Pagodas are Off-Limits

submitted by: Alva Leon Matheson


A Cambodian Army column had come under attack with the heaviest fire coming from a pagoda facing the highway. The ground commander insisted that an airstrike neutralize it. There ensued a considerable amount of communications traffic between the FAC, the ground commander, the Cambodian command post in Phnom Penh, and the 7th Air Force command post before 7th reluctantly agreed to allow the FAC to put in an airstrike on the target. The strike was successful, the attack broken, and the Cambodian column was able to disengage.
Then the political flak started, prompted by a journalist who had witnessed the strike from the ground. The next thing we knew, the ROE were changed to say that no U.S. resources would be employed, nor would the U.S. control the employment of any other resources, against any pagoda. If the Cambodians wanted to attack one, that was solely their responsibility.
Within days of this change, a FAC came back from a mission and gave me his roll of film from the 35 mm camera that most FACs and/or backseaters carried with them on missions to be developed. He said that he wanted me to call him when the film was ready and requested that I not look at the pictures until he was there.
The next morning he and a number of other men were present when I opened up the envelope of pictures from the photo lab. When I saw the pictures I burst out laughing. He had taken picture after picture of rice storage sheds in a village with neatly painted large letters across the tin roofs of building after building that spelled the word “PAGODA.”
It had taken just a few days for the peasants in the countryside to learn and understand the new ROE.