Laos: A Long Walk Home

Every day for more than two months, five soldiers in the black-and-khaki uni form of the Pathet Lao stood guard at a large mud hut in a Red-held village near the Plain of Jars. Inside, Lieut. Charles Klusmann, 30, whose Navy RF-8A jet had been shot down on a photo-reconnaissance mission June 6, paced the 20 feet from wall to wall exactly 264 times a day — just enough to make the mile he had allotted himself as exercise. Although he limped painfully on a badly wrenched knee, War Prisoner Klusmann was in remarkably good spirits. "Just think of...

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