LAOAG "The Untold Story"

By John F. Macon

 

Many of us stationed at Wallace had heard about Laoag but few were lucky enough to go TDY there. So I asked John Macon to write about his experience at Laoag. For me Laoag was just a spot on the map that LTC. Robert E. Clarke commander (1966), talked about during my newcomer's briefing. After I read John's story I felt that indeed it was a place even I would have loved to have been stationed.

The city of Laoag in Ilocos Norte was where President Marcus was born and raised. It was the capital of the province with a large population (several hundred thousand in 1965 at least). It had been a Spanish Colonial City before the Americans conquered the Philippines during the Spanish American war. There was a large Colonial Cathedral established in the 16th Century and a large market square plus many fine houses from an earlier time. The educated locals (there were many) behaved in a very proper and proud fashion. If you dated a local lady, it was a family affair and well chaperoned.
Loag was terrific for TDY. The Captain in charge was a great guy and fun to work for. The location was exotic...pythons, wild boar, monkeys, and a waterfall, which had carved out a great pool for skinny dipping, hidden away in the jungle.

Our food was flown in once a month and included frozen lobster tails (sometimes). We had three very well equipped trailers (we had tons of good books) to live and play in. The Air Force sent us lots of feature films which we shared with the Filipinos, if they made the popcorn (it was a great trade). Their Air Force never sent films, so we were very popular. We also owned the pool table at the base which we shared with "no strings attached".

The American contingent only consisted of three officers and our full time orderly named "Pop". "Pop" had worked for the gold mine manager near John Hay until the Japanese took over the Islands in WWII. He subsequently worked for the Japanese Officers until the Americans won the war. One day I asked him which occupying group did he like the best....his reply "there's no difference". All of us were assigned to the Loag Air Station which was a duplicate of Wallace AFS. The big difference was that the entire base was on a rotating schedule.

You would be on duty & on call for a week then be flown to Nichols Field for a week to be with family or just enjoy civilization. The three of us worked the same way, alternating weeks. Usually, we would stay at the Army Navy Club in Manila on our week off. The bad part was that we were often called upon to go up to OPs in the middle of the night during our week on duty. It was the middle of the Viet Nam war, and our planes would take off from Tiawan, passing just north of us, on their way to bomb Hanoi, then land in Thailand. We watched and were ready to take control, if needed. We never were.

There were three American Peace Corp people stationed in Laoag. The two girls were Beryl Abraham and Mary Reasoner. They were school teachers, and we spent a lot of time with them. They did some wonderful things to help the people in the region. For example, Beryl rounded up all of the children with hare-lips in the province and got the U.S. Air Force to fly them down to Manila, where she had made arrangements for all of them to have corrected surgery "for free" for their disability. I was at John Hay at the Club with Beryl one evening having dinner when President Marcus arrived to dine. One of his aides told him what Beryl had done, and he asked her to join Imelda and himself at their table to thank her. I ended up eating alone that night, but she deserved the recognition.

The American Officers (always a great bunch) and the Filipino Officers would occasionally play basketball at the local high school. The entire school would turn out to watch us play because we were so tall (at least to them). They (the kids) would become ecstatic if the Filipino officers beat us (which was often the case), but they were also happy if we won. We had a ball. I met some of the nicest folk in that city. I have forgotten the name of the lady who Mary Reasoner boarded with, but she had put in a modern bathroom for Mary's use. It gave her great status among her friends to have the Americans boarding with her rather than with them. She would often comment to her friends that the Americans would only board with her, not them, as she had the modern bathroom. Her friends would remain very quiet following those comments.

A funny sad story.....We Americans invited the Peace Corp volunteers to the Air Force Station to have Thanksgiving Dinner with us (as we had a turkey and had lots of great American food including Chocolate milk). All was well until one of the Peace Corp girls started crying. She had missed American food so much, especially the chocolate milk, that she became very upset and homesick. She vowed never to come to dinner at our place (trailer) ever again.....and she didn't. Christmas time that year brought a season of bad weather. No airplanes could land at the Air Station to replenish our supplies. The supplies that we liked best were the films and the food. It lasted over a month and we ran out of all of the good stuff plus we didn't get our Christmas cards or presents from home. We decided not to celebrate. I spent the day listening to the Red Chinese radio station which pushed propaganda to the evil imperialists (us, I guess) in among the sing song Chinese numbers. It was the only station we could get.

One thing that wasn't usually mentioned when you were sent to Loag was that there were active Headhunter's still living in the jungles. We would occasionally read about their activities. While not a problem for us, we did think about it from time to time, especially while hiking. Food could be a problem. The Peace Corp folk and our little contingent were invited to a local cook-out put on by some of the locals which featured puppy dog and chicken. The new Peace Corp guy was in the buffet line in front of me. I remember him telling the host that he only wanted the chicken. He got the best part which sat on a bed of rice......the head with beak and eyes (apparently, it was considered the best part). The poor guy spent the next thirty minutes moving it around on his plate. There are lots of fun memories.

One good thing occurred. I had time to read all ten volumes of Will & Ariel Durant's History of Civilization while in Laoag. It was quite a feat. Many years later. Will & Ariel were my neighbors in Los Angeles. They had kept me entertained and had made me a history "junkie.' When they died, I went to the auction of their library and bid on all 22,000 used history books. Sadly, I lost out to a book store that became the sucessful bidder. -end-

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