True Tales of Days Gone By ~ UNTAC recollections
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- My Best Friend is my Computer
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There is nothing wrong with my memory as to the past.
It is all about where I chose to position myself.
And it is very much for the now - and long may it continue.
As an attractive French woman said to me when working in Copenhagen...Life is to short to drink White Wines when there are so many superb Reds still to be drunk...
OML
It is all about where I chose to position myself.
And it is very much for the now - and long may it continue.
As an attractive French woman said to me when working in Copenhagen...Life is to short to drink White Wines when there are so many superb Reds still to be drunk...
OML
- Phuket2006
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really appreciate your insight, be it from yesterday(s), today or tomorrow.
"We are turning into a nation of whimpering slaves to Fear—fear of war, fear of poverty, fear of random terrorism, or suddenly getting locked up in a military detention camp on vague charges of being a Terrorist sympathizer." HST
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But getting back to the fall of Phnom Penh.
I happen to know the pilot who flew the last flight out of Pochentong/Phnom Penh to Bangkok as the city fell to the Khmer Rouge.
He had flown the penultimate flight out of Phnom Penh/Pochentong when he was prevailed to fly just one more evacuation flight. To which he said no way, I only just got out by the skin of my teeth this past flight.
To which the American ambassador said...name your price... we have people still to get out.
Well, I do not know what that price was but Les took another C123 in to Pochentong and loaded up still on the move and came back to Thailand with his load and was paid in cash USD.
Les currently lives near the Don Muang airport and if you ever wish to meet him be prepared to buy and drink a lot of beer.
Les had previously spent many years with Air America involved in the secret air war in Laos.
OML
I happen to know the pilot who flew the last flight out of Pochentong/Phnom Penh to Bangkok as the city fell to the Khmer Rouge.
He had flown the penultimate flight out of Phnom Penh/Pochentong when he was prevailed to fly just one more evacuation flight. To which he said no way, I only just got out by the skin of my teeth this past flight.
To which the American ambassador said...name your price... we have people still to get out.
Well, I do not know what that price was but Les took another C123 in to Pochentong and loaded up still on the move and came back to Thailand with his load and was paid in cash USD.
Les currently lives near the Don Muang airport and if you ever wish to meet him be prepared to buy and drink a lot of beer.
Les had previously spent many years with Air America involved in the secret air war in Laos.
OML
I believe Al Rockoff took a picture of that helicopter from the Embassy ground as it departed. He was the only American to willingly remain iirc.
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I suspect you are confusing the fall of Saigon many days earlier than the fall off Phnom Penh and the evacuation of some of its' residents.
OML
OML
No, but maybe I have the embassies mixed up.
http://www.cambodiatribunal.org/2013/01 ... testimony/Mr. Rockoff was also one of the few foreign journalists on the streets of Phnom Penh on the day of the evacuation. Through both his testimony and photographs, Mr. Rockoff painted a vivid picture of the Khmer Rouge capturing Lon Nol soldiers and weapons and a gradual darkening in mood following the joy of the initial announcement of the Khmer Rouge victory.
As one of the few people inside the French Embassy during the evacuation of the city, Mr. Rockoff was able to provide an insider’s perspective into events within its walls. Strikingly, he detailed how some Cambodian nationals and others were forced out of the compound. He also relayed his experiences of traveling in the embassy’s last convoy, fleeing for the Cambodian-Thai border through a deserted Phnom Penh and a country marked by the occasional whiff of corpses.
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^ That building, and it's car park, is now the Ministry of Fish (has been for a long time)
It was in that very car park, from where the chopper took off, that we buried that fateful dolphin carcass so many years back ...
It was in that very car park, from where the chopper took off, that we buried that fateful dolphin carcass so many years back ...
"We, the sons of John Company, have arrived"
- Felgerkarb
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Thank you for the posts, OML.
Age quod agis.
Age quod agis.
====================
Why are the gods such vicious cunts?
Where is the god of tits and wine?
Why are the gods such vicious cunts?
Where is the god of tits and wine?
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As posted previously, my very first Director/Boss at the then UN Joint Office in Sydney, was Paul Ignatief, a Canadian, that had a long standing involvement within the UN system that had been the UNICEF Representative in Phnom Penh at the time of the fall of Phnom Penh to the Khmer Rouge. It was Paul that organised the successful evacuation from the French Embassy in Phnom Penh of so many of the international community and Khmers to Thailand.
Paul Ignatief awoke a deep and abiding interest in Cambodia and Khmers within me.
OML
Paul Ignatief awoke a deep and abiding interest in Cambodia and Khmers within me.
OML
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Thanks, Felgerkarb , coming from you that's quite a compliment given you own involvements in Cambodia.
OML
OML
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But Felgerkarb ,
It is you that should be posting not me.
You were in Cambodia prior to UNAMIC. You were involved with the inhumane refuge border camps. I only came at the end of UNAMIC and the very start of UNTAC.
We were both in Phnom Penh at the Renakse Hotel at the 1992 4th of July Celebrations, but never met each other.
OML
It is you that should be posting not me.
You were in Cambodia prior to UNAMIC. You were involved with the inhumane refuge border camps. I only came at the end of UNAMIC and the very start of UNTAC.
We were both in Phnom Penh at the Renakse Hotel at the 1992 4th of July Celebrations, but never met each other.
OML
- Felgerkarb
- Sir Felgerkarb, Kt Pb
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Thanks, OML.Ot Mean Loi wrote:But Felgerkarb ,
It is you that should be posting not me.
You were in Cambodia prior to UNAMIC. You were involved with the inhumane refuge border camps. I only came at the end of UNAMIC and the very start of UNTAC.
We were both in Phnom Penh at the Renakse Hotel at the 1992 4th of July Celebrations, but never met each other.
OML
Ya. I remember flying in some of the goods for the party as I had been at the Bangkok embassy for a short trip, then hitched a ride and helped offload.
I suppose I will get around to more write ups eventually.
Age quod agis.
====================
Why are the gods such vicious cunts?
Where is the god of tits and wine?
Why are the gods such vicious cunts?
Where is the god of tits and wine?
- moethebartender
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This has been a fascinating thread to read, and I'd like to thank everyone who contributed.
- Lucky Lucan
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That was "Operation Eagle Pull" and it wasn't from the embassy grounds, it was from a nearby sports field that is now part of the Russian Embassy grounds. It was on the 12th April, the US evacuation of Saigon was on the 29th-30th April.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Eagle_Pull
Sydney Schanberg and Doug Saper were at least two other Americans who were at the French Embassy.He was the only American to willingly remain iirc.
Romantic Cambodia is dead and gone. It's with McKinley in the grave.
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