Bulletins from Bad Guy Land

Captain Joseph Kerr Bush Jr., 25, the Texan whose death in Laos officially did not occur in "a combat situation," saw much action nonetheless. When he arrived in the country in June 1968 as an "assistant military attache," he was posted to Muong Soui, a key town now in Communist hands. Bush's tour ended eight months later, when a force of 20 North Vietnamese commandos attacked his hilltop compound, a camp housing a group of Air Force radar specialists. The captain died fighting, and was awarded a posthumous Silver Star. Bush's wife Carol, who lives in Temple, Texas, with her daughter, says that her husband "believed in what he was doing." As his letters to her indicate, what Bush was doing and seeing would not be unfamiliar to his counterparts in Viet Nam.

Excerpts from the letters, made available to TIME by Mrs. Bush:

24 JUNE, '68. You asked how close Muong Soui is to Viet Nam--not close at all, but it is within sight of the Ho Chi Minh Trail. There is a war going on in Laos, and it is difficult to tell who is fighting who.

25 JUNE, '68. The Lao government doesn't really control but about one-half the country, and they're having to fight for that. From mountain tops in my area I can actually see bad guy trucks rolling down the roads in bad guy land. They've got their nerve.

13 JULY, '68. I spent the night in a small Lao position overlooking bad guy land. Did I tell you that the [good guy] Lao usually have their dependents right with them? It looks funny to see papa standing by a machine gun with his kiddo right behind him.

1 AUG., '68. Well, today I became the official commander of U.S. forces in Muong Soui, Laos. Of course I am referring to the departure of Capt. Young and my taking his job. The only real important point here being that now there is one less American around to talk to.

14 SEPT., '68. I am enclosing some Communist kip [propaganda] I picked up. The guy I got it from decided he was on the wrong side, and made the switch rather than fight. Hang on to it. I want to save it.

12 NOV., '68. I am very safe. I have guards 24 hours a day and can call for an aircraft on a moment's notice. I did think of asking to go to Vientiane, but I would let down a bunch of people who think I am really helping to do their part in fighting a way of life they would never be happy under.

2 JAN., '69. The action has been fast and furious, but our side came out smelling like a rose. I welcomed the new year in by staying awake all night flying in an observation aircraft and monitoring a big shooting match that was taking place. Quite a night.

Bush had volunteered to take the place of an ailing artillery spotter. For staying aloft 2 1/2hours despite intense antiaircraft fire, he was awarded a Bronze Star and the Distinguished Flying Cross.

Bush had had an amazingly accurate premonition of his death, even as an ROTC student at Texas A. & M. "Have you thought of how you'd die?" he asked in a poem written before his 1966 graduation. His own answer:

The morn will dawn that fatal day

I'll not be home, but far away;

In the warm jungle growth, live and

green, When they tear through me--angry

and mean.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.