Days 2/3 of Old Hacks Reunion in Cambodia
5 a.m. Thursday April 21, 2010
I’m now totally confused about time; my laptop is still on EDT, 12 hours earlier than here….so it’s 5 p.m. april 20 to all y’all back east in NC.
The events are really crowding out my time to reflect on it all now. Another amazing day yesterday, Wednesday. It began early with a tour of the magnificent Royal Palace and National Museum, both just 2 blocks from the little hotel where I’m staying. You had to wade through the garbage and walk past the mutilated and devastatingly poor beggars to get to the gates to the Silver Pagoda and palace. All I could think about was the absurdity of religion when so much is lavished on the gods while outside people are starving to death. I’ve asked the question many times about the splendid palaces and medieval costumes of the Roman Catholic Church and other sects of Christianity: What does any of this have to do with the life and teachings of a simple Jewish carpenter.
And, yesterday, I had to wonder what all that gold and silver and carved images had to do with the life of Buddha, whose life and teachings were all about the rejection of such trappings….
Oh, well, the reunion proceeded apace yesterday. Ralph Hemecker, who’s had the movie option on Two of the Missing, for 13 years arrived at 1:30. I went out to meet his plane, which arrived early so he was outside waiting for me. I had teased him that I might not recognize him if he’d gotten old and fat after 13 years. But I needn’t have worried; he still looks like a trim young movie star himself. I feel such a great kinship with this man, and not just because he’s paid me $5,000 every Jan. 1 for 13 years. He genuinely shares my passion for this story of my two missing friends.
He brought all sorts of camera equipment with him and we’d planned on a leisurely talk about what we wanted to film, who we wanted to interview. But, there was a message waiting for me from Tim Page and his partner Mau Harris, wanting me to come over to the Raffles Royale and be interviewed by actor George Hamilton, who grew up in Palm Beach with Sean Flynn. He appears to be having the time of his life here among all us old hacks. He was a tremendous help to me when I was writing Two of the Missing. When Mau told me he had dropped in on them in Brisbane Australia, I got his address and sent him a copy of the new edition. He’s brought it with him and has it dog-eared with all his notes and reading.
Tim and Mau are traveling with a film crew for a documentary about Tim’s search for Flynn’s remains….and Mau had the idea for a private project following George around. That led to asking if he’d like to do some interviews—and he loved the idea. He handles his celebrity extremely well. Of course, the old hacks are used to mingling with celebrities, so that helps. But he’s a wonderfully engaging conversationalist….and like a lot of us, he’s intrigued with the life and mysterious disappearance of his friend Flynn. With the cameras rolling [there were four or five others filming the filming], Hamilton conducted the best interview anybody’s ever done with me about my book or the disappearance of Flynn and Stone.
There was a moment of epiphany, or whatever’s the proper word. For many years, people have speculated on the psychology of what led Flynn and Stone to deliberately go down that dangerous road where they had to know they might die. I had pieced together little bits and pieces of dialogue people overheard. But with George’s questions, it finally dawned on me: No, they did not think they were definitely headed toward death. It wasn’t purely a suicidal ride. Flynn had to convince Stone that they just might come out of it alive with their pictures and stories—or Stone wouldn’t have gone along.
The other important news is the entrance of JPAC into the search for the remains of Flynn and Stone. Actually, they’ve been there all along, even though some correspondents have complained about how little attention is paid to the missing civilians in Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. Johnie Webb is the former military commander of the Joint POW MIA Accounting Command in Hawaii, where the remains are taken in order to be identified with DNA collected from relatives. In retirement, he was asked to stay on as deputy civilian commander. He says JPAC will never be disbanded because their sophisticated labs are now being used by the FBI and Justice Dpt. And the CIA. Webb has been at the Old Hacks reunion all week and he too seems to be having a grand time hearing all our stories and adding some of his own.
He says they have investigated 16 different sites where Flynn’s and Stone’s remains might have been located. Like the most recent highly publicized “find,” they all led to nothing. After all the worldwide publicity stirred up by two Aussie bounty hunters, JPAC had to step in and do something at this alleged “site.” They spent all of last week digging and sifting the soil in the area where the aussies claim they found Flynn’s jaw bone and teeth. They found only 1 small piece of a scull and no other remains. This also puts to rest a report that came from CIA interviews of captured Communist soldiers…that as many as 12 westerners may have been buried there. Webb has sent the remains found by the scavengers off to Hawaii, but after inspecting them, he says he does not believe for a second they belong to Flynn. What the aussies described as “a fine set of American teeth,” he said was “at best a crude set of European teeth”—from the dental work.
Meanwhile, the two aussies who surely thought their “discovery” would cause them to be welcomed as heroes at our reunion have been banned from coming anywhere near the group. They’re hanging out at a bar down the street and muttering about how unfair it all is. Yesterday, a young freelance reporter relayed the news to me that they had also found a bathing suit with Flynn’s “remains.” “And they think it’s the bathing suit in that picture of you and Flynn on China beach in your book.”
Wait a minute, I said, as we sat in 100 degree heat, humidity in the upper 90s, there’s no way a piece of cloth would survive intact in the ground in this weather for 40 years.
Today, we are going to Wat Po where 9 correspondents were executed by the Khmer Rouge not long after Flynn and Stone went missing. Later today, we will visit the site where a tree will be planted here in Phnom Penh in memory of all the correspondents killed in the Cambodian war. Tonight, there’s an exhibit of photos from Tim Page’s Requiem book and a showing of a documentary film about the great New Zealander Neal Davis, who survived incredible stuff in VN and Cambodia only to get killed in a Bangkok street demonstration. Somehow, his camera was engaged when he was hit and it continued to roll, focused on him as he lay dying. He was a most remarkable man. He’s the one in my book that I describe during the battle for Hue; we were walking with General Loan, when Loan pointed to Davis and said: “One day, I gonna kill you!”
A really nice local bookstore, Monument Books, will also be selling books by authors attending the reunion—including my own Two of the Missing.
I’m in a quandary about whether to accept the VN government’s offer of free hotel in Saigon. They have sent us a schedule where we’d be tied up with them from dawn to dinner every day for five days….and I’m not sure I want that. Ralph said last night we’ve got to go up to Angkor Wat. We are too close not to do it. It’s a six hour drive from here so not feasible for a one day trip unless we fly….Also, we want to go down to the town of Chi Pou where Flynn and Stone were last seen. I think we may be able to tag along with Page’s crew.
I’m now totally confused about time; my laptop is still on EDT, 12 hours earlier than here….so it’s 5 p.m. april 20 to all y’all back east in NC.
The events are really crowding out my time to reflect on it all now. Another amazing day yesterday, Wednesday. It began early with a tour of the magnificent Royal Palace and National Museum, both just 2 blocks from the little hotel where I’m staying. You had to wade through the garbage and walk past the mutilated and devastatingly poor beggars to get to the gates to the Silver Pagoda and palace. All I could think about was the absurdity of religion when so much is lavished on the gods while outside people are starving to death. I’ve asked the question many times about the splendid palaces and medieval costumes of the Roman Catholic Church and other sects of Christianity: What does any of this have to do with the life and teachings of a simple Jewish carpenter.
And, yesterday, I had to wonder what all that gold and silver and carved images had to do with the life of Buddha, whose life and teachings were all about the rejection of such trappings….
Oh, well, the reunion proceeded apace yesterday. Ralph Hemecker, who’s had the movie option on Two of the Missing, for 13 years arrived at 1:30. I went out to meet his plane, which arrived early so he was outside waiting for me. I had teased him that I might not recognize him if he’d gotten old and fat after 13 years. But I needn’t have worried; he still looks like a trim young movie star himself. I feel such a great kinship with this man, and not just because he’s paid me $5,000 every Jan. 1 for 13 years. He genuinely shares my passion for this story of my two missing friends.
He brought all sorts of camera equipment with him and we’d planned on a leisurely talk about what we wanted to film, who we wanted to interview. But, there was a message waiting for me from Tim Page and his partner Mau Harris, wanting me to come over to the Raffles Royale and be interviewed by actor George Hamilton, who grew up in Palm Beach with Sean Flynn. He appears to be having the time of his life here among all us old hacks. He was a tremendous help to me when I was writing Two of the Missing. When Mau told me he had dropped in on them in Brisbane Australia, I got his address and sent him a copy of the new edition. He’s brought it with him and has it dog-eared with all his notes and reading.
Tim and Mau are traveling with a film crew for a documentary about Tim’s search for Flynn’s remains….and Mau had the idea for a private project following George around. That led to asking if he’d like to do some interviews—and he loved the idea. He handles his celebrity extremely well. Of course, the old hacks are used to mingling with celebrities, so that helps. But he’s a wonderfully engaging conversationalist….and like a lot of us, he’s intrigued with the life and mysterious disappearance of his friend Flynn. With the cameras rolling [there were four or five others filming the filming], Hamilton conducted the best interview anybody’s ever done with me about my book or the disappearance of Flynn and Stone.
There was a moment of epiphany, or whatever’s the proper word. For many years, people have speculated on the psychology of what led Flynn and Stone to deliberately go down that dangerous road where they had to know they might die. I had pieced together little bits and pieces of dialogue people overheard. But with George’s questions, it finally dawned on me: No, they did not think they were definitely headed toward death. It wasn’t purely a suicidal ride. Flynn had to convince Stone that they just might come out of it alive with their pictures and stories—or Stone wouldn’t have gone along.
The other important news is the entrance of JPAC into the search for the remains of Flynn and Stone. Actually, they’ve been there all along, even though some correspondents have complained about how little attention is paid to the missing civilians in Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. Johnie Webb is the former military commander of the Joint POW MIA Accounting Command in Hawaii, where the remains are taken in order to be identified with DNA collected from relatives. In retirement, he was asked to stay on as deputy civilian commander. He says JPAC will never be disbanded because their sophisticated labs are now being used by the FBI and Justice Dpt. And the CIA. Webb has been at the Old Hacks reunion all week and he too seems to be having a grand time hearing all our stories and adding some of his own.
He says they have investigated 16 different sites where Flynn’s and Stone’s remains might have been located. Like the most recent highly publicized “find,” they all led to nothing. After all the worldwide publicity stirred up by two Aussie bounty hunters, JPAC had to step in and do something at this alleged “site.” They spent all of last week digging and sifting the soil in the area where the aussies claim they found Flynn’s jaw bone and teeth. They found only 1 small piece of a scull and no other remains. This also puts to rest a report that came from CIA interviews of captured Communist soldiers…that as many as 12 westerners may have been buried there. Webb has sent the remains found by the scavengers off to Hawaii, but after inspecting them, he says he does not believe for a second they belong to Flynn. What the aussies described as “a fine set of American teeth,” he said was “at best a crude set of European teeth”—from the dental work.
Meanwhile, the two aussies who surely thought their “discovery” would cause them to be welcomed as heroes at our reunion have been banned from coming anywhere near the group. They’re hanging out at a bar down the street and muttering about how unfair it all is. Yesterday, a young freelance reporter relayed the news to me that they had also found a bathing suit with Flynn’s “remains.” “And they think it’s the bathing suit in that picture of you and Flynn on China beach in your book.”
Wait a minute, I said, as we sat in 100 degree heat, humidity in the upper 90s, there’s no way a piece of cloth would survive intact in the ground in this weather for 40 years.
Today, we are going to Wat Po where 9 correspondents were executed by the Khmer Rouge not long after Flynn and Stone went missing. Later today, we will visit the site where a tree will be planted here in Phnom Penh in memory of all the correspondents killed in the Cambodian war. Tonight, there’s an exhibit of photos from Tim Page’s Requiem book and a showing of a documentary film about the great New Zealander Neal Davis, who survived incredible stuff in VN and Cambodia only to get killed in a Bangkok street demonstration. Somehow, his camera was engaged when he was hit and it continued to roll, focused on him as he lay dying. He was a most remarkable man. He’s the one in my book that I describe during the battle for Hue; we were walking with General Loan, when Loan pointed to Davis and said: “One day, I gonna kill you!”
A really nice local bookstore, Monument Books, will also be selling books by authors attending the reunion—including my own Two of the Missing.
I’m in a quandary about whether to accept the VN government’s offer of free hotel in Saigon. They have sent us a schedule where we’d be tied up with them from dawn to dinner every day for five days….and I’m not sure I want that. Ralph said last night we’ve got to go up to Angkor Wat. We are too close not to do it. It’s a six hour drive from here so not feasible for a one day trip unless we fly….Also, we want to go down to the town of Chi Pou where Flynn and Stone were last seen. I think we may be able to tag along with Page’s crew.
posted by Perry Deane Young at 3:14 PM
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