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| Message to North Vietnam in March 1970 |
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| Khmer Youths Ready To Defend the Country |
The patriotic flame engulfed the whole country, and I still remember the pain I felt when hearing that Vietcong troops were moving further inside Cambodia, thus occupying more Cambodian land. High school students and teachers took up arms to defend their schools and towns; they fought bravely and won many battles against the Vietcong, and some gave up their lives for the country. One heroic event that many of my generation still remember happened in June of 1970.
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Diep Vandara
Real Heroine |
Just three months following the rebirth of Khmer patriotism, regular Vietcong troops were attacking the town of Siemriep, including a high school guarded by students and teachers. They had less than three months of military training and were using outdated equipment against hardcore invaders with heavy hardware including rocket-propelled grenade launcher (RPG). They were able to withstand the attacks until help arrived to push the invaders away. Unfortunately, a few had lost their lives during the battle. One of them was a sweet young 19 year-old student named Diep Vandara. She was hit by shrapnels when a grenade from an RPG exploded near her position. She died in the hospital on June 6th, 1970. The whole country mourned her death along with other hero, teacher Nop Sarou. They really fought for the country and patriotism was their main weapon. Writing about them now gives me goose bumps.
About two years into the war, corruption started to creep up, and I sensed that the patriotic flame was not as bright anymore. That was about the time I left the University of Pedagogy and joined the air force. I left a post that more than a thousand peoples were competing for 10 open spots in the university just over a year back, for a dangerous profession as a pilot in war time.
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| Vietcong's Shelter Inside Cambodia in the 70's |
Was that a sacrifice for the sake of my country? I am afraid that it was not. After two years of seeing the corruption running deep at all levels of Khmer society, the patriotism that once flourished within me had died. What I did afterwards was just the way of life. I joined the air force for personal reasons and it had nothing to do with being patriotic. True, life was difficult, but it was not a sacrifice; it was just a life in time of war. Most people in the country were in the same boat. My father joined the army taking the rest of the family with him where ever his company went. My mother and my younger siblings moved with him from place to place, living in miserable condition, sleeping in tents or whatever shelters they could find, and missing out on even the basic education. It was not patriotism; it was survival.
Some of my air-force classmates deserted the corps because they had rich families to return to; some faked illness to avoid graduating as fighter pilots so they could, with some family connection, have a desk job or be assigned to squadrons other than AT-28 squadrons
. During basic training, a few had it much easier than most because they had connection within the corps. Very often, while the rest of the company was subjected to harsh physical punishment, some were being excused and given simpler tasks to do by their senior-officer friends or relatives. I still remember the smirky grins on those individuals’ faces when they were excused while the rest of the company was running laps under the scorching sun in the middle of August, with blistered toes, fully dressed in stinky army fatigue covered with traces of salt from human sweat, and carrying heavy GM 1 rifles
on the shoulders. I stayed and completed the basic and then flight training because if I failed, I had no place to go or anybody to help me getting in to transport, heli
, or observation squadrons which were considered to be more lucrative and less dangerous.
Patriotism not being at the heart of the corps’ credence was much more obvious to me when I got to Pochentong AFB
in late 1974. There were divisions based on individual financial status within the corps: transports, helicopter, observation, and fighter. Everyone was after the money, some to survive and some to become rich. Some could afford a
R3000
lunch, other had to go thru the
R50-lunch line. At the
R50 line, one could get a small plate of rice and a small bowl of soup consisted of water, a few veggies, and meats that could only be seen through microscope. Some of my senior officers, especially the ones in the transport squadron, whom I had known before, acted as they did not know me at all. Later, I learned that they were afraid that I may one day ask them for a seat on their transport plane. Since by that time ground transportation was dangerous and almost non-existence, seats on the military transport plane were at a premium. A free ride to a fellow pilot meant less money for those transport pilots and their crews. Most of my colleagues, except Lt. Mey Saroeun
, in the helicopter squadron from the building next door, rarely went home in the evening taking the walk way that cut across in front of my squadron’s building. They were afraid that they may be obligated to share some of the fortune they had collected for the day.
When I first reported to the AT-28 squadron, the commander issued a requisition for me to get my flight gear from the warehouse. After receiving the request, the clerk there told me in straight face that there were nothing available. My commander was in rage when he found out that the requisition could not be filled. He hopped in his jeep and drove back to the warehouse with me like a mad man. The clerk must have seen the jeep and my commander coming and sensed the rage; he saluted us as soon as we opened the door leading to his desk and at the same time provided an explanation before any of us could say anything.
“Sir, right after the lieutenant left, I found what he needs, and here they are.”
Again, I later learned that if I had slipped a few dollars with the request, the clerk would have found all the supply without any problems. That was another example of how corruption, greed, and every man-for-himself attitude had run wild in the corps.
I also recall another incident that showed the typical egoistic nature of some senior officers. A few weeks after I joined the squadron, one of the senior officers who was also in my squadron dropped by. He did not wear his uniform that day because he was still on a medical leave, something to do with his nose. He was a little upset that I did not render him the usual military salute; the fact was, it was the first time I met him and I did not know who he was in civilian clothing. Once his identity was made known to me, I saluted him and went on with my business. After chatting with his friends, and before leaving the room, he turned toward me and said:
“ I wish I were not on medical leave, so I could take you up and make you so sick that you will never forget who I am.”
I was somewhat shocked by the statement because I thought his job would be to mentor a newbie like myself so we could fight our common enemy together.
Another egoistic and abusive behavior was constantly manifested by the Colonel base commander. In the 60’s he was the Captain who was cited as a national hero for shooting down an unarmed American observation plane, L-19 (nicknamed Bird Dog). As I grew up, not knowing what an L-19 was, I celebrated his heroic act with the rest of the population, and continued to consider him as one of my idols until I found out the fact about the Bird Dog. It was not a dog fight; it was simply a turkey shoot because the Bird Dog was basically unarmed. The Bird Dog was shot down while trying to return back to its base in South Vietnam after flying over the area where Vietcongs were using Cambodia as their safe heaven. It should be noted that Americans did fly observation missions over those areas from time to time, but could not officially bomb the area because, on paper Cambodia was supposed to be a neutral country. However, in reality, Prince Sihanouk had already embraced the communist block and provided supports to Vietcong and North Vietnam by allowing them to use Cambodian territory as their hide out, and Cambodian highway to transport arms.
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| L 19 Bird Dog Observation Plane |
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| AT-28 Fighter Bomber |
As the base commander in the Khmer Republic era, he had a special AT-28 assigned to him. The plane was well maintained and parked in a hangar while the rest of the AT-28s, with sign of oil leaks all over, parked outside. To keep up his flying skill, he would go out on missions once or twice a month. Each time out, his plane carried four sets of small bombs, while his wing man’s old-run-down plane carried four heavy napalms, two on each wing. Of course, it was difficult for his wing man to keep up with his lightly loaded plane, and the Colonel was upset when his wing man could not join up in formation quickly. At the bomb site, the Colonel dropped all his bombs in one dive while ordering his wing man to make four paths dropping the napalms one at a time, thus increasing the chance of being shot down by four folds. During the debriefing, the wing man usually got chewed up for not getting in tight-formation quick enough.
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| Khmer Air Force Aging AT-28 |
True, during the war AT-28 pilots worked very hard. However, I believe it was just a job, but a risky one indeed. Every days, from dawn to dusk, they flew multiple dangerous missions to support the army on the ground. The first mission started even before day break and the last mission ended late in the evening such that they had to land their planes in the dark because there were no runway lights. Many lost their lives from being shot down, but a few from crashes that were mechanical or operational in nature. The AT-28s were old planes and flying them was just like playing Russian roulette. The air force mechanics were doing their best to keep them flying, but the high demand to have those planes up in the air made their jobs very difficult.
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| Pre-flight Inspection |
There were also reports of pilots using the plane’s baggage compartment to carry commercial goods to earn extra cash[13] such that, sometimes during take off, not properly secured or over-size goods shifted, severed control cables, and caused the plane to crash.
There were also incompetent officers being promoted to lead bombing missions. In one mission, a wing man was not able to drop his load so he came back with all four bombs attached. The leader of that mission ordered his wing man to land first while he was circling above. I was a newbie, but I knew better; the plane with bombs still attached was to land last so that if there were mishaps during landing, causing the bombs to explode thus rendering the runway unusable, all other planes would have been already landed. If a plane came back with unused rockets rather than bombs, than it must land first.
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| Out On a Mission |
There was also an incident where a wing man just fell of from the sky. I was not sure what the cause was, but from what I learned, this happened while two AT-28s were in tight formation and were climbing to get above low-overcast clouds. In this type of environment, clear openings to climb through were usually not large enough to accommodate two planes in tight formation. I speculated that the flight leader saw a small opening and decided to climb through putting his wing man smack in the middle of the clouds. Pilots with limited experience in instrument flying could get disoriented and stall[14] their planes within seconds once in the clouds, especially when it was unexpected. For this case, the leader should have ordered his wing man to drop back in lose formation allowing the wing man to follow the leader at a distance, and to use the same opening rather than flying into the clouds.
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| Khmer Navy |
Khmer Navy was no difference. In addition to the dangerous tasks of patrolling the Mekong River, especially during the dry season, there were special missions of escorting merchant ships traveling back and forth between Phnom Penh and South Vietnam, bringing commercial goods to the Cambodian capital.
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| Khmer Navy Escort Mission |
The missions were very dangerous, but for each mission the convoy Commander and his crews could pocket thousands of dollars, quite a sum compared to my salary of $10 a month. During each trip, for better protection, those merchant ships were jogging for position near the armed navy boats. Of course, that would depend on how much the merchant ship’s owners were willing to pay.
I was elated when I was selected to come to the US for flight training. In contrast, my colleagues in the navy did not share the same excitement. To them, coming to the US for training meant losing big pay checks. At the end of the war, most of the Khmer Navy personnel were able to get out of the country using their boats and therefore, were able to take their families and whatever else deemed valuable to them.
On the army side, it was worst. Some company commanders would delay reporting the death of their men, or completing the paper work for the families to collect death benefits, sometimes up to a year, in order to continue pocketing the dead-men's salaries. I was once told of this ghost-soldiers
scheme by a family friend. He was part of a mobile unit that regularly went to the field to distribute troupes’ salaries. Prior to each trip, the mobile unit and the field commanders talked and negotiated a deal to share the dead-men salaries. The mobile unit knew the ghost soldiers existed, and the field commanders needed the money to pay his men to avoid mutiny. It was a win-win for both the field commanders and the crews of the mobile unit. This family friend was an enlisted man, but he was filthy rich.
Unfortunately, regular soldiers and their families suffered as the result. Without accurately reporting the number of deaths, many army companies were seen as in full strength on paper by war planners
, and more often were sent to do battles against larger number of Khmer Rouge and Vietcong regulars. As the result, the Khmer Rouge and Vietcong ended up winning most of the fights, and more soldiers were lost.
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| Becoming New Ghost Soldiers |
For the families of those unfortunate soldiers, they could not collect any benefits until paper works were completed. Even with completed paper works in hand, the soldier’s families had to share a percentage of the benefits with the people who administered them in order to have the compensation disbursed. I witnessed this disgusting practice myself because I had to deal with this particular army unit as well. In addition to the death benefits, they also handled salaries for military personnel (army, navy and air force) in training abroad. After nearly two years away for training in the US, I had a large sum of salary being held up by this unit. I planned to collect it and give it to my father. It did not happen. First, it took me almost a month to find the location of this unit. Then, there was this army Captain who rarely came to the office and no one else was authorized to disburse anything. I would go there and wait for hours just to find out that this Captain was not coming that day. I could not go there every days and wait because I had to work, but I was there often enough to learn about the miseries suffered by some of the soldiers’ families. There was a young widow who had been unsuccessfully trying to collect her benefits for the last six months. In tears, she told me that she had been asked for a sexual favor in exchange for a speedy collection.
After about a month trying to meet this Captain, I had to restart the process all over again. One morning when I got to the place, I found out that the unit had moved out about a week ago. There was no forwarding address. Again, it took me a couple of weeks to find the new location. I was told that the Captain had been transferred and was replaced by a Colonel. There was no difference; the new Colonel never was there. A few weeks later, I finally met the man who was holding the money meant for my father. That day was one of the worst days of my life; it was the first time that I thought about killing someone. I could have killed this Colonel if I had brought my revolver with me. He told me that there was no money and that he had distributed the salary to my family every month for the past two years. He even showed me records of thumb prints next to each of the months as a proof that the salary was being collected monthly by my father. After I explained to him that it was impossible because my father was a foot soldier, always in the field, had never been to the capital, and his where about at this time was unknown to me, the colonel shrugged of at the explanation and said:
“ You went to the US for training for two years. You must have saved up some dollars from there. Why don’t you just let us keep this.”
That was when I thought about killing the man. Now I understood the reason why this unit had to be constantly on the move. There were too many people who went through what I did, and wished to do harm to this unit. I learned that there had been a few times that people had tossed grenades into the building. I could have been one of those people if I had stayed in Cambodia, and did not come to Thailand for additional flight training sooner. As a footnote to the story, I want to add that my personal file never did get transferred to my detachment at Pochentong AFB; the vulture- Colonel and his team kept on collecting my pay checks until the end of the war.
Opportunists within all three branches of the Cambodian Armed Forces did amass a fortune during the war.
In summary, the patriotism within me and many Cambodians had already died by the time I joined the corps and I do admire people who believe that their love for the country had remained intact. However, there may not be many of these people; it was the lack of deep commitment, usually coming from the real sense of patriotism, that lead us to losing the war
. Another thing that I learn from this self-reflection is that, for so long most Khmers were taught to leave the responsibility of defending the country to the elites, and do not know what being patriotic really means. Now, there has been some changes within the Cambodian population, especially the younger generation; people have started to think and care about the future of the country. However, the present government of Cambodia lead by Hun Sen, is trying very hard to suppress this new patriotic sentiment because it does not want to lose its power and its ability to amass wealth through corruption. The dictatorship government is afraid that one of these days, the population will no longer accept such a government and demand, by all means, it be replaced with a government that will put its own country and common people before everything else.
