M Y O B

LOOKING BACK

I feel obliged to post a brief discussion about my experience in Vietnam, looking back after 41 years that have elapsed since I departed.

In many—most, in fact—ways, I had it easy. I was not in the military, I saw no combat, and I suffered no  damage. I never got further from Saigon than Long Binh, not even to Vung Tao, even then reputed to have some nice beaches. On many days in Saigon, one could easily forget there was a war going on as the local folk went about their daily business: take away the jeeps and duece-and-a-halfs, and Saigon could be pretty much like any other city in the orient at that time.

What bothered me most was how hopelessly incompetent most of the americans I worked with were! One could forgive the mil pers: they had no training in insurgency or jungle warfare, most were draftees who would much rather have been elsewhere. They were paid a pittance, considering what they had to do. Many were from the US deep south, and were basically racist pigs: their understanding of and behavior towards the Viets was appalling. None spoke, or even tried to speak, Vietnamese; they were frustrated when Viets did not speak english; and they generally referred to them as “gooks” and other disgusting epithets. The women and girls were fair game for rape and worse, and the goal of most enlisted men was to climb high enough in the army to get out of the EM barracks and into a shack job.

But the civilian crew with whom I had the most contact (being one myself) were just as bad: in many ways, they were worse, because supposedly they  ere “professionals”, there to do a job, and handsomely paid for it. The few I met who actually tried to get something done were snowed under with regulations and paperwork. But most of the civilians I met were dead-beats uninterested in work, more interested in a cushy shack-up and fat salary to augment their retirement pay (usually from the military).

For the guys who actually fought on the ground, I had and still have the greatest admiration. Their job was not easy, and was made far worse by the stupidity of the generals in charge, most of them comfortably ensconced with a local female who waited on them hand and foot. The “grunts”—ill-trained, ill-prepared and often just plain ill—were just cannon-fodder. On unfamiliar soil, unable to know what was going on right under their noses (because none spoke the language), they were up against a force which knew the territory, spoke the language and could not readily be identified as friend or foe. It was one fucked-up mess, and I met almost no one in country who was not willing to admit, with a little “lubrication”, the whole exercise was an abysmal failure.

Of the Viets, on the other hand, I had the highest admiration. To me, trying my best to behave like a guest in the country (which I was) the Viets I met were unfailingly polite, helpful when needed, charming and often very nice to look at. Using the most basic elements of “being nice”, I found, would get me anything I wanted. Most often, a simple smile was all it took, and (as will be seen shortly) I a few situations developed where the typical “ugly american” approach would have gotten me nowhere. The Viets worked hard, put up with our presences generally with a stoicism that amazed me. Somehow, using back-street machine-shops, they kept the taxis and cyclos and motorcycles—at least 3 million of them—running. in my book, the Vietnamese populace deserved far better  treatment, both from their own government and from ours, than they got.

What saddens me most now is that we ought to have learned something from our collective experience in Vietnam, but subsequent history proves we did not. Since 1975 there has come the first Gulf War, which may well stand in history as our last “successful” campaign. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were ginned-up by a fake warrior who had never seen actual combat, who had the brains of an idiot, and whose second-in-command was a conscienceless manipulator. Whether we get ourselves out of these countries intact remains to be seen.

LOOKING AHEAD

The appearance of this blog will change slightly: armed with a camera, I set out from Saigon to see more of Southeast Asia by motorcycle, and arrived nine weeks and 5003 miles later in Singapore—beyond which one does not go far on a motorcycle, unless it has pontoons! On a world map, it looks quite insignificant: basically, I drove around the gulf of Tonkin. I had a grand time!

I did keep a diary, at least as far as Penang. But I used my diary to prepare some long letters which have survived. I’ll use a combination of these sources, along with my fertile memory, to let you in on some of the events along the way. The pictures will trigger many memories for me to share with you.

However, getting OUT of Vietnam turned out to be more difficult than planned: I’ll describe that in the next page.

In the meantime, here’s my visa for Cambodia. Presumably all systems were “go”.  I hadn’t reckoned on PA&E’s penchant for screwing up!

Cambodia Entry visa

July 3, 2009

INFO

I presume my readers know that to keep up with this blog they have to click on the last listed entry over there at the right. This blog opens to the same page every time, so navigate to the latest if you are keeping up. Also, email addy is [email protected] and I am always pleased to hear from my readers.

MEDICAL UPDATE

I had my first and last post-op exam by the surgeon yesterday. He says I’m fine, and he’s right. I still have a little bit of soreness around a couple of the incisions, but I know this will go away. Altogether, the removal of my gall bladder was close to being a non-event!

MICHAEL JOE

I suppose way back somewhere I saw MJJ and thought it might be interesting to know more about him, particularly what he looked like sans clothing. But as for following his career or becoming any kind of MJJ groupie, it was not on. I don’t get along well with “Type A” individuals, and at least when on stage, MJJ struck me as a Type AAAA. And since I know nothing about dancing, his moves always looked frantic, often as if he was having a fit of some kind.

Somewhere along the line I did find a recording of his ballad, “She’s Outa My Life”, and I really liked it: I still play in now and then. But as time went on, there’s no denying MJJ got more than a little “strange”. The tragedy of his untimely demise lies in his inability to control his intake of drugs, and there was no one with enough power over him to stop the carnage until it was too late. I hope his tortured soul really is at rest now.

TATS

I’ve mentioned before that tattoos, generally, put me off. All this hype on TV, with entire series devoted to tats and tatters leaves me cold: many of the designs are over the top, and woe be unto any who decide they should be removed!

TANGLE WITH THE INFERNAL REVENUE SERVICE

Johnny and I bought a house together in 1962. We were both gainfully employed (he teaching, I an analytical chemist); it cost us $17,000. We worked it over, then traded up to something larger. But as it became apparent our relationship was going down in flames, one night in 1964, in a drunken rage he made me quit claim to the property and chased me out at knife-point. To make matters worse, he burned most of the deeds and other paperwork involved. Nevertheless, he was able to sell the place shortly thereafter (it was planned!) and pocketed about $40,000 . He drank that up in just a few years; but, I digress.

That year I filed my income tax and claimed a sizable loss on the property. Three years later, in 1967, the IRS objected, pointing out I had no proof: all that burnt paperwork came back to haunt me. The IRS concluded that I owed them the princely sum of $1800, and I was forced to agree that I did. I was willing to pay it, except that the IRS demanded I borrow the money from a bank at 8% interest. My position was the IRS was charging 6%, and there was no reason a bank should make money on my misfortune. [Imagine 8% interest at a bank in those days!}

The upshot was a series of meetings with low-level functionaries who tried to cajole me into taking out a loan. Throughout, I maintained that I would pay the amount owed, but over time, plus the 6%: there was enough “slop” in my budget that I could spare something each month: I was pretty much living from paycheck to paycheck, as my salary was not all that great. But, the IRS would have none of it, and the more they pushed, the more stubborn I got. I quickly realized they have no ability to deal with someone who simply says “no” and refuses to budge. I used to load up on aspirin: I was like a zombie, and no matter what they offered, my answer was consistently “NO”.

Someone told me I could take a person with me to those meetings, and did not even have to introduce them. The theory was that if there was a witness to their coercive tactics, they would not be applied. So I set it up with a friend of mine: he was a large fellow, a clerk in a dime store, but he had one good suit and an imposing cough. The IRS would harangue, I would say something like I was going to yield, and Jim would cough loudly: then I would say NO! It drove the poor interviewer nuts, but got us nowhere.

Another time, after several guys had taken turns at me, I decided to “lose it”: without warning I jumped up and shouted loudly, “Why don’t you guys just take me out in the hall and shoot me? Put an end to all this shit.” (And so forth) Jeezus! We were in a room full of cubicles, so everyone  heard me, and for a moment, I thought they might take my recommendation! Such a hub-bub. But it got us nowhere.

Then there was the day we finally came to some sort of agreement, and the interviewer wrote it up long-hand on a special pad with carbon-paper (remember carbon-paper?) and told me to sign it. I was about to, when I noticed printed boldly along the bottom, this line:

THIS AGREEMENT IS NOT LEGALLY BINDING ON ANY OF THE SIGNATORIES HERETO

Say what? They explained that was to protect their interest so if I were to have a wind-fall, they could take their share out of it. I explained that it was no contract at all, and tore it up and threw the fragments at them. Whooooie! They were pissed!

The resolution came when I decided to devote an entire day to getting this thing off my back. When I reached an impasse with the first interviewer, I demanded to see his Supervisor. When I got nowhere there, I demanded to see his Supervisor, and so on up the ladder. About five rungs up, I was allowed to explain the whole problem to a fellow sitting behind a desk: I repeated my offer to pay over time with their 6% interest.

“That sounds reasonable to me,” he said. He wrote it up, and it was a done deal I’d won!

DISILLUSIONED

The whole mess with the IRS put me right off. Work was getting boring. Money was tight, especially with monthly payments to the IRS. I needed a change. One weekend I visited my older brother in Southern California, and was perusing ads in the LA Times. On a lark more than anything else, I responded to an opening for a chemist in VietNam, and promptly forgot about it.

Several months later, I got a call in my office: “Are you ready to go to VietNam?”

Well, no I wasn’t, but I quickly decided I sure as heck could be!

What happened next will be my next page.

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

(click to enlarge)

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.

The Life and Times of Bruce Bramson

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!

June 21, 2009

OK: The subject isn’t what you might think!

I’ve been told many times I “have a lot of gall”! Very soon, it will no longer be true.

Trouble Brewing

Earlier this month I began having some pains in my middle that did not go away. After suffering a week, I got to my doctor, who suspected gallstones (as did I): these were confirmed two days later by ultrasound, which revealed at least one stone an inch in diameter! So, Tuesday I enter the hospital to have my gall bladder removed. It should be routine, and I should be out the next morning.

Of course, if something goes very much wrong, this blog will go dead as well, so as soon as I can I will update so all my readers (are there any? I never get email!) waiting breathlessly will be relieved.

ON A COMPLETELY UNRELATED MATTER

After a three-year hiatus, I’ve published another story: it is in the nifty archive, currently at the top of this index. There will be a continuation of this story, assuming I don’t expire in the midst of the gall bladder removal.

email: [email protected]

ORGANIZING MY DEPARTURE

Once I had resigned from PA&E, I had to firm up my plans in a hurry.  It was necessary to get an Exit Visa from the Vietnamese immigration authorities. I left this to PA&E, since they had functionaries who dealt with immigration all the time. I  filled out a form in long-hand, gave them  my  passport and took a receipt. All other preparations for departure I undertook myself, distrustful of PA&E’s ability to handle my exit which was so different from those of their other employees. I put off my actual departure until the Thursday flight to Phnom Penh, scheduled out at 4:00 pm, to be sure I had time to get everything ready.

Meanwhile, I closed down my apartment, sold off whatever I could not carry, and moved to a hotel. A suitcase full of clothing was packed and sent unaccompanied—one could do that in those days—to Bangkok. There remained only one problem: that .38 revolver given to me by the fellow who freaked out soon after our arrival had been stored in the bottom of my suitcase. I had to dispose of the gun. I could probably have turned it in to some authority, but which of the many “authorities” available could deal with it? What kind of questions would they ask, and what amount of hot-water would I get myself into?

In the end, I wrapped the 6 bullets in newspaper and stuffed them into the holster with a stone: I tossed this into the Saigon Canal, confident that the numerous bugs in that polluted water would chew up the holster in a hurry. The stone and bullets would sink into the muck, never to be found. The gun itself I dropped into the elevated wall-cistern for the toilet in my hotel room. I figured that by the time anyone discovered it, it would be a mass of rust beyond any hope of use. For all I know, that gun may still be there!

PA&E, on the other hand, was slow in preparing my paycheck and getting the exit visa. Good thing I left extra time!

DIARY ENTRY:  Wednesday, 4 September 1968: Well, PA&E nearly fucked up the works, but through perseverance I managed to get nearly everything set to go tomorrow. The paycheck wasn’t ready until after lunch, which left precious little time to get travelers checks and plane tickets. Whereas I had to wait 4 hours just for two signatures to be applied to my final paycheck, I got the travelers checks and airplane tickets done in just under two hours—and that included three separate calls at AIR VN & @ the bank! They talk about orientals being slow??? Have to get some form or other @ Air VN regarding my bag—certifying it can go through Customs locked; have to get passport @ Australian Embassy, & have to get to TSN tomorrow—all should be relatively easy. Of course, I won’t really be sure this scheme is going to work until I & the Honda are safely ensconced on the plane!!

There was a charming young lady at Air Vietnam who explained in detail exactly the steps I had to take to buy a ticket for myself and for the motorcycle and to purchase travelers checks. The machine had to be weighed: she told me exactly where to go to get that done, and it went without a hitch. (Of course, I rode the bike to all these places: it would not actually be prepared and drained until the very day I left). Buying and paying for the tickets and checks was complicated by the restrictions on money, and involved several trips to the bank—a branch of Bank of America!—but in the space of an afternoon all of this was done. As always, I found that by following directions and smiling a lot, I had no problems.

I was told the bike had to be “drained”, that is, no fuel in the tank when it went on the plane. But this meant that at the other end I would have no idea where to purchase fuel and hence how to get the bike back on the road. So I took a small bottle of gasoline tightly sealed in one of the saddle-bags, and these I carried on with my satchel. The form from Air VN certifying that my bag need not be inspected allowed me to get away with this little subterfuge.

On my last night in Vietnam, I had a nice dinner at the only fancy restaurant going at the time: it was french cuisine (not my favorite), but did have white table-cloths and good presentation. Afterwards, I had one last quickie with my friend Nguyen, which helped me sleep.

Come morning, I would be off on a new adventure! With my passport in hand. . .

Passport

. . . I had my visa for going INTO Vietnam “voided”, on the theory that I might run into someone who objected to my having been there. . .

Voided visa

. . . and I had my visa for Cambodia:

Cambodia visa

The chop in upper left is my departure stamp, which took some doing to get! Stay tuned!

LOOKING BACK

I feel obliged to post a brief discussion about my experience in Vietnam, looking back after 41 years that have elapsed since I departed.

In many—most, in fact—ways, I had it easy. I was not in the military, I saw no combat, and I suffered no  damage. I never got further from Saigon than Long Binh, not even to Vung Tao, even then reputed to have some nice beaches. On many days in Saigon, one could easily forget there was a war going on as the local folk went about their daily business: take away the jeeps and duece-and-a-halfs, and Saigon could be pretty much like any other city in the orient at that time.

What bothered me most was how hopelessly incompetent most of the americans I worked with were! One could forgive the mil pers: they had no training in insurgency or jungle warfare, most were draftees who would much rather have been elsewhere. They were paid a pittance, considering what they had to do. Many were from the US deep south, and were basically racist pigs: their understanding of and behavior towards the Viets was appalling. None spoke, or even tried to speak, Vietnamese; they were frustrated when Viets did not speak english; and they generally referred to them as “gooks” and other disgusting epithets. The women and girls were fair game for rape and worse, and the goal of most enlisted men was to climb high enough in the army to get out of the EM barracks and into a shack job.

But the civilian crew with whom I had the most contact (being one myself) were just as bad: in many ways, they were worse, because supposedly they  ere “professionals”, there to do a job, and handsomely paid for it. The few I met who actually tried to get something done were snowed under with regulations and paperwork. But most of the civilians I met were dead-beats uninterested in work, more interested in a cushy shack-up and fat salary to augment their retirement pay (usually from the military).

For the guys who actually fought on the ground, I had and still have the greatest admiration. Their job was not easy, and was made far worse by the stupidity of the generals in charge, most of them comfortably ensconced with a local female who waited on them hand and foot. The “grunts”—ill-trained, ill-prepared and often just plain ill—were just cannon-fodder. On unfamiliar soil, unable to know what was going on right under their noses (because none spoke the language), they were up against a force which knew the territory, spoke the language and could not readily be identified as friend or foe. It was one fucked-up mess, and I met almost no one in country who was not willing to admit, with a little “lubrication”, the whole exercise was an abysmal failure.

Of the Viets, on the other hand, I had the highest admiration. To me, trying my best to behave like a guest in the country (which I was) the Viets I met were unfailingly polite, helpful when needed, charming and often very nice to look at. Using the most basic elements of “being nice”, I found, would get me anything I wanted. Most often, a simple smile was all it took, and (as will be seen shortly) I a few situations developed where the typical “ugly american” approach would have gotten me nowhere. The Viets worked hard, put up with our presences generally with a stoicism that amazed me. Somehow, using back-street machine-shops, they kept the taxis and cyclos and motorcycles—at least 3 million of them—running. in my book, the Vietnamese populace deserved far better  treatment, both from their own government and from ours, than they got.

What saddens me most now is that we ought to have learned something from our collective experience in Vietnam, but subsequent history proves we did not. Since 1975 there has come the first Gulf War, which may well stand in history as our last “successful” campaign. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were ginned-up by a fake warrior who had never seen actual combat, who had the brains of an idiot, and whose second-in-command was a conscienceless manipulator. Whether we get ourselves out of these countries intact remains to be seen.

LOOKING AHEAD

The appearance of this blog will change slightly: armed with a camera, I set out from Saigon to see more of Southeast Asia by motorcycle, and arrived nine weeks and 5003 miles later in Singapore—beyond which one does not go far on a motorcycle, unless it has pontoons! On a world map, it looks quite insignificant: basically, I drove around the gulf of Tonkin. I had a grand time!

I did keep a diary, at least as far as Penang. But I used my diary to prepare some long letters which have survived. I’ll use a combination of these sources, along with my fertile memory, to let you in on some of the events along the way. The pictures will trigger many memories for me to share with you.

However, getting OUT of Vietnam turned out to be more difficult than planned: I’ll describe that in the next page.

In the meantime, here’s my visa for Cambodia. Presumably all systems were “go”.  I hadn’t reckoned on PA&E’s penchant for screwing up!

Cambodia Entry visa

Change we can bereave in

I have a real knack for breaking computers and software; if anyone can force a “restart”, I can! So, while my blog is being rebuilt by an expert (in a new and better format), I’ll take this moment to post my next “occasional rant”.

/rant mode ON

Readers of this blog will be well aware how delighted I was that Barack Obama was elected as President. Alas, the bloom is off the rose. As with most politicians, once in office, he has found it convenient to forget many of his campaign promises. There’s nothing new about this, but like many others, I believed Barack was somehow “different”.

And, different he is. His ability to string together a group of words to form a sentence is *so refreshing after 8 years of Bush’s incoherent ramblings. But George could keep his party in line (with Cheney as “enforcer”): Mr. Obama seems  unable to bring the democrats into line to give him the support any president needs to succeed. Perhaps those who thought he should remain in the Senate a few more years before running for President were right.

Making the war in Afghanistan his own will prove to be a terrible mistake. The Afghanis have successfully driven out every invader of their territory, starting with Alexander the Great! We should go. Now! The money we spend there now could buy up the entire poppy production for years; we could refine the product into useful morphine, and **burn the rest of it. The money could then be spent by the Afghanis as they see fit.

If one accepts the need to sacrifice 30K more men to this fruitless enterprise, (I don’t) he could at least have taken the opportunity to explain that to get that many men into uniform we will have to accept men and women regardless of their sexual orientation: no dice.

As for the group of jerks we collectively call Congress, they should all be utterly ashamed of themselves. Harry Reid is a wimp. The Senate majority “whip” (Dickless Durbin) couldn’t swat a fly. After months of wrangling, the bought-and-paid-for in the Senate have destroyed current hopes of a true reform of health care and have delivered the American public into the hands of the insurance and pharmaceutical industries. Against a proven majority, the Republinuts have won!

President Obama should long ago have made it clear he will not sign a health-care bill that does not included a “robust” public option. He should do so immediately, even though it is probably too late.

The list of visages on the TV that make me want to vomit has grown very large in recent days. It began with George Bush, whose appearance always made me switch channels lest I blow chunks on the carpet. He’s now been joined by John “Beaner” and Mitch McConnell, both right up there with Sarah “Pailin” and turn-coat Joe Lieberman. *Especially Joe Lieberman, raking in millions to deliver health-care to the “industry”. What a jerk!

Here’s my opinion of the whole friggin lot of politicians in Washington, who with almost no exceptions are willing to sell the population down the river to save their own fat perks.

(photo)

/rant mode OFF

I have a real knack for breaking computers and software; if anyone can force a “restart”, I can! So, while my blog is being rebuilt by an expert (in a new and better format), I’ll take this moment to post my next “occasional rant”.

/rant mode ON

Readers of this blog will be well aware how delighted I was that Barack Obama was elected as President. Alas, the bloom is off the rose. As with most politicians, once in office, he has found it convenient to forget many of his campaign promises. There’s nothing new about this, but like many others, I believed Barack was somehow “different”.

And, different he is. His ability to string together a group of words to form a sentence is so refreshing after 8 years of Bush’s incoherent ramblings. But George could keep his party in line (with Cheney as “enforcer”): Mr. Obama seems unable to bring the democrats into line to give him the support any president needs to succeed. Perhaps those who thought he should remain in the Senate a few more years before running for President were right.

Making the war in Afghanistan his own will prove to be a terrible mistake. The Afghanis have successfully driven out every invader of their territory, starting with Alexander the Great! We should go. Now! The money we spend there now could buy up the entire poppy production for years; we could refine the product into useful morphine, and burn the rest of it. The money could then be spent by the Afghanis as they see fit.

If one accepts the need to sacrifice 30K more men to this fruitless enterprise, (I don’t) he could at least have taken the opportunity to explain that to get that many grunts into uniform we will have to accept men and women regardless of their sexual orientation: another chance missed.

As for the group of jerks we collectively call Congress, they should all be utterly ashamed of themselves. Harry Reid is a wimp. The Senate majority “whip” (Dickless Durbin) couldn’t swat a fly. After months of wrangling, the bought-and-paid-for in the Senate have destroyed current hopes of a true reform of health care and have delivered the American public into the hands of the insurance and pharmaceutical industries. Against a proven majority, the Republinuts have won!

President Obama should long ago have made it clear he will not sign a health-care bill that does not included a “robust” public option. He should do so immediately, even though it is probably too late.

The list of visages on the TV that make me want to vomit has grown very large in recent days. It began with George Bush, whose appearance always made me switch channels lest I blow chunks on the carpet. He’s now been joined by John “Beaner” and Mitch McConnell, both right up there with Sarah “Pailin” and turn-coat Joe Lieberman. Especially Joe Lieberman, raking in millions to deliver health-care to the “industry”. What a jerk!

Here’s my opinion of the whole friggin lot of politicians in Washington, who with almost no exceptions are willing to sell the population down the river to save their own fat perks.

Our politicians aren’t worth even this much…

/rant mode OFF

Finally, I got to call myself a Senior! (Funny what a thrill that was then, but now that I’m a senior again, the appellation has lost its luster!) I pretty well had a lock on graduation, having managed to get passing grades in everything, even PE.

Secondary sexual characteristics were finally making their appearance, so with my body more nearly resembling my peers, and with them growing up and realizing the folly of beating up on a defenseless kid,  I was able to enjoy my final year in high school. My old Dodge made it into the yearbook,

though stuffed with people was a rare sight: my classmates for the most part thought I was really peculiar to have eschewed the popular Fords and Chevies they drove.

Though my “career” as a writer would come much later, I did do a lot of writing in  high school and college. I still have a large binder with my oeuvre from that time collected in it: looking over it now, I realize how clear it must have been to adult readers (teachers, councilors, and so forth) that I was queer: my regret is that it wasn’t equally clear to my classmates, who probably would have rewarded me with a lot of rampant cock, if only they had known! How I would have loved it, if only I had known.

My English Lit teacher was amused by several of my poems. The most famous one, submitted to (and rejected by) numerous contests was this quatrain:

The day was cold

The food was old:

Soon it was covered

With ugly mold.

Only slightly more serious, if a trifle  longer, was a parody (1951) on a famous poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay:

DIRT WITHOUT MUSIC

I am not resigned to the dumping of dirty dishes into the hot water.

So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been for time out of mind:

Into the water they go, the dirty, the greasy.

Crowned With bones and scrapings they go:

but I am not resigned.

Scraps and bones, into the garbage with you,

Be one with the gravy, the indescribable mess.

A fragment of what we ate, of what we chew,

A  tidbit, a morsel remains, but the best is eaten.

The celery crisp and green, the stewed tomatoes,the onions, the beets

They are gone. They are gone to feed the dogs.

Elegant and curled Is the broccoli. Fragrant is the broccoli.I know.

But I do not approve

More precious was the taste of that lamb than all the Four Roses of the world.

Down, down, down, into the suds of the dishwater

Gently they go, the greasy, the gummy, the gooey;

Quietly they go, the handle-less, the broken, the chipped

I know, but I do not approve, and I am not resigned.

So that year my mischievous nature asserted itself: I pulled off numerous pranks, harmless kid-stuff, which nevertheless greatly vexed the Dean of Boys, in whose office I found myself quite regularly. The man was a pompous fart who harangued me about such things as morality, living an upstanding life, and so forth (remember, he was convinced I was queer and active, but unaware that I was not even out to myself). He reported to my father regularly, and may have been surprised when Dad refused to chastise me for any of it: he knew I was just “feeling my oats” and testing the system, something quite normal for a late-blooming teen-ager. As for the Dean, he  became a role model (years later) for Newt Gingrich. The day after his wife announced she had cancer, he filed for divorce and took up with a young bimbo half his age. This was too much for red-neck Modesto: he was fired and run out of town. I went on to graduate, a gangly nerd with a lot of very strange habits, totally out of synch with my classmates.

This is me in rented drag for graduation.

To be continued … [email protected]

AROUND THE COUNTRY

To get our minds off Mom’s demise Dad took us on a trip around the country: basically, we went to Quebec by way of New Orleans. This was the summer of 1951: “Jim Crow” was in full swing, and Dad hated everything about the South, but felt we boys ought to see it. I’m glad he lived long enough to see much of the discrimination reduced.

We traveled in our 1948 Chrysler Windsor, pulling a Higgins trailer. Ours was blue, like the one in the photo, and as far as I know, they all were.

These were popular in the late forties and early 50s, and our family, now of four, fit inside just fine. We saved a lot of money not staying in motels. The two halves of the trailer lid opened out on hinges and a canvas tent popped up on metal stays. Sleeping-bags went on the  two opened flaps, and there was room for two more on the floor of the thing. Here’s a view inside: I slept right up there, and my older brother slept on the one opposite.

Dad and my oldest brother flopped on the floor. We had cooking equipment and carried our own food, so we  slept and ate nearly all of our meals in and around this contraption for the  whole summer.

My biggest problem under this regime was to find times when I could exercise my new ability to jack off. I expect my brothers had the same problem, but none of us ever thought of taking matters in hand together. So the summer was spent whacking off in gas-station rest-rooms, behind trees at camp-grounds, and at other places that presented the opportunity.

On the way home, Dad remained in Denver for some conferences, so my brothers and I continued on our own by way of Grand Tetons and Yellowstone. I often jerked off in the back seat of the car, believing my bothers did not notice. I expect they did, though, but chose not to say anything about it. I recall wandering off alone in Yellowstone one day (a fascinating place for a budding chemist): watching a small geyser erupt, I could not help myself. I pulled my pud and erupted right along with it! Far as I know no one was watching, but who knows? Maybe I gave a voyeur something to remember.

GROWING UP

With hormones now ruling my life, I grew up another foot, and out by an inch or two where it really counts. Better yet, I began to find some hair here and there where there had been none. So, when I entered my sophomore year at MHS, I was catching up to my peers in ways that made me feel a little better about myself. Nevertheless, there were residual effects from the hazing I got for being so immature: I became completely pee-shy, unable to piss in the presence of another person (unless I sat in a stall).

This pretty well put an end to my cruising for dick in the boys’ rooms, and in fact led to a permanent aversion to “tea-room” sex.

SOPHOMORE YEAR

The science course in my second year was Biology. We dissected frogs and did all the usual icky stuff. We also got some rudimentary sex “education”, in a class separated by sex. The girls, who probably would have benefitted from some insight into how boys work, saw films about girls. The boys, who might have found useful some insight into how girls work, saw films about boys! If what the girls saw was as unenlightening as what we did, the whole exercise was futile. How  can you spend a half hour discussing sex with a bunch of horny teen-aged boys and NOT EVEN MENTION masturbation? Sheeesh! However, the episode did give me an inkling that I might not be so different from my peers as I had come to think.

I endured PE, this time with the help of a lanky fellow named Bill who enjoyed playing hand-ball as much as I did. We actually got pretty good at it, kept score, and once in a while induced another guy to attempt it with one or the other of us. I got a passing grade in PE for the first time in my life!

Still, I remained very much a “loner”. I had only a few friends, one of them a devout and proper Catholic boy who I liked a lot intellectually, though I was not attracted to him physically. He was a bit pudgy; my aversion to adipose tissue was already evident. But at the end of that school year, Gary went off to Bellarmine Prep School, determined to be a priest, so he went out of my life. The tall and lanky basket-ball players remained my favorites and fantasy-fodder for innumerable jack-off sessions—by myself, as usual—and while I often contemplated broaching the subject of mutual JO to other boys, I never did so. I generally got my rocks off twice a day: once after getting home from school, and once before going to sleep. On week-ends, with many hours spent alone in my little “laboratory”, I might scatter my seed on the floor several times. My last act of every day was to whack off in bed, where I just rolled on my side and shot my wad on the wall. I’d be asleep in minutes: masturbation is nothing if not a good soporific!

I was beginning to form some fixations that have lasted to this day. One was a fascination with arms (and legs) which I have already mentioned. Another was a fascination with boys’ adams-apples, since my own did not yet show.

But my primary fixation was on the phallus: furtive glances in the gym were not what I had in mind! It would be a while before I got my hands on one other than my own!

ANOTHER MOVE

As that school year drew to a close, Dad moved us to a rebuilt house on the outskirts, nearer to his job and nearer to the railroad.

The move resulted in one of the most embarrassing moments of my youth. When the bed in my room was removed by the moving crew, the wall beside it (which had once been all white) was found festooned with yellowing cum-stains! Their location on the wall made it abundantly clear that little Bruciebabe had been spraying his load repeatedly on that wall! It’s twoo, it’s twoo!  I’d been shooting off every night for a year or more; the incrustation was not only obvious, it shouted out to anyone who looked: that little kid’s been spankin’ the monkey! I was mortified, but not a soul mentioned it. Whoever bought the house musta painted that little bedroom quickly.

Ironically, we had a half acre of almond trees again, but never harvested them ourselves: Dad sold the crop to the neighbor who also had almonds. The impetus for a new house was his remarriage, too soon after Mom’s passing as it turned out. His new wife was a real bitch, and she had a bratty kid from a former marriage who was too young to be of much interest to me.

However, our move put me closer to a fellow I admired named Jim. He and I shared many interests in mechanical things and, above all, CARS! Jim had several, and through his influence I was able to find a beat-up 1926 Dodge sedan that cost me all of fifty bucks. The windows (except windshield) were missing, and the upholstery was in tatters, but it ran well and I loved it. That car was the first of a bunch of them, all unusual in some way. I had a lot of fun with a 1933 Oldsmobile straight-8 sedan: the engine was so worn out it got only 18 miles to the quart of oil. A few trips the length of the town’s main drag on a hot summer night would lay down a formidable smoke-screen of blue haze. It did not look anything like this restored one, except for the shape: mine was black and ready for the junkyard. (Oh, wait: that’s where I got it)!

Jim and I bummed around a lot the summer following my sophomore year. Dad and his new shrew wife were off on what I later learned was anything but a honeymoon, so we had plenty of time to go places and do things. One night we were tinkering in his work-room when he asked me a question I certainly had not expected: “Have you ever jacked-off a dog?” Holy cow! It was the first time he’d mentioned anything even remotely about sex! I had to answer truthfully, (see my story Animal Crackers at Nifty), “Yes, why do you ask?”

In the end, we went behind his garage and I showed him how to JO his mutt, at the conclusion of which it was obvious Jim had a hard-on, just as I did. We went inside the garage, sat side-by-side with our backs to the wall, opened our pants and fondled ourselves for a few minutes. Then it happened: Jim reached over and grabbed my prick! I thought I’d died and gone to heaven: it felt absolutely incredible, and utterly unlike how it felt when I held myself. Within seconds, I had his dick in my fist and … well, you know what happened.

Though it felt absolutely wonderful to jack each other, we completed the “off” part individually, much as we would have done if alone. In fact, that remained the pattern whenever we got together, which was often. I discovered Jim got horny when driving, just as I did (and, I think, many men do), so most of our jaunts into the Sierra foothills on back roads resulted in one or more JO sessions together. It was a fun and busy summer: the wall in my new bedroom remained clean since Jim and I got off together often, and because when I pounded one out at home, I used an old towel I kept under the bed.

JUNIOR YEAR

At the end of summer my Dad and his new bride shrew returned and life should have returned to normal. Several events occurred to render the school year different. It quickly became apparent  that Dad’s love-life did not exist, and his marriage was headed for divorce. Lillian, a fiery red-head, might have been a hot number once, but towards my Dad she was utterly frigid. When it came some months on, the divorce was based on the fact their marriage had never been consummated! Now that I was learning the importance of getting off, I had a new appreciation for Dad’s dilemma: his needs were obviously not being fulfilled by this witch. Can you spell  G-O-L-D   D-I-G-G-E-R ?

More importantly, now that Jim and I were on intimate terms, I learned he had been using his expensive polaroid camera to photograph as many hard-ons as he could find! Mine joined his rogues’ gallery soon enough, but the erection that fascinated me most was attached to a fellow nick-named Butch—I forget his real name now. Imagine my surprise, then, when I learned Butch was only a seventh-grader, and a classmate of my (for the moment) step-brother! For some reason, Jim had lost interest in Butch, but I was fascinated by the photo of his toad-stabber, and through the agency of little Dougie was able to make Butch’s acquaintance. He lived only a couple of blocks away, had a car, and loved to let me play with his salami! Despite his being younger than I, Butch was taller, far more precocious, and well ahead of me physically. I coulda cared less: he was willing to let me play with his prick, which was enough for me (it was enough for two, to tell the truth, but I kept him for myself)! [Jim and his photos, and Butch, found their way into my story, Piece on Earth: read it at Nifty].

Dad was busy most nights and his “wife” would take her kid and go somewhere (I didn’t care where, as long as they were away!) so I had the house to myself. I’d call Butch, he’d drive over, and we’d play for several hours. Don’t ask me why: we never tried sucking or fucking! We just played with each other’s hard-on and felt each other up elsewhere (remember, I already loved legs and arms, and Butch had some fine examples). He seemed to get a kick out of my lack of precocity, just as I was fascinated by his abundance of it. When he got tired of playing, he’d announce a “race” to see who could cum first: I always won. It seemed with all that length to deal with (I did measure, and he was fully 8½ when hard) it took him a long time to reach nirvana. Perhaps watching me shoot helped, for soon after I shot my wad on to the wooden floor he would blast his likewise. That signaled the end of  our tryst: he’d hike up his jeans and drive home. I was so wound up, I’d often whack off again, then wipe up the mess before going to bed.

Those grand romps came to an abrupt halt: some gal got him up one night and stuck that lovely thing in her snatch, and it was all over: little Bruciebabe couldn’t hold a candle to the “real thing”.  Damn!

As a Junior, I was taking Chemistry as my science subject. However, since I’d already done all the experiments and knew the subject well, the instructor appointed me as “lab assistant”, so while he was lecturing I was prepping his “show and tell”.  Perhaps the association of chemistry in my little home lab with the number of times I whacked off there was the cause: whatever, I jacked off in the school lab frequently while the lecture in the adjoining room was in progress.

I was also on television that year, on a program called “Science in Action”. This is described in some detail in my story, Central Valley High: read it on Nifty.

FRUSTRATION!

The divorce was finalized mid-year and Lillian & Doug were gone. For good! My sex-life consisted of an occasional wank with Jim and non-stop wanks at home. One day in Latin class a fellow I liked a lot stuck his leg out into the aisle, which caused his jeans to ride up, revealing some leg above his socks. I was fascinated by the hairiness there, since my own ankles were as yet glabrous and skinny. I wanted desperately to see more of that leg—and him, so set about developing a plan. It eventuated that he accompanied my Dad and myself when I drove Dad to a conference in the Bay Area. Ed and I were alone in the car on the way home, and as night fell I managed to get our discussion worked around to sex. I got hornier and hornier, and so did he, so we finally agreed to jack off together (or so I thought). I drove off the highway to a spot I knew where we would not be bothered, hoping to slide across the seat and extricate his meat in preparation for some funzies, but before I could move he was out the door and into the back seat! Damn! It was dark, so I couldn’t even see what he was whacking at back there. We shot our respective wads into paper towels (I was prepared), he returned to the front seat and we drove home, our desultory conversation turned to less interesting things. I never made another attempt on him, and think maybe my aversion to body-hair may have originated from the frustration of not having had a good time with him. He was the only fellow in high school I even tried to lure into my clutches.

To be continued …

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.

BEFORE I CONTINUE:

REGARDING XE, NEE BLACKWATER

I’ve mentioned elsewhere in this blog that PA&E might be considered a progenitor of the likes of Blackwater. It begins to look as if Blackwater was worse—a great deal worse—than PA&E was, or even thought it might have been.

Don’t get me wrong: an open-ended “cost + 10″ contract was  an invitation to steal, and many in the company DID. It was a situation rife for manipulation, and the firm abounded with manipulators. In my experience, for that company in that time, one could re-write the old adage: ”there’s a fresh apple in any barrel of rotten ones”: I did in fact meet and work with a few Americans over there who knew their stuff, were willing  to work hard, and who earned their keep. Most of those I met were a motley collection of drunks, lounge-lizards and misfits. On the other hand, I was never close to any of the top brass in PA&E: I expect there was a lot of hanky-panky going on I never saw.

But it begins to look as if Blackwater in Iraq has taken the “cost + 10″ concept to new depths. Allegations by two former employees, in sworn affidavits, accuse the company’s former CEO, Erik Prince, of arranging prostitutes (including children), deliberate murder, gun-running, cover-ups, lying and other horrors. Prince appears to be badly misnamed and up to his ears in complicity, and comes across as a far-right wing-nut out to kill as many “rag-heads” as he could. The Company has been denied permission to continue in Iraq, although it is pretty clear some of its operatives are still there.

I wonder how long it will be before some real charges are brought against this malevolent “sumbitch”, Prince. Sadly, Blackwater (now re-named Xe) remains is Iraq, and no doubt has its eyes on Afghanistan.

There’s more information here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackwater_Worldwide

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/US/08/07/iraq.blackwater.xe/

and many other places on the web.

SPEAKING OF IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN. . .

Here is my next letter from Vietnam, written 41 years ago. I was struck, transcribing it, that it could be re-written today substituting “Iraq” for Vietnam, and it would be as true now as it was then.

AM – Monday, 26 February 1968
Dear Everyone~

The Long Binh bus failed to appear this morning, so after waiting until nearly 9 [since first-light, around 5], I walked back to the Loc Bldg and am writing this letter. I’ve been here just one month tomorrow, and can certainly claim no great accomplishment as yet. That’s the rule here, though, not the exception.

With painful slowness, Saigon is returning to something of a pre-Tet normalcy. Final figures on PA&E’s losses amounted to only 7 dead Americans, 8 Koreans and a few Vietnamese. Earlier reports of as many as 20-30 Americans killed resulted from interruptions of communications—a number of people were unable to report in any way, and were listed as MIA for a while. Open-market food & other prices have suddenly dropped back to something near 15-20% above pre-Tet, rather than the 100-200% that prevailed a couple of days ago. The dusk-to-dawn curfew affects only the bars, for the most part, and allows most other businesses to carry on pretty much as before.

The complexity of the American position here is beginning to come to the surface. President Johnson cannot be blamed rightfully for getting us involved; depending on one’s individual view, he may or may not be correct in his handling of affairs here. But on one point at least he can be strongly and rightfully criticized: for not telling us at home what’s going on. The “credibility gap” is wider than most people imagine. [I had received clippings from the States].

And regardless of who is to blame for it, Vietnam at the present time represents a colossal failure for America. We have not “won the hearts and minds” of the people here—our heavy-handed civilian population—the ugly Americans—have assured that. Neither have we succeeded in arousing any significant degree of nationalism—certainly nothing to compare with NVN & the VC. We have not brought a strong or popular central government, and needless to say we have not won the war by any means. But what are some of the reasons for these failures?

For one thing, we are still a “military assistance command”, largely devoted to providing support, materiel and training for ARVN. Remember, though, that it’s been 15 years or more (since Korea) that the commanders here saw any actual combat—and most of them did just that—they SAW it; they watched it, but didn’t participate in it. Even those combat veterans from Korea here now saw action in very different terrain, in very different circumstances, and, most significantly, in an offensive war (I use the term in its tactical sense!).

Vietnam represents the first time we’ve been on the defensive, and our military machinery is just not geared for it. It is demoralizing to the troops, particularly, to know where the enemy is and what he’s doing and how to stop him, but have to wait for the enemy to “make contact” before anything can be done. With some exceptions, any offensive against the VC must be cleared with VN authorities before it can proceed—and by the time clearance is obtained (and often it is denied) the VC have vanished—usually leaving behind some destructive memento for any unwary person to fall into.

The news today says that U Thant assures Pres. J. that if we stop bombing in the North (one of the areas where we have a fairly free hand), Hanoi will begin to negotiate in “a few days”. Johnson has replied—with some logic one has to admit, if not actual justification—that he must have first some assurance the NV will not use the “few days” to re-trench. Communist treachery is well known; North Vietnamese treachery is equally documented (if you want to distinguish between the two), most recently by the Tet debacle amidst their own truce declaration. Under these circumstances, both sides feel obliged to carry on “business as usual” until some other approach can be found.

There is a lot of sentiment here that our best approach at this point should be to seize the offensive and obliterate NVN, even if this requires the use of “Nukes”. Our reluctance to do this is frequently interpreted here as a) weakness b) softness on Communism c) actual collaboration with the communists (to prolong the war & boost our economy) and, least often, d) fear that such an action would lead directly to armed conflict with Russia or (worse) China. Thus, we are damned if we do and damned of we don’t, a dilemma we have somehow got ourselves into and from which extrication seems very remote.

Further complicating matters is the fact that the government we have pretty much single-handedly created, now that it is created, wants to govern in its own way (not necessarily an unreasonable desire, it seems to me)—and most particularly wants no truck with a coalition type set up with anybody (such as the NLF, or—God Forbid—with the NVN government).

Our Ambassador, Mr. Bunker, is one of the most thoroughly disliked Americans over here. The press gives lavish coverage to the afternoon Teas he has with the ladies, and otherwise ignores his presence whenever possible. His credentials as a statesman are questionable at best (he’s a good businessman, has made a fortune, etc; but he’s not here on “business” of that sort). Westmoreland is well enough liked, but his hands are so well tied that he’s not as effective as he should be.

The USAID program, which administers the various “pacification” attempts, is a colossal failure on every count. Not to mention the internal boon-doggling that amounts to millions of dollars, their usual approach has been to build schools, precinct stations and hospitals in the small towns—on a give-away basis; these structures have cost millions, and for a few hundred dollars worth of dynamite the VC have systematically destroyed them, or frightened the residents out of using them. The point that seems to be beyond anyone’s real appreciation is that in the provinces, political allegiance goes automatically to whoever provides the greatest protection against getting killed or losing one’s crops. Politics is a concept beyond the grasp of most of the provincial bourgeoisie, whose only desire is to be left alone to live their lives unmolested. It is essentially a feudal system in which the town Chief settles all disputes, collects taxes, and gives some measure of protection. If he is supported by the VC, we wipe out the whole town with the argument (albeit a non-sequitur) that they’re all VC. Admittedly, the VC do the same exact thing if the town Chief goes along with us. But the failure to protect the lives and property of millions of South Vietnamese during this last offensive has been a bitter pill for a lot of people to swallow, and is resulting in a lot of shifting allegiances. The final outcome, of course, has yet to happen.

What is the way out of this quick-sand? If we summarily withdraw, mutual assistance pacts all over the world will be torn up by the hundreds, and a global re-allignment of allegiances would result—almost certainly to Russia and China’s benefit. If we bring Hanoi to the conference table, the result  almost certainly will be another “Pueblo crisis” off the waters of North Vietnam fifteen years from now. If we obliterate NVN (especially if we use Nukes) can we ever again call ourselves the world’s peacemakers?

I still am inclined to feel that the honorable way out is through the Geneva Convention of 1954, to which we have never paid more than lip-service, but which still contains a workable formula for the reunification of Vietnam. Ho Chi Minh would be elected—and not very long later he would die, as he soon must in any event, for he is both old and unwell. The crux of this is still the question of whether Ho’s power stems from fervent nationalism of fervent communism; it is hard to imagine VC suicide-squads being ready to die a certain, violent death for the sake of a concept such as communism—a concept both “foreign” in the sense of being alien—and foreign in the sense that it goes against established traditions. But suicide-squads willing to die for their country? What is so strange in this? We ourselves have used this gambit from 1776 on, and technological superiority is all that has made it a successful gambit in the past. Our refusal to recognize our own Nationalism for what it is blinds us to the possibility that others may feel as fervently—and as righteously—about their country as we do about ours. It is sheer stupidity to become involved against nationalistic trends—ask any Frenchman (or, for that matter, Englishman) and  he will have to agree, if only because he has been forced to in recent years.The sun is about to set on the U.S. empire, too, and it is high time we realized it.

That’s how it looks after a month here—it will be interesting to see if the next months change this view in any significant way.

The weather continues perfect as far as I am concerned—warm, sunny, consistent from day to day, and thoroughly enjoyable. Haven’t had even the suggestion of a cold since I got here!

Cheers—
Bruce

A typical street scene in 1968 Saigon

Note the relative size of the Army tractor and the little Peugeot taxi! This is probably Tu Do Street, which was one-way, but the bicyclist is going in the wrong direction, and risks being wiped out by a deuce-and-a half at any moment. I did not carry a camera with me most of the time in Vietnam: there were still folks there who objected to having their photo taken, and one risked a confrontation over a random snap-shot. I did have a camera though: a Kodak Instamatic, and I used it much more when I departed Vietnam on my motor-cycle trip.

The Kodad Instamatic

The camera was later stolen in Bangkok, but I managed to get it back! Unfortunately, rather than have films developed  along the way, I accumulated the rolls and had them all done when I got back to the states. This led to some film deterioration (that will be seen here in future images), but for the most part I got decent pictures of my adventures.

Stay tuned for more letters, and remember you can discuss these adventures with me at [email protected]

July 3, 2009

INFO

I presume my readers know that to keep up with this blog they have to click on the last listed entry over there at the right. This blog opens to the same page every time, so navigate to the latest if you are keeping up. Also, email addy is [email protected] and I am always pleased to hear from my readers.

MEDICAL UPDATE

I had my first and last post-op exam by the surgeon yesterday. He says I’m fine, and he’s right. I still have a little bit of soreness around a couple of the incisions, but I know this will go away. Altogether, the removal of my gall bladder was close to being a non-event!

MICHAEL JOE

I suppose way back somewhere I saw MJJ and thought it might be interesting to know more about him, particularly what he looked like sans clothing. But as for following his career or becoming any kind of MJJ groupie, it was not on. I don’t get along well with “Type A” individuals, and at least when on stage, MJJ struck me as a Type AAAA. And since I know nothing about dancing, his moves always looked frantic, often as if he was having a fit of some kind.

Somewhere along the line I did find a recording of his ballad, “She’s Outa My Life”, and I really liked it: I still play in now and then. But as time went on, there’s no denying MJJ got more than a little “strange”. The tragedy of his untimely demise lies in his inability to control his intake of drugs, and there was no one with enough power over him to stop the carnage until it was too late. I hope his tortured soul really is at rest now.

TATS

I’ve mentioned before that tattoos, generally, put me off. All this hype on TV, with entire series devoted to tats and tatters leaves me cold: many of the designs are over the top, and woe be unto any who decide they should be removed!

TANGLE WITH THE INFERNAL REVENUE SERVICE

Johnny and I bought a house together in 1962. We were both gainfully employed (he teaching, I an analytical chemist); it cost us $17,000. We worked it over, then traded up to something larger. But as it became apparent our relationship was going down in flames, one night in 1964, in a drunken rage he made me quit claim to the property and chased me out at knife-point. To make matters worse, he burned most of the deeds and other paperwork involved. Nevertheless, he was able to sell the place shortly thereafter (it was planned!) and pocketed about $40,000 . He drank that up in just a few years; but, I digress.

That year I filed my income tax and claimed a sizable loss on the property. Three years later, in 1967, the IRS objected, pointing out I had no proof: all that burnt paperwork came back to haunt me. The IRS concluded that I owed them the princely sum of $1800, and I was forced to agree that I did. I was willing to pay it, except that the IRS demanded I borrow the money from a bank at 8% interest. My position was the IRS was charging 6%, and there was no reason a bank should make money on my misfortune. [Imagine 8% interest at a bank in those days!}

The upshot was a series of meetings with low-level functionaries who tried to cajole me into taking out a loan. Throughout, I maintained that I would pay the amount owed, but over time, plus the 6%: there was enough “slop” in my budget that I could spare something each month: I was pretty much living from paycheck to paycheck, as my salary was not all that great. But, the IRS would have none of it, and the more they pushed, the more stubborn I got. I quickly realized they have no ability to deal with someone who simply says “no” and refuses to budge. I used to load up on aspirin: I was like a zombie, and no matter what they offered, my answer was consistently “NO”.

Someone told me I could take a person with me to those meetings, and did not even have to introduce them. The theory was that if there was a witness to their coercive tactics, they would not be applied. So I set it up with a friend of mine: he was a large fellow, a clerk in a dime store, but he had one good suit and an imposing cough. The IRS would harangue, I would say something like I was going to yield, and Jim would cough loudly: then I would say NO! It drove the poor interviewer nuts, but got us nowhere.

Another time, after several guys had taken turns at me, I decided to “lose it”: without warning I jumped up and shouted loudly, “Why don’t you guys just take me out in the hall and shoot me? Put an end to all this shit.” (And so forth) Jeezus! We were in a room full of cubicles, so everyone  heard me, and for a moment, I thought they might take my recommendation! Such a hub-bub. But it got us nowhere.

Then there was the day we finally came to some sort of agreement, and the interviewer wrote it up long-hand on a special pad with carbon-paper (remember carbon-paper?) and told me to sign it. I was about to, when I noticed printed boldly along the bottom, this line:

THIS AGREEMENT IS NOT LEGALLY BINDING ON ANY OF THE SIGNATORIES HERETO

Say what? They explained that was to protect their interest so if I were to have a wind-fall, they could take their share out of it. I explained that it was no contract at all, and tore it up and threw the fragments at them. Whooooie! They were pissed!

The resolution came when I decided to devote an entire day to getting this thing off my back. When I reached an impasse with the first interviewer, I demanded to see his Supervisor. When I got nowhere there, I demanded to see his Supervisor, and so on up the ladder. About five rungs up, I was allowed to explain the whole problem to a fellow sitting behind a desk: I repeated my offer to pay over time with their 6% interest.

“That sounds reasonable to me,” he said. He wrote it up, and it was a done deal I’d won!

DISILLUSIONED

The whole mess with the IRS put me right off. Work was getting boring. Money was tight, especially with monthly payments to the IRS. I needed a change. One weekend I visited my older brother in Southern California, and was perusing ads in the LA Times. On a lark more than anything else, I responded to an opening for a chemist in VietNam, and promptly forgot about it.

Several months later, I got a call in my office: “Are you ready to go to VietNam?”

Well, no I wasn’t, but I quickly decided I sure as heck could be!

What happened next will be my next page.

MONEY

I try to retain a few good examples of the local currency from the places I visit. The Cambodian bills were very lovely, printed in Germany, and featured numerous scenes for which the country is justly famous. I saw a good many of these places in actuality.

12 September 1968
Hello again~

Who would believe this trip? Amid threatening clouds, I left Kep (after a restful day there—swimming at 7:00 AM!!) bound for Bokor. As expected, I got into rain fairly soon, and to put the end at the beginning, I drove through rain all the way to Sihanoukville!

BACKSTORY: I met a young fellow in Kep who reminded me of why I enjoy formerly-french countries! He was completely unabashed about sex, and we had a fine romp. However, when I told him I planned to visit Bokor, he assured me I should not go there. Unfortunately, the language barrier made it difficult for me to know what his objections were. (There’s usually no language barrier where sex is concerned!)

The road to Bokor is unbelievable! It goes up 1000 meters in about 22 kilometers, hacked through dense jungle all the way (except along the top of the mountains, where it is quite bare). Wonderful switch-backs and so forth, about 12 feet wide and paved fairly well.

The Road to Bokor

See below for a much later photo of this “road”, when it had become just a cow-path!

The rain on the way up was not bad, and perhaps the jungle is at its best when wet. I stopped (both ways) many times to shut off the machine & listen to the marvelous sounds—and occasionally to inspect the various animals crossing the road: mostly bright pink land crabs, but some spectacular snakes & things, too. The sounds are like nothing I’ve ever heard (naturally) and while one itches to take up a machete & go in search of the sources, without a guide & so forth that’s hardly recommended! By the time I got to Bokor itself, the storm was a veritable blizzard, visibility less than 30 feet. But amidst all this, the Auberge Royale was open and I got a good hot meal (about 9:30 am). After a quick tour of the casino (doing a thriving business) I set forth once again, this time to Popokville, about 4 km away. The rain let up slightly for this leg of the trip for which I was thankful. Just as the road (paved about 1/2 way) petered out into a couple of muddy ruts, and I was going to turn back, I heard the roar of water & saw a “parking” sign a little further on. So I thrashed on through, there to find the famed falls of Popokville (I wonder if Todd made this same pilgrimage?). Now, with all the rain, there was lots of water. The river is about 1/2 the size of the Merced at high water; the falls are a couple of hundred feet, in several stages. Very spectacular, very wet, and in the jungle setting, truly wonderful. There was not another soul around, although there are nice little pathways, rickety bridges & so forth (a la mist-trail [in Yosemite]) which I poked around in (carefully!) for about 1/2 hr.

Recent shot of the he famed falls of Popokville

I found this picture on the net, taken many years after I was there. These visitors had better weather!

When the rain re-commenced, I remembered the road I had to traverse back to pavement, & decided to push on. Back down that wonderful road. More sounds, more animals, rain. Some views were blocked by clouds, but I got some good looks down to the delta & sea 2-3000 feet below. Alas, no pictures—too little light [and too wet].

The remainder of the trip was uneventful, but very wet. At times the road was nearly flooded. The rainfall varied from moderate to very heavy. My poncho leaked, and when I finally reached S-ville I was soaked through. My luggage leaked slightly (as you can see by the stains made by some carbon-paper I foolishly brought along!) but I had dry clothes when at last I found the center of S-ville and a hotel.

Sihanoukville may turn out to be the only disappointment of this trip. The weather has not helped—it has rained steadily through today and shows no sign of stopping: tres inclement! But the city itself is not much. It has recently been turned into a free port, but until the railway to the interior is finished I doubt this will make much difference. There are a couple of ships at anchor and the town is full of a sorry lot of French merchant seamen. There is a rather lurid “strip”, a couple of strings of shops, the inevitable central market and information center—and that’s about it! The setting, though, is splendid and the beaches extensive and inviting—given proper weather. I should imagine that in 5 or 10 years this could be another Riviera.

You will not believe what this trip is doing to my diet!! Every now and then I order the Plat du jour, not always knowing just what to expect. In Phnom Penh I got as an entré one night some sort of small fowl, roasted (whole, I discovered) with petit pois & sauce. I will never know what it was (too small for pigeon) but it was not bad. Today, here, I had “orderves” (fresh crab, paté fois gras, sliced ham, chick-peas & onions) followed by a dozen clams on the half-shell (I know you won’t believe it but I ate them all), followed by fresh diced pineapple & café au lait; all for 80 riels (about $1.50).

Assuming it is raining still in the morning, I’m heading for the interior again—Kirirom. The weather there should be better. This cuts two days off my planned stay in S-ville, but without being able to swim & sun on the beach, there’s really almost nothing else to do; besides, constant rain depresses me. Hence,

More later!!

Bruce

So much for my planned sun and swim on the beaches in Sihanoukville (formerly, Kampong Som). I’m not really a swimmer: I was more interested in seeing skimpy bathing-suits on the local guys! Of these, there were none, the weather being foul as mentioned. Indeed, it was off-season, and there was only one hotel in Kep that was anything like “open”, and that barely. No restaurant. But there was a restaurant open in the town, where I had the meal mentioned, and where I cruised up the trick also mentioned. In Sihanoukville, the seamen were mostly drunk and probably after girls, but the locals had locked up every youngster (with good reason: with the french and ME in town, none of them was safe)!

I’ve since learned that Bokor was built up by the French as a refuge from the heat of the dry season, Although one web-site says it was abandoned after WWII, it was going strong when I was there in 1968, and it was quite a sumptuous place. It was abandoned (and looted) soon after the K-R took over, and now stands derelict:

Bokor

Bokor

I understand that Bokor is now a nature preserve and is patrolled to prevent poaching, but it is likely a losing battle: development as some sort of resort seems inevitable. The grand old Auberge will unquestionably be demolished, along with the Catholic church in Bokor and perhaps a Royal Residence as well.

By the time this picture was taken (found on the web) the “road” to Bokor had been over-grown by the jungle:

Cows on the Road to Bokor Now

A later picture shows it as even worse, open only to dirt-bikes! There’s more here.

But, time marches on. And the next day I decided to visit Kirirom. Stay tuned!