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    From Ban Xon to Wardak
    From Ban Xon to Wardak
    From Ban Xon to Wardak
    Ebook338 pages5 hours

    From Ban Xon to Wardak

    By Mike Shepherd

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    About this ebook

    Tavang Sing, the son of a CIA mercenary and a woman who lived in the Hmong village of Ban Xon in Laos, was born after his father was captured by the Pathet Lao in that country's civil war in the 1960's. After his birth his mother took him to Chicago, where as a teenager he became involved with a street gang. But, with the help of a stranger, who turns out to be his long lost father, Tavang left the gang. He then graduated from high school and Northwestern University, and joined the Peace Corps in Laos. Upon his return, he graduated from the University of Chicago School of Law. He then became a lawyer, and eventually a politician.

    After the September 11, 2001 al-Qaeda attack on the World Trade Center in New York City, Tavang joined the military to exact revenge on Osama bin Laden, one of the masterminds of 9/11.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisheriUniverse
    Release dateApr 2, 2013
    ISBN9781475979831
    From Ban Xon to Wardak
    Author

    Mike Shepherd

    Mike Shepherd is the author of Like Another Lifetime In Another World an historic fiction based on his experiences as a reporter for Armed Forces Radio in Vietnam in 1967 and ‘68. It too is available through iUniverse.com. Shepherd is a free-lance writer who lives in the country near Springfield, Illinois.

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      Book preview

      From Ban Xon to Wardak - Mike Shepherd

      PROLOGUE

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      I N 1945, AFTER becoming aware of the deplorable living conditions on French-owned rubber plantations and labor camps, the Royal Laotian government’s Prince Souphanouvong, along with his half-brother Prince Souvana Phouma, led an armed revolution against the French, with assistance from Vietnam president Ho Chi Minh’s Viet Minh Communist army, and together they expelled the French from Laos. Phouma then established a neutralist coalition government that consisted of both pro-Western and pro-Communist factions. The latter came to be known as the Pathet Lao, whose forces were aligned with the Viet Minh, while Souphanouvong’s pro-Western faction was aligned with the Royal Laotians, whose military was supported and funded by the United States.

      In the early days of the coalition, both factions strived to gain an advantage in the government, but in a 1958 national election, the Communists received the most votes which alarmed the staunchly anti-Communist U.S. Consequently the U.S. put pressure on the neutralist Phouma to resign his position in favor of an American-backed successor Phoui Sananikone, and we sent military aid, aircraft and Special Forces advisors into the country in support of Sananiknone. This was countered by the Soviets, who supplied arms, vehicles and antiaircraft weapons in support of the Pathet Lao, while North Vietnam, in response to the introduction of the U.S. Special Forces advisors into the situation, sent in cadres to train their Laotian Communist comrades.

      In 1959, the conflict between the pro-American Sananikone and the pro-Communist faction led to Souphanouvong’s arrest and the country’s swing toward the West. As a result the Communist military forces were to be integrated into the Royal Laotian Army. However, upon learning of Souphanouvong’s arrest, a Pathet Lao battalion scheduled for integration fled to the North Vietnam border and waged guerrilla warfare against the government whose positions on the strategic Plaine des Jarres—a fifty-square-mile plateau in the mountainous northern part of the country—became endangered. As a result the U.S. answered a request by Sananikone for assistance, by dispatching Special Forces teams to assist the Royal Lao government army. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, in his last days in office, rejected direct military intervention, but he sent CIA operatives and Green Beret advisors into the country to recruit Hmong tribesmen living in the mountains surrounding the Plaine des Jarres as insurgents to wage guerrilla warfare against the Communists in support of the pro-Western Royal government forces. And when Hanoi sent additional troops into Laos, the succeeding Kennedy Administration authorized the CIA to increase the size of the Hmong army, which reached several thousand. A thousand Thai mercenaries joined them. For several reasons, including clan divisions and political rivalries that stemmed from the French colonial days—the Hmong fought on both sides. Some 100,000 cast their lot with the Pathet Lao, and about 250,000 sided with the Royals.

      Thais and pro-government Hmong blew up North Vietnamese Army (NVA) supply depots along the Ho Chi Minh Trail, ambushed trucks, mined roads and generally harassed the Communist forces. But then, under the leadership of General Vang Pao, the Hmong resorted to conventional warfare, and they launched an all-out offensive against NVA and Pathet Lao forces, utilizing U.S. air power augmented by the Hmong’s fledgling air force of World War II vintage T-28 fighter bombers. The operation proved to be a huge success: the Hmong reclaimed the entire plateau, capturing food, ammunition, heavy weapons and tanks.

      But the victory was short-lived. The NVA brought in an additional two divisions of crack troops, whoquickly regained all the lost ground, and threatened the major Hmong base at Long Tieng. In response, Washington authorized B-52 strikes on the Plaine to oust the NVA, and the country was on the brink of all-out war.

      In 1961, in an effort to resolve the situation in Laos, a multi-national conference convened in Geneva, Switzerland. Its proclamation, known as the Laotian Accords, contained four basic articles: all nations outside of Laos would respect its sovereignty and refrain from interfering in its internal affairs; aid to Laos could not include the establishment of military bases within the country; no nation could form a military alliance with any Laotian faction; the establishment of a coalition government which the neutralist Prince Phouma would head, with the Communist Prince Souphanouvong as second in command.

      The coalition was tenuous at best, and armed conflict intensified between the two factions. Despite the Accord, North Vietnam continued its involvement in Laotian affairs—an estimated 40,000 to 60,000 North Vietnamese Army (NVA) troops operated in Laos in support of the Pathet Lao in their conflict with the government.

      For 14 years warfare ebbed and flowed through Laos. In 1975, America’s Hmong allies finally lost. An estimated 30,000 of them had been killed. Tens of thousands of survivors who had sided with the U.S. were driven from their mountain homes, becoming refugees. Forced into camps in the lowlands, they had to learn to survive in mainstream Laotian society, a culture altogether foreign to them. Thousands more made their way to Thailand, and many eventually ended up in the U.S., including General Vang Pao, who went into exile in California.

      Meanwhile the Marxist-Leninist state, known as the Lao People’s Democratic Republic (LPDR) claimed control over nearly every aspect of human life in Laos. The LPDR has had many problems since its takeover in 1975: many of the country’s students, merchants and farmers fled, draining the nation of its brain pool and eroding its commerce and agricultural base.

      CHAPTER 1

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      T HE SPOTLIGHT ILLUMINATED the mountain top clearing as the helicopter descended. Five men—three CIA mercenaries, and two U.S. Green Berets—faces and hands blackened with mud and charcoal, quickly disembarked and scattered into the surrounding jungle. They waited in ambush for any Pathet Lao who might have seen the insertion.

      After lying low for nearly two hours, they regrouped in the clearing, which was well-lit by a half moon. Any more light would give them away, but it was barely enough to see through the underbrush. They communicated their next move with hand signals. They would follow an elephant trail into the valley below where the Nam Ngum River ran. They knew from recon aircraft photos that it would lead to the remote Hmong village they sought. It was on the southwestern edge of the Plaine des Jarres, a grassy fifty square-mile plateau, surrounded by mountains, in the northern part of the country. They intended to persuade the inhabitants there to take up arms against the Pathet Lao, who had been raiding the Hmong’s opium, corn, rice and vegetable crops, chickens and pigs, to supply their army with morphine and food.

      The special force was led by CIA mercenary Jackson Truax. He was a former Green Beret who had secretly been in Vietnam as early as 1962, where he tried to persuade the Montagnards to engage in guerrilla warfare against the fledgling Viet Cong Communist insurgents. They were trying to undermine the pro-Western South Vietnamese government of U.S. puppet President Ngo Dien Diem. His men called him Black Jack because of his dark eyes, hair, side burns and mustache. He was lean, but muscular, and tall—about 6'3".

      The rest of the group included:

      Master Sergeant Doug Wilson of the Green Berets, a stocky, well-built man of medium height with a square chin and jaw, who wore a flat top under the signature green beret adorned with the world-renowned inscription—liberate the oppressed. Wilson had done this many times while combating Communism in South America and Southeast Asia.

      Roberto Gonzales of the CIA—a short, handsome, Cuban-born man who had participated in the ill-fated Bay of Pigs invasion before he went to Bolivia to undermine Che Guevara’s revolutionary activities there.

      Major Tom Wislowski, a steely gray-eyed, lean, mean Green Beret, who like Truax, had led Montagnards against the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army (NVA) in Vietnam. The prominent scar on his cheek, was the result of hand-to-hand combat, in which he had been knifed.

      Randall Colburn (a ringer for Sean Connery), also of the CIA, who had recently been in Prague to instigate a Czechoslovakian revolt against invading Soviet Bloc forces seeking to suppress liberal President Alexandra Dubcek’s reform attempts, even though Dubcek was also a Communist.

      After reaching the river, the group followed it north by the light of the half moon shimmering on the white water as it cascaded over boulders. Its cool mist sprayed their faces as they trudged along, the noise of their movement through the jungle masked by the roar of the river. By the same token they’d not be able to hear if the enemy was near, and the light of the moon by which they traveled might also expose them, even though it wasn’t full.

      As soon as the sun rose they’d hunker down again until nightfall, stealing sleep with one eye open and ears alert. By consulting the recon maps and photos, along with a calendar showing stages of the moon, they estimated it would take two more nights of half moons to reach the village, their arrival timed for daybreak.

      Pathet Lao weren’t far away they knew, having laid siege to Vang Vieng, a strategic government-held (Royal Laotian) city on Route 13. The paved road ran basically parallel to the river between the royal capital of Luang Prabang south to Vientiane, the nation’s administrative and economic commercial capital on the Mekong River, bordering northeastern Thailand.

      The morning after their first night out, Truax slithered into a dense bamboo thicket at the ravine’s edge. The others followed. With camouflage uniforms and blackened faces and hands, they blended into the environment like chameleons; and like chameleons they lapped up hissing cockroaches to supplement the energy bars they brought along. When they arrived at the village they knew they’d eat well. The Hmong were known for being gregarious when it came to providing food for visitors, and homemade whiskey and rice wine, which Truax had acquired a taste for when he lived among Vietnam’s Montegnards.

      The group was so well camouflaged and still that several elephants passing trunk-to-tail on the nearby trail paid no attention to them. They hoped any passing Pathet Lao would do the same, although the group was in perfect ambush position to open fire with the burp guns and grenades they carried.

      Lying in the shade of the bamboo thicket, Truax dozed periodically throughout the day, and at sunset he signaled for the group to move out again. Now they proceded up the mountain on the elephant trail. Hmong seldom settled below 3,000 feet. It would take all night to reach the village at the summit, at approximately 6,000 feet, by daybreak.

      CHAPTER 2

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      T RUAX KNEW FROM the briefing he and his men received at Nakhon Phanom, Thailand, before embarking on their mission, that Hmong guerrillas, led by General Vang Pao, had swept Pathet Lao and North Vietnamese forces off the Plaine des Jarres (in September of this year, 1969) which they had held for six years. The Americans had warned the Royal Laotian government’s Prime Minister Prince Phouma that it would be too costly to hold on to the Plaine, and they were right. The Royal Laotian strategic base Sam Thong, southwest of the Plaine, had to be evacuated under an intense counter attack by the Pathet Lao and the NVA. And to save Long Tieng, the headquarters of General Pao, two battalions of Thai troops were rushed in to reinforce government troops holding the base. Intensive U.S. air strikes were ordered against the attackers, whose offensive then came to a halt, and Sam Thong and Long Tieng were recaptured by Royalist (government) forces.

      The Pathet Lao leaders responded to the Royal (government) offensive by taking a still harder line, and they committed themselves to protracted war. Taking advantage of the overextended government troops’ positions, the Pathet Lao eventually recaptured many of the outposts along the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Truax’s mission was to recruit the Hmong of the village of Ban Xon to conduct guerrilla operations against the Pathet Lao and NVA guarding the Ho Chi Minh Trail. But they would have to be pacified first, and persuaded that such operations would benefit them—that becoming allies of the Royal government would reward them with fertile land on the Plaine des Jarres to grow corn and rice as an alternative to growing opium poppies. Raising poppies was expected to be outlawed soon at the urging of Washington, because the insidious bi-product of opium, heroin, was finding its way into the veins of GIs in Vietnam, even though the opium poppy’s other bi-product, morphine, relieved the pain of GIs wounded in battle.

      To neutralize the Plaine des Jarres in the face of an overwhelming presence there of NVA and Pathet Lao, it would be necessary to win Hmong, who weren’t in General Pao’s camp, over to the government’s side. To neutralize the Communist forces, and the isolated mountain villages that had remained neutral, like the one the task force was approaching, was key in this endeavor. Like Pacification in South Vietnam, they were bent on winning the hearts and minds of the Hmong, who might otherwise side with the leftist Pathet Lao.

      Although the inhabitants of Ban Xon had been harassed by the Pathet Lao, they were thought to be neutral. Because of their isolation, they hadn’t been exposed to the Royal Laotians, who seldom ventured into the rugged, jungle-covered mountain terrain where the enemy were accustomed to operating; they were more of a guerrilla force than their counterparts, who operated primarily in the open lowlands of southern Laos.

      Truax was unsure as to how well the group would be received; they were white foreigners, which these Hmong had likely never seen. Although their faces had been blackened, their eyes were revealing. The Hmong’s eyes reflected their Chinese heritage. Language would not be a barrier, however. The group was fluent in Hmong, having learned it from a Hmong at the U.S. base at Nakhon Phanom.

      As the group approached the village, the sloped outskirts of which were planted in poppies, they encountered several villagers harvesting the potent resin from the pods of the flowers. At first the villagers were shocked to see the Americans, and they started to run, but Truax shouted to them in Hmong that his group had come to protect the village from the Pathet Lao. In response, the villagers stopped running, smiled and motioned for the group to follow them into the village, where they were introduced to the chief, who had come out to meet them. The chief was dressed inconspicuously, in a black shirt and flaring trousers, not in clothing that would be expected to be worn by a chief, although he wore boots while the other men were barefoot.

      The women and girls, who lingered shyly in the background, were dressed more flamboyantly. They wore black pant suits with black aprons trimmed in bright blue. Red sashes encircled their waists, and they wore black hats adorned with white and black checkered ribbons. The hats were topped with fuzzy red tufts that looked like crocheted wool. Around their necks most wore from two to five thick silver rings.

      The chief clapped his hands toward the watching women, and they dispersed. Soon, however they emerged smiling from one of the thatched-roof, bamboo-walled huts with baskets full of bananas, oranges, papayas, peaches and apples.

      Eat now. Good for appetite to eat chicken, pig tonight, the chief said in broken English.

      He then motioned for the Americans to follow him, with fruit in hand, to a hut where they could rest. It had been a long, arduous, all-night journey up the jungle-covered mountains, and the men were due for some sleep. Truax ate a peach and banana, and laydown on a woven bamboo mat. The other men, after eating some fruit, did the same and soon they all dozed off. They were awakened about two hours later by the sound of chickens cackling and a pig squealing. The animals were being rounded up to be sacrificed for an evening feast, customary when visitors arrived in peace Truax knew, although the Americans were well-armed. He had been well-schooled in Hmong customs at Nakhon Phanom when he was chosen to lead the group into the mountains where they lived.

      The men came out to see the pig being roasted on a spit over hot coals. Black Jack was reminded of the luaus he’d attended while stationed in Hawaii. It was a small pig, unlike the ones on farms back in the States, so it wouldn’t take so long to roast. It was high noon now; the pig would be done well before sundown.

      In the meantime the chief convened a meeting in his hut with some of the tribesmen and the Americans, to discuss the reason for their visit. Black Jack got right to the point in Hmong, which he and the chief were communicating in.

      We have come to urge you take up arms against the Communists before they take your young to fight for them. They will also harvest your opium and sell it to the North Vietnamese to make heroin to addict GIs fighting in Vietnam. They’ve already raided your other crops and livestock, I know. Soon there will be nothing left for your people to eat, and you’ll be left with nowhere to go but the refugee camps. You will lose your way of life.

      But where would we get the guns, and who would teach us how to use them? the chief asked.

      They would be parachuted in from Nakhon Phanom. We will train you to fight with them.

      I am too old to fight, but many of our young men would be willing if it meant the survival of our way of life. We have lived here in these mountains for many, many years. To be forced to go to the valley would not be good. We would be exposed to malaria and other diseases down there, that kills so many. No, instead we will stay here and fight. This is my decision. Bring us the arms."

      Very good, Black Jack said. He smiled and shook the chiefs hand. I’ll radio Nakhon Phanom and have them dropped in two or three days, along with ammunition and grenades. Then we will form ranks. Those who excel in training will be the leaders under our command.

      One thing Black Jack didn’t discuss with the chief was that they would not only be trained to defend the village, but to be aggressors, for eventually they’d be expected to attack elements of Pathet Lao and NVA who were guarding the nearby Ho Chi Minh Trail. This would entail guerrilla tactics that they’d learn gradually through whatever combat experience they’d derive from defending the village, such as lying in ambush for the enemy in the surrounding jungle.

      However, the chief, whose name Black Jack learned was Nam Phet, seemed pleased with the agreement as it was and he called for a celebration. He invited the men to sit in a circle around a large vat from which protruded long reed straws. He sucked on one of the straws, smiled and nodded his approval.

      Rice wine, he said. Drink now, very good for appetite to eat chicken and pig tonight.

      The men took the straws in hand to their mouths and sipped and sipped. Then one of the tribesmen entered the hut with a tray of roasted chicken heads. The chief picked one up and sucked out the brain. He nodded for Black Jack and his men to do the same. They were high enough from the wine to oblige, although with some hesitation.

      It was a ritual that the chief explained would give them long-lasting virility into old age, and he laughed heartily, also apparently high on the wine, and amused by the looks on the American mens’ faces.

      Another tribesman appeared in the hut with a strange-looking musical instrument that consisted of a double row of bamboo reed pipes of graduated lengths. He was followed by five pretty young women, two of whom held tambourines, which they jingled while the tribesman blew on the pipes—which sounded like clarinets and flutes in harmony. The women swayed sensuously to the music. One of them in particular caught Black Jack’s eye because of the way she looked at him and smiled. He reminded himself that he was there strictly on business, if warfare could be described as business.

      To some war most certainly was a business—to the arms dealers of the world anyway—like those merchants of death immortalized in Major Barbara by George Bernard Shaw’s Undershaft, whose credo was "to give arms to all men who offer an honest price for them, without respect of persons or principles . . . . to Capitalist and Socialist, to Protestant and Catholic, to burglar and policeman, to black man, white man and yellow man, to all sorts and conditions, all nationalities, faiths, all follies, all causes and all crimes."

      It could be argued, Black Jack thought, that the Americans were the merchants of death in providing arms to the Hmong in exchange for their blood in the battle between Capitalists and Communists.

      An hour before the sun went down the pig was carved and served, with steamed rice and boiled chicken and vegetables spiced with chili peppers. The chief and his tribesmen laughed at how the Americans’ eyes watered, and how they fanned their mouths with their hands everyone but Gonzales, who showed no signs of discomfort because he was naturally used to such hot fare being of Cuban descent. The chief handed them glasses of the Hmong’s potent corn whiskey to wash down the heat, only replacing the fire on their tongues with the fire in their brains and bellies. They all got drunk, then returned to their hut to sleep it off. There was serious business to tend to in the morning, like securing a drop zone for the weapons that were to be parachuted in from Nakhon Phanom in about three days. There was an area not far from the village where trees had been felled to make room for the expansion of the poppy fields. It would make a good drop zone.

      CHAPTER 3

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      T HE SILVER AIR America C-123 cargo plane, flown out of Nakhon Phanom by a CIA crew, came in low over the drop zone, and several crates of ammo and weapons on parachutes drifted to the ground.

      As the Hmong stood in awe of the sight, the Americans rushed out to open the crates. They were packed with M-16 rifles and bandoleers and magazines of bullets, and grenades, and a couple mortar tubes with mortars. Soon the Americans would show the Hmong how to use them, but first, should the Pathet Lao have witnessed the drop, they dispersed and set up a perimeter around the payload until morning when the training sessions would begin.

      Black Jack and his men were equipped with infrared binoculars which enabled them to see to a certain extent in the dark. In the middle of the night Gonzales thought he saw movement in the jungle. At about the same time, Colburn did too. The image appeared greenish in the midst of a sallow glow. At first it was difficult to determine if it was man or beast, the way it crawled through the underbrush. Periodically its eyes gleamed like a cat’s, a phenomenon peculiar to infrared vision, even though there was no ambient light to reflect.

      Gonzales was tempted to shoot, which would entail putting his binoculars down, then he wouldn’t be able to see the target, so he continued to watch as the image crept closer, and he could see that it was a man. Pathet Laos no doubt. He’d have to shoot blindly. He set the binoculars aside and unleashed a line of tracer fire with his burp gun in the exact direction he had seen the man crawling. He looked through the glasses again, and saw nothing, but then two men charged him. They were on top of him before he could fire his weapon again, but he managed to unsheathe his K-bar knife and plunge it into the belly of one, and he cut the throat of the other. Meanwhile two more rushed Colburn’s position, weapons blazing, and using their muzzle flashes as targets he gunned them down, in the process, though, he was wounded: a bullet pierced his right shoulder and one grazed his ribs. Black Jack went to his aid and dragged him inside the perimeter and behind one of the weapons crates to shield him from any further attacks. He could tell by putting his hand on the shoulder wound that Colburn was bleeding a fair amount, but not so much that his life was in imminent danger, Black Jack thought. He left him and returned to the perimeter expecting the assault to continue, but after half an hour it hadn’t. In case it did, though, the Americans held their positions until dawn. Then Black Jack threw the hefty Colburn over his shoulder, which was no easy task, and retreated to the village along with the others. They were met by the tribe’s medicine man, who immediately attended to Colburn’s wounds by applying a compost of palm leaves soaked in whiskey. This would ward off infection and stop the bleeding. To treat the pain he gave Colburn a pipe of opium to smoke, which immediately put him in a state of painless lethargy.

      With Pathet Lao lurking about, Black Jack felt an urgent need to train the Hmong to use the weapons quickly. They broke down the crates and dispensed the rifles to every able-bodied man in the village—about 100 of them.

      Targets made of old clothes stuffed with grass were set up, and the Hmong—no strangers to fire arms because they hunted with primitive, flint-lock action guns—quickly learned to load the M-16s and shoot themn with accuracy. Sgt. Wilson demonstrated how to toss grenades. The Americans would fire the mortars.

      Meanwhile the young woman who had caught Black Jack’s eye at the welcoming ceremony, attended to Colburn’s wounds like a nurse, but only the tribe’s medicine man provided the pipes of opium for his pain. Fearing that he’d become

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