M Y O B

Bangkok, Thailand: 27 September (I think!) 1968

Dear Everybody~

After 7 wonderful days in Siem Reap (1 out for Battambang), I departed 25 Sept about 8 am. Siem Reap turned out to be one of the cheapest places I’ve been—7 days, most meals at the Hotel all for $35.00—one of the first times I’ve actually achieved living for $5.00/day! Despite the intense tourist flow (at its lowest ebb in September, thank goodness) Siem Reap is very little spoilt: the relaxed rural atmosphere pervades the town in spite of all the hullaballoo of tourism. Most of the hotels are out of town a bit, which doubtless has something to do with it. But I’ve never relaxed so well as I did here, and I truly hated to leave. As is customary, I wrote a letter to Prince Sihanouk praising the country and the people (and indirectly, him): it was not empty praise, for my 20-day 2800 km tour of Cambodia was a most pleasant & memorable experience.

Seeing Cambodia in its relatively pristine beauty (especially after witnessing the mess in VN, and now that I’ve arrived in Bangkok) makes me feel Sihanouk is right in not wanting his country occupied by Americans. As for its (Cambodia) being a “haven for the VC” I see no evidence to support this, and indeed, much to the contrary. In the provinces near the border the National Police & Army keep things under pretty close watch: I went through a number of these check-points (where the police, astonished by my appearance, were nonetheless unfailingly kind and helpful).

Returning to Siem Reap from Battambang I got a chance to assist a family having trouble with their Corvair (Chevy) automobile—that silly fan-belt arrangement. Getting them on their way eased my conscience, since every time I stopped to rest my machine or myself in Cambodia, someone invariably stopped to make sure I was not broken down & in need of help. This sort of friendliness is all too rare in the world, and it was most refreshing!

BACKSTORY: The folks with the Corvair had passed me at a high rate of speed, nearly blasting me off the highway with the electric-air horn everyone seemed to have in those days. Anywhere else, I have given them the finger, but as I was a guest… Anyway, somewhat further on I began to smell something “hot”: I check the bike carefully, and nothing was wrong, but as I continued on, the smell became more and more noticeable. Presently, as I came around a corner, there it was: the Corvair with its rear boot open, and lots of smoke emanating from it. The Corvair rear-engine Chevy had a fan-belt that ran over four pulleys so it could turn 90º, and it was always a source of trouble on those cars. When the belt wore out or flipped off, the air-cooled engine quickly overheated. I pulled up behind the stricken car just in time to prevent the owner from pouring a bucket of water on the engine (which would surely have cracked something critical by cooling it too rapidly). Using only sign-language, I made it clear he should wait until the engine had cooled naturally before putting on a new belt (which he had). I stayed with it until I could put my hand on the engine without getting burned, then went on my way. Before long I was overtaken, again with a blast of the air-horn, but this time with much waving and many smiles.

Well, as I said, I departed Siem Reap regretfully about 8, and got to Sisiphon & a bit beyond before encountering the first storm. I could have out-run it, except that the road was in poor shape in many spots, so suddenly I was right IN it; stopped at a check-point where I was graciously received—given the only chair in the hut and a beer. The storm passed on, and after about ½ hour I was able to proceed the remaining short distance to the “frontier”. Formalities there took about 10 minutes on the Cambodian side, and about 1½ hrs on the Thailand side; meanwhile more rain.

BACKSTORY: When the rain hit, I pulled up under a large tree to seek whatever shelter it offered, quite unaware that nearby there was a bivouac of Cambodian soldiers. They had a semi-permanent set-up of tents over wooden platforms. There were perhaps a dozen of them, and they traipsed out to greet me, all smiles: I suppose very little in the way of anything happened out there, since the road led to a closed border, so my appearance must have “made their day”. They gave me their “place of honor”, and the first Singha beer I ever drank. Conversation was greatly limited, but as was the case everywhere, they were polite and charming. Once the rain stopped, I went on my way, probably leaving them to discuss my incursion for many days. Who knows? I may have been the subject of an “Official Report”!

(This letter will be continued with the Thailand portion of this blog, yet to come)

REFLECTIONS ON CAMBODIA

The three weeks I spent touring Cambodia were some of the best weeks of my life up to that point, and they rate high in my all-time list as well. I was treated with respect, kindness, and warmth without fail wherever I went in that lovely country, and of course, seeing and poking around in the temples at Angkor was an unforgettable experience.

Cambodia was a country at peace. Granted, the Khmers and the Thais and the Laos and the Viets have been at each other through the ages, but the borders in place when I was there were generally respected (the border with Thailand was closed, although I did cross it). One feature of Cambodia then was that there was no poverty and no begging and no thievery: none! I met a couple touring from Holland, who went off on a bus tour of several days’ duration and realized too late they had l left an expensive camera at the restaurant they’d eaten in the night before leaving. Just on a chance that the camera had been found, they returned to the restaurant when they got back to Phnom Penh, and found the camera exactly where they had left it, untouched! They were greatly impressed!

I mentioned earlier the State magazine; in the english edition I found letters published, written to Norodom Sihanouk. These were from travelers who commented on whatever they had seen while in Cambodia. So, one of the last things I did before departing Siem Reap was to write my own note to the Head of State, telling him how favorably impressed I was with Cambodia. Whether the letter was published I will never know, but to my surprise, I received a reply from Mr. Sihanouk, send through diplomatic pouch to the UN and mailed from New York!

Letter from Norodom Sihanouk, January 1968

Later on, I sent him a copy of the general letter I wrote to “all”, relating my trip, and received another reply from Mr. Sihanouk. His reply makes it clear he had read the letter in some detail.

Letter from Norodom Sihanouk, October 1968

Following my trip through SE Asia, I wound up working in Australia for a while (as will be recounted in due course); upon my return to the US in mid 1970, I was appalled to see on the TV places I had been in Cambodia being bombed to smithereens when “tricky dick” Nixon widened the already-doomed Vietnam war into Cambodia. Once again, I wrote to Mr. Sihanouk expressing my shock and regret over what had transpired: I addressed the letter simply to “Norodom Sihanouk, Peking, China”, as I had learned he had retreated there. Without a more specific address, I expected no reply, but to my surprise, he answered the letter by telegram!

“Please accept my thanks for your friendly letter stop cordial consideration”

The destabilization of Cambodia brought about by Nixon’s illegal incursion into a sovereign nation should have brought impeachment, but it did not. And the rest, as they say, is “history”—a horrible history, as it turned out, for whom no one has ever really been called to account. The wonderful Cambodia I found in 1968 no longer exists, although the monuments at Angkor do.

Cover of Guide to Angkor Which I Used

NOTE TO READER(S): I will be away for several weeks on a trip to Pennsylvania and back. I will resume blogging when I am back home in San Francisco. Thailand was my next adventure.

I spent more than a week in and around Siem Reap. Now, I am surprised to find on-line references to many of the places and temples I visited. I’ve selected one link for some in the material which follows, but anyone wishing to learn more can cut and paste the names into google and find much more information. Bear in mind that in the forty years since I was there, many changes have  occurred.

One thing I had not realized until I got to Siem Reap:  Angkor Wat, is the most extraordinary of a large group of Wats, most of them located in the same general area. In fact, there are numerous temples all over Cambodia, Wat Nokor being the first I encountered. In the rainy season in 1968, many of the more remote temples were beyond reach except by water buffalo and cart! I tried to reach one or two, but the motorcycle met its match on flooded roads and mud churned up by herds of water B’s.

Here is a letter I wrote when about to depart Siem Reap for Thailand: following the letter is a group of diary entries which are more detailed and interesting.

23 Sept 68

Dear Everyone~

Unfortunately, I seem to have lost track of just when I wrote last. Probably Phnom Penh. I spent four more delightful days in that charming capital, taking several tours around thereabouts. Got on some really wonderful back roads, where I’m sure my appearance on a “moto” was as startling to the natives as a green martian would be to me. But the reception was, always, courteous and friendly. Got to Prey Veng & Kampong Cham, the latter a very charming city on the banks of the Mekong, & with Wat Nokor  (contemporary with Angkor) nearby.

Then off to Kampong Thom. Stayed overnight there, but not much to see other than a local zoo) of all things!) that had some interesting beasts & birds. Pressed on (through some rain) & arrived in Siem Reap Wed the 18th. Except for a brief excursion to Battambang on the 20-21st, I’ve been here ever since, and day after tomorrow, alas, I have to go on.

Angkor is simply not to be believed—except that is very much here to be seen. The various temples and ruins are incredible, both in their dimensions, and in their decor. The feat of simply cutting and piling the necessary stones to make Angkor Wat, for instance, is fantastic enough; but then every square inch of the whole thing inside AND out was carved and decorated—a  process that must have taken years. I wish only there were some artists’ renderings or scale models available to show what the temple looked like in their hey-day. Since all the wood involved has disappeared, and since virtually all the colors used on the relief-work have similarly disappeared, one really has to use his imagination to see the temples in their more complete state. One of the most fascinating of the group is Ta Prohm, which has been left largely as it was re-discovered, still greatly over-grown by the jungle. Seeing it as it is now, one can more readily see how temples even as large as Angkor Wat were “lost” in the jungle—it is amazing how it swallows things up. Poking around in this rubble one can almost get the same sensation the discoverers of the 1860s must have had.

Siem Reap is remarkably unspoiled despite the tourist flow. Right now, probably the worst time to see the ruins because of weather, there are marvelously few tourists here. So the town in quiet—except for the calls of jillions of frogs in some nearby [marshy] areas near the Hotel here. Altogether, very restful place. Although it rains nearly every afternoon for a couple of hours, this is no trouble, since  having started the day around 6 am (to get the best light in the ruins) one is generally quite ready for a siesta come 3 or 4 o’clock!

And everywhere, the wonderful Khmer people, who have just got to be one of the world’s most unspoiled and delightful ethnic sub-groups. Their friendliness and good nature are matchless; the only “danger” in this country is that of falling in love with it and its people. It will be truly with regret that I push on to Thailand, though I may find the Thai’s friendly as well.

The Honda runs beautifully—even through water 2½ feet deep! The only mishap so far has been one unexpected bump that I took rather too fast on a remote track somewhere between Angkor and Beng Mealea; the violent rebound brought the luggage rack and the tail-light into smart contact, smashing the latter. Not even a flat tire yet, and I’ve driven over 2000 km since arriving in P.Penh! The enclosed map shows my routes to date. As you can see, I couldn’t make the whole circle of the Tonle Sap—just not enuf time!

Much love~
Bruce

Here is the Map I Actually Carried, Marked with My Routes

DIARY ENTRIES: Sunday,15TH [SEPTEMBER, 68] Off to a somewhat later start than desirable, about 9. The road to Svey Reng is not too bad—about 40 mph except in the villages. Made Svey Reng, after about 1/2 hour wait for the ferry, about 12. Not much to see here, but the flooded country-side is beautiful!! Ride across the Mekong pretty, but takes only about 5 minutes. [Retraced my route back across the M again, then turned north on Highway 25 and] Pushed on to Kampong Cham, which is quite a large city on the banks of the Mekong, and very pretty. The ruins of Wat Nokor are just outside of town. Between S R and K C I went through a large rubber plantation—the trees are being tapped now, and they are dropping their nuts, which hit the pavement with a loud noise. Between K C and Skoun saw 4 elephants—photographed one group of 3. A third ferry (not on map) across the Mekong put me about 30 km out of P.Penh at sundown, and when the sun goes down here, the bugs go up!! Very buggy from there on to P.Penh. Got sun/wind burn on face and legs rather badly. Will see how I feel after a night’s rest, but doubt I want to go all the way to Pursat tomorrow. Maybe to Kg. Chhnang. Will see.

First Mekong Crossing – Road to Svey

Elephants and the Gent Approaching Asked for Payment for the Photo.

Awaiting Ferry to Kg.Cham – On Ferry, Bikes Take First Place

Bicyclettes Awaiting Our Arrival, Kg. Cham

Passenger Ferry, Kg. Cham – Approaching the Far Shore of the Mekong

Monday 16th: I awakened early after a good night’s sleep assisted by a vitamin pill & a darvon tablet. Face too sore to shave, but legs (except ankles) not bad except in looks. Face not uncomfortable—just thought it better not to risk messing it up really badly by shaving. But I really don’t feel like the trip to Pursat—too far for round-trip in one day, and Kg. Chhnang will have to wait until my next trip here.

Instead, I took off with a “guide” for Odong. It was a very leisurely trip, passing Kg. Lovor. Parked at the bottom of the Phnom & climbed the time-worn steps to top of the hill. Said hello to Buddha. Spent three hours up there, with the guide; very pleasant. Back to Kg. Lovor for Pepsis, then leisurely back to P.Penh. Released the guide. Expensive, but helpful and spoke rather good English. Tonight I will have my last Cambodian Beefsteak at the Champey Siemreap, & visit with the French Peace-Corps worker I met on the ferry to Svey Reng.

BACKSTORY: The chap I spent most of my time with in Phnom Penh introduced me to a guide, who made it clear from the start that his fees included sex. He was one of the most handsome guys I ever met anywhere! Taller than most Khmers, I might have thought he was part-Thai, but of course the ethnic groups in this part of the wold rarely inter-marry. He assured me, using better-than-average english, that he was all Khmer with a blatant grope of his crotch. So, every population has its out-liers, and his height was not a problem, despite my preference (ordinarily) for smaller boy-toy types. I’d have gone with him even if he was ten feet tall: he was that handsome! We rode two-up to Oudong: he put his arms around me to hold on (the only safe way to ride two-up on a motorcycle) but was not above letting his hands wander, so it might be said we rode just “up” all the way. There is a long stairway up to the top of the Phnom, and there were many folks around. After the customary homage to Buddha, we chose a round-about path down the forested hill, and eventually found a warm clearing where we could lie on the leafy litter and enjoy each other as swarms of monkeys chattered in the canopy above. Having been kept in a state of anticipation all morning, the “event” when it arrived was extremely messy but satisfying. The guide really was “taller than most Khmers”—everywhere!

Somewhere in Cambodia Banks of the Mekong, MC Mirror in Foreground. Oudong, Cambodia

BACKSTORY: At the restaurant that night, the cook, evidently the “Director’s” wife, brought out a live turtle and showed it to me. He explained that she wished to prepare the beast for me, but I demurred. If she had just brought it to table prepared, I’d have eaten it, I expect, possibly without even knowing what it was. But I was unable to look the beast in the face and admit I could eat it. I settled for the usual beefsteak, which was delicious with the pile of watercress she always put under it.

Tuesday, 17 Sept: Trip to Kg. Thom uneventful. Rain in the afternoon. Kg. Thom, situated on the River Sen is about 2000 people. Pretty place, but I can’t see what keeps it going. Its chief claim to fame seems to be its zoo. Stayed at the Bungalow, where the rooms are too expensive and the mosquitoes fierce! Gekkos are fat here, though. No really good restaurant.

BACKSTORY: The zoo at K. T. was quite extensive, and I saw birds and beasts there I’d never seen before. I also saw a lot of town-folk and children visiting: as it was Tuesday, I surmised there was some local holiday, for otherwise the children would have been in school. Well off the beaten track here, I was the object of many stares—none unfriendly—there were literally dozens of handsome youngsters, any of which I would have entertained given the opportunity. Alas, the opportunity never arose. It pains me beyond measure to realize there were horrors that awaited them of which we all were oblivious at the time.

Wednesday, 18 Sept: Awoke early after a good sleep. Departed Kg. Thom about 6:30 am, without breakfast. Soon got into rain, which I more or less followed for about 2/3 of the way to Siem Reap. Stopped frequently to let the rain get ahead of me, but got into some heavy rain in spite of that. Arrived S R just before noon. Had soupe Cambodienne at a small restaurant, then checked into the Hotel de la Paix. Changed to dry clothes. Rain stopped, temperature up a little, and overcast. Went immediately to Angkor Wat, spent about 2-1/2 hrs there doing a quick tour. Then the circle trip, stopping only briefly at most of the temples. Back to the Hotel for dinner & then to the Grand Hotel for free movies.

I am peeling everywhere; my face is a mess & my nose has peeled so frequently I am amazed there is anything left of it!

(This entry continued on next blog page)

BACKSTORY: As I departed Kg. Thom early, I was suddenly aware of horrible screams of terror so powerful I had to pull over and wait as the pitiful sounds got closer. Around the corner came a fellow pedaling a beychek in the seat of which was a huge pig trussed in stout strips of split-bamboo. The pig was very unhappy, and probably on his way to slaughter.

Coming up: In and around Angkor. Stay tuned!

Here is the last letter I wrote from Vietnam before departing. I was disillusioned, annoyed for having wasted nearly eight months with nothing to show for it. I was also itching to get on my way to Cambodia, where (at the time) peace prevailed.

Friday, 30 August 1968

Dear everyone~

After the last letter I wrote, I don’t think any of you will be surprised to learn that I finally resigned from PA&E. I just can’t face 11 months of wasting my time and the government’s money, no matter how much of the latter they might pay me. The lab program is a dead horse no matter how one views it, and any attempts to revive it (within the framework of PA&E) is an exercise in futility. The company is falling apart. More adverse publicity at home. A group of disgruntled former employees who went out in the course of the Qui Nhon debacle have formed a consortium of sorts to bring a lot of pressure from back home, as well as suits. There’s much talk of a stop-work injunction being sought. The whole affair stinks, and I’ve had all I can stand of it.

The deed is done, and plans are well along for the trip to Bangkok. The paperwork involved in getting out of VN is worse than that required to get in. Supposedly I will get my exit visa on Wednesday, and my ticket to Phnom Penh; I should get my Cambodian Visa on Thursday, and I’m booked to leave the same day on the 4 PM flite. This is cutting it pretty thin, but there is another flite Friday (no more ’till Teusday ff.) that I maybe can take if some hitch occurs on the Thursday one. Airlifting the bike is costing more than airlifting me—naturally, as it weighs more than I do. But the entire fare is less than 65 bucks for both of us, and the approx. 20 kilos of luggage I’m taking along. Am sending one large suitcase unaccompanied, as I think I mentioned before: that will cost about 12 bucks.

What with the transfer, my word to the post office a month ago, and other difficulties (not the least of which is that the PA&E mail room can’t seem to understand the difference between EMD and ECMD), I got a big wad of mail yesterday: a card from the folks in Canada, two letters from Todd (both written prior to one other later one that came straight through), the family letter from the southern branch, and two letters from Willie in Qui Nhon, the chap I roomed with through the Tet days in Jan & early February. I rather think there may be more letters from the folks wandering around somewhere.

I picked up a used Instamatic camera cheap. Just my sort of thing, no adjustments of any kind. A go/ no-go type light meter built in. Nothing fancy, but ought to provide some record of the trip. I have a tentative arrangement with a motorcycle enthusiast’s magazine in the states to publish an article on my trip, so you may eventually be able to “read all about it!” Of course they want some photos, too. Their most recent report of this sort was by a man & his wife who took a BMW with sidecar(!) from Brighton, England to Sydney, Australia. (Part of the way was by boat…)

The enclosed photos (please circulate) were taken this morning: I lashed on all my gear just to see how it looks and how the bike rides with it in place. I can’t even feel it there, and there is no effect on the handling. It takes me only a few minutes to drop it all off, buckle the saddlebags together and flop them over the grip, giving me a neat single-handle package to carry into hotels, etc. Fortunately, I learned the art (and the value!) of traveling light while in Europe. Better than half the weight of what I am taking is in tools, spare items, tire patching kit, etc. Having had the engine overhauled, I don’t expect much difficulty. but I’m ready for it. Oriental craftsmen, though hopelessly slow by our standards, are resourceful, and they can—and frequently do—manufacture parts that are not otherwise available. There are many pre-WWII motorcycles still in regularly use here, machines that parts are hard to find for even in Europe now I would guess. It is a paradise for seekers after vintage machines, though generally owners are reluctant to part with their venerable machines. Can’t say that I blame them—I’ve seen a number of large old bikes that I would enjoy having in my stable if I were permanently located somewhere.

But my Honda should take me nicely along to BK. It is light a enuf machine that it does not have to be “herded”, and so is not so fatiguing on the long runs, but is still heavy enuf to take me and my luggage without strain. I’m still running in the new parts, so the first 500 miles will be at under 40 mph, though 50 is altogether fast enuf under any circumstances for a conservative motorcyclist like myself. Needless to say, there is NO place where one can go that fast—or anywhere near it— in Saigon: if it were possible to get out into the VN countryside. though, it could be done.  There, the faster the better, because a fast target is harder to hit!

I have to spend many hours searching for trinkets to send along home. As I am sure Robb  can attest, there is really nothing available here though that is worth the cost or trouble. The little native art available is usually quite bulky, and nearly all the small stuff is either made in HK or Japan. In Cambodia, far away from this scene, the situation may well be different: I hope so!

This is the last of my letters to be routinely distributed: henceforth we will resort to the Xerox approach, through the good efforts of the folks. I am selling my typewriter, radio, linen, etc., to a friend tonite, and move to a hotel tomorrow AM in order to close down the apartment on the last day of the month. I believe you can send mail to me c/o American Express, Bangkok: but I would reserve that for essential items only, knowing that they are probably as disorganized there as in Europe. Better wait ’till I get there then send along whatever has come in one package (along with whatever has been returned from here).

Thus, if all goes well (and in the Orient one is never quite sure) the next communique should be from Phnom Penh!

The Demo[cratic Convention] debacle is all over, and the outcome was quite as predicted. Odd that both candidates chose running-mates that no one had ever HEARD of before. McCarthy’s failure, also quite predictable, is going to have repercussions long after the fact though. Given the current choice, and barring additional assassinations, I think I shall sit hi one out.

It is particularly unfortunate that the elections and associated falderal have overlooked the really best alternative here in VN. There might have been a time when I would have argued that communism is less of a threat than we seem to think, and that recent indications are that “varieties” of communism are cropping up, tending to reduce the world-domination threat. Czechoslovakia pretty well proves that this is naive (and it certainly shot McCarthy down in flames!).

The alternatives presented by the two parties seem to be: Dem’s will continue Pres J’s policies without substantial change, pressing for negotiations to solve the problems here. The Republicans are couching the SAME approach in slightly different terms, so there is really no alternative at all. McCarthy and followers, at the opposite extreme, advocate the pull-out and coalition bit. It is sad that (largely out of ignorance, I think) so few people see that there IS another alternative. Not a very pretty one, perhaps, but one that seems increasingly necessary in the light of current events.

The achilles heel of our VN policy since early in JFK’s career had been our policy of gradualism; a more misguided policy I cannot imagine. General Taylor (who seems to have been the author of it, and who sold first Kennedy then Johnson on its “merits”) ought to be hung for treason and a whole lot of other things. I don’t see how anyone can dispute the obvious fact that the ONLY deterrent that communism understands as such is superior FORCE—force that is ready at all times, and that is known to be in a position where any overt action will be met with an overwhelmingly superior reaction. The absurdity of the VN war has been that 30 billion bucks annually has not produced this force, because gradualism dictates that any enemy action is only MET, not STOPPED. Had this been our policy when we entered WWII, Hitler would probably now be Führer of america and much, much more. Because we dilute and twitter away our strength waiting for the enemy to engage us (at his whim and when he feels ready), our costs soar, the local economy bogs down, corruption flourishes, and all the other ills that have popped out of Gen Taylor’s Pandora’s Box labelled “Gradualism” bloom across the land.

I do not see ANY of the major (or minor) parties this year as understanding this point at all, and none of them have stepped forth with the only plan that can really end this thing. We do not have to escalate at all: we need only re-deploy (and effectively utilize) what is already here. It should begin in Paris with a clear ultimatum to Hanoi: withdraw at once from South VN and the demilitarized zone, or face massive, coordinated drives to eliminate them. And in Saigon, we must inform Pres. Thieu that from here on out, it is play for keeps, and if some South Vietnamese happen to get in our way, it’s too bad: the picnic is over. Either play it our way (having invited us in in the first place) or GO IT ALONE. But the crux lies in our repudiating the policy of gradualism: we MUST assert ourselves—and quickly—or go down in History ignominiously as a nation of masochists who bent over and BEGGED both the South and the North to “sock it to us”. There is ABSOLUTELY NO REASON why 30 billion dollars should not have ended this war a long time ago, except that it has been so miserably mis-spent. Unless we start spending it wisely, this will be a bottomless pit into which we will continue to pour billions—and lives—at an ever increasing (”gradually increasing”) rate: when at last our own economy breaks from the strain, communism will move in grinning, because it has gone all according to (their) plan.

If the foregoing diatribe sounds strong, it is mainly because I am not only appalled, I am ASHAMED by the way we have bungled this whole affair, and I would like as much as anyone else to see it ended. Both parties talk about ending the war “honorably”. But communism (understand that I use that word in a wide sense meaning present-day soviet-style communism) knows nothing—NOTHING— of “honor”, as we understand it. Berlin, Korea, Hungary, now Czechoslovakia, China, Yemen, all these countries and more show that honor is something that is meaningless to communism as it is presently constituted. Communism, once entrenched, has NEVER been successfully over-thrown. It will continue to expand just as fast as its economies allow—unless it encounters some obstacle: that obstacle will (can) only be a force (and economic strength to back it up) that is clearly superior, and which is KNOWN to be ready and willing to defend itself “offensively”. It worked in Cuba: that was before “gradualism” came to the fore.

The defense of gradualism really boils down to the question of nuclear weapons. The possession of, and WILLINGNESS TO USE, IF NECESSARY an arsenal of deployed nuclear weapons really obviates a large ground force. Gradualism is a way to keep the necessity for a ground force alive (thus perpetuating handsomely the “military-industrial complex” that Mr. Eisenhower spoke of). We should stand up now and say, Hell Yes we will use nuclear weapons (again)—if we feel it necessary. Just to prove the point we ought to set off a small-yield one right here in VN, in the remotest area we can. The second one could be right on Hanoi—except I feel certain there would be no need for it. I don’t think for the moment the communists are “chicken”—they’re just smart, and if they actually thought (better, knew for sure) that if they fooled with us we would wipe them out, they would pull in their horns and be quite happy with what they have now.

You will say I advocate escalation of the cold war. Precisely. A cold war does not kill people. A hot one (even if it is not a “declared” war, even if it is a “limited” war, or whatever euphemism one may choose) does kill people. IF we are so firmly committed to saving of human lives (as is so oft said) then we MUST embrace the cold-war approach. Certainly it is dangerous. Are we possibly afraid that we are not smart enough to take on the soviets verbally? Teddy was right: speak softly and carry a big stick—AND be ready and willing to use it. Bullies will invariably bow to this situation—it is human nature NOT to risk your neck if you KNOW you can’t win!

Well! Enough of that! I hope you are all well.

Later:

Folks:

There is not much to add, actually. We’ll be out of touch for a while, sort of: in fact I don’t really advocate writing until I reach BK. The Cambodian visa is good for only 3 weeks, but I imagine I will use it up. Plan to spend several days just lolligagging on the beach at Sihanoukville, trying to unwind from this altogether unhappy affair here. Then will spend most of the rest of my time in & around Siem Reap, near Angor, poking around among ruins, etc.

Pls circulate the enclosed photos. Keep track of Xerox charges, though I probably won’t be sending more than three or four letters from Cambodge. Will get a typewritier again as soon as I reach BK in order to prepare the MS for the magazine.

Love to all~
Bruce

_____________________

Can you tell I was “fed up”?

As for Sihanoukville, it was rainy and cold! But that’s far ahead. I have to get out of Vietnam, first. That tale is coming up soon.

From a fellow PA&E-er who was rotating out, I bought a larger motorcycle which I felt confident would be better for driving long distances. It was a Honda CB160 like the one shown below:

Honda CB160

_________________________

Sunday PM, 28 July 1968

Dear everyone~

Once again, two weeks have passed since I wrote—largely because there just hasn’t been anything worthwhile to write about. There still isn’t, actually. . .

The sixteenth of July came and went without incident (for some reason rumor had it that that was the day the VC would launch their next “thing”). The twentieth (anniversary of the Geneva Accords) did likewise, as have all the days since. There have been a few incidents of terrorism, mostly in Cho Lon. The VC apparently had counted on the Chinese contingent in SVN swinging to their cause, but the violence of their Tet and May 5 offensives brought about just the opposite result; hence the VC terrorists are directing their efforts to the Chinese in retaliation for the latters’ lack of support.

There was a fire in the JUSPAO (Joint U S Public Affairs Office) Building yesterday AM; the JUSPAO Office is adjacent to and actually a part of the Rex BOQ. Apparently the fire was caused by faulty wiring, not VC. It was a stubborn, smokey sort of fire (no flames), and it took a lot of doing to put it out. Damage from the fire was light, but damage by the fire-fighters was heavy.

Having spent a good deal of time getting the new CB160 Honda I picked up (used) running its best, I took a sort of shakedown ride tonight, taking a long circle trip around the city. The bike performed very well (it will be far better for my trip to Cambodia) (than the 50cc bike I had before), but of course I got into a drenching downpour just before I got back here! Soaked to the skin—but no matter, everything is dry again now!

My status with PA&E has changed—slightly. Since my job was eliminated from the FY 1969 manning table, Dan Smythe “surplused” me. He could have initiated a transfer to some other open job at LB, but since we haven’t really gotten along well the past 6 months, he decided to let CMO do it—hoping I suppose that I’ll wind up in some other installation. Saturday afternoon I went to CM0 to see what the prospects were, but got a long runaround and really didn’t learn anything. Guess I’ll just have to wait and see what action they decide to take, and if I don’t like it, I may resign. CMO, on the other hand, could decide that I am truly surplus, and terminate me (which I would prefer). However, there is a possibility that I could go into Entomology, and of course I could wind up just about anywhere in the country. One thing that mitigates against a successful transfer though is my equivalent GS13 rating: there’s a scarcity of “13 slots” in the manning table, because the Army tried their best to downgrade everyone this year. All this could take weeks—meanwhile I shall be trotting off to LB every day, there to sit and do nothing, until CM0 takes SOME sort of action. Incredible! But true.

That really is all the news there is: I hate to send one-page letters but there is no reason whatever to start another. So, love to all  hope you’re all well, as I am.

Luv~
Bruce

___________________

Anticipating the need for sending letters by international mail (rather than via APO), I tested the “system” by sending some letters written on stationery I swiped from the Caravelle Hotel:

Caravelle Hotel Stationary

The part that’s hard to read is: “Shades of Wallace Wimple”, which refers to the salutation, “Hello, Folks”, which was WW’s jowly greeting to Fibber McGee and Molly: I’ve never forgotten it!

_________________________

Monday Noon, 6 August 1968

Dear Everyone~

Well, the die seems cast now. My final processing out awaits only the affirmative decision of the “front office”—this may take a day or two, and the final processing is likely to take several more days. All going well, I should be on my way to Phnom Penh around the 15th of this month.

I mentioned that Mr. Smythe at LB had surplused me; CMO promptly lost the paperwork, and I spent a week in limbo, enjoying Saigon and getting my bike into good shape for the forthcoming trip. Then last week, new papers were made up which I hand-carried to CMO to be sure they got there. For a while there was talk of reassigning me somewhere, but I balked at this on the basis that I have already spent six months away from my profession, and another year would be damaging to my career. This morning, all set for a big battle, I went to CMO and found that Personnel had sent my papers forward with the recommendation that for the best interests of the company and myself I should be surplused forthwith.

My position was awkward, in that had they recommended otherwise I meant to resign, which puts a black mark on one’s record and means a considerable financial loss: no leave pay, no repatriation-fund refund, and the price of my fare home. But by being surplused, I get fully paid, a “completed contract”, release to work for other overseas firms, and (tee hee!) a letter of recommendation.

Consequently, I will be leaving Vietnam with $5000 in the bank (I’ve NEVER had a larger balance!) and a plane ticket in the event I should ever need it. My tangible assets will consist of some clothing and my Honda, along with an assortment of tools and spare parts that I’m taking along.

I shall fly (with Honda) to Phnom Penh. It is only about 180 miles away, and I’d given much consideration to riding there. But security conditions at the present time simply do not allow for this—too many VC along the way—and there is nothing to see anyhow, to make taking the risk worthwhile. People in times past have gotten through, but the VC buildup was not nearly so heavy. Additionally, I’m told the “hiway” (No. 1) as far as Cu Chi is in dreadful condition, making progress slow and hazardous.

My itinerary for Cambodia is not firmly fixed. I have in mind several days in Phnom Penh, then go south to Sihanoukville, which is on the coast and is famed for beaches and food. Then back to Phnom Penh by a different route, and onward north and west eventually to Siem Reap, the only major city near Angor Wat. Depending on weather and other conditions, I hope to spend ten days or so in this vicinity: there are many other ruins in the general vicinity which might bear visiting, but roads are poor so will just have to play that part by ear. Then I hope to go on to Bangkok via the only hiway available. The Cambodian visa is good for three weeks, and I expect to use all of that; no visa at all is required for Americans entering Thailand. By the time I get there, I shall probably have a sore rump and will be ready to stay put for a while!

I have arranged to sell my typewriter and radio to a friend before I go. This means that for the most part we shall once again have to rely on the Xerox machine. I will be traveling light for obvious reasons and hope to be able to ship ahead only my single large bag as unaccompanied baggage to Bangkok, where it will be held at the airport until my arrival. This is risky, but there will be only clothes in the bag, so if it “gets lost” I won’t be out a great deal. (There are three suits in that bag that have remained unpacked since January!) Shipping the radio and typewriter would be expensive and foolish, though, and I can get both cheaply in Bangkok, or wherever I settle down.

I might mention that in the back of my mind is the possibility that I sha’nt find work in Thailand, and may decide to go to Djakarta—I could even ride that distance on the Honda, though there is a train route that sure looks fascinating. There is a lot going on in Malaysia in oil exploration/development, and there ought to be a demand for chemists there.

Naturally, if I don’t find a job anywhere and the money runs out, then I’ll come on home and see what I can dredge up through Overseas Craftsmen’s Association, which I have joined—its a sort of personnel clearing-house, working both with large companies which hire overseas and with personnel who want to go overseas to get jobs for the latter and employees for the former. Good outfit—they do not have anything to do with PA&E!

That about brings you up to date—I should be able to get one more letters off before I go (hope the VC hold off on their next offensive for another week or so!). Also hope to get some packages of trinkets for everybody on their way sometime this week—though just what these will be I can’t be sure right now. Native VN crafts are not awfully lovely, to my way of thinking, and so much of it is actually made in HK or Japan that one has to be most careful!

I am in no way sad about leaving PA&E—and am not really sad about leaving VN either. I feel that unless we change our approach and policies RADICALLY and soon, our “involvement” is doomed to an ignominious failure. I still feel the only candidate on the scene who just MIGHT be able to bring about some of these changes is McCarthy, but just where his star sits at the moment is pretty hard to guess. Meanwhile, there is nothing for me to do but turn my back on this “bleak plain, where … ignorant armies clash by night”.

Luv to all~
Bruce

I outfitted the cycle with saddle-bags and a satchel I could easily strap to the luggage rack. I also fitted a left-hand throttle arrangement, expecting to need to relax my right (throttle) hand now and then. This device was a god-send, and a wonderful source of introductions to other cyclists who had never seen or thought of such a useful feature.

I tried to interest some other ex-pat cyclists I knew in going on the trip with me. They all said, “Oh, you’ll be robbed! You’ll be killed! It’s an idiotic thing to do!” I sent them all post-cards from Singapore nine weeks later. In retrospect, though, I’m glad I went alone: there were no arguments about where to go next, or when!

______________________

Sunday, 11 August 1968

Dear Everyone~

I forget who it was who said something about the best laid plans of mice and men. . . but in my case they have gone awry—at least for the moment.

My “die seems cast” letter was written Monday evening after I’d been told by “Out-Processing” that Personnel had sent a recommendation to the front office that I be surplused. They said to come back Tuesday afternoon to get the ball rolling.

But I underestimated the ability and willingness of the front office to make an already bad situation worse, and on Tuesday I was told that the front office had denied the surplus, allegedly on the grounds that the approximately $2500 involved might be disallowed (for reimbursement by the [US] govt), and that I would have to take another assignment. There followed three days of the most amazing “Micky Mouse” routine while Personnel tried to find an open slot that I could fill. For awhile it looked as though I might wind up as a Sanitation Supervisor, which with some stretching of the imagination is at least close to my field. But that failed because it would have meant a $35.00 cut in my salary: since the company is hanging me on the fine print in my contract (which allows them to assign me out of my classification), I hung them on some of the same fine print that bars them from reducing my salary under any circumstances. Hence, it became necessary to find a slot that carried the appropriate salary, and that turned out to be—of all things—a SUPPLY ADMINISTRATOR. This turns out to be nothing more than a dressed-up file clerk. When the Head of the Department asked me what I knew about Supply, I replied truthfully, “absolutely nothing”—to which he replied, “well, that never stopped PA&E from placing a person before.” His only other question to qualify me for the job was whether I could read and write English! Having set the standards THAT low, there was no basis on which I could refuse the position (giving the company thereby the right to fire me for cause). Although I had planned to resign at one time, I could not quite see why I should be forced to take the onus of that (and black mark on my record) just because I’d gotten caught in the cross-fire between CMO and Dan Smythe; and the more they shunted me around the less inclined I became to resign. So—for the moment—I am still on board, stuck in a freezing cold air-conditioned office all day at CMO, working 6 8-hr days/wk.

The matter is by no means concluded. A friend of mine in Contract Administration is close to the man who allegedly refused to approve the surplus, and the former has suggested a way by which it can be done and be fully allowed; he says he will talk to Mr. [redacted] and see if he can swing him around. If not, I may eventually resign under protest and hand the matter over to the NLRB and others to adjudicate. The most absurd part of it all is that not only is there a good case for the Army to disallow what I’ve already earned here—since it got absolutely no good whatever from my being here—; there is also an even better chance that my salary from this point forward also might be disallowed because I am working so FAR out of classification (on which the Army and the president of PA&E both frown)—a fact that seems to have escaped the attention  of Personnel entirely.

Then, too, there is the matter of these new “work agreements” coming up, and no one really knows what’s going to happen in that regard. PA&E has several thousand employees under contract identical to mine, yet, in negotiating the 1969FY R&U contract with the govt, they agreed to a number of limitations on their employees that are in conflict with the existing agreements. Thus, while my contract says I earn 3 days per month of annual leave, which can be accrued, and which can either be taken or worked at my option, the company has already promulgated a new regulation by which we are getting only 2 days per month, with the stipulation that a portion of it must be actually taken. Those who sign the new work agreements (which will be retroactive to the date they signed their current ones) will in effect be signing away a number of benefits, thus in effect voluntarily reducing their income.

One of the knottiest problems involved in the new work agreement hinges on the subject of Vietnamese income or other taxes. Our current contracts obligate the Company to pay any of these that might be levied (and of course the company recovers the funds from the [US] govt.). The new work agreements say nothing at all on the subject. Now, it is true that there are NO such taxes—at the present time, but the [VN] government could decide tomorrow that a tax such as the VN pay (about 37%) on the AMERICANS would be another marvelous way to wangle a whole lot of money out of the US—and without the protection of our own contracts, we would be obligated to pay this out of our own pockets, or quit. Needless to say, most people would do the latter!

So, it appears unlikely that many people (certainly not me) are going to go along with this new agreement deal. What the company is holding over our heads is that if we DON’T sign, they won’t offer us another contract when our current ones expire. Well, since most people are fed up with this outfit, they don’t intend to stay past their current tour anyhow, so no matter. There are already suits being filed about this thing, and many more can be expected: I hope it doesn’t come to my having to do the same. But some of the shenanigans that get pulled here are simply not to be believed—and a company operated like this one at home would fold up overnight!

You may have read about a couple of terrorist acts in Saigon a day or two ago—one of them a grenade tossed into a Cafe on Dr. Yersin Street. This is just past the circle at the end of Le Loi, not far from me. Such is the way of things here, though, that I knew nothing about it till I read the papers!

Luv to all~
Bruce

The upshot of this re-assignment was that I went each day to a frigid office in a Quonset-hut at Tan Son Nhut. The office contained three desks, one of them mine, another occupied by a fellow whose job I could never determine, and one for a lovely Vietnamese Secretary. There was a telephone on my desk: I was supposed to answer it, but it never rang. Once each month a stack of papers arrived mysteriously: my job was to arrange them in a certain order and hand them to the gent at the other desk. I have no idea what he did with them!

Speaking of the Caravelle Hotel, I found this article from the LA Times:

Caravelle Hotel

“In early May, Saigon’s historic Caravelle Hotel launches celebrations of its 50th anniversary with an appearance by Pulitzer Prize-winning foreign correspondent Peter Arnett. Though best known as a CNN reporter in Baghdad during the Persian Gulf War, Arnett covered the Vietnam conflict before that, filing some 3,000 dispatches from the Caravelle from 1962 to 1975 for the Associated Press.

He was not alone. During and after the war, the Caravelle was ground zero for the foreign press corps, including David Halberstam, Walter Cronkite and Morley Safer. VIPs like Richard Nixon, Bob Hope and Pierre Cardin also stayed there and drank in its fabled rooftop Saigon Saigon Bar, as did the cast and crew of the 2002 film “The Quiet American,” starring Michael Caine.

The hotel opened in 1959. After the fall of Saigon in 1975 it was renamed the Doc Lap (or Independence) Hotel. In 1998 a 24-story tower was added, bringing modern conveniences like a landscaped pool and fitness center to the historic site.”

That’s the National Assembly Building well-lit in the foreground: when I last saw it there was rocket damage! It is difficult to see whether any part of the original Caravelle was saved.

National Assembly Building, Saigon 1968

My situation with PA&E was tenuous at best. The saga continues on the next page.

Once I was able to get a typewriter, my letters from Vietnam were sent to the family using carbon-copies, so everyone would be up to date. I tried not to send all-carbons to any one address, so different members would have to wade through the 4th carbon fuzziness from time to time. This means that the surviving letters (which Dad kept) are a mix of different “layers”. OCR software works on the originals well; on the second carbons less well, on the third carbons poorly, and on the 4th carbons not at all!

The first letter in this group survived as a fourth carbon, so it had to be keyed in. Due to some annoying problems with my computer, I ended up losing some files, and wound up keying in this letter no less than four times!

Oh, well: being retired, I have the time to deal with these annoyances. So, on with it!

BB

_____________________

Sunday, 23 June 1968

Dear Everyone~

It has been a week and a half since I wrote last, but so little has happened that there was no reason to waste paper! Life continues pretty much as it has right along. The curfews are back to 2100 to 0600 in most areas of Saigon, which allows somewhat more movement. But the VC continue to shell the city from time to time. Presumably, Cho Lon and Gia Dinh are now cleaned out, partly because of the big defection of around a hundred and a half of VC who were surrounded there. You all know as much as I do about the Paris “peace” talks, and for that matter, as much as I do about the election campaign at home. I may be the only “hawk” that votes for McCarthy in November (assuming he’s nominated!)—but nothing any of the other candidates has said impresses me at all. The June Playboy interview with Galbraith I find very enlightening: with men like him in the background of politics, it’s hard to see how we’ve managed to get into this mess.

There is nothing new at the job. I was informed last Saturday by the great white papa-san (Dan Smythe) that I am not in the FY1969 manning table: this really doesn’t mean a great deal, except that there is a good likelihood I might be declared surplus (which would be MOST astute of the personnel dept). Rumors continue that Dan is going for at least a leave July 1: HE says he will be back—CMO says he won’t. We’ll see, but I’d bet on Dan anytime against CMO, which is about as totally disorganized an organization as you could ever hope (or have the misfortune) to find.

I spent the better part of today fussing with my Honda—it had begun rather abruptly to run quite badly. It seemed to be a carburetor problem, so I cleaned that thoroughly: no improvement. Then I go indications the battery was weak, so I replaced that: no improvement. Went back to the carburetor, and suddenly found that an extra spring had been added to the throttle arrangement—for reasons unknown—that interfered with proper operation: threw out the spring, and voila! Runs like a Honda ought. Friend and I tried to visit the Botanical Gardens/Zoo in the afternoon, but couldn’t get near the place. It is closed, and under heavy guard, as it offers a nice infiltration route (from across the Saigon River, which it borders). Xin Loi—another time, perhaps!

Some hip-nik burned his draft card in the park in front of the Assembly Bldg a couple of days ago. He was speedily arrested by a heavily armed Sgn Police detail. He was shortly thereafter released. The news papers report that the american Vice Consul had determined that his residence visa was about to expire, and “would not be renewed”.

There is nothing the Vietnamese fear more than a withdrawal of US forces: in the long run, there is probably nothing that would do them more good, however, since it would then be up to them to preserve the country—if enough of them decide it is worth it. The Thieu government is all too ready to “let George (the US) do it”—until we do something they don’t like. Our exclusion of the Sgn government in Paris is seen as a heavy-handed slap in the face, and recent talks about recognizing the NLF is almost more than Thieu can bear. If we keep it up, he may ask us to LEAVE!!!

That does it for the week: Love to all, of course~

Bruce

The situation in Iraq is redolent with the flavor of that last paragraph, written from Vietnam 40 years ago!

Temple at the Saigon Zoo

I did eventually get into the Saigon Zoo. This temple was part of it, but closed.

Monkey at the Saigon Zoo, 1968

This might have been a VC monkey! We’ll never know!

Sunday, 7 July 68

Dear Everyone~

Two uneventful weeks have passed since I last wrote. There have been no further rocket attacks on Saigon since 11 June: thank goodness those who suggested this represents a “de-escalation” by the North have been silenced. It is no such thing! It represents intensive efforts by all concerned to sweep the 6-8 mile perimeter of Saigon to destroy all rocket launching sites and caches of rockets. Am impressive number of them were turned up—over thirty in one cache alone, found July 3, all with fuses inserted. It was assumed these were to have been fired as a fourth of July “celebration”. . .

The government asserts that all persons made homeless during the Tet Offensive now have been re-located. So have many—but not all—of the May 5 campaign’s victims.

Dan Smythe ACTUALLY left the country on July 3—but he will be back in two weeks. I spent a Saturday a week ago at CMO trying to locate the bottleneck in the lab program—and uncovered so many that there is really no reason to hope for anything. The entire company seems almost paralyzed right now—everyone is in fear that he might get surplused, and so much time is spent pulling strings and doing all sorts of finagling to avoid getting dumped that no other work gets done at all.

For reasons beyond comprehension, the Qui Nhon Area portion of PA&E’s contract with the [US] government was split off this year and made an entirely separate affair. Because it was put out for bid, the company bid very “tight” in order to keep the contract: but this meant reducing salaries, which they did (illegally)—and promptly lost nearly one third of their people. As usual, the people with any brains at all “pulled the pin” (i.e., quit), while the dead-beats who didn’t realize what was happening stayed on. . .

Now, PA&E’s R&U contract in the remaining areas of VN is a “negotiated” contract: these are the best kind, because they’re not put out for bid, but are simply renewed (with some changes) from year to year as long as performance meets some sort of (usually low) standards. So the contract under which I was hired apparently has been renewed, but the changes are mainly in the manning table (from which my job has been deleted). It still remains to be seen what effect this will have, as the CMO is still snowed under with processing out the QN people. It may well be another month or two before I learn anything. Rumors are legion, of course, but most of them aren’t to be believed. To help keep busy I’ve been helping Personnel out with some of the mounds of paperwork that changing contracts entails. Technically, everyone is terminated and re-hired, which requires the preparation of a supporting document. We have somewhere between 1400 and 1500 Vietnamese employees at LB—and that’s about as close a count as one can ever get from the paper, because there’s a constant turnover.

There’s really not enuf more news to justify another sheet of paper—and it’s late, so I’ll close this and prepare for beddy-byes—and for another dull day. Cheers to all, wherever you are.

Luv~
Bruce

__________________

Sunday PM, 14 July 1968

Dear all~

A nice cool rain has just stopped falling outside as I begin this letter. This has been (I’m told) a very dry year—usually by this time we should be having rain nearly all day and night. But thus far it has been only one or two short storms each day, and the real drenchers are yet to come, I guess.

The situation in Saigon is tense. There seems to be a good deal of intelligence to support the theory that another attack on Saigon is imminent. There was a short bit of gunplay near here last night, but it turned out to be a group of inebriated Philipino soldiers settling an argument, and had nothing to do with the VC. Similarly, a large fire last night in a powerplant apparently was unrelated to the war. Several days ago, however, an american was killed by “sappers” in Cho Lon, so it is confirmed that there are still terrorists in the city: how many or how well armed is anybody’s guess.

There have been a couple of worthwhile articles in recent magazines that (if you haven’t read them) I recommend. In order of appearance, the Galbraith interview in June Playboy was, I thought, excellent: I marvel that with people of his erudition lurking in the background of politics, we nonetheless manage to get into messes like this one here. Then there is the article (I believe it was in Sat Eve Pest, maybe Look) by Wm. Lederer—the title was something like “The other war in Vietnam”, but I’ve forgotten it exactly. And then there appeared the Fullbright interview—no, article—in the July Playboy. There is a lot of meat in what he says—and the hopeful sign to me is that he is saying it!

The Lederer article is unnerving. Every bit of it—and a whole lot more  is true. Without trying, even someone as ingenuous as I has managed to stumble across many examples of the “smaller potatoes” sort of hanky-panky that goes on over here. But the un-real part of it is that, as Lederer points out several times, the official reason given for condoning corruption here is that “we are guests here, and do not want to ‘offend’ the Vietnamese”. Now, as a policy I think this is admirable enough—if it were actually applied. But instead, it has resulted in our not “offending” only the crooks and profiteers, who constitute a tiny segment of the population, while DEEPLY offending the larger part of the populace who, in the end, suffer inflation and other ills as a direct result of it all. Our policy has resulted in protection for an undesirable element in VN that we OUGHT to be trying to eradicate. Of course, who are we to cast any stones at VN racketeers when most of the training has come from us?

Even worse, the policy of not offending the VNese, fails almost totally to filter down to the rank-and-file population—the average “Nguyens on the street”—who every day are victim to some of the most outrageous behaviour. Unfortunately, our deeply rooted racism, under so strong attacks at home, has been transported here intact. The results are frequently appalling. I suppose it is an impossible task to screen military and civilians over here to determine their suitability to being temporarily transported into an alien culture: there is also almost no attempt to assess the behavior of those who are here, and return those who don’t measure up to some sort of standard. There aren’t any standards, either—unless one considers the largely ignored UCMJ.

Item: a couple of weeks ago, as we were proceeding to Long Binh in our leased Vietnamese bus, some idiot american riding in the back of a jeep tried to force his way past our bus by, first, shouting obscenities at the occupants, and then brandishing his .38 at our driver, who (understandably) nearly dumped us all in the ditch when he ducked. This slob hadn’t reckoned on americans being on that bus, and I expect he was surprised later that day when the MPs picked him up (traced by his vehicle number) with no less than four signed “reports” on the incident. The only logical place for this sort is the front lines: but unless they send him home (which is doubtful)—and heaven knows another trigger-happy nut is just what is needed there—he’ll probably get a reprimand and maybe a pay cut.

Item: last week, one of our VN employees was returning to Saigon after work, riding his motorbike, when he was flipped off into the ditch by a GI driving a 2½T truck. Unlike most GI’s who do this, this one obligingly stopped his machine—and went back to the injured man, whom he threatened shoot, and then left the helpless man as he was and drove away. MPs subsequently got the poor fellow to a hospital (it will cost a small fortune of the US tax dollars to patch him up), but could not get the GI, as the man had not been able to see the vehicle number.

The above are strong examples, repeated daily. Then number of lesser inconsiderateness—simple impoliteness, rudeness, etc., etc.,—couldn’t be calculated, but one has to be blind to fail to see dozens of examples every day.

Rocky has just announced his “four points for peace”—but has not made clear how he intends to secure the cooperation of the NVN and VC in the enterprise. At this juncture, I am much inclined to feel that unless we are willing to make fundamental changes in our modus operandi here, a pullout would really be better: either way (that is, if we do leave, or if we stay under the present circumstances) the local population is going to suffer great hardship. The parallels between French imperialism and american imperialism are so clear that multitudes of people might welcome communism—if only in the feeble hope that it might be different.

Confucius is reputed to have made up the saying that a picture is worth a thousand words: many more than that could well caption the “joke” in July Playboy showing the baby crawling in front of the TV set.

It is curious that the last rocket attack on Saigon coincided exactly with Westmoreland’s departure. His parting words were that there was very little that could be done to stop it. Yet, under Abrahms it has been stopped (perhaps not permanently, though this remains to be seen). An intensive and expensive sweep of the 6-8 mile perimeter around Sgn has netted a prodigious quantity (in excess of 1700) rockets, mortars and similar weapons. Westy’s exit flourish (the rocketing is not militarily significant) was incredulously received here, because it was obvious to the Vietnamese (but apparently not to Westy) that the rocketing was not really a military operation anyhow; rather, it was intended to be a psychologically disruptive maneuver. As such, it was remarkably unsuccessful; there was little panic, no sudden capitulation, no collapse of government. Perhaps the VC gave up the rocketing because it was too expensive in light of the lack of results, along with the pressure imposed by capture of many of their weapons. At any rate, it appears that getting Westy out of the picture was a wise move, as he seemed to have become blinded to some pretty obvious facts.

My trip to and through Cambodia has not been entirely abandoned. I find there is no trouble at all in getting the necessary tourist visa, good for three weeks. A simple form (only ONE copy!), a photo, and a valid passport will get one in less than 24 hours. I am only waiting to see if PA&E won’t make it possible to make it a one-way trip. Intelligence seems to indicate that they will before long. It’s a waiting game, and I may not be able to wait it out, but only time will tell, I guess.

That wraps up the latest report from Vietnam.

Cheers to all~

Bruce

___________________

I’m not getting much feed-back from this blog: perhaps readers are as bored with it as I was with my “job” in Vietnam! Comments are welcome at [email protected]

August 29, 2009

As the last scion of the Kennedy family is being laid to rest, it seems appropriate that I have reached the point in my narrative where the news of Bobby Kennedy’s assassination reached us in Vietnam.

Sunday, 9 June 1968

Dear Family~

Needless to say, the news here much of this week has been largely concerned with the sad events in Los Angeles, et. seq., and has tended to overshadow the local news. The local news is getting stale anyhow, as the VC continue to shell Saigon night after night. Nothing has come in as close to me as the two on the 19th of May.

Early in the week, the news centered on the unfortunate accident in Cho Lon, where a US Helicopter-fired rocket misfired and killed six high officers of the national police, and wounded several others, including the (now former) Mayor of Saigon. The first reports were that this was a VC shell that had hit; investigation indicated shortly however that this was not so, and close examination of the shell fragments, and investigation of the pilots involved, eventually revealed beyond doubt that it was one of our own “strays”. It was not a unique sort of accident, of course, but the reaction has been pretty unfavorable.

Word of the Los Angeles debacle reached us at Long Binh late in the afternoon Wednesday, First reports were hopelessly confused, but by evening it was clear to me that a miracle would be required for Bobby to survive. I stayed at home (with a cold) on Thursday. I awoke late in the afternoon as a BBC broadcast was coming to a close, and the announcer stated that the foregoing program had been prepared before the unfortunate death of Senator Kennedy: this was my first confirmation of what I knew was to be. I tuned to VOA, which was playing dirges, so I had to wait until the local 5 PM news to get the details.

All of the applicable descriptive adjectives have long since been used to describe this latest turn of events. Over here, where violence is daily bread, the impact has not been nearly so great as I’m sure it was at home. The Vietnamese have been very cool towards Kennedy anyway, so other than the official condolences, not much beyond the facts have been forthcoming in the papers. Thursday morning the funeral cortege for the VN officers mentioned earlier passed my balcony, and I felt very sure then that before the day was over I would hear of the necessity for a similar event in Washington.

Now, of course, it is all over but the shouting. That is, this particular episode is over—but I predict there will be much more violence along the same lines before the next election at home. All the weeping and wailing  and gnashing of teeth about the “upsurge of violence” in the US seems to me to miss the point completely. There in nothing new about it. American history, from the war for independence onward is not noticeably less violent than the history of other countries. What bothers me is the fact that murder, homicide and so forth is often tacitly, if not openly condoned in some circumstances, while acts that are substantively the same are condemned in other circumstances. Where was the great hue and cry when shooting or lynching Negroes was even more commonplace than it is today? Where was the period of “official mourning” for the twelve children killed in the bombing of a Birmingham church? The cortege and pompous burial for Medger Evers?

I certainly agree with President Johnson and the many others that seem to have concluded that there is something wrong with america today—something that finds its expression in assassinations, riots, and so forth. But I think I’d disagree with many about the causes of the wrongness. The American Ethic has too long denied the essential humanness of all people, and the people within its borders particularly. Organized religion has for centuries been promulgating a body of doctrine that simply fails to take into account the fact that humans are, first and foremost, humans. much of this doctrine found its way into our federal structure (the colonisation of america was initiated, after all, by a persecuted religious sect which proceeded to become as adept at persecution as those who drove then from England): the constitution is shot through with examples of pseudo-religious beliefs translated into a formula for government. And through the years, a vast body of legend has been built into american history that grants to the american people something very close to actual divinity. So powerfully imbued have we become with our feelings of God-given superiority that we have even undertaken to export the commodity.

Future historians may well record the 1960s as a decade in which america finally realized that the credibility gap between its facade of liberty and equality and justice and pacifism and the edifice of actuality became so wide that the entire structure collapsed. Examples of our duplicity in the world today are myriad, and all the world is beginning to take notice. Lately, even large segments of our own population have been taking notice too. Everywhere our “Do as we say, not as we do” approach is being rejected—quite appropriately, I think. Our future as a nation, or as a world power, hangs now in a delicate balance, and it remains to be seen whether we will really pull in our horns, gird ourselves, admit our mistakes, and set about to bring into reality the “american dream”—which is still no more than a dream—or whether we will close our eyes once again to the oppression, inequality, injustice and belligerence that have brought us to our current sorry state.

There is no change in the work status, and none is looked for. PA&E may try to pull some hanky-panky again this year about our employee contracts, which will give me precisely the “out” I need: but if they don’t do this, I shall certainly resign before too long, unless the situation changes radically with the award of the new parent contract with the Army July 1.

I’ve been investigating the proposed trip through Cambodia. The Vice Consul here points out the necessity of being very careful on such a trip, since we are not diplomatically represented there, but explains that there is nothing she can do to prevent the trip. Tourist Visas to Cambodia are issued through the Australian Embassy here, and I haven’t had the chance to see them yet. Ordinarily, Thailand requires no visa, but it may be that one would be required for persons entering Thailand from Caniodia, so I shall have to contact the Thai Embassy as well. The plan is still very hazy and no dates are set. Having my Cambodian friend along as a guide should prevent any major mistakes that might conceivably involve me with authorities. Air Vietnam has regular flights to Phnom Penh.

As I start this third page, I realise there isn’t much to add to what I’ve put into the previous two.

The weather is getting consistently wetter, with storms just about every day. Rob can now testify to the wetness of our rains, and to the lightning accompanying! I mentioned earlier that I finally succombed to a Vietnamese cold, and find it remarkably similar to the US variety (though this may be an imported cold for all I know!) It is about over now.

Mail was delayed this week, and I didn’t go to LB Saturday—went to CM0 instead—so I suspect letters will be waiting for me Monday AM. My last letter from Dad was 5/26, containing the copy for Rob (he got it OK).

That’s about 30 for this week: as usual, I hope this letter finds you all well.

Love,

Bruce

It was slowly dawning on me that I was involved in a boondoggle, and the likelihood was great I would not complete my contract. I began to formulate a plan to ride my motorcycle from Saigon to Phnom Penh: the main reason for doing so was to get to and see the Temple complex at Angkor. I had seen all the pictures in old issues of the National Geographic, and had seen the pictures my brother Todd had brought back when he visited the temples in 1958. I wanted to see this for myself, and in Saigon was only a few hundred kilometers away from them.

I was also becoming critical of our lack of progress in the war itself. Within a few weeks of my arrival, I came to the conclusion we should never have gotten mixed up in this business at all: but it seemed to me that now that we were there, we should identify our objectives and then get on with the job. With the VC close enough to shell Saigon daily, I felt we were not actually getting anywhere: we should either “shit, or get off the pot!”

IF this sounds familiar, think “Iraq” or “Afghanistan”!

Wednesday, 12 June 1968

Dear Everyone~

I don’t generally write during the week, but I suppose you’ve all been hearing the reports of the VC shelling of downtown Saigon, and may be worried about me.

The curfew hours were changed Sunday to 2100 to 0600 in precincts 1, 2, and 3: I am in 2. Consequently, somewhat more people were about at 6:15 Monday morning than normally. I was not among them, however, since our bus schedule had not yet been changed, and I was more or less asleep (the alarm had rung at 6) when the first rocket hit. It was the one that landed in front of City Hall, and the nearest [to me] of all: none of the rockets in this barrage actually came as close as the two mortars that hit on May 19. But the 122 mm rockets are a bit bigger, and do much more damage…

I got up and went out on the balcony, where at first I could not identify the peculiar whistling sound I heard. It wasn’t long before I realized it was rockets overhead, so I went back inside! All 25 of them arrived in a space of about ten minutes. As one does these days here, I calmly set about shaving and within a half hour after it was over was in the Rex having breakfast.

The rocket that landed near the Rex set two cars afire, demolishing both, ignited gas pumps in front of a garage, and blew out windows for a large area around. The one that landed against the Indian Consulate on Tu Do did a lot more damage, and killed two old women asleep in the adjacent doorway. Two others landed nearby that one, but hit nothing of consequence.

Five rockets landed across Cong Ly Street from the SE corner of the palace grounds, doing heavy damage to three large residences. One of these had every tile of the entire roof blown clear off, leaving all the wood and concrete structural members intact—a curious thing. About 6 landed near the intersection of Gia Long and Le Van Duyet, and it was there that a large number of people were killed and injured.

For some reason our bus didn’t come that morning, so I walked around in the afternoon to see the destruction brought on by this attack. Not very pleasant, though one should always bear in mind that vast areas of North Vietnam must look far worse by now.

The reaction here is almost universally one of puzzlement as to why we don’t retaliate by breaking off the Paris talks and/or bombing Hanoi. It’s a good question, for which I have no better answer than anyone else. There’s been a good deal of wry commenting on Westy’s parting remark about the shellings being “militarily insignificant”, a remark that to my way of thinking indicates the distance that separates the military mind from a reasonable mind.

The very day that [Robert]  Kennedy was shot, I had spent the morning composing a letter to Senator McCarthy, indicating why I was supporting his candidacy and suggesting some areas that seem to me to need attention in the years ahead. I have never sent the letter (I planned to polish it up a bit first), but now I think I shall have to re-write it altogether.

Dad’s remark in his last letter to the effect that I seem to be getting a bit more hawkish is true enough—though I hadn’t realized it showed that much. I realized myself how my thinking had changed when I completed the aforementioned letter to Senator McCarthy, and found I had advocated bringing the war to a rapid conclusion through massive strikes at all strategic targets in the North that we have so assiduously protected so far. I see only two alternatives to this, however: 1) the whole sad affair will drag on and on and on and on, no one really winning or losing anything, as is essentially the case so far, except billions of dollars and thousands of people… or 2) the pull-out. Now, the pull-out of itself is not such a bad idea, though the alterations in world-wide alignments that would result might be quite startling; but a pull-out here would almost certainly see a repeat performance of the whole mess on some other soil.

If one accepts the inevitability of a direct confrontation with either Russia or China, it seems to me prudent to get it over with before either has a chance to build up further towards it. The question is, if we were to attempt to bring Hanoi to its knees (and I don’t really doubt we could do it smartly and quickly if we put our mind to it), would either China or Russia interfere at this time? I think that a close study of History would reveal that neither country in this case would risk a world-wide conflict—at this time—in support of what is essentially an insignificant country like NVN. Ho Chi Minh has been walking a tight-rope between Peking and Moscow for some time, and not entirely pleasing either one. Taking into account growing animosity between Mao and Kosygan at the present time, I don’t believe either would rally to Hanoi’s side strongly—at this time. I keep saying at this time because I think timing is important here. Whichever power succeeds in making the largest propaganda victory out of continuing to hold the US at bay in Asia may ultimately turn out to be the winner in this part of the world: if we are really serious about containing BOTH the Chinese and the Soviet influence within present borders, then we should by all means get on with it, and sheer military superiority is (either now or later) going to be the only way we can succeed. The history of “negotiations” with the Communist countries does not indicate any degree of optimism is justified in that method of containing Communism: even a casual look at Korea or the Middle East will confirm this.

Of course, if one has serious reservations, as I do, about the necessity or desirability of keeping Asia entirely free of communism, the foregoing argument is invalidated, and a pull-out here is the only answer. One of the more-or-less rhetorical questions I put to Sen. McCarthy was, “Does our paranoid fear of communism really square with the fact that millions of people are better off today under it than they were under some previous from of government?”

Recent events in the US strongly reinforce my belief that McCarthy may be the best choice we have. I was glad to hear today that some Senator has been pointing his finger at such american traditions as war toys, horror movies, shoot-em-up TV programs and the like. He overlooked the fact that we have maintained HUGE armies throughout our period of existence, thus training virtually every man in the arts of war for nearly two centuries. The effect of this I think is important.

If I fill up this page, there won’t be anything to report this weekend, so I’ll close this now and get to bed: our bus is running earlier now, so I have to go to bed earlier, too.

Love to all~

Bruce

Forty years later, we all know what happened to Senator McCarthy!

More letters to follow. . .

For some years, my parents had been sponsoring a young boy in Vietnam through FFP (Foster Parents Plan), known only as Tai and a number. It seemed natural that I should try to get in touch with him while there.

My letters were also referring to my “Number one friend”. This was the masseur I had met in the parlor on Phan-Than-Gian Street: he stayed with me, used the motorcycle, and kept me well pounded with his massage skills. We had sex occasionally, but mostly that was taken care of by the boy I’d met first at the Loc Building who helped me move to my apartment, and who visited regularly.

Monday, 13 May 1968

Dear Everyone~

First, belated Happy Mothers Day to those to whom it applies: somehow in the week’s chaos I forgot about it—there aren’t all the advertising reminders down here (since the Holiday is unknown to the VN).

The accompanying article tells a number of tales. The bunker complex referred to was discovered about 2-1/2 miles (line of sight) from me, and it is that area which I’ve watched US planes work over several times. Last night, E-4 Jets struck it four different times (apparently the VC were trying to move back into it) with B-40 rocket-bombs. These are big ones, and at 2-1/2 mile range they sound as though they were next door, and shake the building pretty hard, yet there is little to see unless one is atop the Rex, and even then the haze usually prevents seeing much.

Yesterday, and possibly again last night, the VC managed at last to hit and cause damage to the NewPort bridge, so that this AMs news broadcast said traffic on the Xa Lo Bien Hoa was limited to essential Mil only. My bus came at its appointed time, but I was discussing a block away the liklihood of its getting through, which seemed small, so I didn’t go. I expect it will just get tied up in a monumental traffic jam and eventually return to town. I’ll try tomorrow, unless I hear otherwise, to go to work, though of course the only real reason I bother is to get mail.

Yesterday, Hung and I went out to the Cho Lon PX as planned. It was open, swamped with people, of course. There was a good deal of shooting not far away, and when some jerk cleared his rifle near the entrance, you should have seen everybody (including yours truly) dive for cover! At that moment I was waiting for Hung to come back from the Va Ep (garage) where he was getting the left-turn signal lights on the Honda fixed. When he got back, we di di mau’d!

On the way out there, we stopped to see my “family”. Their place is not bad by Saigon standards, but they sleep in a bunker every night, and are getting ready to move to what they hope will be a safer area—for which I can’t blame them, but where they will go I’m not sure. There is an uncle on the scene, related somehow to the Papasan who isn’t around, and he works for PA&E! He’s a photographer, but has not been able to get to Tan Son Nhut to work all week. He’s Phillipino, speaks good English, and is very pleasant. Apologetic, of course, about the house situation, but of course under the circumstances…

Having boo coo time, I think I’ll try later today to get in touch with Miss Green at FPP and see what I can learn of Tai. I hope, of course to be able to get good news, but there is always the possibility it will be otherwise.

On the way to Cho Lon yesterday we passed a large refugee camp put up on the site of what was to have been a large new school: I’d been by it when it was just a couple of acres of cleared land awaiting construction. Now, it is a forest of semipermanent tents (wood bottom, fabric top). I do not think it was designed by an Architecture Professor at Cambridge! It was, at least, orderly, if crowded, and the Red Cross was much in evidence, so it is quite likely that many of the occupants are better off than in the hovels they inhabited before!

I just went out and bought 4 Saigon maps to send with this—I’ll mark them with useful info to help keep you up to date. The accuracy of these is poor, and there’s no scale of distance, however. . .

Later, Monday, 4 PM

I have just returned from visiting Foster Parents Plan. This morning I took the Honda and went seeking the place, but somewhere along the way the number 160 Yen Do had got fixed in my mind, and I was not able to find that: of course I had the letter with me, but dinky-dau me, I didn’t have sense enough to look at it until I got back to the apartment, where, of course, I found the number was 105 Yen Do. This afternoon after lunch I tried telephoning, but Miss Green was out until 2 PM; hence about 2:30 I got a taxi and headed out again, this time to find that it is at the corner of Yen Do and Cong Ly, so I’ve passed it many times on the way out to CM0.

Miss Green turned out to be precisely the charming older lady that I’d expected, with a copy of “Suffer Little Children” on the bookshelf. The outfit seems to be the best organised of any I’ve found here yet: they’d received a copy of the letter from New York, and although she scolded that office for forgetting the “V number” (Tai’s ID) they had dug out his card and were actually more or less expecting me.

The faily lives in a portion of Cho Lon into which Americans are not presently allowed: she was not more specific, probably fearing I’d try to go there. They have positive news that the family did not suffer in the Tet offensive, but do not have information on the current drive.

All of the familys receiving assistance within a 60 mile radius of SGN come to the Yen Do office to pick up their moneys and visit the caseworker: someone from Tai’s family, if not Tai himself, is expected in on Wednesday 22 May, and I am to go there on that day and meet with whoever shows up: the caseworker will act as interpreter. I’ll take that day off (if indeed I am working again by that time); there isn’t time to get a letter back from you with any specific questions you want asked, so I’ll have to sort of play it by ear.

Miss Green was highly doubtful that the letter you say was written in January actually was, since she says they are generally running farther behind than that. She was also interested in my own “family” and what little I had done for them. Alas, she is not at all optimistic about the future, feeling that much more hardship and war will hit Saigon before it is over. That of course remains to be seen.

So there you have all the news I can get at this moment; I’ll write the evening of 22 May (be prepared for the possibility that no one will appear: what with curfews and limited movements in many parts of Cho Lon it is quite possible they won’t be able to keep the apointment, but much depends on what happens in the next few days), which will mean you should get some info around 29 May.

Saigon HAS been quiet all day so far: not a sound I’ve heard even in the distance, which seems a little odd considering how noisy it’s been for the last week. I spoke to some chaps at noon who said the remaining lane of the Newport bridge was successfully tested at 60 tons this morning, so traffic should begin to move some, but it will be congested. There is an alternate route to LB through the “boonies”, but military escort is required to traverse it because of the dense jungle that surrounds it and the known presence of snipers. I’ll not try it, I think!

More tomorrow:

Letters arrived from home, and one was from my brother Rob, who worked for an aircraft company and was being sent to VN for some purpose he could not divulge. He mentioned having to get a lot of inoculations, just as I had done.

Long Binh Tuesday AM, 14th May 1968

Made it through to LB OK this morning; structural damage to the New Port bridge is not great and the section that dropped into the water can be replaced without too much difficulty.

Yesterday  remained quiet, all through the night as well; same parts of the curfewed areas are being opened up slightly. It would appear that the offensive is over for the time being.

Received letters from everybody this AM. Todd’s with his latest set of notepapers which are indeed lovely and ought to sell well; Dad’s with the welcome pictures of the family taken at Easter; and Rob’s letter telling among other things about his proposed trip to VietNam.

Todd’s letter included photocopies of the downtown area of SGN from the Nat’l Geographic article. I still haven’t gotten hold of a copy of that issue—it would have been faster if someone had bought one and mailed it over! The particular photo he sent does not show any part of where I have lived, and my present location is just off the picture at bottom right, as is the Rex BOQ. The area that I lived in before moving is in about the opposite direction from the view in the picture, as you all may be able to figure out from the enclosed maps.

Rob: How to contact me if you reach Saigon is a problem. I have seen a number of [Company] people around the Rex, and I’ll contact them and find out where the office is. I can put you up OK, though not in the most luxurious surroundings: if you’re on an expense account, the Caravelle is only a block away, but expensive. Numerous other less dear hotels in the area, though. You will, if you come into Saigon, arrive at Tan Son Nhut AB, and transportation into downtown is not difficult to arrange—if you go by taxi it costs 100 piasters (less than $1.00), and your destination would either be the [Company] office or my place. If the latter, tell the driver “Rex” or Nguyen-Hue / Le-Loi (Nyoon Way / Lay Loy) and he will drop you at the circle. The map below will direct you to my place. If I know the exact day you arrive, I’ll have Number 1 friend on hand to let you in, otherwise I might be at work unless you come Saturday afternoon or Sunday. On the other hand, if you let me know exact day, I can take a day off to be on hand, perhaps even meet you at TSN. I can be reached—with patience and luck—by telephone on any Military class A telephone, the number Long Binh 2268, but don’t rely on it! Cam Ranh Bay, is of course, a number of miles North, and with sufficient notice I might get travel orders to enable me to accompany you there for a few days, but it would take time. As for HK or elsewhere, I really don’t know, but I’II see what I can find out. Anyhow, sure would be swell if we can get together however briefly while you’re in country. As for the sore arm, well, toi rat tiek: now you know what I went through!

Will close this now and get it off to you all.

Love, as always~
Bruce

___________________

SAT 18 MAY 1968

Dear everyone~

Since I last wrote, and I can’t remember exactly when that was, things have quieted down quite a bit. Midweek there were some more rockets landing in Cho Lon at night, but otherwise little action around Saigon. Curfews are being relaxed somewhat, although it looks as though the 2100 to 0700 one will be with us for some time.

Emergency repairs are started already for the New Port Bridge. The major effect of that damage has only been to slow traffic to a crawl: most of the week it has taken nearly two hours to go out in the AM, but somewhat less coming back at night: but today, coming in at one PM, it took more than two hours!

Dad’s letter of 12 May, packed with clippings, arrived this week. Among other things, he mentions being puzzled still by the fact that the French Beaucoup comes out in Vietnamese as “Boo Coo”. Well, now, it doesn’t AWAYS sound like that—sometimes one hears it nearer to the French pronunciation. But transliterations usually get somewhat garbled in the process anyhow.

The Vietnamese alphabet is composed of 12 Vowels, 17 Consonants, and 9 Double Consonants; there are about 30-odd diphthongs, however, each having (to a Vietnamese!) distinct sounds: as if this were not enough to master, there are 5 diacritical marks which further alter the pitch (for the most part) of a spoken sound! Through this latter expedient, a single word can—and usually does—have an assortment of meanings depending on the accents. A simple word like Ba, for instance, has at least five distinctly different meanings (among others, it means three, old woman, and father)—not to mention contextual shades of meaning that also may appear!

We understand that on the eve of Senator Ribicoff’s investigation (recommended) of USAID, PA&E and RMK-BRJ, PA&E has been sold to some outfit I’ve never heard of called Gulf & Western Industries: they’re listed on NY Stock exchange at 50 or so, but I suspect that when the word gets out they bought PA&E it will drop to ten or so! They’ve bought themselves a peck of troubles, if it is true. What effect this will have on the employees, or on myself in particular, is hard to guess at this point, probably little: but it is increasingly clear that my tenure with the firm will never reach the anticipated 18 months, for I am completely useless to the organization—and trapped by Smythe in such a way I can’t transfer to some duty-post where I could at least do a day’s work for a day’s pay. Just where I’ll go, or when, or how remains to be seen, but one of these days. . .

In anticipation of a possible visit from Rob, I got my passport back from the Company and was surprised to find that in three month’s time they succeeded in getting my “Brown-Book” receipt, which means I am now legally in the country! A lot of people don’t ever get them, and I probably will never see the brown book itself, which is a work-permit and residence visa combined. But with what I have, I can get exit and re-entry visas with little difficulty, as long as I do it myself and don’t rely on PA&E to do it for me.

That about brings you up to date: the frequency of my letters varies inversely as the VC activity apparently, so when you don’t hear much you can assume things are status quo. I will write Wednesday nite after my meeting (if any) at Foster Parents Plan.

Love to all~
Bruce

As the letter above makes clear, I was pretty sure the lab was never going to be approved. There had been talk almost from the day I arrived at Long Binh that Dan Smythe would be transferred, but either no one could accept him, or (more likely) he was one of those who “knew where the bones were buried”, and was invulnerable to attack or transfer, no matter how much his staff hated him. I began formulating plans to escape this place, not because I did not enjoy it, but because I was a useless appendage to the US effort. With rockets landing frequently, Saigon at this time was a dangerous place to be, so if I was going to remain useless, I was going to go elsewhere!

Nevertheless, the possible visit from my brother was something to look forward to!

More letters to come!

Dad’s tiny hen-scratch indicates this was my 17th letter.

24 March 1968

Dear Everyone~

I realised last night that it has been over a week since I wrote to anyone. Time flies along here, and each day is so much like the others that it is hard to keep track of them. The week was eventful, in a way—at least there were things to talk about, and occasionally, work to do.

There was a fellow that came over in our group who was also assigned to Long Binh, as an Entomologist.  Fred XXXXX was his name. He had a good thing going there, lived in Thu Duc, somewhat nearer [to Long Binh] than Saigon, was supposedly working “7 10s” (i.e., 7 ten hour days/wk), and so forth. For a couple of weeks he would occasionally talk about wanting to go home (Louisville, KY), but we all just figured he had a touch of homesickness, and kidded him along. Tuesday last, he told me he was going to drive his truck into Sgn and stay here at the Loc Bldg to get a good hot bath and quiet night’s airconditioned sleep: since I figured this was just what he needed, I went along for the ride (the truck is much more commodious than the bus!). When I woke up the next AM, there was a note under my door, and the truck was gone. He had taken off early and gone to Tan Son Nhut, somehow bought his own ticket home, and somehow gotten his exit visa, and, well, just took off! That left me to get out to TSN and pick up the truck and drive it back to the motor pool at LB, and it fell to me to break the news to Dandy Dan Smythe—he took it suxprisingly well, all considered!

I’ve been spending a good deal of time this past week working as a refrigeration mechanic. If CMO ever learns (and you can bet they will!) that their GS13 Chemist is grubbing around a bunch of beat-up worn-out reefers, ice-machines, and air-conditioners, there’s going to be a flap! But at least it gives me something to do besides sit around with my finger in my ear in the meanwhile.

You recall I was dickering, on an insurance policy before I left. They were supposed to write and let me know whether or not I could get the Double Indemnity without a war-clause, and some other details. Instead, they issued the policy for straight 21000 dollars, no DI (no war clause, tho) and no waiver of premium. The cost was nearly $500/yr (for some reason it is very expensive to convert from group to individual policy), which I consider to be much too high. So I politely sent it back and asked for a refund on the unused portion (two months) of the premium I’d paid. So, I have only the 10000 dollar Workmen’s Comp policy through the company in case anything happens—but that ought to be enough for now.

Just today, I got two checks from the IRS, both out of Ogden. One was for some adjustment on 1965 Income Tax, and the other was the 118 dollars they had “applied to outstanding tax bills”: obviously, Ogden has caught up with the fact I don’t HAVE any outstanding bills, even if San Francisco hasn’t. There has been absolutely no word whatever from SF—not even any acknowledgement of my four (so far) letters. So, directly I finish this, I’ve got to get out some asbestos paper and get another one off to SF. I’ve already undertaken to establish a bank account out of the country (probably Nassau)—and there will probably be some paperwork involved in that that will have to come through for your signature, as it should also be a joint account. I’ll keep the one in SF as the one to which PA&E can send my checks, and just transfer money by check to whatever account I open up elsewhere. In a way I hate to have to go through all this: but if the Government feels entitled to attach bank accounts at will, I will simply have to take the necessary steps to protect myself. I am advised by a PA&E lawyer, incidently, that since the account was a joint one, and they made no attempt to distinguish what money was there was mine or yours, that a Federal Court suit could slap their wrists quite hard. I’m sure it won’t come to that. Taking the money out of the US can be a bit risky, I suppose, but then, it’s risky to leave it there, too, when it can be taken away without so much as a howdydoo. As to my—as you put it—”annoyance” over this thing, it amounts to something more than that: the fact is I’m maddernell about it. And as for catching flies with honey, what’s the point of that when you’re dealing with WASPS?

Enclosed is a recent photo  one of the guys here at the hotel was fooling around with a Polaroid the other day—and the clipping is one possible answer to the recent Newsweek editorial—an editorial with which I agree in the main, except that it stopped short of the mark. More on that later when I get around to my first encyclical!

Love to all—

Bruce

________________

I was a trifle more complicit in Fred’s departure than I let on in this letter. Fred was a nice fellow, but very much out of his element. He wound up in Nam as an entomologist because he had worked with a pest-control company at home. He was newly divorced. Although he and I had nothing whatsoever in common, I saw a lot of him because he got his supplies from stocks at LB Post: he often stopped in to my office to “shoot the breeze”. However, it rapidly became apparent he was losing his mind, and I was quite sure if he did NOT get out of the country, he was gonna go nuts. He was deathly afraid of Dandy Dan, as were many guys there, so he didn’t dare approach him with the notion he wanted to break his contract and be sent home. I facilitated his departure by assisting him to get his exit visa: how he got a plane ticket I never found out!

I actually dropped him off at Tan Son Nhut and then drove the truck to LB and covered with the little fib about Fred’s abandoning the truck. Unfortunately, the last thing he handed me as we set off that morning was some sort of revolver with six shells chambered. He knew if he was found with it on the plane he’d be in “heap big trouble”, so handed the gun off to me, thereby instantly putting my job in peril. I cleared the damn thing and stashed it in the bottom of a suitcase, figuring I’d develop a plan to be rid of it somehow. I did manage to get rid of it, and at the appropriate time I’ll reveal how.

Mention of the refrigeration work requires explanation. In a new contract proposal, PA&E wanted to take over maintenance of all such equipment on the large number of 500-man mess-halls on Long Binh Post: these were scattered all over the place, and each one had ten to fifteen pieces of refrigeration devices. It became necessary to compile a list of these, so the company could have some idea of how big the job was, how to price it, and how many people might be needed. They went about his by ordering up a “density report”. That’s a bit of army jargon for just such a list of equipment. All hands were pressed into service, visiting each mess-hall, listing the equipment present, condition, serial numbers and so forth. I generally went along with a chap who had come over in our group named Bob; he’d had been a refrigerator repairman back home. Bob was one of the few truly competent people I met while in VN: he could listen to a machine and instantly diagnose whether it was operating correctly or not, and if not, tell you exactly what was wrong with it. He was also a very pleasant chap, laid back, entertaining. The job, and eventually Dandy Dan, got to him, though, and a few weeks on he broke contract and went home.

Meanwhile, letters from home were arriving fairly regularly, and these often contained clippings and questions. So, six days on, I wrote as follows:

30 March, 1968

Dear Everybody~

Dad’s last letter, mailed your-time Monday, reached me my-time Thursday, as he predicted. I hadn’t known anything about the trip to Portland in advance, but am certainly glad you are getting around OK after your set-back at Christmastime. I’ve started this letter this evening, but expect I may not finish it until sometime tomorrow.

I about dropped my teeth when your articles enclosed in the last letter fluttered to the floor, and, as I picked them up, W R  Hearst’s face popped out: I can recall the time when Hearst papers weren’t even allowed in the house, along with funnybooks and such. Ah, well, times do change.

Going back a few letters, you asked what the military situation here is, and after some sleuthing, I’ve uncovered most of it. Like all Gaul, the US involvement here is quartered into three halves. There is, in the first place, MACV (Military Assistance Command-Vietnam); this is the advisory group which has many men in the field with the various (and numerous) ARVN units, at all levels. Whether any real assistance takes place one cannot really tell. Then, there is USARV (United States Army-Vietnam), with all of its jillions of subdivisions and so forth. This, of course, is where the bulk of our fighting forces are to be found, along with lesser numbers of Navy, Marine, and Air Force units. Then there is (directly under USARV) the First Logistical Command, which directs all of the logistics of the entire operation, and for whom PA&E and the other US Companies here work. Then, there is USAID (United States Assistance for International Development), which I have mentioned in previous letters. And then there is the Free World Forces which have to be coordinated into the picture in various ways (most of them come more or less directly under the command of USARV). Now if this seems likely to be a confusing situation, consider the fact that in addition to the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN), there are at least six other local organisations of militiamen, more or less armed, who enter the picture at various levels from nationwide down to hamlet level. Consider the fact, too, (alluded to by Dad’s last letter) that ALL of these organisations are to various extents infiltrated by VC and by NLF sympathizers.

Now, depending on the location, there are two basic situations that can occur in the midst of all this. One is the sort of thing going on in the North, around Khe Sanh and Hue, where a more-or-less constant state of siege exists, which enables the local commanders to take some initiative in attempting to locate and eliminate the enemy. But in the south, the situation is very different. Even on the highly touted Search and Destroy missions, the American forces ARE NOT ALLOWED TO INITIATE any action, but must wait until “engaged” by the enemy (that is, the VC must fire the first shot). Once begun, the engagement will last as long as the enemy returns fire, or until he is wiped out. Now, the ARVN units also conduct S&D missions, and are under no restrictions, so that it has often happened that US and ARVN units, through a failure of communication of intentions, have engaged each other! It further happens, and quite frequently, that US reconnaissance locates, in one way or another, a group of VC: let’s say in a small hamlet they have taken over a pagoda and have intimidated the local people by a few well-placed bullets. Further suppose that recon learns positively that there are four emplaced mortars within the pagoda compound, poised for shots at some nearby target. This info can all be transmitted to ARVN if any are nearby and  they can go in and try to root out the enemy. On the other hand, if the US Army brass decides they can do the job better, the permission of the ARVN Commander, and a host of other people, often right down to the hamlet chief, must first be obtained, by which time the enemy has long since learned they have been detected, and has departed. All too frequently, when permission is at last received, we go in and blow up an empty pagoda, and half the rest of the town along with it: the dead may well be counted as VC—but where their politicil affiliations (if any) truly lay no one can say. Then, too, there are the snafus that seemingly occur in every stupid war, such as bombing our own units or known friendly villages and that sort of thing. You won’t often hear about these in the US, but these snafus occur quite regularly.

The Newsweek article “The Agony of Khe Sanh” was pretty badly received here: at least one reaction I have already sent home. The most frequent argument against it has not to do with the facts, but with the interweaving of fact and editorializing in such a way that the editors’ opinions seem to emerge as fact. We must face the fact that the article was, in the main, propaganda. But there were few errors of fact in what was reported as such, and the magazine freely admits the rest was a position it felt compelled to take. The letters to the editor in the front of the same issue were revealing—in that they were all from Vietnam and all were chastising the magazine. Newsweek is one of the few US magazines that has had one of its reporters kicked out by the Saigon Government, which may also cast some light on the matter. For myself, I can find little to argue with in the article, except their disregard of the Geneva Agreement (1954), and one other thing:

Among the most puzzling aspects of the feedback from the States that we get here is the Press’s canonization of General Giap. Disregarding the politics involved, I find it dismaying that he should be regarded as “brilliant”, masterful, etc  for he has used tactics over and over again that cannot be justified on any grounds that I can think of. His takeover in Hue was accompanied by bloodletting among the civilians there on a par with similar debacles in Cuba, Hungary, and even Germany at various times: at other times, these tactics have been decried and denounced on every front, yet here, General Giap emerges as some sort of a Master Tactician who has outsmarted the US at every turn and managed to keep the offensive throughout. It doesn’t add up, in my book…

What may not have been very clear before Tet, however, is certainly painfully apparent now in these days following it. Hearst’s article and others in the states have called attention to the fact that is now overwhelmingly clear, namely, that for all the billions we have poured down this rathole, we have little or nothing to show for it. The enemy’s forces and will have not been markedly reduced; the South VNese are not markedly better-off than previously; we have not created a solid middle-class citizenry; we have not raised to power a popular and strong government; we have not won the affection or support of the majority of the South VNese; and we certainly have not “won” the war.

I for one, am appalled by President Johnson’s fixation on plodding on with this whole affair. There are times when stubborness is an asset, and times when flexibility pays off: of the latter, I see no evidence in Johnson during the last few months. Determination is one thing, but fanaticism is something else again. Time and again, he has been assured by various people of position and note that this-or-that action would open up avenues to the negotiating table, and he has turned a deaf ear to them all. Indeed, every time a new approach is made, he has escalated not only the war, but his demands for conditions on the negotiations. All this is in line with his hope for bringing the enemy to his knees to cry “uncle” before he gives an inch: but if he cannot see that this policy is a complete and utter failure, then he is both blind and very ill advised, and not only he, but all of those surrounding him should be swept out of office at the first opportunity. Among the most sensible alternatives I’ve seen, but by no means the only one, is Rep. Clausen’s detailed by Hearst in the clipping Dad sent. At least this proposal takes cognizance of the fact that all of asia should be considered as a whole, not as a separate series of staging-areas for a succession of wars against communism; it also takes into account what Mr. Johnson and friends seem totally unable to grasp, which is that the world-wide rising tide is one of Nationalism, NOT Communism (this is even becoming evident now in the so-called Soviet-Bloc nations). If we had any sense at all we would climb on to the bandwagon (just as some nations did when WE were fighting for our own independence) instead of trying to scuttle it.

As to stateside politics, the situation is not a very happy one. Rocky’s decision not to run actively has been very quickly forgotten, and the possibility of his being “drafted” is not overlooked, though unless the Nixon campaign hits some deep sand-traps, it seems unlikely anyone would want to draft Rockefeller. Kennedy’s decision, on the other hand, came as a surprise to no one, but he has been quite roundly criticised for trying to pull the rug out from under McCarthy. It seems to me that K reckons he can count on McCarthy votes coming his way at the convention if he can split the first vote badly enough to keep McCarthy out. Personnaly, I hope McCarthy can pull a rabbit out of his sleeve and get the nomination—but it will be a tough thing to accomplish. McCarthy is getting some criticism here for his own devotion to the Vietnam question to the exclusion of everything else; on the other hand, many feel that if he can succeed in solving the Vietnam thing some way, the rest will more or less automatically come along. We’ll have to gamble on it, I think. The forthcoming summer, which is almost bound to be long and very hot, may, of course, change the political climate before November. I would not take any bet that Wallace won’t win!

Three pages of this sort of thing ought to do for now: I’m hungry, and dinner is about to be served upstairs—Vietnamese. I constantly surprise myself by ordering and enjoying the local concoctions. Needless to say, I have lost NO weight over here!

Love to all …
Bruce

PS:

I just had the most interesting  and unlikely-sounding dinner. I understand there are several variations on it, but the essential combination of ingredients is cauliflower and shrimps! In this case, the shrimps were pounded in a mortar to make a paste, (seasoned, no doubt), and the paste was sort of wrapped around individual flowerettes of cauliflower, then rolled in breadcrumbs or meal, and the whole rapidly deep-fried. Delicious!

I understand it is also served simply as boiled cauliflower and shrimps prepared in more conventional fashion: one take a bite of each and combine them at the table.

Imagine eating like this—with my picky ways of savoring each item individually at home. The essence of Vietnamese cooking is precisely in the exotic combinations of ingredients, frequently 15-20 individual items in a single concoction. But it really comes out very good.

There is also a very interesting local fruit here, called a Vu Sua, which I am told is to be had in the states under the name of Paw-Paw, though I’ve never seen them there. The things are ugly round green things, with a peculiar milky white juice and what appears to be very stringy insides: but the entire interior (except for the black seeds) is very sweet, with a taste that combines the essence of strawberries and cantaloupe melon and comes up with something unique. Fine eating, but currently out of season and not too easy to get. Mangoes, of course, abound, but I’m not as fond of them as of the Vu Suas.

Cheers, & Bon Appetit!

___________________

All my life I’ve been one of the least adventuresome of eaters—of food, at any rate. I’ve always been a “meat and potatoes” guy, and prefer to consume all of each item on the plate before moving on to the next: I like to savor the flavor of each item individually, rather than mix them all up. Desiring to continue eating this way meant I took most meals in a BOQ or mess-hall. But I did break out now and then and eat things the Vietnamese ate, and generally found it palatable. On my subsequent motorcycle trip around the Gulf of Tonkin, the food problem became acute, but more on that as the narrative continues.

There will be more photos as my tale unfolds, though as mentioned elsewhere, I rarely carried a camera while working in Vietnam.

Stay tuned for more adventures.

CLARIFICATION NEEDED

I began my last page with comments about Xe/Blackwater.

PA&E and Blackwater had very different missions: in Vietnam, we were principally working in support of the military: maintenance of equipment and facilities was the biggest part of it. We worked closely with RMK-BRJ, whose mission was construction of facilities for the US Army. Many projects by RMK-BRJ, when completed, were turned over to the Army, then to PA&E for maintenance.

Blackwater’s mission in Iraq, however, was protection, mainly of US Embassy personnel and high-level visitors.

With that out of the way, here are two subsequent letters:

8:30 PM Sat. 02 March 1968

Dear Everyone~

Guess I’d better write a letter to all, although there is getting to be less about which to write. I fired off a short note directly to Todd [brother] inasmuch as his letter sounded so alarmed about the possibility of Saigon being wiped out. Your news is apparently being exaggerated grossly. I saw a clipping a fellow at work had the other day, from a Ventura paper. Some fellow, arriving about the same time as myself, had written a letter home. which had been passed on to the newspaper and liberally quoted. It contained such gems as “87 PA&E Americans killed”, “thousands of Vietnamese civilians killed in Saigon”, etc. ad nauseam. It will be accepted as gospel, alas, despite the fact it was, when written, untrue, and is still largely so.

The battle at Hue was, of course, much more severe and the loss of life and property staggering. Apparently, the VC slaughtered civilians there wholesale when they moved in—a favorite tactic to ensure “support” from the remaining population. The city is virtually wiped out now, and certainly will never be the same again. . .

Day before yesterday, very early in the AM the VC managed to somehow blow up three Equipment.Inc trucks at the Thu Duc intersection on Hiway 1. One truck was loaded with 55-gal drums of ammonia, while the other two were loaded with—of all things—G-rations. We understand two drivers were killed, but there has been no official report. When our bus arrived about a quarter to 8, the traffic jam was simply not to be believed. It was an hour and a half before we got through, and I’m sure traffic backed up all the way to Saigon. At one point, there were ten traffic “lanes” abreast, all outbound on the 4 lane highway + shoulders + ditches + fields beyond! Incredible—but typical of the sort of thing that happens from time to time. Hundreds of people were picking over the rubble of the burned tins, scavenging whatever they could, which added significantly to the confusion!

I spent this AM at the CMO office, where I picked up some very valuable information. I’ve decided to “go for broke” on setting up a functional laboratory. It will incur the everlasting enmity of Dan Smythe (because I plan to get the lab transferred out of his jurisdiction) and a few others—which bothers me not a bit. The plan hinges on getting the cooperation of the 20th Preventive Medicine Unit at Bien Hoa, which has the power to make an inspection and wrote an unfavorable report, which ought to shake PA&E up a bit. Of course, the result might be to abandon the whole thing—but at least that would get it out of the absurd state of limbo it now is in. This latter would mean I’d have to be reassigned to another job classification—pity!—so I may end up driving trucks or something.

Here is an example of the kind of tom-foolery that goes on over here, though. A few days ago, our electricity went off [at Long Binh Post HQ]. Having nothing better to do, Mr. [redacted] and I went over to the generator shed to see what was wrong. The generator operator (who presumably has a perfectly good name but who is known by the all-too-pervasive appellation of “papa-san”—a corruption that grates on my nerves whenever I hear it) explained in poor but passable English that the generator brushes were worn out, hence no excitation, and so no output. Brushes are supposed to be replaced after 500 hrs operation, but these had logged 3000 hrs and hence were no longer long enough to reach the commutator. Well, this sounded reasonable to me. About this time, 4 or 5 fellows arrived to see what was wrong (all “TCNs”). They proceeded to start the unit and try every switch and control on it: still no output, so they shut it down. About this time the American Elect. Maint. Spvsr. showed up, and he went through the same rigamarole of starting it up, working all the switches, etc. Now, the “cycles” gauge was the only one that showed anything at all, and it would only go to 47, instead of 60. (When there is no excitation, though, this gauge is meaningless). Nonetheless, the Spvsr decided the engine wasn’t running at speed and that the fuel filter must be plugged up. So he set the fellows to removing and cleaning that. That operation complete, the unit ran exactly as before—no output. Next, the supervisor explained that there were no replacement brushes in stock, so it would be necessary to move to a standby generator and repair the faulty one later. So, a “deuce-and-a-half” (2½ ton truck) and crane were secured, a new unit was moved in, and work was begin on getting it set up. It was minus two fan-belts on the engine—none in stock— but a used one was found and the crew fell to getting it hooked up. The supervisor remarked to me that “papa-san” had spent 20 years in France as an electrical engineer. While all the other activities had been going on, he [Papa-san] had quietly chattered at someone else who went away, and who presently returned with a whole handful of brushes, exactly the right part-number and all. So, while the other crew was working on the stand-by unit, “papa-san” was quietly inserting the new brushes—about a 20 minute operation—and needless to say, both generators got running—perfectly—at the same moment. About an hour and a half was lost, needless labor was consumed, and so forth. What a waste—and what a waste of talent to have an electrical engineer as a generator operator!

So – situation remains status quo – for the moment. I’m going to write a couple of short notes to Todd & Rob [brothers] which you can send along with the copies of this epistle. Tomorrow is Sunday – I may try again to learn something about the organ in the Cathedral; so far I can’t find any priest in the place who speaks English!

Love to all—
Bruce

_____________________________

Monday, 4 March 1968

Dear Everybody~

Once again today—no bus to Long Binh. Apparently the schedule has been moved up a half-hour, but I wasn’t informed (being at CMO Saturday), so I missed it. Pity!

In desperation, have been doing some reading of late. Here at the Hotel there’s a curious collection of pocket-books left by various itinerants. Among them I found “The Rothchilds”—a very entertaining account of that family’s past and current history. Also I found “The Heart of the Matter” by Grahame Greene, which has some remote parallels to my current situation, and which otherwise is a good yarn. Also found a book—title forgotten already—on the Sacco-Vinzetti business which is also interesting. There doesn’t seem to be much else of interest in the collection, but pocket books galore can be picked up downtown—and it looks as though I’ll be doing more reading than planned, since the 7 PM curfew appears likely to remain in effect for some while. After that goes, I hope to get active in the Vietnamese-American Association (VAA), a little-known (in the States) organization devoted to teaching the Vietnamese in a sort of adult-education night program. It is 4 nights a week, I understand, and pays a stipend (which I cannot legally accept, but can give to charity). It would give me a feeling of accomplishing something worthwhile to get involved in this. (Presently, of course, its activities are suspended. . . )

The enclosed articles (Saigon Sunday Post, 3 March 68) are just for general information.

Yesterday PM I went to the Rex BOQ “cookout”, where for $2.50 [MPC] one picks out his own choice of Filet Mignon or T-bone steak and cooks it on charcoal broilers set up on the “roof garden”—it was very good, and I got two large glasses of milk to go with it. Accidently dropped my dark glasses, though, & broke one lens cleanly into two pieces. I’ve repaired it with Epoxy today and ordered another from my optometrist in SF, which will take ten days or so.

All the news fit to scrawl for now!

Love to all,
Bruce

the Rex BOQ (formerly the Rex Hotel) commandeered by the Army

This was the Rex BOQ (formerly the Rex Hotel) commandeered by the Army. The dark structure at street level is a generator shed. The greenish stuff at the top is the “roof garden”, an added structure (mainly made out of scaffolding and corrugated plastic). Note the jeeps on the street along with a the Peugeot taxi. The street is Le Loi Boulevard. The Rex billeted a lot of upper-level Army Brass: I’m sure that if “walls could talk” the place could tell some fascinating tales!

Later on I lived a block away from the Rex, and when the rainy season hit, the sound of monsoon rains falling on that plastic roof was deafening!

Stay tuned for more adventures in Vietnam, coming up soon.

June 24, 2009

Operations are almost “drive-through” these days. I was in the hospital yesterday from 10 am until 6 pm. Of that time, I was on the operating table less than an hour! The remainder was preparation (2 hours) and recovery (5 hours).

After the Gallbladder Surgery

Nothing but a big black hole where my gall bladder was. Of the operation itself, of course, I have no recollection: I was out cold! Now, I have some minor pain around my tummy: after all, my old bod has been assaulted rather violently. But the laparoscopic technique is so much less invasive than the old “carve ‘em up” approach that I should be back to what passes for normal (in my case) quite soon.

There was plenty of time to think through some more of my most recent story, Nature Boy. The second installment is mostly on the computer now: I just have to do a little polishing and convert it to ASCII per Nifty’s rules and get it uploaded.

Thanks for all your kind wishes, of which there were none at [email protected] . Perhaps I have no readers!