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DEEP DIVE INTO THE EPIC SAGA OF a true WAR HERO.
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About

FROM A LIFE OF PRIVILEGE TO A LIFE OF HEROISM.

Captain Ratanakone was born into a privileged life, the son of a general in the Royal Lao Army and grandson of a prestigious doctor. He was educated in Laos and later earned his law degree. He served honorably in the Royal Lao Army, was a decorated war hero, a CIA operative in the Secret War in Laos during the Vietnam War, and a POW in a communist concentration camp.

Captain Ratanakone has lived his life with the great principles and values he learned from his family and from his Buddhist religion. He has always striven to have a clear mind, body, and soul and to follow the Five Precepts.

Buddha, the great spiritual teacher of South Asia, taught that three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon and the truth. At long last, the truth about communist atrocities during the Laotian Civil War is revealed in the extraordinary life story of Captain Sounthone Ratanakone. This gripping autobiography calmly but dramatically recounts Captain Ratanakone’s patriotism, spiritualism, heroism and self-sacrifice against the backdrop of an infamous secret and searing Cold War conflict.

Captain Ratanakone spent decades trying to forget the unspeakable horrors he experienced as a soldier and as a prisoner of war. As he got older, as his family grew larger, as time seemed to get shorter, he realized life becomes a war between remembering and forgetting. To honor those patriots he proudly served with in the Royal Lao Army, just like his father before him, he decided it was time to remember… so that no one would ever forget that these events happened.

CO-AUTHOR

TODD SAMOVITZ

Todd Samovitz pivoted from the practice of law and became an accomplished writer in film, television and comics as well as the author or ghost author of 25 books. He is a graduate of the University of Michigan and Southwestern University School of Law. Samovitz lives in Southern California with his wife and three children.

James R. Jaworski

Books

A STORY OF HEROISM, PATRIOTISM AND SELF-SACRIFICE AT THE HIGHEST AND MOST DRAMATIC LEVELS.

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Born into royalty in Laos, Captain Ratanakone could have lived a life of privilege. Instead, he followed his grandfather’s and father’s example and chose a noble life of service. He joined the military, earned a law degree, heroically risked his life in action-packed battles against impossible odds, was recruited to be one of the first Lao CIA operatives during the Vietnam War, barely survived being a prisoner of war in a communist concentration camp (which the communists to this day deny ever existed), planned and led other prisoners in a death defying escape from the camp, strategized another harrowing escape to a refugee camp in Thailand after a jealous relative betrayed him, and finally making his way to America.

In his book, Til The Last: Surviving The Truth, Lies And Secrets Of The Laotian Civil War, Captain Ratanakone shares a fascinating perspective on the lies and limitations of American politico-military strategy in Laos. His honesty at times is as brutal and painful as the horrors he experienced on the bloody battlefield and in the hellish confines of the concentration camp. His book peels back the layers of secrecy, revealing the truth about a conflict waged below the global radar against the relentless forces of terror and communism.

Captain Ratanakone’s story could not be more relevant in the twenty-first century. The U.S. leaving Afghanistan and the percolation of another Cold War in the Ukraine recall the ghosts that still haunt Laos. It is a story that resurrects the age-old question: what becomes of a smaller war-torn nation once their superpowered benefactor is no longer on the ground to help ward off the true forces of evil?

Despite being ravaged by war as well as being conflicted by America’s abandonment of his country, Captain Ratanakone’s story in Til The Last also shimmers with hope, redemption and forgiveness. He also succeeds in offering keen insight into and exploring deep truths of the most urgent issues of our own time. Order your copy today!