Free The Ravens: The True Story of a Secret War by Christopher Robbins Page A

Wayne of the Meo and that if he told you to hit a target - hit the target.’
    They flew north to a valley that seemed as empty as it was peaceful. U Va Lee jerked his thumb downward. ‘That’s where we drop bombs.’
    ‘Why, what’s there?’
    ‘Just drop bombs.’
    It was Mansur’s first solo strike mission in Laos, and, wanting to be sure, he made a couple of low passes through the valley, but could see nothing. He needed reassurance and once more asked, ‘What’s there?’
    ‘Just drop bombs.’
    Having been told by the CIA he could trust U Va Lee without reservation, Mansur proceeded to direct a set of U.S. jet fighters which dropped deadly antipersonnel cluster bomb units (CBU) in the valley. When they landed back at the strip, Mansur wanted to know what they had bombed. ‘Okay, I did what you told me, now you tell me why.’
    The Indian laughed, and slapped Mansur on the back. ‘All my life I have fought here,’ he explained. ‘When we fought the Vietminh they would push us south and we would plant there in that valley. When we would push them north we would harvest. Now we fight the Pathet Lao Communists and when they pushed us south they planted. Today they harvested.’
    Mansur was routinely flying six to eight missions a day. ‘My all-time record for being in the air in one day was eleven hours and forty-five minutes. That’s a long time in an O-1.’ The enemy were only two miles from Na Khang, so a Raven spent almost all of the time he was airborne over the target area, constantly exposed to ground fire. ‘You get to the point when you are flying that much that it’s no longer like flying an airplane but just an extension of your body. You never look at the airspeed indicator, but judge the speed by the sound of the wind in the wires.’
    War was a vocation for U Va Lee, and he had dedicated his life to it, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Now, with the Meo stretched to breaking point, regional commanders were under enormous strain. Their men had taken a terrible beating, after eight years of unrelenting combat against the NVA and Pathet Lao, and the natives were abandoning their villages in droves to escape the war. Some soldiers, exhausted and outdistanced by the enemy, had gone over to the other side. Among such a tight and clannish society as the Meo, a betrayal of this sort was considered the worst sort of crime. And to a man like U Va Lee, who considered hatred of the enemy a given and battling him a constant, a Meo defector was a creature who had automatically forfeited all rights.
    The Indian dealt with such men ruthlessly, as Mansur witnessed one afternoon. Walking toward U Va Lee’s bunker, he saw a small Meo soldier come tumbling head over heels out of the entrance, closely pursued by the Indian himself.
    The Meo soldier lay on the ground, his hands over his head and his legs drawn up into his groin. He made no movement and no sound. U Va Lee stood over him, his eyes bulging with fury and hate. ‘This man is enemy,’ the Indian explained. ‘A Meo who is enemy .’ The Indian took his revolver from its holster and handed it to Mansur. ‘You shoot him.’
    ‘Not me.’
    U Va Lee waved aside the objection. ‘Okay. He enemy.’
    ‘No, I can’t do that.’
    U Va Lee was genuinely confused. ‘You drop bombs on them all day.’
    ‘That’s different.’
    ‘But he enemy .’
    ‘Look, I can’t just shoot a guy lying there like that.’
    U Va Lee nodded. He barked a command at the prostrate figure. The soldier dragged himself to his feet and stood with head bowed. U Va Lee looked expectantly at Mansur, who dangled the revolver idly at his side.
    ‘Why not? Enemy! ’
    ‘He’s just standing there.’
    U Va Lee barked another order at the soldier, who began to run. ‘Now okay?’
    Mansur shook his head. U Va Lee snatched back the revolver, raised it toward the fleeing figure of the soldier, and shot him dead. He turned to look questioningly at Mansur, whose scruples