mostly low rolling hills. It’s not as green as I was expecting either. The trees around the airport are all young, since this area was so defoliated with Agent Orange during the war.
 
Touching down, I look across the empty tarmac. There are no other planes or jets in sight. This was once the military airport known as Pleiku Air Base, run by US and Vietnamese Air Forces. The largest and busiest airport in the highlands, it was once loaded with planes and helicopters. Now there’s only one vacant government helicopter sitting off to the edge of the airfield. There is so little traffic, that one whole section of tarmac is no longer maintained, and has grass and weeds growing up through the cracks. Pleiku is in a poor province, so there are few flights to the highlands these days. In the new terminal, I spot a tall older westerner with a faded US flag on his cap. Approaching him, I can make out three tattoos on his aging forearm shaped like military medals. I introduce myself, and meet Larry, a friendly American war veteran from North Carolina.

“I came back to have a look with my girlfriend,” Larry tells me. He was an Army soldier here in 1969, and he’s glad he came back. He had been visiting some of his old haunts further south. He was surprised at what he found, so many old buildings had been torn down, removed for new construction and businesses, “Like Bien Hoa,” he said, mentioning another large, former air base. “Today it’s an industrial area. Everything is changed, it’s hard to find some of the places where we were before.”

Pleiku today is more developed than during the war years

I’m relieved to meet two other Americans here, but they soon hop into a taxi and depart. Pleiku doesn’t get many foreign visitors. I grab a late taxi, load up, and head out. Leaving the airport, we drive by barracks now occupied by the Vietnamese Army. It’s a sleepy looking facility, and all the soldiers I see walking about are unarmed. The only activity I see is a platoon of enlisted men doing calisthenics. With their dark green pants and white t-shirts, they look like a recruiting film. 

The taxi drops me at my hotel, after checking in, I head back out the doors to get to know this highland town. Pleiku was once a group of humble villages of the Jarai minority tribe. Then French colonists arrived, and it grew to be the provincial capital. The French referred to the Jarai and the rest of the hill tribe minorities as ‘Montagnards’, meaning ‘mountain people’, and the name stuck.

Walking through Pleiku now, I see few hill tribe folk. People I encounter are ethnic Vietnamese, who have moved to Pleiku in droves. The villages are long gone and the downtown is modern, by Vietnamese standards. Compared to crowded and polluted Ho Chi Minh City, it’s much more orderly, clean and pleasant. There are few old homes, most of buildings around me are relatively new. In this highland town where most homes had only one story, there are now countless apartment buildings. These changes weren’t just due to urban planning, it was also due to the war's destruction.

Can she really drive in traffic?

When the communists began advancing across the highlands in 1975, there was a chaotic, emergency migration eastward towards Vietnam's coast. Soon after the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) began to rocket and shell Pleiku, the South Vietnamese Army (ARVN) retreated from the city. When the civilians realized what was happening, the population of Pleiku fled with them in fear. To deny the communists use of Pleiku, departing ARVN torched many buildings, further adding to the destruction. As packed columns of military and civilian vehicles headed for the coast, they were attacked by the NVA, killing not only at the retreating ARVN, but also fleeing civilians. The panicked evacuation was horrendous, and thousands died in the chaotic exodus. It was the most tragic and costly retreat of the war.

In the 1980’s much of Pleiku was rebuilt, partly with Soviet aid, and today the population is triple what it was during the war years. This is mainly due to the influx of so many Vietnamese who moved here from the northern provinces, since the conquering government of the north encouraged them to move here.

Kpa Klong, who fought the Americans

It was a long road back, but Pleiku has been rebuilt. As part of the government’s changes in the south, Pleiku is now referred to as ‘Gia Lai’ on many official maps.

Looking around the commercial district I see few cars, and as I saw in HCMC, many locals use motorbikes as if they are pickup trucks. Outside the market, I watch one woman pack her small motorbike with a load of nine foot long stalks of sugar cane. I wonder how she’s going to make it through traffic with such a wide, oversized load. The police seem to have less visibility here than in other parts of Vietnam. That doesn’t mean that they aren’t around, since there are plenty of plainclothes police. Perhaps they keep a low profile to please the minorities. 

As I check out Pleiku, I notice that most traces of the former American military  presence are gone. Even most American made buildings have vanished. I do spot one bit of historical evidence, when I stop at a local hardware store. Piles of gear are stacked outside on the sidewalk, and among a pile of chains and springs, are old US Army ammunition cases. They may be discolored and rusty, but they’re still waterproof.

Walking through a town square, I come to a statue dedicated to Kpa Klong, a Montagnard fighter who died in 1975. Wearing a loin cloth and carrying a carbine, he’s about to throw what looks like a pipe bomb. From one of the local hill tribes, he used to fight the Americans. Friezes on the statue’s pedestal show him gunning down American soldiers, and attacking an American tank using only a hand grenade.

 

A dog guarding a tank? Really??!

Kpa Klong and his village may have joined with the communists, but the reality is that most hill tribes sided with the Americans during the war. The highland minorities have suffered discrimination from the majority Vietnamese for centuries, and the US ideas of equal rights and democracy appealed to them. They desired to continue practicing their own religions and languages, so they had no love for communists, and still don't. The Americans also provided arms to the Montagnard militias, giving them their own means for self-defense. It’s sad, but true that many Vietnamese refer to the highland minority peoples as savages, even today. Not surprisingly, occasional unrest and uprisings in the highlands against the Vietnamese government have continued.

I stop at the Gia Lai Museum, to find the doors locked and the lights off. After finding a staffer, she opens the front door to show me why it’s so quiet. Artifacts and boxes are piled up everywhere, the museum is closed for renovations. Before I leave I walk behind

The remains of a US made Huey helicopter, and a spotter plane

the building, and I’m startled by a furry yellow dog barking at me from behind a chain link fence. Strangely, the dog is tied to an M-41 tank, with a .30 caliber machine gun mounted on top. A dog protecting a tank! Piled in among other wreckage around it are an old howitzer, and the remains of various American made aircraft, including an A-6, two Huey helicopters, and two spotter planes.

As I check out all the wreckage, the dog never stops barking at me. He’s the junkyard dog, for a military junkyard. Since the museum is closed, I imagine that his barking at me now, is probably the most excitement that this dog has had all week. 

I head back to my Pleiku hotel. Time for Vietnamese cuisine.  Next stop, a local restaurant.

WHERE DID THE VIETNAM WAR END? HERE.

'Independence Palace' where the Vietnam War ended

This is where it all ended. After decades of destruction, and the loss of over two million lives, the Vietnam War ended right here.

I’m standing at the front gates of the ‘Independence Palace’, the previous government’s version of the White House. Other official listings refer to it as “Reunification Palace’, and also as the ‘Presidential Palace’. Like so many locations around the former Saigon, this site seems to have an identity crisis.

I peer through the palace front gates at the very spot, where on April 30, 1975, that the end came. In dramatic fashion North Vietnamese Army tanks crashed through these very gates, and quickly captured the palace, bringing about the end of the Republic of Vietnam.

Visitors view a grand Asian carpet near the palace entrance

For such a long war with so much bloodshed, the end of the conflict finally came with no shots fired at all. This is where the dream of reunification for Vietnam, was at last realized. This is also where for Vietnam, the dream of democracy died.

When the end of the war came, all the leaders who had started this war were already dead as well. Ho Chi Minh was dead. Ngo Dinh Diem was dead. Even the two US presidents who had brought America deep into this war, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, were also dead. The war had outlived them all. Finally, the war itself was dead too.

I look on the grass off to the side of the gates, where two old tanks are on display. One was made in Russia, and the other in China. These are the same types of tanks as those that crashed through the front gates years before. (The actual tank that crashed the first gate is in a Hanoi museum.) Today, through the same front gates, come invading tour buses. This former seat of power is no longer a heavily guarded government building; it’s been turned into an open museum that marks the war’s end.

Former President Thieu's bedroom, his personal items are long gone

Compared to other buildings from the former Saigon government, the palace is relatively new. This address was once the site of a grand French palace that housed their colonial governor. After independence arrived in 1954, the dictator Diem moved in. He lived here for years, until the old palace was bombed during a 1962 assassination attempt. The building was so heavily damaged, that it was torn down. Afterwards this stronger building was constructed with the help of American aid.

Top floor Presidential 'Game Room', obviously decorated in the 1960's

Although designed by a Vietnamese architect, the rectangular exterior looks more like a 1960’s American office building. When the North Vietnamese Army took over the palace, there was some looting, but much of the furniture inside was left where it was. The palace interior today looks much as it was the day the war ended. Filled with Asian décor from the old regime, the building is somewhat of a time capsule. There are elaborate oriental carpets, and Asian artwork adorns the walls. Grand picture windows are bordered with elegant curtains stretching from floor to ceiling.  Dated light fixtures illuminate old office furniture. Walking into this building, I feel as though I’ve walked back in time, finding myself in 1975.

As befits the home and office for a president, there are reception rooms, a banquet room, countless offices, and a large hall suitable for press conferences. To fill the evening hours, upper levels have a movie theater; a library, and a game room.

President Thieu's office, formerly a center of power in Vietnam

Walking to the back of the building, I enter the former residence of the president’s family. Looking around in the various chambers, I see only bare beds and furniture. I find no personal items or papers left behind by the former first family. There was more looting here than in other parts of the palace, and the president’s clothes and possessions are long gone.

Some odd items remain, including model boats, and three hollowed out elephant’s feet,  the kind used for umbrella stands. Back in the 1970’s, the government here was more worried about saving the country, than they were about saving Asian elephants.

I make my way to an upstairs floor in the palace, entering a large corner office decorated with a touch of luxury. A landscape painting overlooks a large wooden desk. On the desktop, a red rotary phone that hasn’t rung for years sits silent. To the front, meeting chairs sit empty; there will be no more urgent consultations here. A rather tacky stuffed jungle cat bares its teeth atop a nearby dresser.

This office was once a center of power in Vietnam, but no longer. It’s political importance ended long ago. Like much of the palace, the room is now silent, and empty. A sign in four languages says, “OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF VIETNAM”.

In this office, sat President Nguyen Van Thieu. A former general, he supported the coup against the despised dictator Diem in 1963. After Diem was overthrown and killed, various military men took control. Eventually, with the support of the US government, Thieu was elected president in 1967. He would hold onto power in South Vietnam, almost until the end.

I look closely at the painting behind the desk, wondering if it was actually here when Thieu occupied the office. It’s an idyllic coastal scene; such a peaceful view of a country that was so devastated by war at the time. Thieu’s carpet and curtains are all bright red, the color of good luck. For Thieu, his luck was not to hold out forever. From this office, try as he might, his control of South Vietnam slowly slipped away. With corruption rampant and the war going badly, his popularity with the public plummeted. When the American government signed the 1973 peace agreement and the US military departed, Thieu’s days as leader here were numbered.

Adjacent to his office is the president’s map room. Detailed maps of the country line the walls, where Thieu was kept updated on the latest news from the battlefields. When the NVA and Viet Cong made their final drive towards Saigon, Thieu saw the writing on the wall. He resigned on April 21, 1975, and fled the country. He was replaced by his Vice President Tran Van Huong, who tried to negotiate a favorable surrender with the communists. Unable to do so, he resigned a week later and also fled.

Although power hungry, and blamed by many for the fall of the south, Thieu remains the only democratically elected president in Vietnam's history. After his departure Thieu lived for a while in Taiwan and England, before eventually settling in the US, the country he bitterly blamed for abandoning South Vietnam. He died in Boston in 2001.

Final surrender took place here in the Cabinet Meeting Room

Back downstairs, I enter the Cabinet Meeting Room, where the official surrender for South Vietnam finally took place. As I walk in the doors, I encounter a curious looking setup. With a long oval table, complete with ten microphones going round it, the meeting room resembles a mini-United Nations.

It was in this room that the last short term president, General Duong Van Minh, was left to face the music. Duong had briefly been South Vietnam’s president before back in 1964, following the coup against Diem. Minh’s tenure then lasted for three months. This last time, he would only be president for two days.

Minh was chosen to be the final president since he had connections with north; he had a brother who was a  North Vietnamese Army general. With the end near, the hope was that Minh could use his connections to negotiate a surrender beneficial for South Vietnam. But it was far too late. Since the ARVN was collapsing, the communists didn’t feel any need to negotiate.

The unconditional surrender of the Republic of Vietnam was accepted by Colonel Bui Tin, an NVA journalist who just happened to be the highest ranking officer present at the time. When Tin entered the Cabinet Meeting Room, everyone immediately stood up. General Minh approached Colonel Tin, and said to him, “We have been waiting for you since this morning to hand over the government.”

Tin bluntly said to General Minh, “You don’t have any government left to hand over to us.” 

Now a prisoner, Minh was taken by jeep to a Saigon radio station where he publicly announced the surrender, and an end to all hostilities. Unlike other ARVN generals who would serve many years in the bamboo gulags, Minh was only imprisoned for a matter of days, before he was allowed to return to his Saigon home. Eight years later he left for France. Like Thieu, he died later in the United States.

As for Vietnam's hero of the fatherland Bui Tin, he later became disillusioned with communism in Vietnam. The ex-Colonel also left the country to settle in Paris, France, where he still lives today. It seems that the end of the war in Vietnam, didn't bring the kind of 'Communist Paradise' that he had hoped for.