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By Al Zdon
His experience in fighting the war against the communists began in 1962 when he was 18 years old.
He was wounded the first time when he was captured. The enemy tied
telephone wire around his arms so tight that he still bears the scars, 44 years later.
He escaped and rejoined his nation's army.
He was wounded the second time by a grenade that almost blew his legs off. He
recovered, and rejoined his nation's army.
He trained in France and the United States, and worked his way up to the rank of major.
After 13 years, the war ended. He was put in a prison camp where his stayed
for 12 years. When he was finally released, he moved to America.
For Khao Insixiengmay, the war in Southeast Asia was an experience that involved a quarter century of his life. The first 13 years were spent
in fighting a variety of enemies of his homeland of Laos: The Chinese, the Vietnamese, and the Pathet Lao. The last 12 years were spent serving time in a prisoner of war camp and being called a traitor to his
country.
Khao, now 62 but not showing his years, was born and raised in the city of Savannakhet along the Mekong River in southern Laos. Across the river was Thailand.
His father had been a soldier, fighting
for the colonial French. Khao had dreams of being an English teacher, but he gravitated toward the military. He wanted to be a pilot, and he enlisted, but when it came time to take his physical, he found out he was
too short. Instead he was sent to a military school in Vientiane, the capital of Laos. The nation needed officers, and so after only one year's training he was made a warrant officer and sent to duty in January,
1962.
Khao was made a patrol leader in the 15th Airborne regiment of the Royal Lao armed forces. The regiment was soon sent to the very northern tip of Laos to take on both the North Vietnamese and the Chinese
troops who had occupied that part of Laos. The Pathet Lao, or the native Lao communists, was also part of the mix.
The fighting near Louang Namtha provided a quick education for Khao. "They asked me to go out to
the rear of the Chinese forces and disrupt their line of communications. They chased us out. We had been taught in school that we were the bravest and the strongest, and this was the first time I learned that they
were stronger than we were. This was real, and they chased us away.
"We had to hide in the bushes for a day with no food. It was raining and we were surrounded by the enemy." In the end, Khao was able to get
away.
As the year wore on, he was commissioned and became the executive officer of his company. His company and a sister company went in to relieve another company and they were engaged in a battle that went on
for three days and three nights.
"In the morning, I went to see the company commander. He was sharing a foxhole with the other company commander, and it was hit by a shell. They were both dead." Khao was 18 years
old and in charge of both companies.
The strength of the companies had been reduced by 50 percent casualties in that action, and so they were combined into one company. Khao was ordered to take his men north and
engage the Chinese. There were reports that 7,000 Chinese troops had crossed the border.
"We tried to make an ambush on the Chinese, but our forward position fired too early. Instead of following the road, the
Chinese circled behind us and ambushed us." Khao moved his forces into a new position, but once again the Chinese attacked from the rear.
"They did it differently than any military tactics we knew. We weren't
prepared for this kind of warfare. This was a different strategy. They were too smart."
Later that night, in the dark, Khao was grabbed by a Chinese soldier. "I just gave him my M-1 rifle and took off running.
They chased us. I could see the tracer bullets going by me, and I think I ran faster than the bullets. I ran for four hours." In the end, Khao's force was reduced from 135 soldiers to 75.
The Royal Lao army was
in full retreat and disarray. Khao was told to provide a rear guard while the army escaped into Thailand. "They said we had the strongest company, and we were to stay behind. We walked west for five days and five
nights."
Khao was only about 30 miles from the Thai border, and he and his companion were already dreaming about getting a good meal in a Thai restaurant when they were captured. "We were talking about how much
money we had and how good the food was going to be.
"We were looking backward and not forward, and there were about 25 of the enemy in front of us, waiting for us." One of the enemy aimed his carbine at Khao from
close range, and Khao was shot right through his left arm during the struggle. "They tried to kill me. I was very lucky. I felt something hot go through my arm."
It was May 17, 1962, at 4:25 in the afternoon.
Khao had been in the army for about four months.
"For 15 days I was tied up." Khao was bound with telephone wire around his upper arms. "They tied it too tight. My hands were swollen up and black. I cried out to
them, 'Please, I feel very bad.'"
Finally, his captors relented and Khao was released from the bondage. He and others were ordered to stay in a house with a family. There was no medicine for his wounded
arm, but it healed anyway. He could tell their presence wasn't appreciated. "They didn't like people from the south. We had strange accents, and they said we were crazy."
After three months, including many
sessions of learning communist doctrine, Khao discovered that his and other prisoners' lives were in jeopardy. It was time to leave. Khao led an escape with nine other prisoners. They were supposed to be foraging
for food.
For seven days they walked through the rugged countryside, using the sun to get their direction since they had no compass. They finally got to the Mekong River where they called for help. The forces on
the other side were suspicious. "We put our hands up and said, 'Don't shoot.'" Finally a boat was sent to pick them up.
"The first thing I did was to wash my shirt. It was full of blood and it smelled very
bad."
Over the next few years, with the financing of the American government, Khao underwent a great deal of military training, first in France and then several times in the United States. He came to the U.S. in
1966 to Lackland Air Force Base to learn military terminology, map reading, and more English, "so we could work with the Americans."
He went to Ft. Knox and was introduced to tank warfare. He also went through
officer basic training. "We had to learn to fight the American way."
Back in Laos, he was assigned to a Special Guerilla Unit, or SGU. The Royal Lao traditional army forces were being demobilized and the guerilla
units were taking their place as the war in Vietnam was heating up. The U.S. wanted to use the SGUs to harass the Ho Chi Minh Trail, running in a 50 mile corridor down the middle of Laos. The trail was used to bring
supplies to the communist forces in South Vietnam.
"It was not a single trail, but a whole series of roads. If you bombed one road, they would switch to another road while they repaired the first road. There was
no way to block it."
It was during this time that Khao was present for a sad historical moment. He was clearing an area of the enemy, when an American helicopter landed to bring rice to the local people. An
American officer named McNaulty got off the chopper, and Khao immediately tried to push him back onto the aircraft because of the heavy fire in the area. It was too late, though, as McNaulty took a bullet in the
forehead. He was the first American officer killed by the communists in Laos. Khao is mentioned, because of that fact, in at least one history book of the era.
Khao had been married in 1964, and he and wife had
six children as the war continued on for the next 11 years.
In August, 1969, while fighting on the Plain of Jars, Khao was serving as the battalion executive officer. He was sent behind enemy lines on a mission,
and a grenade went off right next to him. He was severely wounded, with five shrapnel holes in his legs, a lacerated arm, and pieces of metal in his eye and mouth.
A telegram was sent to his wife that he was
severely wounded, and using his American connections, he was evacuated to a hospital near his home. He was hospitalized for three months.
"When I was in the hospital, they needed interpreters so the American
doctors could talk to the patients. So they used me. They'd push me along in my wheelchair, with my arm all bandaged up and my head in a big bandage, and I'd do interpreting."
He asked to be sent home so he
could see his children. At that time he was still encumbered with a cast, but near his home Khao put his leg in the water and as the cast dissolved, he unwound the bandages.
He was on crutches for a long time,
but he found work in the headquarters of the chief of operations in his military region. He would fly out twice a day in a small plane to gather information from the military sites on the ground and then do
operational reports.
"They paid me $5 an hour and that was great. I'd get a check at the end of the month for a thousand dollars. I thought I was a rich man."
In 1971, Khao was back in the United States at Ft.
Benning for the officer's advanced course. In early 1972, he was back at duty, and his rank had risen to captain.
For several years, the Lao government was involved in a battle in the highlands of Laos. The
government would take over territory in the dry season when they could maneuver and use U.S. air support, and the communists would recapture the territory in the wet season.
Khao said his training made a great
difference in his ability to lead his troops. "Now I knew how to maneuver a unit, how to organize our forces, how to prepare for an action, how to do reconnaissance, how to patrol, how to attack.
"With what I
learned, I knew I'd never be overrun again. I'd simply move my forces. I became a very strong commander. Now it was I who could do something that the enemy did not expect. I knew I could win."
Not that life was
easy. Khao can't remember how many times an enemy mortar exploded only a few feet from him. Plus, because he could speak English, it was his job to call in the U.S. 104s for a bombing run, and in his advanced
position, the task was very dangerous. "Sometimes I'd only be 200 meters from the target. I'd watch the air strike and almost get killed by the fragments."
One time he was observing from a building when fragments
hit the frame of the window he was looking out of. He jumped for the ground, and a mortar exploded a few feet away. He was unscathed, but shaken. "I said, 'This is too much for me today.'"
After the 1973 pull-out
of American forces in Vietnam, the war went downhill for the Lao forces. Khao's forces moved westward and southward to get away.
In one action, he needed to stop a column of enemy tanks, but he only had two
anti-tank shells left. "I asked the gunner where the rest of the shells were, and he said they got wet and he threw them away." Khao got his men into position. "Two rounds came very close, and I was very scared. But
we fired our two rounds, and the tanks turned around. I had learned at Ft. Knox that tank drivers can see very little, and if they don't know where something is coming from, they will turn around."
"I would tell
our people that tank drivers are scared people. We needed to build up our confidence. This was our country, and we have a right to defend our country. I would tell our troops that the enemy has low morale, not
us."
Also during this time, Khao led rescue missions that brought back nine American fliers, five from a helicopter crash and four from a supply plane crash in the jungle. "We had to move very fast to get to them
before the enemy did. I didn't even wait for orders, I just went."
In 1975, as Vietnam fell, so did Laos. "The communists took over Laos not by war but by words. They were very tricky." The Royal Lao troops were
told they were being gathered so they could join the new country, but instead over 30,000 were put in prison camps.
Major Khao was a prize prisoner because of his war record. He was sent to an area on the eastern
side of Laos on the Vietnam border where there was little chance for escape. For several years, he was joined by his family in captivity, but when his wife got sick, she and four of their children went back home.
"Even after I was in camp for 10 years, I'd still hear my name on the radio. They were still using me as an example of a traitor to the country. But I never killed any Pathet Lao, only Vietnamese." The prisoners
did subsistence farming, and were allowed a small amount of rice most days. They often survived on potato leaves.
In 1987, after 12 years of captivity, Khao was in bad shape. "They told me I had no hope, that I
would stay there forever. They said I had done crimes to the people and to the country. They said I had sided with the enemy and called in air strikes.
"I became very sick. I had diarrhea and I was almost dead.
I was mentally dead too. I was almost blind.
"They still had almost 200 officers in prison camp then, and I was one of the last ones to be released."
Khao went home. He was sick, and he was broke. He had no
money and little chance of making a living. Fortunately, a friend who had been released earlier and immigrated to the United States sent him a ticket.
For a time Khao worked in a church, and he had other jobs. At
this time he is the executive director of Lao-America, an agency that helps Lao people through the problems of life in a new country, including gaining citizenship. He was able to earn money and send for his
family.
Khao himself is now a U.S. citizen, but he is not entitled to any government benefits. None of the native Southeast Asian people who fought for the United States during the Vietnam War are eligible
for benefits. He is not considered a veteran despite 12 years of service under U.S. command.
Khao is still struggling to bring his grandchildren to America. He was able to bring his wife and four children to
America, but not two other children. One of them has since died, and he has run into a stone wall trying to bring his grandchildren over.
Overall, though, he has loved his experience in America. He is one of 300
Lao veterans in Minnesota. "I have been treated quite well."
Khao said he would like to see more recognition for the Lao veteran in the United States, and the role they played in the war. In Minnesota, because of
its large Hmong population, there is some understanding of the role that group played in Vietnam and Laos, but not the other Lao. "Since the Lao people are very quiet and peaceful, we keep ourselves calm and so it
is hard to put issues that concern us out to the public."
One issue is the number of Lao veterans, particular those who were made invalids by the war, who still live in Laos. He would like to see the American
government do something to help these veterans.
And he would like to see more comradeship between the Lao veterans and the American veterans they fought alongside for so many years.
"I want to invite all
American veterans to Lao Veterans Day on March 24," Khao said. The event will be held at the National Guard Armory at Broadway and Central in Minneapolis.
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