Hey Bryan Buddy,

I should have said: "Every communist with a piece of sharp Bamboo." My
post was not meant as a slight on the people in Asia. And that
observation was not gleaned from a barstool somewhere. I have been
flying the Orient since 1987 and lived there six years. I married an
Asian lady and have 19 dependants in the P.I. Whether you acknowledge
it or not, tragic death without any real government investigation is
common in SE Asia. The reasons are probably varied and stem from
over-population to simple poverty. Now if you're renting
helicopters, you're in a whole different social-economic class than my
mother-in-law whose neighbors struggle daily just trying to eat.
Lucky Filipinos make two-hundred pesos (four U.S. dollars) per day and
have a very different outlook on life than you do. This is not to
say that they don't have feelings or mourn their dead. But more than
a years wages in exchange for the life of one of your seven children
so the rest can eat is considered an acceptable exchange for most of
the squatters living in Manila. Ninety percent of the population in
that country is poor. They used to hold up starving babies against
the hotel limo when it got stuck in traffic on the way to Makati.

I made the mistake of rolling down the window and handing the kids all
the money in my wallet one day. It nearly caused a riot. Several
dozen street kids started banging on the roof of the hotel limo with
metal coins. The driver was so ****ed at me. "Captain, please don't
do that!" The guy loved his imported Mercedes and I had just ****ed up
the paint job – big time.

Now Thailand is a much more developed country that the Philippines
or Mainland China or Indonesia. On vectors into Bangkok, it always
amazed me looking out my Airbus at the carpet of fancy tile roofs
surrounding the airport. You look out the window near Manila and all
you see are helter-skelter scraps of rusting corregated tin in between
filthy brown rivers and runoff. Every place in Asia is somewhat
different, but cultures on that side of the world more readily accept
disaster on a daily basis than we do here. If my single brother was
killed due to a bus driver on drugs in the U.S. and I found out it was
encouraged by management I'd demand and probably get media attention
about this some kind of way. But ferries to the provinces in the
Philippines tipping over with 300 plus over the max rating of the boat
are an annual occurrence and only Ex-Pats living there are outraged.
An attitude of: "God will protect us" is all you can get out of the
victim's families.


(bryan chaisone) wrote in message . com...
(pacplyer) wrote in message . com...
If you ditched in a river or bailed out: Every
peasant with a sharp piece of bamboo who saw you for miles around
would start making their way toward you to get in on the torture.

PAC,

My granfather hid a two downed airmen and walked them to safety in
Thailand. He was not political. He didn't care that the lands were
being bombed by the US. He wanted no part of the bloodshed and he
wished the war would end soon. He lived through the occupation of the
Japanese, the French...etc. He just wanted peace.


I think you grandfather was a great guy. My father-in-law remembers
as a little kid hiding in the bushes from the Japanese Imperial Army
who killed and tortured many villagers. The infamous "Battan March"
went right through the area. I really don't blame people, esp
uneducated peasants from wanting revenge from those that were
carpet-bombing their country. But when a pilot gets a mission, he is
expected to execute it without contemplating the moral consequences of
his action. He just hopes he won't get his ass shot off and he hopes
he won't have to answer for carrying out the mandate of some
screwed-up moron like Macnamere (sp?)



Human life in SE asia to this very day just does not have any value.
The price of a human life in the Philippines now is about $1,500.00.
USD. That is what you are expected to pay the relatives if you kill
one of their family members drinking and driving out there (according
to the Auzzie ex-pats who have experienced this first hand.) And
that's it. Everybody's happy. No trial, no problem. Please hit
another one of my family members, I need the money... You had to
live there to really experience the indifference. A bus rolls down
the embankment with 30 pluss people in it every few months in Bagio.
Nobody cares. Bald tires? One lane mud road? Driver on uppers?
Nobody cares. I don't even want to know what happened to downed AA
guys in Laos or Cambodia. "Pol Pot's family taught me this… hold
still.." Sweet Jumping Jesus!

People do care, some may not, but majority do care. Noone wants to
loose their loved ones for any amount of money. There are people here
in the US just like anywhere in the rest of the world that would kill
their own mother for a dollar. As poor as those people are, they do
care. They are not happy with $1,500.00, but they make the best of
the situation. If they had a choice, they would demand more or not
loose their loved ones at all.

I don't think you really mean what you say above. Do you? If you
hang around bars in the Philipines or in Thailand, you will most
likely meet the lowest form of human beings in those countries. If
you go to the temples during celebrations or to the towns festivals
during holiday celebrations, you will meet nicer people than bar
people, people who have hopes and dreams for their family, people who
have not given up on life. You will see that people do value life and
live to enjoy life and further their family's happiness and well
being. You will see people rich with culture and tradition, who love
their families and their way of life. You know the story about the
three blind men and the elephant?

Bryan "the monk" Chaisone

Hey Brian, hope I didn't offend you. Thailand and Laos are gorgeous
and I love the people there. I think about it often. Got to see the
largest reclining Buddha in the world, but I can't think of the name
of the temple right now.

Have fun with those wirrlybirds,

pac