Chapter 8

The rest of the morning was pretty dull with only a few good bits of conversations to be captured. It wasn't until after lunch that we picked up the Attapu station again. John went to get Ernie while I recorded it. There was shouting again at both ends of the transmission. Ernie was laughing his ass off after he came in. They finally signed off, and Ernie eventually managed to stop laughing enough to talk to us.

"What the hell is so funny?" John asked, as he turned from his receiver to look at us.

"They're both still pissed and are threatening each other," Ernie replied. "The people in Hanoi are accusing the people in Attapu of being careless and not doing their job, and the people in Attapu are accusing those in Hanoi of sending them bad explosives and gas, plus equipment that doesn't work or is broken when they receive it. They are also complaining that the food is bad and the Pathet Lao are all lazy," he finally managed to say, before he cut the tape and took it over to be analyzed. John and I just looked at each other. It hadn't seemed that funny to us, but then we didn't speak Vietnamese.

The rest of the shift was pretty quiet. After work I ate at the mess hall and then showered. The vans were still pretty hot during the day and we all sweated a lot. I got dressed and filled the water container with potable water before setting out for the house and a surprise.

Suenee's shopping trip had had a lot of results. There was rattan furniture in the living room, a stove and refrigerator in the kitchen and some rattan chests in the bedroom. There was also a moderate sized bed with a three-piece mattress set on it and a fan. Suenee greeted me at the door and was very excited and anxious to show me all of it. I was worried about how much all of this had cost.

"This is all very nice, Suenee, but how expensive was it?"

"It wasn't very expensive. Mr. Silapakom's wife, Pee New, went with me and made sure that I got everything at a fair price. She is well known in the city as a hard bargainer," Suenee assured me. She just seemed so happy. I couldn't be upset with her, and gave her a big kiss.

Suenee made us some dinner, but I didn't eat much, as I had eaten when I got off from work. I could probably skip that now and come home after showering and filling the water jug. Later that evening we tried out the new bed and mattress. It was firm enough without being too hard and we had a good nights sleep on it. Of course, sleep wasn't all that we did on it. We did have to try it out after all.

The next day at work was pretty much a repeat of the previous one, except the radio hadn't recorded anything on its own over night. Suenee cooked us a nice dinner and it was ready when I got home after showering and filling the water jug.

It was around 1930 hrs that evening that Mr. Silapakom came over. He wanted to practice his English and had questions about GI slang. Later we started working on my Thai. I found out that his first name was Luang. It is apparently a fairly common name in this area. He was very patient with the way I murdered the Thai language. Thai is a five tone language and takes a very practiced ear as well as a good memory.

The tone used changes the meaning of a word. Example: 'New silk does not burn' can be stated in Thai simply by using the word 'mai' and changing the tone or inflection. It can be very complicated. Plus there are 76 characters in the Thai writing system. I didn't even start on those at that time. My admiration for Ernie grew appreciably as I found out that Vietnamese is a seven tone language.

After that Luang would show up most evenings and we would work on my Thai and his English. On my infrequent days off, I would go with him, his wife and Suenee to the market or other places to shop and practice my Thai, which in this area had a liberal sprinkling of Lao in it.

Luang also had a great interest and affection for Thai music and dance. He is the one that taught me all about Thai musical instruments, and his wife and Suenee plus several other women would demonstrate various types of dances for us. We went to several festivals while we were there, and Luang took Suenee and I to dance clubs that Americans or Tall Noses just didn't frequent. The lessons in Thai culture were always appreciated on my part.

Suenee had also started her work here. There was a small Wat in the village and she had spoken with the chief monk and received permission to hold classes about the Amulets there for the local women. They were held mostly during the day, but there were also some evening classes for women that worked at the camp during the day. In fact I was quite surprised several days later when Suenee came home with Dow, my house girl at the barracks.

"Bill," Dow said, "you didn't tell me that your wife was 'the Teacher'."

"I... !!" I started, "it never occurred to me to mention it."

"She is doing very important work. I will tell the other women," Dow told both of us. It also turned out that Dow only lived a short distance from us and that Jerry, the Company clerk, spent a lot of time there. We sometimes walked back to the station together in the morning.

It was mid-morning several days after the incident of the radio turning itself on when Sergeant Wilson came looking for me.

"They want to see you up at Headquarters," he told me, but didn't sound happy about it.

"Me? Now?" I asked, surprised.

"Yes, now. They sent Duffey down to get you. Have you done anything I should know about?" he asked, concerned.

"No, after work I shower and go home for dinner. The landlord comes by and helps me with my Thai. After that Suenee and I usually go to bed. I haven't done anything," I assured him.

"What about your wife? What does she do during the day?" he wanted to know.

"She teaches classes at the Wat for women," I told him.

"Well, I don't have a clue what they want to see you for then. Good luck," Wilson told me. Duffey was waiting for me in the office.

"What the hell did you do, that the old man wants to see you?" he asked me on the way to Headquarters.

"I haven't done anything!" I answered, perplexed.

The Sergeant Major, a large older man, was waiting for me when we reached the Headquarters tent.

"You're Baker?" he asked.

"Yes, Sergeant Major."

"You must be new here. I don't recognizer you."

"Yes, I'm here TDY from the 83rd. I've only been here a few days."

"Well, the colonel wants to see you about something. He hasn't even told me what it's about yet. Wait here while I check if he's free," he told me before going into an office in the rear, that was partitioned off from the rest of the tent. He came out a few seconds later and waved me over. I was nervous, but noticed that my amulet was warm against my chest.

"Report to the Commander," was all the Sergeant Major told me.

I marched through the door and stopped two paces in front of the desk. There was a tall, thin, older man behind the desk.

"Sir, Sergeant Baker reports to the Commander," I said with a crisp salute.

"At ease, Sergeant. Have a seat," he said after returning my salute, indicating a chair to the left of his desk.

"I imagine you're wondering why I called you up here?" he said after that.

"Yes, sir. I was a bit surprised."

"It's about this intercept the other night. I understand that this radio turned on by itself and recorded this. Is that correct?"

"Yes, sir. That is my understanding. I was at home asleep at the time."

"Yes, that's another thing, but separate from this issue. Can you tell me how a radio that is turned off could do what this one did?" he wanted to know.

"No, sir. I have no idea how it could do that. However, this isn't the first time that my radio has done unusual things by itself."

"Explain that!" he ordered.

"When I was at the Special Forces camp in Cambodia, I turned the radio on one night for my Commander, Captain Warren, to send a report to Ubon. The radio had been set for FM voice when I turned it off. When I turned it on, it immediately started emitting Morse code on an AM Single Sideband frequency. It was the Navy sending a report to 46th Group in Lop Buri about the new offensive the North Vietnamese had tried to launch.

"I copied it and gave it to the Captain to read when he came in. He also wanted to know how we had gotten it. I had no explanation then and don't know anything more now, sir," I told him.

"So you were in Cambodia?" he asked. "Where?"

"I was in the tri-border area where Laos, South Vietnam, and the Thai part of Cambodia come together."

"Yes, we were briefed several weeks ago on the offensive that never got off the ground because of some kind of unknown interference. So you were there then?"

"Yes, sir. Then and for about three months afterward. I spent two months in Bangkok after that."

"So that was nearly six months ago?" he asked.

"Yes, sir. Shortly before the explosions at Attapu."

"You were there for that, too?" he asked, curious.

"Yes, sir."

"That's very interesting, Sergeant. Very interesting, indeed," he said. "However, it doesn't have much bearing on the present situation. However that intercept was achieved, and I don't intend to investigate that, it is fortunate that we picked up that particular transmission.

"The translators and the people in analysis have been going over it since then with some interesting results. The translators had a devil of a time with it, as part of it is in a very obscure dialect of Chinese. The other portion is in Burmese, which is considerably different than Thai.

"It would appear that some people in China are telling some people in Burma, we haven't really identified either party yet, that they need to take back that part of Burma that went over to the Thais more that a hundred and fifty years ago. Presumably by force, as part of the transmission covered supplying weapons, trainers and other material help.

"Obviously, we'll have to try to intercept other transmissions between those parties. We also will try to determine not only who they are but where they are as well. To do that we'll need your radio to be listening for them. Now I understand that you are the only one that knows how to operate it. Is that correct?" the Colonel asked.

"Yes, sir. That is correct. I was trained in a Top Secret school in California before receiving it. I don't know how they do it, but each radio can only be operated by the person it was issued to. That part was never explained to us."

"Yes, that is what your shift NCOIC told us. I want you to be on hand nights for the next two weeks and try to pick up more of these transmissions. They are apparently only at night as we have never picked up one during the day, and given the mountainous terrain between Burma and China, I would imagine that night time is the best time for their transmissions," he finished.

"I'll be on days and nights?" I asked.

"No, you'll be taken off of days for the next two weeks. If there are no more transmissions, then you can go back to days, and we'll just have to try it with our regular nighttime crew. The people at our higher Headquarters were very interested in this when we informed them," he told me.