In my lifetime, we’ve gone to war, and won or lost, in a disturbingly recurring pattern: The politicians, responding to world events feel the pressure from former military and patriotic citizens, to do something. A “limited” war seems like a good idea. The military has never seen a war it didn’t like, at least in the beginning; everybody moves up a couple of ranks and the retirement piggy bank grows. The generals always promise a nice clean and short victory. Of course they know better, but are very optimistic. War, no matter how valid, moral, worthwhile, is never as clean and nice as it seems when plotted on maps, satellite images, and stoked by videos from fighter jets and tank turrets.

Citizen Impatience, Politics and Generals at Cross Purposes

The limited war drags on for years, as the enemy adapts to predictable strategies. The cost in both American lives and the economy becomes burdensome to the public and they turn against the war. The politicians, quietly, order the military to scale back the war. Reducing the casualties and saving money are now the main goal, not winning the war. This is about the time the generals figure out that it is not about territory taken or body count, but winning the hearts of the civilians caught in the middle of the war. This is a war that can be won. Of course it’s too late, the play winds painfully down, and the curtain closes on yet another unfortunate outcome for the most powerful military, most powerful country in the world.

Southeast Asian War By Tandem Bicycle

Because of our most recent travels in Asia on our tandem bicycle, I have developed a new interest in the Vietnam War, really the Indochina War of my youth. My draft board called me in 1964. I presented myself, got on a bus and taken for a physical and mental evaluation. I was just out of hospital for a bleeding ulcer. They didn’t know how to cure ulcers in those days, and they knew military food would kill me: 4F. I have always had some survivor’s guilt, partly because I have seen the toll that particular war took on many of the surviving draftees. The vets I have shared this feeling with have said I didn’t miss anything, and to let it go. I think I have. Maybe traveling there, seeing the land and the people involved has had something to do with my coming to terms with those feelings. My appreciation for anyone who fought there is deep. It was one helluva place to have to fight a war.

As Claire and I pedaled, and pushed, our tandem on one of the many branches of the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos, lost in the jungle with the unexploded ordnance from our massive bombing of the trail. We pushed through mud in roads cut deep by thousands of trucks bringing supplies from North Vietnam to the various fronts in South Vietnam and Cambodia. Huge bomb craters are now softened by new growth jungle, but still there, mute reminders to anyone crazy enough to go there.

Fellow traveler on a branch of the Hoh Chi MinhTrail,

Ho Chi Minh Trail, Bombies and B-52s

Wondering if you might step on a 40-year-old anti-personal bombie, still live, tends to sharpen the senses of even the most exhausted sojourner. The jungle trembled with light and dark, produced unseen, unknowable, sounds, imaginings of one of the large cats that survive still. Mostly it was a quiet jungle, far different from how it must have been during the round-the-clock bombing sorties of that time. I wondered at the men who had driven the trucks down this awful track and died there. And I wondered about the men in the B-52s overhead, wondering about the men they were killing below. We dropped as much munitions on little Laos, as in all of WWII. What most Americans don’t know is how many unexploded bombies lie still in the jungle, waiting for a rice farmer’s daughter to turn it accidentally with her foot… They severely limit the use Laotians can get from the land that lay along the Ho Chi Minh trail. At least it’s good for the wildlife.

A Better War? A Belated Look at Vietnam

I recently ran across a book that examines the final years of that war: “A Better War, The Unexamined Victories and Final Tragedy of America’s Last Years in Vietnam“, by Lewis Sorley. It gives a reasoned, analytical, if at times biased, view of the final years when General Creighton Abrams had command.

After we finally found our way out of the jungle to the main road between populated Laos and Vietnam, we spent our final night in Laos in the town of Tchepone. I wish I had known what strategic importance that it had held, how the overgrown Ho Chi Minh Trail we had traversed, had been the center of the most intensive anti-personnel bombing of the war, and the largest incursion by the South Vietnamese Army, with support of American air power. The only reminder of the war are fence posts made from bombs that didn’t explode, or supplemental fuel tanks dropped for the return to base. We did have a bit of trouble finding food, but our first bed in some days made up for that. As with all Laotians, the people were friendly.

Bombs near Tchepone, Laos

Coming To Khe Sanh

We had some concerns about the border crossing into Vietnam. Claire’s passport lists her place of birth as Saigon, Vietnam. Her father was in the foreign service: security. Her birthplace drew a shocked look from one border guard, and a knowing acknowledgement by a second, no doubt noting the year, 1964, the early stages of America’s ramping up of  involvement. Claire and I could have been there at the same time, she as a baby, me as a grunt or maybe a combat photographer if I’d been lucky.

Boat made from jet fuel tanks in the highlands of Vietnam; nice to see our tax dollars still at work.

Generals Abrams and Petraeus

As we pedaled into Vietnam on the infamous Route 9 toward Khe Sanh, the lush undergrowth and steep mountains of the highlands held a beauty that belied the violence it had seen. The jungle heals the wounds of war quickly. I still can’t imagine how we could have conceived that a war in such a place would not drag us in and strangle us. That we did as well as we did is a tribute to the grunts who did their best in impossible conditions. Abrams deserves credit for finally understanding how such a war might be won, or at least brought into stasis as in Korea. Unfortunately our military seems to find a way to hold the good guys in reserve until it’s too late. I see an amazing parallel between Gen. Abrams and Gen. David Petraeus’ view of their own wars.

I’ll make those parallels in a later post. Stay Tuned.

Come to gasp, and laugh; go away with a dream.

Monday February 7 at 7pm, Greater Arizona Bicycle Association meeting at Pima Medical Society Building 5188 E. Farness. Between Grant and Pima on Rosemont, turn east on Farness.

To read the article and see more of Bob’s photos from China and SE Asia follow the link: The Many Faces of Buddha

I wrote (below): “If such a gentle people were capable of those atrocities, what society is not? If Cambodians could become so divided that they began murdering other Cambodians, could we? How far must civil discourse erode before “the other” is so reprehensible to deserve killing?”

After today’s shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords I am reminded that our lack of civil discourse is tearing this country apart. We would not survive another civil war.

Reprint below:
By Bob Rogers

After 35 years, the first Khmer Rouge mass murderer has been convicted in Cambodia. We’ve all heard of the killing fields of Cambodia, when the Khmer Rouge murdered between one and two million other Cambodians. It was one of the worst periods of mass murder in history. It was the Chinese Cultural Revolution gone crazy. The Khmer Rouge, in attempting to bring about an agrarian utopian society, sought out and murdered anyone with an education, and anyone associated with them.

I remember following news reports of the carnage in this far away land, and wondering how such a thing could happen in a society. After Claire and I bicycled the length of Cambodia near the end of our In Search of Shangri-la tour, I am even more puzzled, and not a little disconcerted.

While the Cambodians are not as laid back as Lao, or as industrious as Vietnamese, they were friendly. Though not as outwardly happy as the irrepressible Lao, they were reasonably outgoing. And yet, some of the older Cambodians we saw must surely have been murderers. The Khmer Rouge were peasants, and we traveled through the rural countryside at twelve miles per hour, bought food from them at markets and street restaurants, slept in their guest houses. We smiled and received smiles in return. And yet, there was a pall of uncertainty for me, as I watched a landscape roll past, a rice small field that just might have been a killing field.

The Image most people have of the killing fields and mass graves, are of one central location near the Capitol, Phnom Penh. But, the killings took place in villages across Cambodia and the mounded mass graves still stand above the rice paddies, sometimes marked by simple concrete altars festooned with flowers and incense. Someone remembers and makes offerings to the gods, offerings of remembrance, and perhaps a hope that such a thing never happen again. It is an eerie sight to see the rice people working their fields so close to the bones of those killed there.

The reason Cambodia has been so slow to begin the process of justice escapes me, but I am not Asian. I didn’t grow up working dawn to dusk fighting the vagaries of nature, just to have a bowl of rice. From what we saw in Laos and Vietnam, Southeast Asians tend toward forgiveness. They hold no grudges against the former enemies in what they call the American War. Perhaps the Cambodians have passed on opportunities for justice all these years because they are either forgiving, or they are guilty. Now a generation is coming of age with no memory of those times. Perhaps the justice beginning now will educate them.

If such a gentle people were capable of those atrocities, what society is not? If Cambodians could become so divided that they began murdering other Cambodians, could we? How far must civil discourse erode before “the other” is so reprehensible to deserve killing?

For more on Cambodia go to New Bohemians, In Search of Shangri-la

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But, I do have a method that is safer and you can do yourself:

Before you shower, fill one ear with vegetable oil and let it soak by lying on your side for five minutes, or more if you can stand it. Absorb the oil with a paper towel when you stand. Shower with a moderately strong stream of warm water into that ear. After a couple of minutes, turn your ear to the bottom of the shower,  jump on your right leg and bang your head on the opposite side, gently. I’m not kidding. It might not work the first time, but will by the second.

Now, since you got something free from this site, how about looking at the rest of it? You will find it interesting if you like exotic locations and adventure travel.

They have no car, motorbike, bicycle, television, radio. Their light is a candle. Their cooking fuel is charcoal, their motive power is muscle. When they get sick, they get well, or they die. Children fall overboard and are lost to the river. The river gives and the river takes away. And yet, sometimes, they smile.

Governments, most notably China have plans to harness the entire river for hydro power. They will also begin dredging long stretches to increase the size of ships that can navigate to Yunnan Province. This will disrupt perhaps the most productive river fishery in the world. And it will threaten, if not end, the life of the boat people of the Mekong. The great hunger of China for power and resources touches all who live in SE Asia. The poorest, Laos and Cambodia, have no chance of standing up to the wealth and power of The Middle Kingdom, China.

We are so thankful to have seen life on the Mekong before it disappears. Our tandem bicycle travels there were not without challenges, but oh, so worthwhile.

Life on the Mekong is profound tactile and immediate. Can you say that for the place where you live? The vitality of their daily experience of living, compensates for the lack of comfort and possessions.

Where do you live?

For more about Asia from the seat of a tandem bicycle; from Chengdu, China across Tibet to Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand, click on the link: In Search of Shangri-la

When the snow turned back to rain, we knew the cold front had passed and our water would not freeze. What a relief. I (Bob) get a tad tense at the prospect of  a night of alternately running the furnace until the batteries are deplete, running the engine to charge them up again, and perhaps running out of propane. We’ve had a few nights like that, and the memory is not pleasant.

We were got a pleasant surprise when a Paul, from a neighboring motorhome, recently arrived from the pass, came by to invite us over for before dinner libations. We figured they had a bout with the snow, and needed a drink; we certainly did. Paul introduced me to his long time friend John, who set out to make our drinks and introduce himself. We found we had in common time spent in Laos and Vietnam. He didn’t  specify which branch of service he was in, but we guessed it was the one that is secretive. After several, appropriately vague, stories about his ventures there, we shared our experiences being lost in Laos on the spider’s web of the Ho Chi Minh Trail, and we could tell he knew all about the anti-personnel “bobmbies” that scared us.

Some of his memories were unwelcome, and had lingered for 40 years. When we made clear the Lao people held no grudge about the war years, or even the continued problems with the bombs, I think it was something he needed to hear.

Paul is a lot younger than Bill; they met through one of their wives, and have been fishing and RVing buddies for years. They were going on a fishing trip to the east side of the Sierras, when they were turned back by the storm, which had closed the pass not long after we came through.

We enjoyed their company, as we do all the RVing people we meet, and said goodnight reluctantly.

We saw them leave in the morning, and hope it was for a fine week of sunshine and full creels, because Bill is fighting cancer, and because they both deserve yet another fine RV trip, and many more.

Hai Van Pass in Vietnam

This view is probably familiar to many in my generation who served in Vietnam in the 1960′s and 1970′s. It was taken, looking north, from a headland jutting out into the South China Sea, forming a barrier to weather, and no doubt troop movements, between South Vietnam and North Vietnam. The two Vietnams are now officially one country, but we found, as we pedaled from the DMZ south, two fairly distinct cultures. In Hue, the former Saigon where Claire was born, is called Ho Chi Minh City, south of Hue it is still called Saigon, even on train schedules.

The Vietnamese people are increasingly  entering the world economy, and will challenge many other Asian economies in coming years. They are incredibly industrious, and highly intelligent. Economists should keep their focus on China, but watch Vietnam out of the corner of your eye. They are not far behind.