there before leaving took oaths in front of the most sacred buddhist image in thailand now, the emerald buddha. many of them wore buddhist am amlets. they wore them around their neck as identifying symbols. they brought buddhist statues with them and rebuilt buddhist temples that had been wrecked or abandoned in south vietnam because of the fighting. i think their service was informed by buddhist ideals, especially the buddhist notion of loving kindness or mercy. a lot of the rans i talked to when i was doing any research would often invoke that concept of mercy to describe why they were fighting, and why they sympathize so much with the vietnamese people. why they wanted to help them and protect them. so, even, as i think about it, their attitude toward nature and war's effect on animals and forests and people, all of that had a kind of buddhist root to it. so, in coming up with the title, i did want to focus on their own self-image as kind of buddhist warriors if that not too much of a contradiction. >> host: what role does the king play in thailand and if the king had said no to war, would