Uncle Wayne and Aunt Minnie were living in Vientiane, Laos. They invited my parents and us for Thanksgiving. We took the night express train to Nong Khai and the ferry across the Mekong River to their home. Uncle Wayne, Dad, and I then drove to a Hmong village many hours north of Vientiane. We stayed that night in a thatched house on stilts. We ate very basic tribal food, and put the bones and leftovers through the gaps between the floor boards to the waiting pigs and other animals below. The next morning, Mom and Linda flew to our village in a small Cessna. On the way, the pilot made a mail drop to a village in a narrow valley. The mountains surrounding the valley were occupied by communist Pratet Lao soldiers who might shoot at
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