rest and recreation

The Pentagon’s relations with senior Thai military officers — including those in the outgoing ruling administration — are close, a legacy of the Vietnam War era when the U.S. used Thai territory for air bases to bomb neighboring Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos, and “rest and recreation” from those battlefields.

When US soldiers arrived in the 1960s on "rest and recreation" breaks from fighting in the Vietnam War they discovered Thai stick, locally made from cured marijuana buds wrapped in leaves around a bamboo stick, like a fat cigar.

The friends feature the usual types from central horror casting, planning a getaway of rest and recreation and sex.

Then, six weeks ago, I traveled to Vietnam on a trip I thought would be mainly rest and recreation, but turned out to reconnect me with a self I'd long forgotten.

At night, the local bars were often filled with hard-partying G.I.s, flown in from Vietnam for rest and recreation.