KSV News: Short Round 043

KSV News: Short Round 04

We are now driving up the western side of South Vietnam. Hard to say where the Central Highlands end and the real mountains begin. But these are mountains and juggle that are not made for humans.  A green, vertical world.

If you draw an imaginary line from Hue City directly west to Laos, there is a town near the border which is tonight’s destination called A Loui.  It is where the NVA brazenly had a soccer field during the American war and was the site of an old French airstrip. Basically it is the entrance to the 13th Valley (for those of you who read the most excellent book with the same name), which is the A Shau Valley.  Just south of A Loui is the well known “Hamburger Hill”.

A Loui is now a major government planning center for this area of Vietnam.  I had visited here on my travels in Vietnam twice before. On one occasion, we by chance ended up at a small restaurant with a dozen of the government employees.  Except for one or two of the older, clearly government bureaucratic types, the rest were young guys who would look like any college graduates in the states.  In fact, most of them spoke pretty good English. We ended up exchanging rounds of beer and thoroughly enjoyed hanging out with them.  This all ended, when boss decided that it wasn’t good for them to mix with American types and had the door shut off between our rooms.

This got me thinking that these young professionals were responsible for running the government and its programs in this section of the country. And making decisions that, in a democracy, would’ve been made by local elected officials.  As we now travel back through the same area, a couple of decades later, it is clear that these young professionals have been very successful in running the government. There are today plenty of modern schools, hospitals, dams on the rivers, electrical power, and everything else that you would expect from a successful, professional government.  There was no “Informed and intelligent electorate” among the locals here to vote on these matters- that was generations away.  But centralized planned government, replacing elected officials, has done a pretty damn good job here.  But I digress………

If I were better at descriptions, this mountain section of western South Vietnam would be something out of Joseph Conrad’s Heart Of Darkness- only vertical.  It is absolutely primordial, vertical, and is an astoundingly beautiful green world.

In my 83 years, I have never seen a road more harrowing and frightening, and yet absolutely gorgeous. I don’t know how the French built it 80 years ago, but this section of the north / south “road” between the Central Highlands to the south and A Loui is literally pinned to the side of jungle cliffs.  Looking up, all is solid jungle and rock face, which is almost vertical. Looking below you is a matching jungle vertical cliff.  It is the most frightening drive I’ve ever taken in my life. Absolutely not for the faint hearted.  About half way to A Loui, we came to a large concrete bridge, which looked very modern and strong- definitely built- way after the original roadway construction.  But it had recently completely collapsed near the center of the bridge span. The bridge section and anything that had been on it, dropped down the cliff to somewhere in the green abyss below. The only possible temporary repair (which we had to use) had recently been cut further into the vertical cliff creating a small, even scarier dirt path.  It was barely wide enough for our van.

I wish I could better describe to you what the jungle was like on this stretch of “road”. It was absolutely primordial, vertical, and astoundingly beautiful. Jurassic Park stuff.

Only occasional small commercial vehicles use this western Route 9 north / south border section.  And absolutely no one uses it for a pleasure drive.  There are regular washouts where the road has been patched and somehow pasted back on to the vertical side wall. Honest, you could go off the downhill side of the road and never be found because no one would know where to start looking.

We are on the east side of a range of significant mountains, similar to the Rocky Mountains in the US, which runs north and south along the Vietnamese / Cambodian and Laotian borders and extends even further north. It is locally known as the “Long Mountain”.  Our drive north is along the eastern side of this Long Mountain range.

Like all ancient invaders, the NVA had to bring significant manpower and supplies across this Long Mountain range, from Cambodia and Laos into South Vietnam.  For millennia, all armies and travelers coming from the west had no choice except to use the very few ancient invasion routes that allowed passage through the Long Mountain.

The reason for my long description of the road we drove, is to emphasize that there is no east west movement possible in this border area because the Long Mountain and the jungles are so impenetrable

But, one of the few natural passages (which became ancient invasion corridors) through the Long Mountain, was,,,,,,,,,,,  the modern day Route 9!

Hence, the strategic importance of having our Khe Sanh Combat Bass complex along this ancient invasion route. The same route and mountain passage that had been used by invaders from the west for centuries before we got there in the American war.  Many in the US, citizens and government alike, doubted the importance of our presence at Khe Sanh.  But our being there prevented this ancient invasion corridor from being wide open for the NVA.   

The enemy fully understood how critical the Route 9 opening in the Long Mountain was to their invasion efforts.  And devoted many thousands of their lives trying unsuccessfully to dislodge us.

We held the line.

We “won” our part of the American war.

SF

Bob Koury:  Website & Digital Manager