A Visit To The Past

  Our Viking Tour ended on March 20th and some people departed for home at various times, while other people departed for an optional extension in Thailand. As for me and Patti, we left the hotel at 9:00 am on March 20th and were transported to the domestic terminal at Saigon International Airport for our flight to Chu Lai. Our plane lifted off right on time and so began my visit with the past. Flight time from Saigon to Chu Lai is about one hour and twenty minutes, about the same amount of time it takes to fly from Oakland to Long Beach. I am glad there was a flight to Chu Lai as Chu Lai is closer to Quang Ngai than Da Nang is. There is another reason that I am glad about being able to fly to Chu Lai. In mid to late May of 1971 another enlisted man and I were at one of the motor pools on the Chu Lai base doing some maintenance on the 3/4 pickup truck that had been assigned to me. While we were working on the truck, my commanding officer entered the motor pool and told me my orders to return home had come through. My two year "career' in the Army was due to end on June 18th. The beginning of a draw down of troops was underway, and I got about a three week early out. I returned to Mo Duc and posted the 1st page of my orders in our little club bar with the acronym FIGMO (Fudge* [only it wasn't Fudge] I Got My Orders). Within two or three days I was at the Headquarters of the 29th Civil Affairs Company in Da Nang and soon thereafter was at Cam Ranh Bay waiting to be called for my flight back to the USA, or as we GIs were fond of saying, "back to the world".  I flew home with two of my Vietnamese language classmates, Steve Brown and Neil O'Leary. When we lifted off, there was a loud chorus of male voices saying, "Goodbye Vietnam forever". As it turns out, that was not the case for me.

  We were met at the Chu Lai Airport by our guide Thanh Truyen who was holding a sign with our names on it. Truyen is a delightful thirty year old wife and mother of two small children who works as a guide for Vietnamese people from other parts of Vietnam who come to visit the region.  We found out later that we were her first foreign tourists. Her English was not perfect and sometimes I would have to say "toi khong hieu" (I do not understand) and eventually we came to understand each other somewhat, but sometimes it was a struggle. Her English was better than my Vietnamese by a long shot. She had an app that gave us internet in our car and allowed her to connect to our cell phones. The app translated her Vietnamese commentary into English, and our English questions into Vietnamese; but some of the translations were a bit off the wall and provided laughter to all of us. We met our driver Hung and got into our air conditioned Toyota SUV. 

  As we deplaned, I looked around and, not unsurprisingly, saw nothing that looked familiar. I did not go to Chu Lai a lot during the war. It had been a very busy air base and also home base for various Army units. The only possible vestiges of its history as an air base were open ended structures about the size of quonset huts that I believe may have been hangers for fighter jets during the war. Now Chu Lai is a small regional airport.

  Our first stop was an oceanside restaurant for lunch. It was really beautiful and the food was very good, including fresh uncooked squid.  I ate my fill, but Patti took a pass on it. Word to the wise. The ink is in the squid so do not be alarmed by a black tongue, teeth, and lips that stick around for awhile after eating the squid. One of the first changes I noticed was the difference in Highway 1, QL1. During my tour in Vietnam, QL1 was the only paved road in the area, and it was only two lanes. Now it is a four lane paved highway with a concrete divider to keep oncoming traffic from entering your lane.  All the other roads off QL1 were dirt roads fifty five years ago,  perfect for the Viet Cong to bury explosives to blow up vehicles that drove over them. Now dirt roads are the exception. The roads off QL1 are now paved too.

  As we approached the city of Quang Ngai my mind went back 55 years trying to envision the Quang Ngai I remembered. Quang Ngai city is the provincial capital of Quang Ngai Province, and Quang Ngai Province is divided into various districts. One of the districts south of Quang Ngai city is Mo Duc, the district where I spent the majority of my tour of duty in Vietnam. I was attached to MACV (Military Assistance Command Vietnam) Team 17 that was headquartered in Quang Ngai city. The MACV compound that was the headquarters was located in Quang Ngai as was my commanding officer for the 29th Civil Affairs Company, Captain Rodier. I remember the compound and am certain it is no longer there. If it is still there, I doubt I could have found it because Quang Ngai city is much larger and more modern than the city I recall. Quang Ngai is not a tourist mecca for foreign travelers, so Patti and I really stood out. During our time in Quang Ngai and the surrounding districts, we saw only one other European American couple. When Patti said hello to them, they responded in a language she did not know.

  Some of our fondest memories of Quang Ngai were the interactions we had with kids who were eager to practice their English with us once they learned we spoke English when they asked "where are you from". We would then be swarmed by many children who peppered us with questions such as how old are you, what do you like to eat, do you like Vietnam, where are you from in America? Once one group left the questioning would occur again with another group of students eager to meet us and practice English. I was in a few selfies with some of the kids, and at least one adult with a big 35 mm camera got some photos of us too. Another fond memory I have occurred on the night Truyen and her husband picked us up at our hotel and drove us on motor scooters to a large square where families were enjoying the cooler night air. There was a little boy, perhaps two to three years old who had one of those bubble blowing guns. I had received a gift in a bag from Truyen and I approached the child and let him shoot bubbles into my bag. We had great fun together. After he shot bubbles into the bag, I closed the bag and then opened it and reached in a grabbed bubbles and gave them to him. Our interaction lasted for a few minutes and still brings a smile to my face. After interacting with the kids, my memory went back 55 years to kids I encountered when we went to villages and hamlets. They knew a bit of English too, but their phrases consisted primarily of "GI, souvenir me candy (cigarettes, gum, money)". Their living conditions in the hamlets and villages were third world and going to school was not in the cards for them due to the war. I do recall thinking back then that all these kids had ever known was war.  Like all of the people, especially in Mo Duc, survival was what was important to them, so they had to play both sides, especially if Viet Cong tax collectors showed up in their hamlet during the night. They had a very hard life and lived at the subsistence level.

 

  We got settled in our hotel, where we were the only western guests, in Quang Ngai and decided to walk and explore a bit. Being on our own and not being familiar with the city, we decided to walk in a set direction and then retrace our steps back to our hotel. We scored 100 %. We did not get lost or disoriented. One evening we even walked to a restaurant about a mile from our hotel without getting lost. We discovered that Vietnamese people in Quang Ngai who speak English are the exception to the rule, even at our hotel. Since Americans do not frequent Quang Ngai as tourists, the people here do not get much exposure to English. I could communicate poorly in Vietnamese, but I am certain that the accents got the better of me again as well as the diacritical marks over the vowels that impact how the vowels are pronounced. It was a good challenge for us. We met only a few people who were fluent in English during our time in Quang Ngai, one a young girl who worked in an appliance store we stopped in, and wait staff at a couple of restaurants at which we ate. As we walked, many people would say "hello" which may have been pretty much the extent of their English. We found the people of Quang Ngai were very friendly and may have seen me and Patti as a curiosity as westerners are not the norm in Quang Ngai. After we finished our walk we sat on a bench and just watched life in Quang Ngai go by. As we found in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, motor scooters were the main mode of transportation in Quang Ngai, but the traffic is far less crazy than in the huge cities.

  I was really interested in visiting Mo Duc District during our time in Quang Ngai Province. When I was stationed in Mo Duc, the area could best be described as third world. As I approached Mo Duc in our car, I was pleased to see how developed the area has become. Honestly, I did not recognize the countryside, with the exception of the hills in the distance. As I recall, there was a lot of open space along Highway 1, primarily rice paddies. There was an area between Mo Duc and the village to the north of us known to us as Sniper's Gap. Because of this designation, our Distrtict Senior Adviser, Major Witt had a policy that required any of our vehicles to have a driver and at least one passenger riding shotgun wherever we went. Riding shotgun meant carrying a loaded M 16 and being ready to return fire if fired upon. Fortunately, I never had to return fire, although I believe two lieutenants and I were fired upon while in Sniper's Gap once. The little geysers of water shooting up in the rice paddy by the highway were our clue. We did not stick around to confirm we were being fired at. The lieutenant who was driving sped up to get us away faster. The village of Mo Duc is now much larger than it was 55 years ago. The American team with which I lived was billeted in a house in the Mo Duc District Headquarters compound. All of us were there as advisors to the South Vietnamese and worked with Vietnamese counterparts. Some of our company were parts of MAT (Mobile Advisory Teams) and would spend part of their time on outposts and go on operations with South Vietnamese Army units. I believe the number of Americas living in our house was probably between 25 and 30. Prior to going out for the day, we awaited word that the roads had been checked and were deemed safe from any hidden explosives, information that was not always reliable. I can recall at least two incidents of vehicles driving over and setting off explosives, one of which involved an American advisor from another district who died when his jeep was blown up by an explosive, and the other of which involved a Vietnamese tuk tuk carrying many Vietnamese that was blown up. I still recall coming upon that scene post explosion when some of us were on our way to one of the hamlets in Mo Duc. It was not pretty. We contacted District Headquarters and once others arrived we continued on our way to the hamlet. The crater left by the explosion was in the middle of the road. I was in a jeep and we drove around the left side of the crater and made it out to the village. Later, my truck drove around the right side of the crater and set off another explosive, the force of which went sideways rather than straight up. My truck named Mother Bear was hit by some shrapnel in the passenger side door and ended up with a shrapnel dimple. Sgt. Shepherd, who was sitting on the passenger side with his elbow out the window caught some sharpnel in his elbow. What he got we called a million dollar wound because it got him to Japan and then back to the USA. Someone must have been looking over me that day.

  Our Vietnamese counterparts had siesta during the heat of midday from 12-2 as I recall, so if we were at our team house we'd eat and be off until two and then would go back about our business. We did not always work with our counterparts and might be on mail run or gasoline run for our generator or food scrounging run or potable water run for our teams on outposts or riding shotgun. Being out and about, especially if we were at the MACV compound had its benefits. At the MACV compound, there was a small walkup burger stand where we could get a hamburger and fries. If we were out and about, we needed to be in by dark because once it got dark the Viet Cong could become quite active and the province and district were not secure at night time

 

  I really did not intend to go into much detail about my time there 55 years ago, but it has helped me to appreciate the progress Mo Duc has made. I am certain the district Headquarters compound where I lived now exists only in my memory, because so much has changed in Mo Duc. I looked at where I thought it might have been, but I can't be sure of its exact location because of all the building that has occurred in the village. Houses are now more modern, have electricity and indoor plumbing, and in some cases air conditioning. The large lawn area behind our compound where helicopters landed was no longer there and the quite primitive hamlet that was close to the landing zone has been replaced by paved streets and blocks of modern homes and various businesses. When I returned to Mo Duc, I did not know what to expect. I knew it would be different, but I was a bit shocked and very pleasantly surprised by the changes I saw. By our standards, the area would probably be seen as upper lower lower class or lower lower middle class; but compared to 55 years ago, it has advanced by leaps and bounds. Vietnam is still a developing country and is still emerging from decades of French colonialism as well as decades of war. 

  There are still memories of the war as well as memorials to it, one of which is in Quang Ngai Province, the My Lai Massacre Memorial. March 16, 1968 is one of the darkest days in US military history. On that date, American Army troops entered Son My village of which My Lai was one of the hamlets expecting to find and engage a Viet Cong battalion. The Viet Cong battalion was not there and the wholesale slaughter of  504 Vietnamese men, women, and children took place throughout the day. There were some American heroes who attempted to intervene, but the killing continued. One of the striking images we saw was a concrete pathway that was imprinted with multiple footprints, barefooted Vietnamese footprints and American GI combat boots footprints. It was very moving. The whole area is a sacred memorial and is tranquil. However, it is also a vivid reminder of how horrible and dehumanizing war is. In a combat zone, it is extremely easy to lose your humanity. If you look on the opposing side as the enemy, it is much easier to kill. If you see the opposing side as a son, possibly a husband and father, a brother, a cousin, a grandchild, an uncle as well as a nephew, it is harder to kill. The civilians at Son My were South Vietnamese and unarmed, not enemy forces; but to many American GIs all Vietnamese were Gooks and were not to be trusted. I say this not to justify the massacre, but to try to put it into a bit of perspective. What happened was truly criminal, but as a Vietnam veteran I understand how such a horrid event could occur. Truyen, who was not alive during the war told me and Patti not to be sad. As she told us,, the war is in the past and we live in the present and hope for the future. When I was stationed in Mo Duc, I went to My Lai with some other members of the 29th Civil Affairs Company in 1971. It was very clear from the reception we received that we were not welcome there. Normally when we went to a village or hamlet, we'd be swarmed by kids who would ask us to souvenir them candy, cigarettes, gum, or money. In My Lai, we were not approached at all and I swear I could feel the hatred in their eyes while we were in the hamlet. That feeling of hostility and hatred toward us was completely understandable.

  

I am glad I returned to Vietnam, particularly to Quang Ngai and Mo Duc. I know a number of Vietnam veterans have absolutely no desire to return to Vietnam, and I understand their feelings completely, especially if they were in combat units and were engaged in combat operations. Vietnam was a total combat zone. There were no safe areas, no such thing as front lines or rear areas. I was not in a combat unit, but was fully aware that the area was not secure. Some of the people with whom I served were wounded and were sent home. One of our Vietnamese interpreters was killed in a combat operation. Two of the outposts where MAT teams lived were attacked and overrun by the Viet Cong. One of our captains who was a MAT leader lost his foot in a combat operation by stepping on a mine, as I recall; but my memory may be faulty on all of the details. I think like most GIs in Vietnam, my overriding modus operandi was survival. As I got to be a short timer, I really did not want to take any unnecessary chances,  especially as I got within one to two months of returning home. I can't speak for every GI who served in Vietnam, but the longer I was stationed there the more I came to realize the futility of our being there. When I got home, I was talking to my dad after dinner one night and he asked what would happen to Vietnam when America pulled out completely. My response was simple. I told him there would be no more South Vietnam. It was certainly not because I was some sort of military genius since I considered my two year stint in the army to be a leave of absence from being a civilian. It became clear to me that the South Vietnamese army was no match for the North Vietnamese army, so I was not surprised when the North Vietnamese crashed through the gates of the Presidential Palace as the last American helicopter to leave Vietnam was lifting off from CIA headquarters in Saigon.

  I suppose I needed to face the past, perhaps to make peace with those ten months and two days I was in Vietnam. Seeing the increased development was very gratifying. Life in Vietnam is better now than it was fifty-five years ago. Whether the war and the aftermath contributed to the development is debatable. What is not debatable is the tragic loss of life on both the Vietnamese side as well as the American service people and the soldiers from other countries who were wounded and killed in Vietnam. It took me at least forty years to wear a Vietnam veteran hat. I am proud now of my service and am especially grateful to all the men and women who served a tour, or tours, in Vietnam. Thank you all, and to all who lost their lives in the war, may you rest in peace.