My idea of shutting myself away in my lonely garret and writing, coming out into the fresh air every now and then, just to make sure neither North Korea or the United States haven’t turned the world into a nuclear holocaust, was simply a pipe dream.
Being single again doesn’t abrogate you of the same responsibilities you have before you became single. You still had children, and those children have children, and, yes, you can see where this is going.
The mobile phone, so silent for the past few days, makes the unusual sound it makes when a message arrives.
Thank heaven for tech-savvy granddaughters!
And before you say, quite casually, that I would be better off without technology, after all, all Hemingway had was a typewriter, I’m afraid to say there is no Luddite in me.
In fact, do Luddites still exist?
So, as I said, the phone dings, and as I’m not expecting anything, I try to ignore it. Three minutes later it dings again, and it’s a warning. The Gods are getting impatient.
It’s a message to pick up the grandchildren from school and deliver them home. It’s something I haven’t done in a while, but it’s an opportunity to see them, and they always have words of wisdom as only a thirteen and ten-year-old can.
It’s a while since I have. I suspect my involvement had been curtailed somewhat because their nanna had been available, and the more preferred option.
Or maybe they had just asked their mother to get me to pick them up so I could see them. I had said, a while back, I was relatively reluctant to go around to see them because of how awkward it might be, and to give them time to adjust to the new arrangement the divorce had brought about.
And since I’ve been spending all my time recently immersed in conspiracies, was this one perpetrated by my daughter in law?
In 1974 a 26-year-old farmer, Yang Jide, was drilling a well and found fragments of the terracotta soldiers and bronze weapons.
What was discovered later was one of the biggest attended burial pits of China’s first feudal Emperor, Qin Shi Huang. In the following years remains had been found in 3 pits, yielding at least 8,000 soldiers and horses, and over 100 chariots. The soldiers were infantry, cavalry, and others.
Emperor Qin was born in 259 BC and died in 210 BC. He began building a mausoleum for himself at the foot of Mount Li when he was 13. Construction took 38 years, from 247 BC to 208 BC. It was divided into 3 stages and involved 720,000 conscripts.
The pits of pottery figures are 1.5 km east of Emperor Qin’s mausoleum. Pit 1 has about 6,000 terracotta armored warriors and horses and 40 wooden chariots. Pit 2 is estimated to have over 900 terracotta warriors and 350 terracotta horses with about 90 wooden chariots. Pit 3 had so far yielded only 66 pottery figures and one chariot drawn by four horses.
Official records say it was discovered later that it was likely Xiang Yu, a rebel, intentionally damaged the Mausoleum and the soldiers in the pits, by setting fire to the wooden roof rafters, and these fell on and broke the warriors into pieces.
However, we were told that after the terracotta warriors were completed, the Emperor ordered the builders to be killed so that they would not tell anyone about the warriors, and then of those that remained alive deliberately smashed all of the artifacts.
The thing is, all of the terracotta figures that have been found are in pieces, and they need computers to piece them back together again.
The visit: The first impression is the size of the car park and the number of buses parked in the lot, and a hell of a lot more outside up the road an off on side streets. Obviously, it costs money to park in the parking lot.
The other first impressions; the numbers waiting to get in were not as many as yesterday outside the forbidden city, in fact, a lot less.
Be warned there’s a long walk from the entrance gate where your bags are scanned and a body scan as well, before admittance. This walk is through a landscaped area which it is expect might sometime in the future reveal more soldiers, or other artifacts.
At the end of the walk that takes about ten minutes, you can get a one-way ride to the second checkpoint, but we opted not to as no one else in our group did.
That walk is the warm-up exercise to an organized viewing of the exhibits after going through a second ticket checkpoint. On the other side, we had to hand our tickets back to the tour guide which was disappointing not to end up with a memento of actually having been there.
So, on the other side in the courtyard, the guide told us the most important parts of the exhibition, that we should spend most of the time looking at pit 1, and then spent a little time in 2 which is only there in the first stages of excavation. Then move onto the museum if only to see the replica chariots.
We do.
The chariots were small but interesting
The horses were better and intricately detailed
These are soldiers, perhaps complete examples of those types found in the end pit.
This is one of the archers. You can tell by the way he wears his hair.
Pit 2
The excavation of this pit has only just begun, so it is possible to see where they have carefully removed the top cover, and you can see the broken parts of the warriors lying in a heap.
Some parts of the warriors are more discernible closer up
These parts are carefully extracted and taken to the ‘hospital’ where they are digitised and the computer will match each part with the warrior it belongs to.
Pit 1
This has quite a number of standing soldiers that have been glued back together, but not necessarily complete and I notice a number if the statues were incomplete. And if they cannot find the missing pieces, then they are not added to or filled in.
The scale of the pit is enormous, and they have hardly scratched the surface in the restoration process.
What is there is a number of horses as well.
That’s at the front of the pit, a long line of statues, and what is clear is the location of the well where the first fragments were found by a farmer.
There are about eight lines of soldiers, and some lining the sides.
Midway down there is a large area currently under excavation
At the back is the hospital where the soldiers are reassembled. There’s nearly a hundred in the various stages of rebuilding. These days the soldiers are rebuilt using computer imaging.
The hospital area is where they are put back together
And these are some of the statues in various stages of reconstruction
Another two views of the size and scale of the reconstruction project
The coffee shop is also a sales centre, but there are too many people waiting for coffee and too few places to sit down.
The problem is, there are familiar faces and a question of who is a friend and who is foe made all the more difficult because of the enemy, if it was the enemy, simply because it didn’t look or sound or act like the enemy.
Now, it appears, his problems stem from another operation he participated in.
When I woke up, it was in a whole new world, but not necessarily of pain.
It was a different room, not quite dark, not hot or cold, looked much like a hospital room layout with a hospital bed, and bright lights outside the doors.
I had no idea if it was daylight or night. Classic disorientation procedure before a different sort of interrogation.
What I also realised, though I was not sure why was that the casts and bandages I had back at the previous base hospital were gone, and everything looked, well, different.
That there was nothing wrong with me.
It’s a terrible thing to realise your own people had basically told you a web of lies about your condition, and how the mind adjusted to those lies. And yet, I would have sworn on a stack of bibles my pain was real.
Drugs. Not only could they do good, but they could also do some very bad things, to the mind and the body. At a guess, I would say it was for Breeman’s benefit. If I’d come back in one piece there would be a truckload of questions.
So, I’d been moved, and kept under the whole time. And if there was nothing wrong with me, why was I still in what looked like a hospital? Maybe it wasn’t. There was only one bed in the room. Perhaps it was a cell for recovering transportees.
My worst fears then, a black site.
My waking must have triggered an alarm because I heard the door open and someone come into the room. The exact position of the door was hidden by a curtain, but I could see the light from outside intensify when it opened and slowly drop ass it closed.
The curtain moved on its rings to show a man in a white coat, perhaps a doctor, but more likely the interrogator or his assistant coming to check the viability of their target.
I had to ask, “Where am I?”
“In a camp, at a location, I’m not at liberty to disclose.”
“When did I get here?”
“Yesterday, late last night. It was busy. We had three new arrivals. You must be on the right side because you didn’t arrive in chains, the other two did.”
He took my temperature, blood pressure and some other tests, and wrote the numbers on a page in a file.
“You haven’t reacted to the serum we gave you. That’s good.” He saw my look of concern. “Oh, it’s only used for transporting injured people from one base to another. It helps to minimise the external forces causing them unnecessary pain.”
“Apparently I’m not injured.”
“No. Not quite sure what happened there, but, whatever happened, it’s above my pay grade. By the way, don’t try to leave this room. There’s a guard outside who had been told to shoot first and ask questions later. I’ve seen the results of her work.”
There is always something to be found that can be very interesting, and sometimes, when following more obscure links in web pages, you can either finish up having your computer trashed, or you find a gem.
As you can imagine, when I saw the CIA, I thought, OK, this fits my penchant for conspiracies and subterfuge, and when I stumbled across this thing called the Phoenix Program. Whether it existed or not, one can never sure when reading about CIA activities, its premise gives me an avenue to attach a few shady characters and let them run with it.
Then, of course, there was a film which I noticed was on cable TV, so I watched it. Air America, and whether that was true or not, it gave me another idea, and so the characterization of Colonel Davenport will fit into both these scenarios.
I suspect there may have been one or two more enterprising officers who saw an opportunity to not only appear to fulfill the parameters of their mission, but also make a little money on the side, setting up an operation within an operation, whether it’s to move into a black market arms supply, or moving and selling drugs from what was called the golden triangle that may or may not have included Cambodia.
That also lends itself to Davenport, when Bill finally catches on to what he is up to, arranging for his capture and removal to a prisoner of war campo over the border in Cambodia. It could also probably have been in Laos, at the CIA may or may not have been running an operation there as well.
There is so much now to consider.
I now have to find out about airbases and personnel, come up with a suitable band of misfits, find out what sort of aircraft and land transport could be involved in moving the contraband, and a little more about Saigon back in the mid-sixties.
Beijing west railway station is about eight kilometers from the Forbidden City, located at East Lianhuachi Road, Fengtai District. Most trains traveling between south central, southwest, northwest, and south China are boarded here.
This place is huge and there are so many people here, perhaps the other half of Beijing’s population that wasn’t in the forbidden city.
Getting into the station looked like it was going to be fraught with danger but the tour guide got us into the right queue and then arranged for a separate scanner for the group to help keep us all together
Then we decided to take the VIP service and got to waiting room no 13, the VIP service waiting room which was full to overflowing. Everyone today was a VIP. We got the red hat guy to lead us to a special area away from the crowd.
Actually, it was on the other side of the gate, away from the hoards sitting or standing patiently in the waiting room. It gave us a chance to get something to eat before the long train ride.
The departure is at 4 pm, the train number was G655, and we were told the trains leave on time. As it is a high-speed train, stops are far and few between, but we’re lucky, this time, in that we don’t have to count stations to know where to get off.
We’re going to the end of the line.
However, it was interesting to note the stops which, in each case, were brief, and you had to be ready to get off in a hurry.
These stops were Shijiazhuang, Zhengzhou East, Luoyang Longmen, Huashan North, and Weinan North. At night, you could see the lights of these cities from a distance and were like oases in the middle of a desert. During the day, the most prominent features were high rise apartment blocks and power stations.
A train ride with a difference
China’s high-speed trains, also known as bullet or fast trains, can reach a top speed of 350 km/h (217 mph).
Over 2,800 pairs of bullet trains numbered by G, D or C run daily connecting over 550 cities in China and covering 33 of the country’s 34 provinces. Beijing-Shanghai high-speed train link the two megacities 1,318 km (819 mi) away in just 4.5 hours.
By 2019, China keeps the world’s largest high-speed rail (HSR) network with a length totaling over 35,000 km (21,750 mi).
To make the five and a half hours go quicker we keep an eye on the speed which hovers between 290 and 305 kph, and sitting there with our camera waiting for the speed to hit 305 which is a rare occurrence, and then, for 306 and then for 307, which happened when we all took a stroll up to the restaurant car to find there had nothing to eat.
I got a strange flavored drink for 20 yuan.
There was a lady manning a trolley that had some food, and fresh, maybe, fruit on it, and she had a sense of humor if not much English.
We didn’t but anything but the barrel of caramel popcorn looked good.
The good thing was, after hovering around 298, and 299 kph, it finally hit 300.
We get to the end of the line, and there is an announcement in Chinese that we don’t understand and attempts to find out if it is the last station fall on deaf ears, probably more to do with the language barrier than anything else.
Then, suddenly the train conductor, the lady with the red hat, comes and tells us it is, and we have fifteen minutes, so we’re now hurrying to get off.
As the group was are scattered up and down the platform, we all come together and we go down the escalator, and, at the bottom, we see the trip-a-deal flags.
X’ian,and the Xi’an North Railway Station
Xi’an North Railway Station is one of the most important transportation hubs of the Chinese high-speed rail network. It is about 8.7 miles (14 km) from Bell Tower (city center) and is located at the intersection of the Weiyang Road and Wenjing Road in Weiyang District.
This time we have a male guide, Sam, who meets us at the end of the platform after we have disembarked. We have a few hiccups before we head to the bus. Some of our travelers are not on his list, but with the other group. Apparently a trip-a-deal mix-up or miscommunication perhaps.
Then it’s another long walk with bags to the bus. Good thing its a nicely air-conditioned newish bus, and there’s water, and beer for 10 yuan. How could you pass up a tsing tao for that price?
Xi’an is a very brightly lit up city at night with wide roads. It is very welcoming, and a surprise for a city of 10 million out in the middle of China.
As with all hotels, it’s about a 50-minute drive from the railway station and we are all tired by the time we get there.
Tomorrow’s program will be up at 6, on the bus 8.40 and off to the soldiers, 2.00 late lunch, then train station to catch the 4.00 train, that will arrive 2 hours later at the next stop. A not so late night this time.
The Grand Noble Hotel
Grand Noble Hotel Xi’an is located in the most prosperous business district within the ancient city wall in the center of Xi’an.
The Grand Noble Hotel, like the Friendship Hotel, had a very flash foyer with tons of polished marble. It sent out warning signals, but when we got to our room, we found it to be absolutely stunning. More room, a large bathroom, air conditioning the works.
Only one small problem, as in Beijing the lighting is inadequate. Other than that it’s what I would call a five-star hotel. This one is definitely better than the Friendship Hotel.
In the center of the city, very close to the bell tower, one of the few ancient buildings left in Xi’an. It is also in the middle of a larger roundabout and had a guard with a machine gun.
Sadly there was no time for city center sightseeing.
The problem is, there are familiar faces and a question of who is a friend and who is foe made all the more difficult because of the enemy, if it was the enemy, simply because it didn’t look or sound or act like the enemy.
Now, it appears, his problems stem from another operation he participated in.
“So,” Lallo said, “you’re telling me you landed separately, Treen and his group advanced towards their position without waiting for your team, that shortly after landing you heard gunfire exchanged, that the members of your team broke ranks and went to help their comrades and that all of them, as far as you were aware at the time, had been killed or captured.”
“Yes.”
“And the two operatives you’d come to rescue?”
“At the time, I had no idea what their status was, but I did make a preliminary assumption that if our mission was blown, then they would hardly be left alive unless the enemy thought they had some strategic value.”
“Or intelligence?”
“It hadn’t occurred to me at the time because my job was to simply to aid the extraction team. To be honest, I had no idea who they were or what their value was.”
That was not exactly the truth because I could hardly say I hadn’t overheard a conversation between Treen, the briefing officers, and an unseen, unnamed officer discussing the two operatives, and the fact it was imperative we get them out at any cost. It wasn’t said why, but I could guess.
It didn’t take long to realize that if our arrival had been known, so would the location and worth of the two we were to rescue. I didn’t think they were killed out of hand, not until they’d told the enemy’s interrogators everything they knew.
And I got the impression they knew enough to cause our whole operation in that country ended up with a great deal of irreparable damage.
No wonder they wanted to sweep it under the carpet.
I watched Lallo scribble a long not over several pages. Was his conclusion the same as mine, but based on truth rather than hearsay?
Then, “Were you met by the person who has been referred to as the so-called source?”
“No.”
“Do you know if Treen’s group were met?”
“No. I was given to understand that source had gone quiet, I suppose another word for either captured or defected to the other side.”
“Apparently there was a report that the agent in situ was going to be at the landing site.”
“Well, there’s your explanation as to why the mission was blown from the start. Whoever it was, was either captured, or a double agent, and told the enemy of our plans.”
“A reasonable assumption in the circumstances, but not necessarily correct.”
“And you know this because…”
I was curious. The agent’s defection would explain everything.
“That agent resurfaced three days ago, again asking for repatriation, and is in the air to a secure site as we speak.”
He stood and took a moment to stow the pencil in the binding of the notebook before giving me his attention.
“We will also be in their air tomorrow, headed for the same secure location. I’m, sure you will be available for that interrogation, because I, too, have serious doubts about this agent’s shall we say, loyalties.”
That still didn’t mean I wasn’t going to finish up at a black site, or worse.
There is always something to be found that can be very interesting, and sometimes, when following more obscure links in web pages, you can either finish up having your computer trashed, or you find a gem.
As you can imagine, when I saw the CIA, I thought, OK, this fits my penchant for conspiracies and subterfuge, and when I stumbled across this thing called the Phoenix Program. Whether it existed or not, one can never sure when reading about CIA activities, its premise gives me an avenue to attach a few shady characters and let them run with it.
Then, of course, there was a film which I noticed was on cable TV, so I watched it. Air America, and whether that was true or not, it gave me another idea, and so the characterization of Colonel Davenport will fit into both these scenarios.
I suspect there may have been one or two more enterprising officers who saw an opportunity to not only appear to fulfill the parameters of their mission, but also make a little money on the side, setting up an operation within an operation, whether it’s to move into a black market arms supply, or moving and selling drugs from what was called the golden triangle that may or may not have included Cambodia.
That also lends itself to Davenport, when Bill finally catches on to what he is up to, arranging for his capture and removal to a prisoner of war campo over the border in Cambodia. It could also probably have been in Laos, at the CIA may or may not have been running an operation there as well.
There is so much now to consider.
I now have to find out about airbases and personnel, come up with a suitable band of misfits, find out what sort of aircraft and land transport could be involved in moving the contraband, and a little more about Saigon back in the mid-sixties.
Beijing west railway station is about eight kilometers from the Forbidden City, located at East Lianhuachi Road, Fengtai District. Most trains traveling between south central, southwest, northwest, and south China are boarded here.
This place is huge and there are so many people here, perhaps the other half of Beijing’s population that wasn’t in the forbidden city.
Getting into the station looked like it was going to be fraught with danger but the tour guide got us into the right queue and then arranged for a separate scanner for the group to help keep us all together
Then we decided to take the VIP service and got to waiting room no 13, the VIP service waiting room which was full to overflowing. Everyone today was a VIP. We got the red hat guy to lead us to a special area away from the crowd.
Actually, it was on the other side of the gate, away from the hoards sitting or standing patiently in the waiting room. It gave us a chance to get something to eat before the long train ride.
The departure is at 4 pm, the train number was G655, and we were told the trains leave on time. As it is a high-speed train, stops are far and few between, but we’re lucky, this time, in that we don’t have to count stations to know where to get off.
We’re going to the end of the line.
However, it was interesting to note the stops which, in each case, were brief, and you had to be ready to get off in a hurry.
These stops were Shijiazhuang, Zhengzhou East, Luoyang Longmen, Huashan North, and Weinan North. At night, you could see the lights of these cities from a distance and were like oases in the middle of a desert. During the day, the most prominent features were high rise apartment blocks and power stations.
A train ride with a difference
China’s high-speed trains, also known as bullet or fast trains, can reach a top speed of 350 km/h (217 mph).
Over 2,800 pairs of bullet trains numbered by G, D or C run daily connecting over 550 cities in China and covering 33 of the country’s 34 provinces. Beijing-Shanghai high-speed train link the two megacities 1,318 km (819 mi) away in just 4.5 hours.
By 2019, China keeps the world’s largest high-speed rail (HSR) network with a length totaling over 35,000 km (21,750 mi).
To make the five and a half hours go quicker we keep an eye on the speed which hovers between 290 and 305 kph, and sitting there with our camera waiting for the speed to hit 305 which is a rare occurrence, and then, for 306 and then for 307, which happened when we all took a stroll up to the restaurant car to find there had nothing to eat.
I got a strange flavored drink for 20 yuan.
There was a lady manning a trolley that had some food, and fresh, maybe, fruit on it, and she had a sense of humor if not much English.
We didn’t but anything but the barrel of caramel popcorn looked good.
The good thing was, after hovering around 298, and 299 kph, it finally hit 300.
We get to the end of the line, and there is an announcement in Chinese that we don’t understand and attempts to find out if it is the last station fall on deaf ears, probably more to do with the language barrier than anything else.
Then, suddenly the train conductor, the lady with the red hat, comes and tells us it is, and we have fifteen minutes, so we’re now hurrying to get off.
As the group was are scattered up and down the platform, we all come together and we go down the escalator, and, at the bottom, we see the trip-a-deal flags.
X’ian,and the Xi’an North Railway Station
Xi’an North Railway Station is one of the most important transportation hubs of the Chinese high-speed rail network. It is about 8.7 miles (14 km) from Bell Tower (city center) and is located at the intersection of the Weiyang Road and Wenjing Road in Weiyang District.
This time we have a male guide, Sam, who meets us at the end of the platform after we have disembarked. We have a few hiccups before we head to the bus. Some of our travelers are not on his list, but with the other group. Apparently a trip-a-deal mix-up or miscommunication perhaps.
Then it’s another long walk with bags to the bus. Good thing its a nicely air-conditioned newish bus, and there’s water, and beer for 10 yuan. How could you pass up a tsing tao for that price?
Xi’an is a very brightly lit up city at night with wide roads. It is very welcoming, and a surprise for a city of 10 million out in the middle of China.
As with all hotels, it’s about a 50-minute drive from the railway station and we are all tired by the time we get there.
Tomorrow’s program will be up at 6, on the bus 8.40 and off to the soldiers, 2.00 late lunch, then train station to catch the 4.00 train, that will arrive 2 hours later at the next stop. A not so late night this time.
The Grand Noble Hotel
Grand Noble Hotel Xi’an is located in the most prosperous business district within the ancient city wall in the center of Xi’an.
The Grand Noble Hotel, like the Friendship Hotel, had a very flash foyer with tons of polished marble. It sent out warning signals, but when we got to our room, we found it to be absolutely stunning. More room, a large bathroom, air conditioning the works.
Only one small problem, as in Beijing the lighting is inadequate. Other than that it’s what I would call a five-star hotel. This one is definitely better than the Friendship Hotel.
In the center of the city, very close to the bell tower, one of the few ancient buildings left in Xi’an. It is also in the middle of a larger roundabout and had a guard with a machine gun.
Sadly there was no time for city center sightseeing.
The problem is, there are familiar faces and a question of who is a friend and who is foe made all the more difficult because of the enemy, if it was the enemy, simply because it didn’t look or sound or act like the enemy.
Now, it appears, his problems stem from another operation he participated in.
“So,” Lallo said, “you’re telling me you landed separately, Treen and his group advanced towards their position without waiting for your team, that shortly after landing you heard gunfire exchanged, that the members of your team broke ranks and went to help their comrades and that all of them, as far as you were aware at the time, had been killed or captured.”
“Yes.”
“And the two operatives you’d come to rescue?”
“At the time, I had no idea what their status was, but I did make a preliminary assumption that if our mission was blown, then they would hardly be left alive unless the enemy thought they had some strategic value.”
“Or intelligence?”
“It hadn’t occurred to me at the time because my job was to simply to aid the extraction team. To be honest, I had no idea who they were or what their value was.”
That was not exactly the truth because I could hardly say I hadn’t overheard a conversation between Treen, the briefing officers, and an unseen, unnamed officer discussing the two operatives, and the fact it was imperative we get them out at any cost. It wasn’t said why, but I could guess.
It didn’t take long to realize that if our arrival had been known, so would the location and worth of the two we were to rescue. I didn’t think they were killed out of hand, not until they’d told the enemy’s interrogators everything they knew.
And I got the impression they knew enough to cause our whole operation in that country ended up with a great deal of irreparable damage.
No wonder they wanted to sweep it under the carpet.
I watched Lallo scribble a long not over several pages. Was his conclusion the same as mine, but based on truth rather than hearsay?
Then, “Were you met by the person who has been referred to as the so-called source?”
“No.”
“Do you know if Treen’s group were met?”
“No. I was given to understand that source had gone quiet, I suppose another word for either captured or defected to the other side.”
“Apparently there was a report that the agent in situ was going to be at the landing site.”
“Well, there’s your explanation as to why the mission was blown from the start. Whoever it was, was either captured, or a double agent, and told the enemy of our plans.”
“A reasonable assumption in the circumstances, but not necessarily correct.”
“And you know this because…”
I was curious. The agent’s defection would explain everything.
“That agent resurfaced three days ago, again asking for repatriation, and is in the air to a secure site as we speak.”
He stood and took a moment to stow the pencil in the binding of the notebook before giving me his attention.
“We will also be in their air tomorrow, headed for the same secure location. I’m, sure you will be available for that interrogation, because I, too, have serious doubts about this agent’s shall we say, loyalties.”
That still didn’t mean I wasn’t going to finish up at a black site, or worse.
Today, I’ve decided on doing a little research, and this means giving the internet and Google a good workout.
I need some information about the Vietnam War.
So, as a start, I type in the words ‘Vietnam War’ into Google.
This returns: About 699,000,000 results (0.83 seconds)
Wikipedia says “The Vietnam War, also known as the Second Indochina War, and in Vietnam as the Resistance War Against America or simply the American War, was a conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975”
OK, so this gives me the broadest outline. What I need is details, so it’s a matter of where to start. This means to start with, when did troops get sent from both Australia and the United States for service. It seems the US sent troops from 1964 to 1969, and Australia between August 1965 and March 1966. This gives me a starting point, because our main character is Australian, and somehow gets seconded to the Americans.
January 1972, the war ends.
Now we need to know
where the bases were
where the battle zones were
methods of transportation
what happened to prisoners of war
rest and recreation points
CIA involvement (which will no doubt be impossible to find evidence)
what happened to soldiers injured in battle
It’s a list that will get longer and may require a reading list, and first-hand accounts.
Thrills, Spills, and just a dash of Romance 