General Aderholt’s Ho Chi Mihn Trail Adventure Diary

As we bounced thru Laos over the old Ho Chi Minh Trail, past war relics and unexploded ordinance, I smiled, thinking of my first meeting with Brigadier General Harry “Heinie” Aderholt

Months earlier I’d gone to his Bangkok hotel to greet him. A kindly looking elderly gent opened the door and looked critically at me over his reading glasses. Before I could utter ‘hello’, he leaned toward me and loudly asked: “Who the hell are ya, and what the hell ya want?” The General’s no-nonsense style frightened me at first, but within a short time working with him I developed a healthy respect for him. More than that, soon, like other folks around him, I wanted to do whatever it took just to make him happy.A few months later the General and a dozen other retired military men (and women) visited The Trail with North by North-East Laos; what an unusual adventure it was!

Nick Ascot, GM NXNE, and Brigadier General Harry Aderholt (Retired), overlooking the Ho Chi Mihn Trail.

In its heyday thirty years ago, the “Ho Chi Minh Trail” was the most famous real estate in SE Asia. The General wanted to return to visit the central Lao section of The Trail after one of our past clients who’d been there related the trip to him. But with over a dozen people, such a trip would be difficult to say the least; no hotels of any sort; terrible roads or no roads. This would be a challenging adventure.

Although retired now, the General’s group of friends once played influential roles in the Vietnam War. ‘The Trail’ – running hundreds of kilometers north/south through Laos & Cambodia – was the primary supply route used by the North Vietnamese to supply their comrades fighting the Americans in South Vietnam. I had already heard & read much about this subject. ( Blood Road is the primer for those interested in the trail; The Ravens & Air America, are both concerned with the US air operations in Laos).

Visiting the Trail with some of the pilots who spent hundreds of hours flying over it, was an opportunity not to be missed. How would these warriors react to this place? Many lost good friends here to enemy fire. Would they be able to see the contemporary Lao for the lovely people they are? Would the locals accept the veterans?

A hurried trip through Bangkok and into NE Thailand brought the group to Nakorn Phanom to visit the old Airbase there. Many of the fellows had been based for a time in NKP, and it is hard to overstate the importance of this base to the Americans in the overall Vietnam war effort; NKP is the closest point in Thailand to Vietnam, and was, among other things, a base for pilot rescue missions,.

The old airbase is today Nakorn Phanom’s municipal airport. What was once the size of a small city, is today a small airport, with little to suggest its past to the casual visitor. The gents who served at the NKP base explored like kids!

Day 1 – Getting to Laos, onwards to The Trail
After crossing the Mekong, and Lao border formalities at Savannakhet, 5 Toyota Land Cruiser trucks were waiting for the group. Lao guides, drivers and staff greeted us with big smiles, laughing as they loaded bags. Then the caravan headed out Route 9 toward Vietnam and the Trail.

The expedition team at Savannakhet.

Our goal for this day was the town of Xepon (“Tch’pone”) near the VN border. Thirty years ago this area held the largest concentration of Vietnamese troops outside of Vietnam. Since then it was closed to any type of tourism due to the secret classification given it by the Communist Lao government. Ironically however, backpackers passing through over the last 2 years gave the local people a taste of Western culture.

Upon arrival local government officials eagerly spoke of their plans to open the area to tourism while they escorted us to a spot near the VN border to see burnt out shells of tanks & destroyed artillery pieces from an operation called Lamson 719. We found several huge “howitzer” guns which the locals had moved from the hilltops to a spot next to a cemetery - the Lao version of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. They were bent and broken like popsicle sticks – a testament to the firepower once at work in what is today a totally serene place.

Blood Road – the definitive work on the Ho Chi Mihn Trail – held a detailed account of the massive South Vietnamese / US operation Lamson 719. This battle was surely one reason this conflict became known as ‘The Secret War’; both the North Vietnamese and America assured the world they had no troops in Laos.

Colonel Butler, who was a Forward Air Controller, flying frequently over the area (250 missions), related how the South Vietnamese commanders got their men into the area using American choppers, but that the south VN troops were not willing to push forward as planned. Momentum was therefore lost, costing the S.Vietnamese the battle.

The South Vietnamese tank hulks we saw were burnt out shells. The ground around them was heavily pock-marked with 6-12 inch deep holes. Locals told us that these were where CBU cluster bombs had only recently been un-earthed by the bomb squad.

Even now, most kids in this area carry a metal detector everywhere they go. Scrap metal provides extra income, but the detectors also mean locals can protect themselves from Unexploded Ordinance (UXO).

Inspecting unexploded ordinance

Listening to stories over hot dinner made one reflect on how this peaceful place must have once looked, felt and sounded.

Day 2 – North up the Trail – Real 4WD territory
Breakfast was in a Vietnamese noodle shop before we got underway. New road was a pleasure to ride on, and it lasted until the convoy reached a huge, quarry-style, Australian Gold mine. It is hardly amazing that the Lao government makes deals like this with foreign firms all over Laos - concessions for natural resources, traded in part for road building.

Then the road became a sea of bumps again, passing piles of scrap metal detritus left from the VN war. At lunch the NXNE staff made tuna sandwiches while some of the fellows went scavenging. Colonel Butler picked up some empty Chinese mortar shells!

After a lunch of French bread sandwiches & fruit we continued northward for a few more hours, past hundreds of bomb craters, to the village of Na-gnom, to spend the night.

This was to be an interesting evening for the group and for the local villagers. A small party started up around Mr. Hap Lutz, who offered around bottles of Lao beer. Hap was in good form, and told many funny and touching stories from his decades working with the General.

That night we ate jungle-guide Montri’s coconut milk-based Thai curry and vegetables. The drivers slaughtered a goat they bought and BBQ-ed it, and there was lots of delicious Lao beer and local spirits flowing. That night the large group split up and slept in the houses of the village headmen and elders. The accommodations were simple but clean. While it had been a very long day, it seemed to contain only half of what the next day brought!

General Anderholt "debriefing" the expedition team.

Day 3 – Village assistance giving – Mu Gia Pass & Tha Kaek
A freezing cold bath (in the dark) in the little Sae Noi River at 0550hrs got any remaining sleep out of my eyes! The villagers were just getting up and I was surprised to see Sid G walking the 50 ft bamboo bridge over the river….I was hoping nobody would witness my ginger steps into the cold river.

North by North-East always encourages travelers visiting remote areas such as this to bring needed items to donate to villages, headmen and schools. Everyone on this trip brought a bag of school supplies and medicine with them. This village and many more like it are literally and figuratively far from the center. School supplies and sporting goods for kids are always in great need! Many villages do not even have blackboards, much less notebooks for students! At least 30 school children nervously came to see the strange Western visitors. The village school’s principal was very pleased with the donations, even if a bit bewildered! They never see Westerners here, as it is far ‘off the beaten track’. The villagers then made an informal Bai Sii Su Kwan (Ba Si) Ceremony to send the visitors on their way safely.

Bai Sii Ceremony.

A Bai Sii is done by local people on either side of the Mekong for friends who are coming or going on a long journey. The locals believe that one’s spirit can lose bits and pieces when ‘on the road’, and therefore must periodically be called back to center. The master of ceremonies (usually called a Spirit Doctor, or by the old Sanskrit word Brahmin) sings a prayer which can sometimes be pretty long-winded. As time was of the essence this day, Montri breathed a sigh of relief as the Spirit Doctor recited a rather shorter prayer then usual. Then he and the village elders took pieces of sacred cotton string and used them to bind the group to the villagers in friendship. Everyone in our group had at least half a dozen white strings around their wrists as we drove out of the village.

The extremely bumpy road ran though lovely forested areas. Some places looked excellent for an hour’s stop and a swim in the river… little paradises, where one could hardly imagine the reality of bombs falling 30 years earlier.

Noodles and cola were our lunch that day. We continued north and then east to bring us to the Sae Bang Fai River. North by North-East knows this part of the trail well, as we have been here many times, but much had changed in the 6 months since our last visit. Most notably was the absence of large UXO (Unexploded Ordinance).

The most astonishing aspect of this area, until 2002, was the large number of unexploded bombs. At that time one could not drive more than 200ft on this stretch of the trail without seeing at least half a dozen UXO ranging in size from 500lb to 2500lb!

Laos had more bombs dropped on it from ’65 – ’75 than all those dropped in WWII…by all sides combined. This area received most of these bombs. The craters are everywhere. A tree older than 25 years is rare.

Nick’s flashback: Regularly running into the bomb squad guys in this area during 2001-2002, allowed our staff to watch the detonation of many large bombs. Once I hid behind a jeep, about 900 meters from a two thousand pounder the UXO guys detonated. It was different than I expected. Not like Hollywood at all! An enormous BOOM filled my head, and began bouncing around the mountains….I heard it half a dozen times. The air seemed to fill with dust for 500 meters in every direction, and the shock wave was palpable…..it literally shook me up. I also noticed shrapnel cutting branches off of the trees nearby. Scary. I ducked back down fast. That day, I asked the eight or so school children hunkered down with me what they thought of this. ‘Not much’ they replied….it had been this way since they were born, and they knew nothing different. I had difficulty trying to put myself in their shoes.

Crossing the Sae Bang Fai River made clear the need for 4WD Landcruisers. The water was not deep, but it flowed fast enough to foil any regular vehicle. Hilariously, here one of the party walked up the embankment and into the next village ahead of the vehicles. A woman carrying 2 water pails noticed his white skin and was so shocked that she screamed, dropped her buckets and ran! After she got 50 feet she - and everyone who saw - collapsed laughing. When she could breathe again, she got up and walked over to greet us, and look curiously at the group. The most interesting part of this village was a house belonging to the local blacksmith. It was entirely fenced with CBU (cluster bomb) containers.

By 1600hrs the caravan reached the “Dog House”, as the pilots called the bottom of the Mu Gia Pass. Frantic pre-rainy season construction made that stretch of road (only 8 km to the border), the worst stretch anyone had yet experienced. At 1715hrs the General asked to turn the group around back toward Tha Kaek and the Mekong.

Before heading back, everyone wondered at the huge expanse of blue-green mountain and valley that lay before us. Each man in the group was lost in private thought as they surveyed the huge mountains & valleys that lay before them…..How would this scene have looked to a Forward Air Controller in a small O-1 Cessna airplane 25 years ago? How would it have felt to have the guys on the ground doing their best to shoot you down?

The rest is history. All 5 SUVs got back to Tha Kaek after flat tires, diversions, detours and dinner….and all finally bedded down for the night.

Hats off to these pilots and airmen who bravely came back to visit this lovely land which once was not nearly so hospitable. Three cheers also to those hardy ladies who joined this journey. The gents all had a great reason to be here. Their individual personal histories included hundreds of flights, during which the bullets flew at them fast and heavy…from points they visited in the last two days. Many had good friends who crashed and died near hear. So it is understandable that the fellows wanted to visit the area. But the ladies wanted only to please their men, and did so very graciously. This terrain would be tough on a 25 year old, so in summary, this gang ROCKED!

The next week I met the General in Bangkok, and in his straight shooting style told me “Son, it was a great trip, but next trip, here is what we are gonna change…”

School children turn out to inspect the strange visitors.