One of the Vietnam War's most closely guarded secrets--a highly
classified U.S. radar base in the mountains of neutral Laos--led to the
disappearance of a small group of elite military personnel, a loss never
fully acknowledged by the American government. Now, thirty years later,
one book recounts the harrowing story--and offers some measure of
closure on this decades-old mystery.
Because of the covert nature of the mission at Lima Site 85--providing
bombing instructions to U.S. Air Force tactical aircraft from the "safe
harbor" of a nation that was supposedly neutral--the wives of the eleven
servicemen were warned in no uncertain terms never to discuss the truth
about their husbands. But one wife, Ann Holland, refused to remain
silent. Timothy Castle draws on her personal records and recollections
as well as upon a wealth of interviews with surviving servicemen and
recently declassified information to tell the full story.
The result is a tale worthy of Tom Clancy but told by a scholar with
meticulous attention to historical accuracy. More than just an account
of government deception, One Day Too Long is the story of the
courageous men who agreed to put their lives in danger to perform a
critical mission in which they could not be officially acknowledged.
Indeed the personnel at Site 85 agreed to be "sheep-dipped"--removed
from their military status and technically placed in the employ of a
civilian company.
Castle reveals how the program, code-named "Heavy Green," was conceived
and approved at the highest levels of the U.S. government. In spine
tingling detail, he describes the selection of the men and the
construction and operation of the radar facility on a mile-high cliff in
neutral Laos, even as the North Vietnamese Army began encircling the
mountain. He chronicles the communist air attack on Site 85, the only
such aerial bombing of the entire Vietnam War.
A saga of courage, cover-up, and intrigue One Day Too Long tells how,
in a shocking betrayal of trust, for thirty years the U.S. government
has sought to hide the facts and now seeks to acquiesce to perfidious
Vietnamese explanations for the disappearance of eleven good men.
