I admit I felt the adrenaline pumping as the steamer docked in Singapore, and we travelled north. We were warriors almost immediately. We spent our early years with the ragtag Free Lao militia fighting—or at least frustrating—the Japanese. In Vietnam, the OSS had identified groups of what they preferred to call “nationalists” led by a multilingual patriot called Ho Chi Minh: Civilai’s old buddy Quoc after a number of name changes. The Americans provided weaponry and training. With the French off in Europe rescuing their motherland from Hitler, the Viet Minh assumed the mantle of protectors of Vietnam. By the war’s end, the Vietnamese and Lao nationalists had accredited ourselves nicely, and we were certain we no longer needed the French. With trumpets blowing and new flags waving, we declared our independence. There was dancing in the streets, but they were slow dances to short tunes.

Pumped up from their victory in Europe, the French returned to Indochina in numbers to resume their usurper role. But the management had changed in their absence. The French set out to nullify all that foolish talk of independence and endeavored to put down the local rebellion, but it was a rebellion that would not lay still. With help from the Chinese, the North Vietnamese grew stronger and their influence spread. The French had a fight on their hands.

The Pathet Lao grew out of the Viet Minh momentum. Boua and I moved to the north of Laos where we trained medics and stitched up young boys who were fighting for the great cause of communism. But I noticed soon enough that not one of them knew, or cared, what communism was; they saw a banner of some sort that stood for equality and self-rule. But I’d lean over my patients by candlelight and listen to their whispered stories. And, without exception, they’d joined the Pathet Lao because they were tired of being shat on. They’d been shat on by the racist French, shat on by the corrupt Royal Lao army, shat on by fate, by the spirits, by Buddha. They just wanted a break from all that shit. And that was when my true passion for my country—a passion a longtime coming—took root. At last, I saw a point. The country boys put on a uniform and picked up a gun not because they stood for something, but because they wanted a fair roll of the dice. They didn’t want victory as much as they wanted peace.

In ’54 the rebellion of hope spilled over onto the battlefield, and, in a fight that shocked the world, the French received a drubbing at the hands of a bunch of locals at a place called Dien Bien Phu. Boua and I were in Vietnam by then. We watched the final curtain from a ridge looking down at the despondent French army. I was saddened by the carnage, but I’d never seen my wife so joyful.