Something of a mystery at U-Tapao
A yarn about the closing months of US military operations in Thailand is a convoluted blur of time travel - and fun to read
Some people - not necessarily Thais - will find this offensive: "The three fastest forms of communication in the world are telephone, telegraph and Tell-A-Thai. There're no secrets in Thailand." Depending on your own reaction, you might or might not like this trilogy of books about to be released, together forming a novel that's set in the closing months of the US Air Force base at U-Tapao.
A vein of this witless farang condescension runs through Books 2 and 3, each 230 pages, which The Nation was invited to review. We haven't seen Book 1, which also leaves us at a contextual disadvantage in terms of the plot. Nor does Book 1 seem to be available at Amazon.com, where the other two have been on sale for US$5 apiece, drawing "reader reviews" both good and bad.
"Tell-A-Thai" is a toss-off gag in a whirl of advice that US Air Force First Lt Henry Legere is given on his arrival in Thailand in Part II, titled "Air Base". Many of the warnings offered are even bigger generalisations and thus equally ludicrous. Legere can see his instructor is bitter toward Thais, but soaks up the "wisdom" and, a few months later, passes it on to the next newbie.
The cover blurbs say the trilogy is a "detective story", the case involving the rampant theft of US military gear from U-Tapao as the Yanks were shutting down operations in 1975 and '76. But the crime is a sub-theme at best, cropping up only now and again in what is, more honestly, a chronicle of daily life at the base.
The routine, for all its office politics and tests of loyalty, remains utterly mundane despite the extraordinary circumstances on the heels of the war in Vietnam. The very banality of the grind, though, works to the story's advantage.
It could be that author Leonard H Le Blanc III stumbled on his old service diary and decided it might make a decent book. It could also be that he realised he had an authentic memoir of chaotic military life that evoked Joseph Heller's "Catch-22". What he ended up with is a story as realistic in its detail as any honest reminiscence and at the same time amusing in its relentless polished-brass illogic and khaki jargon.
The main appeal is in that to-and-fro drudge of keeping the base secure while the US forces were withdrawing. The Americans were in a frenzy to get elsewhere, anywhere. The characters are brightly sketched, the dialogue bouncy and forthright, both in casual banter and official command and response.
The mechanics of the prose take some getting used to. At first it's just a dog's breakfast of military acronyms, but a "dictionary" at the back soon makes the alphabet soup palatable, even enjoyable. You need it. This is typical: "I could PCS out in 30 days. Damn - I was FIGMO. That made me a 'two-digit midget'! In fact, I was so 'short' I was 'Next'!"
The trilogy has another selling point with U-Tapao back in the news thanks to renewed American interest in the old landing strips. By the end of the US invasion of Vietnam it was "the largest air base in the free world", Le Blanc writes. It took almost two hours to drive around the perimeter.
Beyond the "detective" mystery, the trilogy's other pretension is to explore how foreigners interact with Thai culture. To this end, Legere experiences several religious and social customs and is duly charmed but, inevitably, most of the interaction is with bargirls. There's plenty of bawdy stuff, though thankfully without the fine details.
Le Blanc states at the outset that everything in the books came from his "imagination", but he did serve in the Air Force around the world, including Thailand, and comes from Connecticut, just like Legere. He uses the real names of the big bombing operations flown out of U-Tapao and mentions actual units like the Red Horse. The men wander off base to Ban Chang as well as Sattahip.
So you end up wondering, in a story loaded with fish - red herring and wallop of cod - whether there's any truth to its claim that the Thai agreement agreed in 1965 to let the US establish air bases here only on condition that the Air Force "look the other way for 'minor' stuff like being overcharged or ripped off for supplies and support services, stealing and pilfering".
The oddly titled "U-Tapao Royal Thai Naval Base Series" is often a lot of fun to read and has an interesting structure, one that might play out better as a movie because of the leaps back and forth in time.
As it is, the crucial events of Books II and III (and presumably Book I also) lose track of each other as we jump from a 1971 murder in Ban Chang to a base in Alabama in 1975, then Pattaya in 1981, then Lagos in 1979 and finally U-Tapao, again in 1975. It's a long wait to discover how all this ties together, with not much happening in between.
U-Tapao Royal Thai Naval Base Series
Part II: Air Base
Part III: Thailand
Written and published by Leonard H Le Blanc III, 2012
Available from "leblancleonard" at gmail or hotmail, Bt390
Reviewed by Paul Dorsey
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