time spent with gentle and well disciplined friends

spent a lot of time with the Yards in and around Pleiku City, Pleiku Province, SVN. we had the Radai and Jarai (spelling). studied their culture in two inch thick US Army public affairs manuals and of course first hand working with the children, the Civilian Irregular Defense Group or CIDGs as we called them and of course working with the shit burners and taking clothing (from stateside churches)and food (using the church and incountry GI$) to villages and distributing it. they were very good to us, showed much trust (betrayed by US Gov't) and saved my life on more than one occasion. Have lots of slides from parties where we got screaming drunk off their rice wine while they furnished security for us. i would chose them over some of my current bias/bigoted @#%&##@*%*#@* neighbors. was trying to adopt a young male but before things were complete the NVA moved into the area and kidnapped him and several other young males and females. they were usually used and discarded or shipped up north for indoctrination. a lose lose situation. Montagnards were formed/lived underground until a male saw a glimmer of bright light, climbed to it coming thru a small hole and pushed thru the hole in the ground pushing the sky to its current position. becoming lonely he went back for a mate and populated the world. much later came the flood, but the Yards were saved by the mountains. what else did they tell me? many things, many years ago. once talking with an older gentleman who had been captured by the VC/NVA i asked him how long he was them. "three suns," was his answer. and how far did you haul the rice from where you were captured? "four pipefulls of tobacco." precious, absolutely precious people, but don't cross 'em or touch their child on top of the head or take pic w/o permission. forgiveness was much tougher than permission. i used a telephoto lens most of the time. thanx for the space.