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 it as an extended tour," he wrote his wife, Sara. "I will be back."

It was not an idle promise. Chuck Klusmann, a graduate of the Navy's tough course on survival and escape in Southeast Asia, was already plotting his escape. According to officers of the anti-Communist Meo tribe, who live in the Pathet Lao stronghold. Klusmann's first step was to cultivate the friendship of his Communist guards. Using sign language and charades, he slowly won them over, at last persuaded them to help him escape.

Together they slipped out of the village, headed for the forested hills bordering the Plain of Jars. Well aware that the Pathet Lao would soon be on their trail, the six walked as quickly as Klusmann's injured knee would permit. It was a long, hard haul to reach the purple plain. On the third night, Klusmann and a guard named Bonn Mi stopped to rest in an abandoned hut; the others, foraging for food, ran into Pathet Lao pursuers instead.

Alarmed by the resulting commotion, Klusmann and Boun Mi fled at full speed, finally stumbled into a Meo village north of the Plain of Jars. There word was flashed to the U.S. Air Force at Udon base in neighboring Thailand. Within hours, a helicopter was flying Klusmann to safety; and last week, 30 Ibs. lighter, but in excellent health, Chuck was reunited with his wife and two children in San Diego. He arrived scarcely two weeks after his letter.

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