As many of you already know, some Saigon Kids went to American Community School in Saigon; and, also went to the American School in Vientiane Laos (ASV).
In the months leading up to the closing of ACS in Saigon, and after the closing, many students’ families were transferred to Vientiane. Particularly, State Department, Air America and CIA personnel, as well as, other Agencies and military personnel.
ASV was located in a housing area known as *KM6* (or Six Click City) because it was about 6 km from the center of Vientiane.
Originally, KM6 was a housing compound built for USAID personnel and their families. So it was designed to emulate an American suburb of the era: wide streets, two and four bedroom ranch style houses, with manicured lawns.
American School of Vientiane had grades Kindergarten through 12th.
The school was smaller then ACS but the students were a very close and tight knit group.
The ASV Alumni web site can be visited by Clicking Here. (Note: The site got corrupted a while back. The “web mistress” of the site is in the process of restoring the site.) I’ve also put a link to the site on our blog. The link is located in the left side menu area under *Great Sites*.
ASV Alumni held a reunion in Vientiane in January 2010. You’ll find links on the site to Reunion photos and information.
When you visit the site be sure to check out the links to the ASV Face Book pages, ASV Yahoo Group, Airambrats web site, and other interesting places.
I’m sure all Saigon Kids will enjoy visiting with the students from the American School of Vientiane Laos, as we all shared many common experiences during the days of our youth in Southeast Asia.
I’ll be putting a couple additional Posts on our blog to introduce their *web mistress* and to hopefully locate some *cross over* students who attend both ACS and ASV.
Everyone give a BIG WELCOME to the ASV Alumni – 🙂
Bob
Side Note: After 3 tours in Viet-nam my dad’s next State Dept post was Vientiane, Laos. My parents adopted two Lao sisters there from an orphanage. My parents and my step-sisters lived at KM6. My step-sisters attended school at ASV. Unfortunately, when my dad’s tour was up in Laos the Lao government prevented one of my step-sisters from leaving the country. When the girl’s mother was on her death bed she made the girls promise they would always stay together and never separate. Because one was cleared to leave with my parents and the other was blocked by the Lao government from leaving, they both decided to remain in Laos to keep their promise to their mother. After leaving Laos my parents continued attempts to bring the girls out of Laos, to no avail. We were able to keep in touch with the girls through the orphanage where they returned to after my parents left Laos. But, then shortly after Southeast Asia fell in 1975 all communications were cut off by the Lao government. My parents made many attempts over the years to locate and contact the girls, unfortunately, unsuccessfully.
Thank you Bob for your very nice introduction, and for adding the information to your site.. we truly are all connected through our experiences in S.E.A. and the reasons why we were there as dependents. We have two sites on Facebook in addition to the web page and Yahoo group, Facebook Group is labeled ASV and the other one is just an extension of the web page itself.
Becca Coleman
ASV Alumni
This site is FANTASTIC.
I was on the ASV faculty from June, ’72 to June,’74. I taught science and physical education and was the swimming coach/athletic director.
Check the ASV site on the web bring back so many wonderful memories.
Please let me know how I can join various ASV group forums, etc. so I can connect with other who were a part of the school in the early ’70’s
Ron
You can connect with ASV Alumni by going to the website at the link below:
http://www.asvalumni.org/
OR, on Face Book at this link:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/American-School-of-Vientiane-Laos-Alumni-Association/132347596806298
OR, on Yahoo Groups at this link:
https://login.yahoo.com/config/login_verify2?.intl=us&.src=ygrp&.done=http%3a//groups.yahoo.com%2Fgroup%2Fasv%2Fjoin
Enjoy! 🙂
Bob
Hi, I visited the km6 online blog and saw the asv alumni website. I had hoped to catch up with Becky Coleman and Marcia. I think Marcia is now known as Marcia Murto, I believe, and just want to say hi. I was there in 1973-1975. Becky was 17. Clarkwwc@yahoo.com or facebook