All In Read Online Free Page A

uncle walked to the path through the rocks, blocking the platoon’s path of escape. The two of them raised their guns, and my father declared, “If I have to die to save my brother, then so be it. But know this: we will not leave him behind. If you refuse to help him, it will not be the Communists who kill you. I will. If he dies, we all die.”
    Seeing the look in my father’s eye, the other soldiers knew he and his uncle were serious. My father was prepared to fight against his entire platoon to save his brother.
    â€œOkay, okay,” the other soldiers said, “we will not leave LaZang behind.”
    They managed to get through the rocks without getting caught. The Communists stopped their pursuit but radioed ahead to others in the area.
    While mortars rained on my father’s platoon, they raced for one whole day and night to make it back to their base. My uncle survived, but two others from the platoon were killed by the mortar attacks.
    Sadly, a few years later, after my father left active duty, La Zang was captured by the Communists. Along with his entire family, he disappeared into a Pathet Lao reeducation camp. My father would not see him again for thirty years, when we were able to locate him and bring him safely to the United States.
    That first mission set the tone for the rest of my father’s time in the army. Over the next few years he fought, often going days without sleep, always surviving on little food or water. Most of the time, he lived on whatever he could find to eat in the jungle. He slept in ditches and foxholes, in downpours and blistering heat.
    At one point, he pulled off his wet boots and found his feet had turned white from the nonstop rain. He thought he might develop trench foot or gangrene if he didn’t take the time to let his boots and feet dry out, but the constant shelling kept him moving on.
    As luck would have it, one mission my father barely survived would later help save his family. In 1963, my father was stationed in a base that overlooked a valley. The Hmong controlledthe mountains on one side of the valley, the Communists the other. Day after day the two sides lobbed mortars and exchanged machine gunfire.
    The Hmong depended on American cargo planes for their supplies. The planes didn’t land but instead dropped the supplies by parachute to the men below. Most Hmong platoons received their supplies this way.
    One day my father heard a huge explosion in the sky. Everyone looked up and noticed a cloud of smoke where an airplane was supposed to be. A few minutes later, a call came through the radio reporting that an American plane was down.
    â€œGet your platoon and go find any survivors before the NVA get to them,” the commanding officer told my father.
    Just as his first mission at the Ho Chi Minh Trail had been, rescuing the American pilots was easier said than done.
    The cargo plane crashed on the far side of the valley near the mountains controlled by the North Vietnamese Army. Hostile soldiers, booby traps, and land mines were positioned between my father’s platoon and the downed pilots. On top of that, artillery fire continually rained on them. Nevertheless, my father did not once question the order.
    From the day the first American airplane was fired on while flying over Laos, Hmong guerrilla fighters had fought and died to save them.
    My father’s platoon took off through the jungle in the dark. Six hours later, they came upon the crash site. No one was there. The Americans were gone. The platoon spread out and searched the immediate area. “ Tahaan Vang Pao,” theycalled out, translated “Vang Pao’s soldiers,” as they searched the area for parachutes and survivors. Finally, they came upon a man hiding behind a rock near a small stream, a makeshift white flag in one hand.
    â€œVang Pao,” my father called out.
    â€œVang Pao?” the man said.
    â€œVang Pao, yes,” my father said, using the