Chapter 1

The following characters return from Part 3:

Sgt. Bill Baker

Radio Operator, 5’-10” tall, 160 pounds, 25 years old, auburn hair, hazel eyes

Suenee Sa

Bill’s wife, 5’-2” tall, 112 pounds, 34C-23-35, 22 years old, brown eyes, long black hair, oval face, very cute

CSM Sawyer

Command Sergeant Major 46th Group, 6’-6” tall, 275 pounds, 43 years old, black hair, brown eyes

Sophie

CSM Sawyer’s wife, 5’-10” tall, 140 pounds, 38C-25-37, 26 years old, brown eyes, long black hair

Tweed

SFC, Engineer, Bill’s friend and teammate, 5’-9” tall, 155 pounds, 32 years old, blond hair, blue eyes

Phesila

Tweed’s wife, daughter of the Governor of Luang Phrabang, 5’-6” tall, 120 pounds, 20 years old, 36C-23-35, long shiny black hair, brown eyes, stunningly beautiful

COL Thuathao

Senior Colonel, Thai Special Forces, Suenee’s ‘uncle’, 5’-10” tall, 170 pounds, 48 years old, black hair going gray at the temples, brown eyes

COL Page

Commander, 46th Special Forces Group, 5’-11” tall, 190 pounds, 50 years old, gray hair, hazel eyes

LTC Philip Hawkins

Executive Officer, 46th Group, 6’-1” tall, 185 pounds, 46 years old, brown hair, blue eyes.

MAJ Carlson

S-3, 46th Group, 5’-9” tall, 160 pounds, 40 years old, sandy blond hair, gray eyes

LTC Hopkins

J-2, JUSMACTHAI, 6’-0” tall, 175 pounds, 40 years old, black hair, blue eyes

My name is Bill Baker, and I am presently a Staff Sergeant, E-6. I’m assigned as a radio operator to Headquarters, 46th Special Forces Group at Camp Pawaii in Lop Buri, Thailand. I’m married to the sweetest girl in the world. Her name is Suenee Sa and she is Thai. We have one daughter named Lesia (Leck), and we live off post not far from Camp Pawaii and the town of Lop Buri.

The 46th Special Forces Group is co-located with the Headquarters of Thai Special Forces at Camp Pawaii. Since arriving here in mid-August of 1967 following a tour with an Advisory Team in Luang Phrabang, (See Amulets III for the details), I have discovered that the 46th is involved in a lot more than just its role as a Headquarters for the A-teams and Adviser Teams that assist the Thai Army in the field.

There is also a large detachment devoted to assisting Thai Special Forces with training, and another detachment that assists and provides training to the Thai Border Police. With its extensive borders, Greater Thailand has a great need for both branches. Additionally there are advisers to the Thai Ranger units. I had become aware of all of these different missions while working at my job in the communications center at the 46th Group Headquarters.

Lop Buri is located 130 km (81 miles) north of Bangkok and is an ancient town. Artifacts found in the area have been traced back to the Bronze Age some 3500 years ago. The town itself is believed to have been founded in 648 AD by King Kalavarndish from Northwest India. It was called Lavo for much of its early existence. Over the centuries the town was influenced by many other cultures: Indian, Mom, and Khmer. Its existence is recorded during various eras in Chinese records. The conquering Khmers built many impressive temples in the city during their rule. The remains of these temples still draw tourists to the area.

The town eventually came under the influence of the Thai Kingdoms of Sukhothai and later Ayutthaya. In 1665, King Narai the Great of Ayutthaya ordered a summer palace built there on the east bank of the Lop Buri river, and made Lop Buri the second capital of the country. After King Narai’s death, the town fell into disuse.

In 1856 King Mongkut, Rama IV of the Chakri dynasty, ordered King Narai’s palace to be renovated, and the city restored as an inland Royal City. Lavo was also renamed Lop Buri in this period.

The town finally regained its importance in 1938, when the Thai Prime Minister, Marshal Phibul Songkram, developed the Lop Buri area to be the major Thai Army training center.

Lop Buri is located east of the Chao Phraya River valley between the Lop Buri River and the Pa Sak River. Thirty percent of the surrounding area is low alluvial plain. The remaining seventy percent is intermixed between plains and hills with the Phetchabun Mountains in the East leading to the Korat plateau.

In September of 1967, Lop Buri was no longer the sleepy rural military town it had been. Due to communist insurgencies, over the last twenty years, its facilities had been greatly expanded, and today there were three Thai Special Forces Training Facilities in the area along with an Artillery Training Facility, a Thai Ranger Training Facility, and, as I later learned, the Thai Army Sniper School.

We were hardly settled into our new house in late August, 1967, when Suenee suggested (rather strongly) that we needed to visit her parents in Thon Buri. Our daughter Lesia, who Suenee always calls Leck, was thirteen weeks old, and her parents hadn’t seen her yet. Additionally, Suenee hadn’t seen her parents since shortly after we were married, nearly a year ago, and truthfully she missed them.

On Saturday morning, the 2nd of September, we left our new home in a car that Suenee had arranged through her Amulet connections and headed for Bangkok. We arrived at her parents house in Thon Buri just after 1100 hrs that morning. Suenee’s parents were very surprised to see us and our (relatively) new addition.

Suenee greeted her father, Lao, with a traditional very respectful Sawat Dee and wai before she rushed into his arms and hugged him with a sigh, while I held the baby. He was, after all, the only other male who could touch her without dying.

“Oh, Father,” she whispered in Thai, “I have missed you sooo much. I saw Uncle Thuathao in Luang Phrabang and wanted to hug him so, but I knew that I couldn’t and was so sad,” Suenee finished in tears.

“Yes, my daughter. It is the one negative in being dedicated to the Amulets, but there are many more positives,” her father told her.

Suenee’s mother, Bounam, was very excited to see her most recent granddaughter and soon whisked Suenee and the baby off to a room upstairs to talk and allow Lesia to sleep. That is after all what three month-old’s do.

Suenee’s father shook hands with me after the more formal wai greeting and his daughter had released him. I could even understand much more of what he said to me now, as my knowledge of the Thai language had increased that much.

It was some time later, when Suenee came back downstairs, that she told her father of my being awarded the “Yodhim” medal of the Honorable Order of Rama. My father-in-law was greatly impressed with this, and even spoke to me in English, which he had an excellent command of, but seldom used any more since retiring.

“I am impressed that you have obtained such an honor, son-in-law. It certainly validates my daughters choice of you as a husband. Although, I understand that the choice was actually made by the Amulets. Still this is an achievement worthy of a great warrior. You must tell me how you won this. I know from old friends still in the government that there were serious attacks on the borders of the Kingdom earlier this year, and I presume that it was during one of these attacks that your performance warranted such a prestigious award.”

I related to my father-in-law the events of last March in quite some detail. Since he was knowledgeable about the Amulets, I didn’t need to leave anything out.

“Yes, son-in-law Bill, you are definitely worthy of the honor associated with the “Yodhim” medal. Do you know when the award ceremony will be?” he asked.

“Colonel Thuathao only told us that the award ceremony would be held in Bangkok, and that we would be notified when to be there,” I informed him.

“Ah yes, my old friend Thuathao. I haven’t seen him in some time. I’m sure that he will be here for the ceremony. You must come as early as possible and stay here. I will send him an invitation to stay here also, although he needs no invitation, being my good friend. It will be good to see him again!” my father-in-law told us enthusiastically.

We had been joined during my tale by Suenee’s brother and two of her sisters. Her brother speaks very good English, but my two sisters-in-law speak very little, and he had to interpret for them. They too had been impressed that I was to be awarded the medal. I’m sure that Suenee informed her mother about me receiving the medal, because my mother-in-law was much more friendly to me than she had been previously.

The remainder of our visit was fairly peaceful, and on Monday afternoon, the car that we arrived in returned, and we were driven back to Lop Buri, arriving at around 1900 that evening. I know that Suenee gave the driver, an older woman, who she chatted with during both trips, some money, but I didn’t know how much, and wasn’t worried about it, as we had an excellent ride both ways. Suenee had arranged many such things, through the Amulets during our time together, and they had always worked out well.

Lesia had slept the whole of the way back, but was awake now and hungry. Suenee fed her first and after she dropped off to sleep, Suenee fixed us some dinner. We were in bed, but only to sleep soon after that, as tomorrow was a duty day.

We had missed quite a bit of sleep during our visit to my in-laws. There had been a party at a restaurant on Saturday night, a visit to the Amulet’s Wat on Sunday, and a late dinner at another restaurant on Sunday night. Monday had been spent getting ready to leave, once we got up.

“My Bill, we cannot visit my parents that often,” Suenee told me, as we lay in bed that night, “There is too much partying in Bangkok.” I was relatively well rested for work the next day.

My job in the communications center isn’t very strenuous, and I have adequate time for PT each day. I had started running after we were settled in here and did other exercises also to keep in shape. Running was mainly restricted to the mornings, as it gets very hot in Lop Buri, and running after about 0830 isn’t recommended.

Since we usually receive the consolidated reports from our B-Detachments during the morning hours, I had started running at 0615, just after full daylight, then showering and having a light breakfast before reporting to work at 0800.

Of course the one slight fault with this schedule was that I was the go-to-guy when communications were difficult, as my Top Secret radio always seemed to be able to pick up messages even in the worst conditions. That meant I was often held over at work on a lot of nights for late, and often very late, work receiving message traffic. Suenee, of course, understood this, but that didn’t make it any easier on our life, or my PT schedule.