M Y O B

09.September.68

Mon Chers~

I recall dashing off a short note at the bottom of my last letter that may have left you suspended a bit. To recount: last Saturday AM I returned to the Australian Embassy, where they prepared for me a letter to the Pochentong (airport) Customs authorities. I’m not sure what the letter said, but in any event it was the magic touch necessary, and after a whole lot of filling in of forms, books, etc., the Chef explained that I was free to depart “avec moto”, and to proceed to tour Cambodia entirely as I pleased. He gave me a warm “Welcome to Cambodia” (even If 2 days late) and hoped I would enjoy my stay.

So, having gotten beforehand a bottle of petrol (the bike had to be flown “dry”), and having on-the-spot re-attached the silencers, I got under way. Now, since having had the engine re-built in the Honda [before leaving Saigon], I’d never really gotten it broken in, & never had the chance to take a “shake-down” run. I’d intended to go to Vung Tao, but by the time I had time for that, the VC were making trouble out that way again. Just driving around Saigon, I had experienced an assortment of minor ills & had (I hoped) corrected them all. Re-attaching the silencers (besides making the machine quiet) seemed to improve its performance.

I visited the Palais Royale the same morning. It is lovely. Curiously, amid the splendor of the various buildings (most of them built around 1915) is a small 2-story building “a la style francaise”, a building built by Napoleon much earlier. But there it sits, all ginger-bread and bric-a-brac; it looks so out of place! After lunch I went through the National Museé (much of it currently being reconstructed). As Todd said, they have a large collection of statues of various Khmer Kings—but not a great deal else.

Saturday night I was poking around the city & stopped for a Pepsi at a small restaurant. The owner—to my surprise—spoke flawless english and welcomed me so warmly it was almost overwhelming. It turned out this man is an expatriate Vietnamese, and he was eager for news: I wish I could have been more encouraging. Of course, this episode lasted through several Pepsis, a large dish of Cambodian-style beef-steak (rather like Korean bool-goggie, but not cooked at the table [and served over water-cress] and so forth: it was after 1 am before I got back to the hotel for sleep! And by prearrangement Mr. Thang-Ny showed up promptly at 8:30 to take me sight-seeing. After petit-dejeunez, where we were joined by another friend, we took the bike in for a battery-charge (too much stop & go driving) and while that was in progress we walked to the phnom for relaxation and photos. It was a gorgeous day. Following completion of the battery charge, all 3 of us drove out [Highway 2] into the country-side (to and somewhat beyond Takhmau), had refreshments, then returned to to PPenh. I lolligagged most of the rest of the day, having not gotten enough sleep the nite before. Did some souvenir shopping—and am happy to say found local items. A good dinner, an evening walking tour, and then to bed to rest up for the trip to Kep.

BACKSTORY: Mr. Ny had introduced himself to me in the hotel lobby: he spoke passable english, and was eager to try it out. I was eager to try him out, so we had a nice afternoon romp right there in the Mondial, and arranged to meet the next morning for sight-seeing. His friend wasn’t bad, either!

Temples Like this One Near Takhmau) are Everywhere!

I got on the road about 8:30 am. Another beautiful day, perfect for touring. First stop was Takeo [via Highways 3 and 25] where I had breakfast of sorts about 10:15. Traffic is, indeed, light, but autos and busses (especially) go like mad and one has to give them a wide berth! Had a pleasant chat with the elder Takeo police Chief, who introduced himself warmly. I understood about half of what he said (in French), and hope he understood as much of my rejoinders (in fractured French).

New Police Meeting Hall

The Chief of Police in Takeo proudly showed off their new meeting-hall, recently completed. Not an automobile in sight!

Once the initial shock of seeing an American wears off, the people respond with warm & spontaneous affection that is both heart-warming and encouraging. But I am a rarity here, so that I get lots of unabashed stares, especially in the countryside. But a smile & a wave (a choumreap sour is pretty hard to execute with one hand on the throttle) brings instant response in kind.

It began to rain very lightly as I approached Kampot, so I stopped there for a bowl of “Soup Chinois” and sat out a typical tropical rain for about an hour. (Chinese soup—besides being very good, is one of the safest foods here; there’s likely to be anything & everything in it, but it is kept at a boil all day long.) After the rain stopped I shopped in the central market for Kampot Pepper, and bought a hand of “ananas” to eat later on. The little boy who sold them to me was so taken aback by it all—I’m sure it’s been a while since he sold his fruit to an american—but his charming smile would win any heart. 4 riels (about 8¢) for the bananas.

BACKSTORY: There was a group of stalls all selling bananas, but I chose the one being tended-to by the youngster, chicken-queen that I am. (His mother had gone on an errand). I guessed his age at ten, but you never know. He was all smiles and all business as he interpreted my proffered hand to mean I wanted a hand of bananas, and he held up four fingers to tell me it would cost 4 riels. I was tempted to swoop him up, put him behind me on the bike, and ride off into the sunset. But I didn’t: and now he’s over 50 years old, if he survived the K-R massacre. I wonder if he remembers that tall american with the big motorcycle.

As I proceeded to Kep [Highways 3 and 16], I was on the heels of a storm, so from time to time stopped under a tree for refuge—and bananas! And about 2:30 I came around a corner and there was the seashore, a lovely beach, lovely sunshine, and no more than half-a-dozen people to be seen!

Banana Break Near Kep

I stopped under this tree for a ciggie and banana: that yellow spot on the right side of the bike is the hand of bananas I bought earlier.Just over that rise is a spectacular view of the Gulf of Tonkin and Kep.

Happily, the machine is preforming flawlessly. The valve-gear in a Honda sounds like a thrashing machine, but they do run well, & as mine is still “running in”, I’ve taken it fairly easy. Tomorrow! A day on the beach. Have lotion, so I hope to avoid further burn (my face & arms burned slightly this morning before I realized it). As usual, will close this but add more anon~

Luv~
Bruce

A Rural Road, Somewhere Near Phnom Penh

The next day: Bokor and Sihanoukville. Stay tuned!

NEXT

Estimates at the time suggested there were at least 3 million Honda 50cc motorbikes in Saigon when I was there. They were small, reliable, and good in the basically flat city. It was not unusual to see a family of five riding on one together: Daddy driving, two tykes parked on the gas tank, Mama riding side-saddle behind Daddy with an infant in her arms. Accidents were surprisingly few: everyone drove defensively, and it was a great place for me to hone my MC driving skills. There were hundreds of little repair shops all over town where a machine that refused to run could be diagnosed and fixed. There were also numerous shops selling accessories and parts. In the photo below of Dai Lo Le-Loy, the double-row of parked motorcycles in the foreground was typical. There are too many to count. There was no licensing system: some folks put numbers on their bikes just to distinguish them from the literally hundreds of identical ones. I’d have to say, the Japanese did very well during the war in Vietnam!

The building opposite the Rex is the Caravelle Hotel

___________________________

Friday, Apres-midi, 10 May 1968

Dear everyone~

Got to work uneventfully yesterday, and Long Binh was quiet all day. Many Vietnamese workers affected by curfews unable to get to work, so things were dull at the post. I’m now involved in compiling procurement lists for the projected lab, which is purely make-work, inasmuch as no one knows whether there will BE a new lab or not; but I have to do something to pass the time.

I bought a Honda [Motorcycle] from a fellow at LB who is leaving, and brought it into Saigon on the back of a pick-up last night. The driver dropped me and the bike at the intersection of Bien Hoa Xa Lo and Chi Lang, and I motored into Saigon proper from there. It (the Honda) is really a marvelous invention, just the ticket for getting ’round in a city like this, although in heavy traffic it’s a bit hair-raising at times. I don’t really expect to use it much, except as a passenger behind my Number One Vietnamese friend, who is much more familiar with operating one of these gadgets than I!

Just as I pulled into the alley beside my building, there were several very loud explosions not far away: I have never learned whether they were VC rockets, or whether they were our own, but in any event “an enemy of unknown size and force” had been spotted along the point where Precinct 4 borders Precinct 2 (mine), and helicopter gun-ships were giving them a bad time. This continued sporadically until about 2100hrs, when the enemy “broke contact”, meaning they slipped off their uniforms and became civilians again! The remainder of the night was quiet, except I understand TSN AFB got hit again.

And, I had a group of visitors during the night, for when I got upstairs to my apartment I found Number One friend had custody for the night of six charming children whose mama-san had had to go to My Tho for a couple of days. So we all shared the place: these kids live about a block from the bridge in Cho Lon where there has been heavy fighting with VC, and of course with the curfew on, had no place to go. They were lucky at that: there was a group of about fifty refugees sleeping under a marquee on Le-Loi opposite my building all night.

So, Tino, Mercy, Daravith, Lucia, Rico and Bariyano, all of whom speak Vietnamese, Cambodian, some French and some English, and of course Nguyen and myself had a pleasant evening learning about each other; (I taught them how to count from 1 to 10 in German!). About 2100, when the noise of battle died down somewhat, all six of them stretched out on the floor on a large bath-towel, tossed a sheet over themselves, and weren’t heard from again until 0700 this AM!

At one point during the evening, I brought out my photo album and was showing them my papa-san, brothers, niece, nephews, etc. I sure had to laugh when we got to Jeffrey: one of the kids pointed to him and said, with, I understand, absolute accuracy, “beaucoup kilo”! The oldest of these kids was, as best I can gather, about twelve, and could not have weighed in at more than 50 lbs (but this is not abnormal—people are just small over here!)

Everyone left about 0800 to see if they can get home. I decided to stay here myself—work is so unrewarding that ANY excuse will do. The morning I spent cleaning up the Honda (Model 50CL) and making a few adjustments on it.

Friday again, 2000h

Having nothing else to do, I had planned to sit down and try to evoke the mood of this place again, but I had no more than typed the time and date when I noticed the arrival of several truckloads of police in front of the block across the street. The group of about a hundred was pretty evenly divided between ARVN and Saigon Security Police, and there were a few american advisors on hand. They proceeded to make a thorough and systematic search of the entire block, and in the end took away about two score civilians, mostly women: I assume they were prostitutes, not VC. Apparently this was just a random search, not done because of any intelligence that VC were there, but just as part of routine. I expect sometime they will search this block similarly.

So it is now 2130 hours, and quiet again, except that every half hour or so our jets are bombing an area about a mile and a half from here, which makes a hell of a racket just when everything gets nice and quiet. The area is in precinct 4, across the Saigon Canal from Precinct 2, the principal downtown section where I live.

Except for these loud blasts, and occasional bursts of mini-gun fire, about all that is to be heard is the too-loud sound-track of the cinema atop the Rex BOQ, and the quiet swish of tires on moist pavement as a security vehicle cruises by: it rained hard for an hour this afternoon about 5, creating the temporary flooding that lasts such a remarkably short time, and rained again about 7:30, very hard, but for only about 5 minutes! A brief electrical display accompanied that rapidly passing storm.

On the street itself, one sees an occasional wandering child: there are countless homeless and parent-less children who somehow manage to  survive (the mild climate is a blessing!) from hand to mouth, who sleep in the doorways at night and do goodness knows what during the day. Many beg, but many also earn a sort of existence shining shoes and doing odd jobs that come along, such as washing motorbikes and cars, repairing flat tires, selling coke-bottles full of gas to hapless passers by who didn’t make it to the gas-station, and so forth. There are, too, a few wandering cats and dogs, and the sharp-eyed will detect an occasional large rat poking around here and there.

This is the closest thing to the eve of the Paris talks, and there’s been a lot of speculation to the effect that a major push on the palace, or on the American Embassy, may be attempted. The latter is much more heavily guarded now, you may be sure, than it was when the VC succeeded in gaining temporary entrance to it during Tet! The palace is similarly guarded, though of course both buildings are vulnerable to rockets and mortars, assuming the VC can manage to launch any without being detected in the process: there are numerous spotter planes quietly circling about overhead, usually without marker lights: these are either very small piper-cub-like gadgets that can fly slowly and quietly, or ti ti helicopters that can do likewise. They can spot the flash of a rocket launch even in an area well lit with flares, and direct a strike at the spot within minutes. Flares light the entire city perimeter at night, assisting this surveillance work, and casting, an eery glow over everything from this vantage point.

Close to 2200 now, no more paper, and bedtime. I’ll add to this later and mail it Sunday, I expect.

Except that like almost ALL the others in Vietnam mine was red, this is the closest photo I could find of a Honda 50CL like the one I bought there.

this is the closest photo I could find of a Honda 50CL like the one I bought

__________________________

Sunday, 12 May 1968

Dear everyone~

Things are quieting down somewhat, though whether the current offensive is over or just awaiting reinforcements no one knows. The only really annoying thing about this situation is being right in the middle of it and knowing so little about what is going on! The single most worthless institution over here that I’ve found is the Armed Forces Vietnam Network—AFVN: two nights ago, I had just turned the volume up to hear above the din of a nearly battle that “quiet has returned to Saigon”.

I mentioned a while back C A [redacted], the gent I got to know on the trip over and with whom I was billeted through the Tet carryings-on. He’s stationed at Qui Nhon, and I repeat below a couple of excerpts from his latest letter to me, dated 29 April:

“An Khe is like Dodge City. A chap named [redacted], youngish, got drunk in a civilian club at An Khe and had a fight with the Asst Installation Manager, who beat him up. He went to the Manager’s quarters, and the manager beat him up some more. Next day, he was in the Area office with one arm in a cast, a black eye, and various abrasions and contusions. After the fight, he went and got a shot-gun to take after the Asst Manager, who in turn got his M-16. Fortunately, there was no further action.

“Civilians in the Qui Nhon area are being armed. That includes TCNs as well as U S civilians. Everyone gets either a .45 automatic or an M-14. Most are taking the M-14, for one of two reasons: 1, they already have a pistol or 2, they couldn’t hit a building or those inside it with a pistol. Jim [Redacted] and I shudder at the possible consequences. Qui Nhon is like Tombstone, Arizona, last century. Some of the military are worried, too: what if a Korean killed a Philipino, or vice versa, in a Qui Nhon bar, with an issued weapon?

“I don’t know if I wrote you what happened here on 30 Jan. On 29 Jan, the night before our three U S civilians employees of PA&E were killed on the main street in downtown Qui Nhon on their way to work, the following entry was made in the (PA&E) duty officer’s log book:

‘9:00 PM – City of Qui Nhon blacked out under Martial Law. Police say heavy VC infiltration and possible insurrection.’

That was 29 Jan, the night before the men were killed. Nothing at all was broadcast over AF Radio, QN. Next morning, our civilians had no way of knowing anything was amiss. There was gun-fire in downtown QN, but they had been hearing giant firecrackers for a week and thought it was just more celebration of Tet. The three were on their way to work and followed the same route they’d taken for more than a year. They were completely unaware anything was wrong: there is no warning system here for people not on a military base.”

The situation described above is little different in Saigon. For myself, I always look out on the street before going abroad to see if other americans are moving about, and then go directly to the Rex for b’fast, in the course of which all sorts of gossip, most of it unreliable, can be heard. Any serious hazards are usually posted on the daily bulletin board in the lobby. As for the radio, as a warning device it is useless, and except for one or two “entertainment” programs, it is equally useless: I like Joe Allison’s Country music program at 5 AM, and Sunday nites they have tapes of the Mormon Tabernacle Program. Otherwise, I listen mostly to Tokyo and Malaysia.

My “family” did not return Friday night, but Number One friend showed up Saturday and explained that all was well: mama-san had gotten back from My Tho (the highway was temporarily blocked); she sent word she was grateful for my hospitality to her children, who, as I said before, were a lot of fun and who showed their own appreciation before leaving by cleaning the apartment thoroughly AND doing up some laundry for me!

The name situation here is confusing. Just about everybody’s family name is Nguyen—it is as common as Smith in the US, Yi in Korea, or Yung in China. There is usually a Van or Thi next, which is meaningless except the Van is for men and the Thi is for women, and then the given or first name i. e., Tai or Hung or the like. However, in addressing another person, where we generally use the family name except in cases of familiarity, the Vietnamese do it the other way around, using the given name virtually all the time. Hence Ong ( = mister, pronounced approximately “aum”) Tai, or Ong Hung (the correct pronunciation for Hung is not renderable in english, but is approximately “howng”). For people of importance, “Thuong” is used in place of Ong, and it means approximately “Sir”, but still is coupled with the given name.

The universal greeting is “Chao” (Chow), coupled with any one of a large number of definitives, such as Ong (cf. above), Co (young woman), Ba (older or married woman), Em (children), Anh (brother) and so forth and so on. Learning all of them gets to be a problem at times, and to use the wrong one is quite embarrassing to the person addressed. Boys are ti ti (i.e., small or young) until they are 16 (the definitive is Cao, pronounced Gow), and are men thereafter (Ong again!). Girls are ti ti until they are 18 or married, whichever transpires first, and thereafter are addressed as Ba: it is not easy to tell if a girl less than 18 is married or not, so one can easily use the wrong form of address, to which the girls are particularly sensitive! (It is very desirable to be in a position to be addressed as Ba, for some reason).

My friend, Ong Hung, is outside polishing up the Honda: later we will go to the PX on it, since the military buses have not resumed their routes. I think we will both go to the Rex cook-out for steaks tonight, and then all too soon the brief Sunday respite will be over and another dull week will commence. Although hired as a chemist, I haven’t run a single test of any kind yet! Cest la Vie. . .

Love to all~
Bruce

After three and a half months in Vietnam, I had accomplished absolutely nothing I could point to and say, “I did that”!

I was not alone! I recall a chap at LB who was supposed to be in charge of creating water points for the Army. It seems that somewhere up-country someone at a  U S base had found a well: they asked PA&E to secure and install a pump so water from the well could be used. To determine what size of pump was required, we had to know at a minimum how deep the well was, and where the water-level was. In its simplest form, this means tying a stone to a length of rope and dropping it down until it stopped. Pulling the rope back up would reveal the depth, and the amount of wet rope would reveal the water level. Since our man had no means of getting up-country, he sent requests through “channels” to have the measurements made. He had a file a few inches thick of the various orders working their way up the chain of command and back again, yet no one had actually issued the order to measure the well! Meanwhile the brass were bitching about not having any water…

Now, 40 years later, I wonder if things in Iraq are as fucked-up as they were in Vietnam. I’m quite sure the answer is yes.

More letters to come!

NEXT

April 12, 2009

If there is anyone following his blog, they know I have not posted for more than a month. Here are some of the reasons why:

• I work four days a week, 7 to noon, in my little repair shop.

• I read over 50 blogs each day.

• I edit a small quarterly magazine.

• I read several magazines each week, though I have long ago given up on newspapers. [Failing newspapers everywhere claim they are losing advertising revenue, yet every issue I ever saw in recent times was nearly all advertising and almost no news.]

• There are major renovations under way here at my house, with scaffolding up inside to reach the ceiling of the main stair-well. There has been damage there from many leaks over the years; a new roof and gutters last summer cured that problem, so now it is time to do those repairs. The house is a mess!

• Weather has allowed me to plant the vegetable garden in my back yard.

• I had the Chrysler out a couple of weeks back for the drive to Niles Canyon for the Spring Steam run. When the Chrysler is out of its garage, my little truck is in there. While there, the battery died. On the first try to get that corrected, the City was digging a big hole right in front of the garage. On the second try, my cell phone did not work (another dead battery!) so I could not call AAA. The third time around, everything worked and the cars got swapped.

Behind SP 2472 Entering Niles Canyon

(The steam trip was spectacular, as usual, on a fine spring day.)

• In an old house, there’s always something: two weeks ago I took something from under the kitchen sink and found it wet. Exploration quickly located a leaking cone-washer on the hot water service tube. Had I not shut the angle-stop, the tube would have popped out, and a major flood would have ensued. Another project for that afternoon. I had to go out and buy a new cone-washer because I could not find any in my basement assortment of goodies. (Later, I found I had plenty on hand: I just could not find them when I needed them).

• Before the scaffolding mentioned above could be set up, I had to remove (temporarily) the gas-light fixture from the second-floor newell-post. This should have been no problem: I have a box of old pipe fittings, where I was sure a 3/8″ cap could be found. But when I went for it, I suddenly remembered I had recycled that box of fittings in a clean-up campaign some months ago. So I had to go out and buy a new cap. This proves the old adage: Never throw anything away!

These are just some of the things that seem to interfere with getting on with my story. Meanwhile, a few items by way of sidelines that I found interesting:

PERFECTION

One of the essences of being gay, for me, has always been the glory of the male body. (Other men have them: I never did!) The internet allows me to view thousands of these each week, for which I am duly thankful. Now and then, something really spectacular shows up which I wish I could share with you, but I can’t.

A PRECIOUS COMMODITY

Here’s an exercise I suppose every guy has gone through at least once:

• The current estimated total population of the world (three figure accuracy):                   6,770,000,000

• Roughly half that population is male:                                                                                         3,385,000,000

• About half these men are between 12 and 40 years old (my estimate):                               1,692,500,000

• In any given 24-hr period, half that group ejaculates on way or another:                           846,250,000

• On average, each ejaculation results in 3 cubic centimeters of semen:                             2,538,750,000 cc

• That’s 677,000 US Gallons!

In the days when I could, I produced my share of this stuff, and occasionally found someone willing to share it, or someone willing to share theirs. Following the admonition not to “spill my seed upon the ground”, I generally used an old towel or hanky.

But, here’s news:

Some of Semen’s Ingredients:

• Sugars:
1. Fructose – very sweet sugar, that occur in many fruits and honey and used as a preservative for foodstuffs and as an intravenous nutrient.

2. Sorbitol – found in various berries and fruits or prepared synthetically and used as a flavoring agent, a sugar substitute for people with diabetes, and a moisturizer in cosmetics and other products.

3. Inositol – preventing the collection of fats in the liver, as well as promoting healthy hair growth. It is also can be considered brain food, as the nutrient is necessary to properly nourish the brain.

• Proteins and amino acids:

1. Glutathione – involved in detoxification—it binds to toxins, such as heavy metals, solvents, and pesticides, and transforms them into a form that can be excreted in urine or bile. Glutathione is also an important antioxidant. In preliminary research, dietary glutathione intake from fruit and raw vegetables has been associated with protection against some forms of cancer.

2. Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) – nucleic acid that contains the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms

3. Creatine – supplies energy for muscle contraction. Athletes need creatine supplements to make their muscles strong.

• Minerals:

1. Phosphorus – helps the body absorb calcium to make the bones stronger.

2. Zinc

3. Magnesium – helps maintain normal muscle and nerve function, keeps heart rhythm steady, supports a healthy immune system, and keeps bones strong. Magnesium also helps regulate blood sugar levels, promotes normal blood pressure, and is known to be involved in energy metabolism and protein synthesis

4. Calcium – makes the bones strong

5. Potassium – is essential for the normal growth of the body and for the replacement of worn-out tissues which depend upon the presence of this mineral.

• Vitamins:

1. Ascorbic acid (vitamin C) – can help a person look younger and more beautiful. It encourages growth of the protein chains in collagen, which is the main ingredient in all fibrous tissue. Fibrous tissue is your bone matrix, cartilage, tooth dentin (right under the enamel), skin, tendons, ligaments, and all other connective tissue. Collagen is what keeps your cells bound together.

2. Vitamin B12 – energy booster.

3. Choline – to sharpen the mind.

• Hormones:

1. Testosterone – promote sexual function and promote sex drive.

2. Prostaglandins – participate in a wide range of body functions such as the contraction and relaxation of smooth muscle, the dilation and constriction of blood vessels, control of blood pressure, and modulation of inflammation.

• Body by products:

1. Lactic acid – also known as “milk acid”.

2. Urea – fertilizer

3. Uric acid – a waste product that results from normal body processes and is also found in some foods.

4. Nitrogen – balance of nitrogen helps the muscle grow.

Here’s another way to put it:

Sperm Nutrition

As a chemist, my professional career, I find it appalling that we waste all this stuff! Imagine the fun involved in collection any given city’s normal production for a week: thousands of gallons of cum to be sent to a factory for separation and purification of these precious ingredients. The mind boggles!

MOVING ON

Wouldn’t you know? When I got to it, accessing the net today has been slower than molasses in winter! But, I promise to get back to my story real soon!

[email protected]

NEXT

DEVELOPMENTS

I lived the first four years of my life in Sacramento. Of many memories, there are two that I believe contributed to the later “me”.

My God-parents lived nearby: they had a daughter somewhat older than I. Bobbie was probably about seven when I was three-going-on four. We all lived near William Land Park, at one corner of which was a cluster of large bushes. We kids could get in under those and assume no one could see us: it was the typical “hideout” kids like to make. But what we did in there, instigated by Bobbie, was examine each other’s private parts, and “do number one and do number two”! Bobbie would raid her bathroom for huge wads of toilet-paper (I wonder what her parents thought). I was the only boy in the group, so of course had that “handy little gadget” that made peeing much easier for me. But Bobbie and her girl-friends were not much interested in my little pee-pee. I, likewise, was not much interested in what they had between their legs: it seemed so UNfunctional!

I attribute these amusements to my lifelong interest in urination, and assume the beginnings of my lack of interest in females began here as well. The lack of any significant difference in how boys and girls defecate left me with far less interest in that function of the body.

The other memory from that time involves my maternal Grandmother who liked to take me out on Sunday afternoons to ride the C-street trolly line. Even then, the tracks were not in good shape, and the little single-truck Birney cars were notoriously rough-riding. Birney “Safety Cars” looked like this:

Single Truck Birney “Safety Car”

This little model shows how the car extended past the four-wheel truck, which meant that any little dip in the tracks was communicated to the car itself. But I loved to ride those bouncy little trollies! They were called “Safety Cars” because the door and brake controls had been cleverly incorporated into a single lever: the door could not be opened until the lever had moved past the “full stop” position of the brake. There was no way the doors could be opened if the car was moving. A Birney car can be seen in operation here during the filming of “The Changeling”.

I attribute my lifelong interest in trains and trams to these early experiences, even though our move out of Sacramento (and the death of both Grandmothers) put a stop to those Sunday excursions. I’ll have much more to say about trams and trains later in this blog.

CARMICHAEL

Dad moved us to Carmichael early in 1940: I had my fourth birthday there. Why we moved, I’m not sure. Both my parents were essentially “city-slickers” with no farming experience. Perhaps Dad saw WWII coming.

We had five acres, mostly planted in almonds, an old farm-house, a large, dilapidated garage and some barns. The first couple of years were devoted to rebuilding first the house, then the garage, and minor improvements to the milking-shed of the barn. Not yet in school, I was under-foot for much of this renovation work, and suppose my interest in old houses and handiwork in general stems from that experience.

My mother had taught for a few years, but when we moved to Carmichael, she devoted herself to her family while Dad was the bread-winner. Both took very good care of us (three boys — I was the “baby”). Dad taught in Sacramento, so was gone all day, but we had week-ends and summers together: yet even on a single salary we were considered fairly well off. Mom suffered from terrible migraine headaches, but between these took good care of us, and cooked all our meals. Any sort of restaurant of note was miles away in Sacramento, so dining “out” was rare!

Dad’s salary did get Mom some labor-saving devices: she had a fine Singer sewing-machine, of course, and she made a lot of our clothes. She also had an Iron-rite “mangle” — a machine for ironing clothes not unlike this one:

Iron-Rite “Mangle”

Making, washing, fixing, ironing and sewing buttons on all the clothes for three growing boys was nearly a full-time job, and I often found Mom seated at her ironer when I came in from play or home from school. I wore many hand-me-downs in those days: by the time I got through with them they were just rags.

Mom also had a Bendix washer, first of the front-loaders. It looked similar to this one. I could not find a photo of our model, which was less sophisticated and earlier than this 1947 model. Ours had a triangular base painted black, and a clunky arrangement of the lint-trap: if the clip holding it in place got snagged and pulled open accidently, it dumped the contents of the drum all over the floor of our back porch.

1947 Bendix Front Loader Washing Machine

While the Bendix was an improvement over the old tub-and-wringer setup, it did have several idiosyncrasies. One was that soap had to be added by hand at the proper time (so much for the “automatic” feature), and if too much was put in, the thing erupted in suds which poured out of the filler-spout down over everything. The porch floor got frequent cleaning because of this.

The other problem involved balance: the tub was rigidly attached to the frame, so if clothes got wadded up, when the spin-cycle began the machine would walk right across the floor, eventually pulling the power-cord out of its socket, or pulling one of the hoses loose (which resulted in water spraying everywhere).

The “cure” for the balance problem was to bolt the machine to a large block of concrete cast for this purpose. Even this was only partially successful: a severely  out of balance load would result in the whole block being lifted up and down, pounding the be-jesus out of the porch floor. It sounded like the house falling down, and always resulted in a mad rush to get the thing unplugged before it fell into the basement!

We had that washer for years. We even took it to Modesto when we moved there. By that time I was beginning to grow up, and I found riding that wobbling machine, the filler-spout jammed in my crotch, strangely exhilarating! But, I’m getting ahead of myself!

To be continued …

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June 5, 2010

As mentioned in my previous post, I suddenly found myself in Ecuador, working in Quito. At 9500 ft elevation and just 11 km south of the equator, Quito’s weather tends to be spring-like all year, with assorted mini-climate events like fog and rain off and on. There was some discussion in the office about the railroad, but I was assured there were no longer any steam engines operating into Quito. But there were rail-busses and it seemed worthwhile to ride in one of those if the opportunity arose. It did, and the result is the epistle which follows, except this time I am able to illustrate the letter with the photos I took. By this time I had a cast-off SLR camera my Dad no longer used, so I got much better photos than previously.

Readers note: if you aren’t “into” railroading, you might want to skip the next few pages!

Read the rest of this entry »

The three years commencing early in 1985 were some of the happiest in my life. It began when I met a boy I shall call Rey, because that is his name. He was 19, I was 49, 30 years his senior. We met through a local group called Pacific Friends, the ostensible purpose of which was to promote mixing and cultural exchange of pacific-islanders, asiatics and the like with local “white-bread Merkins”. Regular meetings were held  for “social interaction”, and occasional outings were held to places of interest. Judging from its web-site, the group appears to be defunct now. I was drawn to the group because I’d become very fond of the Asian somatotype while traveling in Vietnam, Southeast Asia and the Philippines.

Rey was Filipino. Physically, he was everything I could have asked for in a mate: small, cuddly, glabrous, gorgeous: a man in a boy’s body. He seemed to genuinely like me, and it was not long before we were “an item”, and he moved into the Mansion. I was in seventh heaven, and if Rey was not, there was no indication of it.

Mine – for a while

Of course, problems arose. The first was that I had to take a job in faraway Omaha, Nebraska, in order to get some income and keep the house going. I hated to leave Rey behind, but he seemed willing to make the best of it, and we had sex by telephone. I hated Omaha: it was cold and miserable, but the job lasted only three months and I managed to survive it.

I thought he was gorgeous; so did others!

I remember my home-coming with great fondness, Rey waiting to throw me into bed in the flesh instead at the end of a telephone cord. Now that my bank account was replenished, we could afford to live together comfortably. We took a two-week “honeymoon” in Hawaii and returned to San Francisco. Then, unexpectedly, there came another job opportunity that was too good to pass up: several weeks in Sri Lanka, working with USAID. The pay was fabulous, and the only down-side was having to leave Rey once again. No phone-sex this time, but soon enough I was back and our lives together resumed. Before long I landed a job locally with the firm for which I had worked in Egypt. This was an eight-to-five job, which included some brief travels here and there in the states, but we seemed to have weathered absences without difficulty. Time sped up incredibly! Life was good! Money was plentiful! Work on the house progressed, and best of all, I was in love with someone who called me his lover. In our third year, Rey enrolled at City College: I drove him to classes after dinner each week-night, and he returned by bus after class. Our third Anniversary was a “blow-out” celebration, enjoyed by a large clutch of Rey’s friends, a few of mine and a huge dinner of whole roast pig at the Mansion.

I have not looked at these picture in 20 years, and they still make me feel sad. Rey is now 43, if he is still alive.

The next day my world collapsed: Rey announced he was “moving on” to bigger and better things: not only that, he had taken up with someone I knew professionally. It was not long before I learned the affair had been going on behind my back practically from day one, and that almost everyone in our group knew what was going on — except me! If I had ever gone around the block after dropping Rey at school, for example, I would have seen a car pull up and whisk him away: he was not enrolled at City College at all! But, in my blissful state of ignorance, the notion Rey might be cheating on me had never crossed my mind. Nothing he ever did made me suspect him: yes, he danced long hours at the “Endup”, but he came home to me. He took a lot of care to see that I remained “in the dark”, and so I did. That I’d been a cuckold practically from day one was a terrible blow to my ego!

To make matters worse, following a dismal Christmas alone and sad, my Father died in early 1987.

Looking back, I wonder how I ever managed to get through the remainder of 1987. I returned to the shrink I had seen many years before, a total wreck, usually unable to do any more than sit and cry and feel sorry for myself. I had pinned such hopes on Rey, and he let me down—boo-hoo (repeat ad nauseam).

Time, of course, was on my side: little by little the shrink managed to help me see that it had not been I who destroyed the relationship, and that the reality was, there hadn’t been a “relationship” at all! I certainly was not the first guy to entrap myself in the wiles of an unscrupulous (if comely) young lad, nor (I have come to see since) would I be the last! He also helped me see that when in Manila, I was the minority, and in some demand by filipinos who liked foreigners: in San Francisco, the asians were the minority and they could be fickle and choosy generally in search of a “Sugar Daddy”. I hadn’t minded being Rey’s sugar daddy, in part because he did get a job for a while so he was not entirely dependent on me. But the whole experience left me very wary, of filipinos especially, and although I tried to meet some when I had recovered from Rey, there was simply no magic left. Besides, the old bod was slowing down, sex was becoming less important, and satisfaction from lots of wonderful images from the internet was coming to be a satisfactory substitute for the real thing.

Sri Lanka

The most colorful thing in Sri Lanka then was the currency! The bills are unusual in having the reverse sides printed vertically. I managed to bring back a number of them. My stay there will be the subject of my next page.

NEXT

PHOTOGRAPHY

Anyone reading this blog will have discovered I am not a photographer! I don’t have a photographer’s “eye”, and I did not have a photographer’s camera. That I got any pictures of this trip at all amazes me still. Film for my Instamatic was not universally available, and when I could find it, was expensive. I rarely stayed long enough anywhere for processing, so I accumulated the exposed rolls and had them all developed when I got back to the US. As will be seen, there were some problems with this, and in some pictures humidity caused the emulsion to stick and caused strange blotches. To the extent I can fix any of this by computer, I will, but some of the poor shots are bound to appear.

National Geographic, June 2009

I took just one photo of Angkor Wat itself: one of the most photographed antiquities in the world, I wasn’t even going to try to capture it with my little point-and-shoot. There’s no way my feeble skills could do it any justice! There are many sources on the web, and I don’t know how many times it has turned up in the National Geographic, including the June 2009 issue.

The Moto appears in many shots: remember, I planned to write an article for a MC magazine when I got back, so I included it as often as I could. The article never materialized—until now, 40 years later.

FINDING MY WAY

I’m often asked how I found my way around without the benefit of GPS. By golly, there were maps! The one I used in Cambodia appears on the previous page. The highways and roads were numbered, and stone markers were plentiful. Signs were usually in both Cambodian and english! Later, when I got to Thailand, I found a map that had each town marked in Thai, with a transliteration into english below. Road-signs, however, were only in Thai. So, I picked out some feature of the Thai name—its extreme length, or some odd squiggly letter, any distinguishing feature—then simply “read” the signs by looking for that feature. It was really quite easy, and I never felt “lost” anywhere. I happen to have a fairly good sense of direction: it helped.

THE SAGA CONTINUES

DIARY ENTRIES: Wednesday, 18 Sept. (continued): Angkor Wat—indeed all the monuments—is incredible!! Besides the feat of piling up all the stones artfully enough, the entire exterior & interior surfaces are decorated—every square inch. Though the pattern-work is repetitious, the effect—softened no doubt by time—is truly beautiful. I see now why Todd raved so about this area—and I have only begun to see it!!!

BACKSTORY: The town of Siem Reap is a few km from the temple complex, and the Hotel de la Paix was closer. A wide avenue, then lined with tall trees, led towards the park. The avenue ended at a crossing with the road around the moat which surrounds Angkor Wat itself. Approaching that intersection, I did not notice the Wat until I was at the junction: suddenly, there it was! Despite having seen my brother Todd’s pictures, and having seen many photos in the Geographic, I was totally unprepared for the size and scope of it. The road surrounding the moat is a number of miles in length.

The Only Picture I Took of Angkor Wat Itself

Thursday 19 Sept: Arose around 6:30, departed Hotel around 7:30 for Banteay Srey. A lovely, well-preserved temple & well worth the trip, even though the road is not as shown on the map. After leaving B. Srey, decided to keep on & see how far towards Beng Melea I could get—but the road got progressively worse &—lacking knobbies—I eventually had to capitulate. Explored a couple of side roads but lacking any useful map located nothing. Returned to civilization & went to Banteay Samre. Pulled OK through a stream well over the hubs! But got there (with a short walk). This is also an impressive temple worth seeing. Back to Hotel for lunch, then out to Preah Ko & Bakong—and also worth the effort. Lolei, very nearby, was not worth the trip and while I was there the afternoon rain hit—and eventually passed. Later took [road] #29 down to Phnom Krom. The temple isn’t worth the trip but the road up there is something else! Back to dine at Hotel, then out to Angkor Wat for classical dances—my only homage to the tourist circuit. Colorful and gracelful, but essentially meaningless because it is so studied & symbolic. Then back to the Hotel for rest. Tomorrow—Battambang.

Banteay Srey

Photos of Banteay Srey. Far enough off the beaten track in those days to be still beautifully preserved. What has happened to it in the 40 years since I hate to think.

The Track to Beng Melea. Beyond the Honda’s Capabilities! The Road Down From Phnom Krom.

Sorry, it’s a lousy photo, but the bike IS in there!

Friday 20 Sept: Made Battambang about noon after leaving Siem Reap around 8. Weather excellent all the way. Road from Sisiphon to B.Bang not entirely paved, but not too slow-going. Met Thach Ny after a small lunch & we went to the modest home of his brother. Later, Ny, a little boy and I all three set out for Phnom Sampou. Before we got there we waited out a heavy storm, about 1½ hrs. Got into all sorts of trouble trying to get up the road, what with 3 people, mud, wetness, etc. Finally walked the last 1/2 way or so. Big cave with a sleeping Buddha at the top. Very pretty & green & wet. Rain began again as we descended, but had stopped by the time we got back to B.Bang. I later checked into the hotel, leaving Thack Ny with the understanding he was to meet me at the hotel next am at 7:30. Rain again, so I retired early, hence saw little of B.Bang: must go back again some day as it is a large place and nice.

BACKSTORY: But, Battambang much later was a K R stronghold, and the caves at Ph. Sampou now contain the remains of many who were killed. A portion of the hill is now being carved into a likeness of Buddha. The trip to B.Bang was mainly to reconnect with Thach, who had shown me much kindness and who shared himself with me often. How he got from P.Penh to B.Bang I do not know, and we met as planned, but he slept with his family, not with me! Oh, well, can’t win ‘em all!

Saturday, 21 Sept: Return to Siem Reap uneventful. Was unable to locate Banteay Chhmar. Will try to get info here on exact location (presumably near Sisiphon). Arrived around 1, & took the afternoon to do some maintenance on the bike. Took the glaze off the rear brakes—there is one wheel bearing in poor shape. The bike is a mess, but I may try one more off-the-beaten-track exercise tomorrow before cleaning it up. Changed oil—none too soon. Put in 40W this time.

Sunday, 22 Sept:Arose early. Had the Honda washed—a good job. Then proceeded to the park where I re-rode the main circuit, taking in the various monuments in greater depth than before. Ta Prohm is the best—pretty much left as it was found—very interesting how the jungle has over-grown it. The Banteay Kdei is fun too. Many monkeys were playing in the trees around it. A huge spider had dropped his web around the pathway—he was a colorful, though evil-looking beast. Observed army ants at work: fascinating!! Rain in the pm and mid-evening, maybe more later. May try to get to Chau Srey Vibol tomorrow—depends on weather, among other things.

Banteay Kdei. Note Hand of Bananas Strapped to the Bike.

Monday 23 Sept: Got a bit of a late start, went to Roluos & started off through the rice paddies for Chau Srei Vibol. Got about 4 km out & ran into water well over the hubs, so had to turn back. The cyclo boys say there is a new road in, but I can’t find it as it is not marked. Came back to Angkor and tried another road—it began better, but I came to a bridge that I’d have had to repair to get across, so I decided enough is definitely enough & turned back. Poked around in the Bayon later, & some back roads, then did a circuit of the West Bayon & eventually returned to Hotel to sit out the afternoon rain. Had a quiet evening of chats with some chaps, then off to bed.

Track to Chau Srei Vibol. The Puddle was formidable!

BACKSTORY: The track in the first picture is easily navigated on a motorbike. I actually traversed a puddle similar to the one shown in the second photo to reach this point. I decided this one was too deep, and who-knows-what was in the distance. The previous puddle I had managed to avoid by going around it. But, returning, I knew I could not climb the muddy bank I had come down, so I stopped to contemplate how I might get through the puddle itself. A little boy materialized and with no prompting waded into the water to show me how deep it was. So I revved up the engine, tickled the clutch and kept my feet down to stabilize and got through. (If water reaches the spark-plugs, it’s all over: if not, you get through.) I got through, and parked the bike to let it drain and to wring the water out of my pants. Just then a gent sitting on a high-wheeled cart pulled by a water-b came along and sloshed through the puddle I had just navigated. The look on his face, as clear as it could be, said, “What the f*** is this dude doing out here with a motorcycle? He needs a water-b!” He was right, and if I had had the time and sense, I might have hired him to take me to the temple. Another time, perhaps!

The Bayon: One of the Most Photographed of the Temples Besides Angkor Wat.

Tuesday 24 Sept: Up early, but with a slight head-ache for some obscure reason. Lolligagged over breakfast consequently, then went out to the park & poked around in Ta Keo, then Ta Prohm for a last look at my favorite temple. Rain commenced shortly after lunch, so I shopped in town a bit, tuned the Honda a bit, and otherwise killed the afternoon. Tomorrow—set out for Bangkok.

Looking Down from the Top of Bakong Temple. Banteay Samre and Preah Ko Entrance, Preah Khan Temple The Demon Gate to Angkor Thom

REMINISCENCES: I was there in the off season: most of the time there was no one but me wandering around the temples. But there were people using them: it was not unusual to find punk-sticks smoldering here and there, and now and then I’d get a glimpse of a saffron robe. I was trapped in Ta Prom one afternoon when it rained a bit earlier than expected, and that was an experience I won’t forget! The monsoons drop huge quantities of rain, yet inside the temple, under the trees which over-grow it, no water ever hit me directly. Instead, it ran down all over everything! Small water-falls appeared out of nowhere. It was dark, dank, wet, and fascinating!

In the dry season the ficus trees shed huge amounts of pollen, so much that the temples appear yellow in photographs. In the wet season the temples are washed clean every day.

I left the cycle wherever and whenever to roam the temples. No one ever touched it, except a few times I returned to find it covered with card-board or something if it looked like rain.

In many temples I found small rooms with a lingam (google it) prominently displayed. Whatever, there’s no mistaking these phallic symbols. Just how they were used in the hey-day of the temples I’m not sure, but I did find one that had been anointed with sperm not long before I got there. I added some. I often found myself horny wandering around there: I’ve no idea why. I left some calling-cards.

Coming up: on to Thailand!  Stay with me…

NEXT

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

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

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

BB

_____________________

Sunday, 23 June 1968

Dear Everyone~

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bruce

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

Temple at the Saigon Zoo

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

Monkey at the Saigon Zoo, 1968

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

Sunday, 7 July 68

Dear Everyone~

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

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

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

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

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

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

Luv~
Bruce

__________________

Sunday PM, 14 July 1968

Dear all~

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That wraps up the latest report from Vietnam.

Cheers to all~

Bruce

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

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February 10, 2009

If anyone has paid attention, I turned 73 two days ago. I don’t feel any different. But I fly tomorrow to Denver to help a friend celebrate his 80th: that will make me feel young again.

As for my last post about adverts, I realized it could be summed up easily: most advertisements make me want to avoid a product. Very few entice me to buy the product. They’re wasting their time!

This week I watched the movie, The History Boys on DVD from NetFlix. Excellent film, done so well the way the British do. If you have not seen this one, get it and enjoy!

So, another week will pass before I regale you with tales from my college days.

Next week: I go to college. Stay tuned,

email: [email protected]

Love to hear from all, good bad or indifferent.

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July 18, 2009

As the late, great Anna Russell often said, “I’m not making this up, you know!” Shown below is a scan of one of the many pages of my letters from VietNam. My long-hand was better then than it is now, so I can actually read most of these as I transcribe them for your edification and entertainment.

One of the many pages of my letters from VietNam

Continuing my letters describing my first days in Saigon, during the Tet Offensive.

Saturday AM Feb 3, 1968

Still under curfew. The night was locally quiet, but the VC mortared the Cho-lon power sub-station but missed. Distant heavy artillery continued, and I understand this goes on at all times. The VC are slowly being cleaned up in town; there are still a few pockets of them left, and snipers are still around. The enclosed leaflets were dropped this morning: they tell the remaining VC how many of their comrades have bit the dust since the big push started. and what they can expect if they don’t turn themselves in.

The feeling of boredom setting in is strongly reinforced in some of us by helplessness. We are one block from the RC [Roman Catholic] hospital, where I’m sure we could do some useful work. But the oriental philosophy prevents this: the local people feel they have the situation under control, and do not want our assistance; in part this is because by accepting it they would be admitting the need for it. “Face” is all-important to orientals, and the ramifications this involves are hard for us to understand. Then too, there is a certain amount of anti-american feeling among the South Vietnamese, who reason that our presence is responsible for the current hardships, not to mention many civilian casualties. It is easy to overlook the hardships that they would almost certainly face if we were not here. While it is certainly true that our military presence is pretty obvious, the less obvious—but more important—impact on the local economy is quite easily observable. In many ways, the South Vietnamese never had it so good, despite  inflation, and despite the VC attacks. Many of the VC defections are prompted by the realization that they’re better off living off of us than fighting against us. Unquestionably, Ho Chi Minh is fighting an ideological war, for economically he would be far ahead to capitulate and let us spread our wealth throughout all Vietnam, rather than just in the south. I have not seen anything yet to alter my conviction that Vietnam should be united in accordance with the Geneva Convention of 1954, even if that means electing Ho as President, as it certainly would. But then, I really haven’t seen much of South VietNam, so this conviction could yet change. Well, more later…

7:30 PM

Things are returning to normal—whatever that is. The guards in the streets are more lax, and some small amount of traffic is beginning to flow. The big guns in the distance can be heard, but the occasional firing in the streets has very nearly stopped. Our hotel has run out of nearly everything, so many of us will doubtless try to get downtown tomorrow, and it seems almost certain we’ll be getting on with our work on Monday, when I will also be able to mail this letter. How soon you get it depends on various factors. Military aircraft and personnel flights are now operating from Tan Son Nhut, but commercial flights other than charter and freight aren’t yet back in operation. The mail should go out quickly—I do hope so, so you won’t be in suspense longer than necessary.

Well, more tomorrow, after (hopefully) a trip down-town to see what’s left.

Sunday PM, 4 February 1968

A group of us walked down-town today, but it was largely a futile effort. The curfew on the Vietnamese was lifted from 8 [am] to 2 pm, but it being Sunday nothing opened up anyhow. The BOQs were serving only stew—we suspect it was water-buffalo—and though the Brinks PX was open, the lines to get in were so long that we didn’t bother. Altogether a dull walk, but at least a change from the duller existence here. Another civilian (U.S.) curfew went into effect at 7:00 pm tonight, to last until 8 am tomorrow—this to continue indefinitely.

Tonight’s TV news reports 9 civilian U.S. killed in Saigon since 29 January. Rumors tonight have it that 3 PA&E people got it today; one of those allegedly killed was a man I met at Long Binh last Tuesday. But rumors are a dime a dozen here, and I won’t believe it until I hear it from a much more reliable source.

Sporadic incidents around town are still being reported. 2000 VC have been killed in Saigon since they infiltrated the night of the 29th Jan. Civilian (VN) casualties are heavy, but no count has been given. Estimates put the remaining VC in  Saigon at around 700; untold numbers surround the city as well. Refugees since 29 January coming into Saigon now number over 25,000; they are fleeing either from VC or from bombed out homes in the Delta. One of the popular tricks of the VC is to infiltrate a number of homes and slaughter the occupants; the remaining people surrounding, fearing their own safety, refuse to let the word out on the location of such an enclave. When the ARVN or police close in, the VC set fire to the area and when the local people flee, they [VC] go along unnoticed. The police can’t get them without killing numerous innocent people.

We have no idea whether we’ll go to work or get on with our processing tomorrow or not. Commercial operations at Tan Son Nhut have been resumed. Assuming they have the necessary buses and can arrange an escort, we probably will go to CMO—after all, we’re all on salary & accomplishing nothing here. But if buses and escorts are not available—and they are in short supply—we might not get back to it for a while.

In any event, I shall try every possible way to get this letter off tomorrow, hoping you may get it by Wed or Thursday. If I fail, all I can do is hang on to it, as before!  For now, then, off to bed —

Love to all
Bruce

Nine days into my stay at VietNam, and I haven’t done anything of use to anyone! Little did I know that seven months on, I could report very nearly the same thing! Note my optimism that if I got a letter “off” Monday, the folks would get it 2 or 3 days later: in actuality, most letters took closer to two weeks to reach the States.

Here I began a second letter.

2:00 pm, 5 February 1968

Dear Everybody ~

Despite our hopes of getting out again today, it has not come about. A representative of PA&E did come by this morning to see if we are still OK; he confirmed the rumor that 3 PA&E Entomologists were killed yesterday, but the circumstances are not yet known. All in all, the word is that 22 PA&E people have been killed all over Vietnam since 29 January.

Today there is no movement of VN or U.S. civilian personnel without armed guard; there being a lack of the latter, only essential services are being maintained. Garbage has been piling up in the streets (shades of New York!). Sporadic fighting still rages, some of it quite close to us here.

(Later)

As I wrote that last sentence, a whole lot of shooting erupted nearby. A bevy of VC have apparently been flushed out by a fire about one long block westward, and they’re being fired upon as they flee. A number of grenades have been heard. We have orders to stay altogether in-doors now, so somebody is getting worried about our getting hit. More later . . .

6:00 pm

Well, well! The action got a bit thick around here for a while this afternoon, and may get thicker before the night is over. Electricity has been off since shortly after noon, which means we’ll soon be out of water, and rations are getting quite short. PA&E is trying to arrange to have us evacuated, but they have a great shortage of help, vehicles and security guards, who are military, of course, and are pretty busy.

The PA&E man who came by this am took  my last letter out—I hope it gets through. As soon as I can I will cable, but being restricted as we are makes this impossible. More later . . .

6:00 pm, Tuesday, 6 February 68

Well—now I know something about psychological warfare, at least. The action reported on page 1 of this letter, yesterday, got to within a block of us. About 2 hours after it had died down, 2 americans arrived at our compound alleging they’d been driven out by advancing VC. Their no doubt greatly exaggerated estimate of the number involved was “at least 100″—and at this point, 5 people in our group panicked. A flurry of phone calls to PA&E CMO resulted in nothing, and by 11:00 pm someone had us surrounded by 2000 VC, with two ARVN battalions trying to fight their way on to [rescue] us, etc., etc., etc., ad infinitum, ad nauseam! The fact that there was absolute calm for miles around, so far as a good ear could judge, and the fact there was less shooting in the streets (almost none) than the night before made no difference. One stupid b—–d brought out a .45 revolver and packed it around—cocked—all night, supposedly protecting us (it is strictly verboten for U.S. civilians to carry weapons, and this nut is surely going to be shipped home because of it—good riddance). I was a lot more worried about this guy and his pistol that I was about the VC. He sat out on the street side balcony all night, a perfect sniper target, and generally raised enough Hell to keep us all pretty well awake most of the night.

February 7, 1968

So: all the telephoning and bitching finally resulted in our being evacuated mid-afternoon today. We’re now staying at the “Tourist Hotel”, which, compared with the facilities we had at the Loc building, is a dump. Latest military intelligence (not the most reliable) has it that Phan-thanh-Gian street (where we were) will get “a lot of action” tonight—but the bamboo telegraph says otherwise. The only saving feature of this hole is that is is closer to down-town, but otherwise has no apparent virtue.

I can get mail out better, from here, so I’ll probably mail this when I finish it. Please send all clippings you can about what’s supposed to be going on down here: the news black-out is very bad.

Unless I’m mistaken, it was Rudyard Kipling who wrote in one of his poems about what happens to he who “Hustles the East”.  His astuteness considerably pre-dates Eisenhower and others who warned of the dangers of an Asian land war!

It is now fairly clear at to what happened, here in Saigon, al least, in the current offensive. On the night of 29 January, about 2500 VC infiltrated the city in 2s & 3s from the surrounding delta areas. Their missions were well planned and generally involved taking and holding for 48 hours certain key points. This they managed fairly well to do. But their back-up teams were largely either cut off or were non-existent, and when food ran low, the VC began some skirmishes on their own to cover retreats. These still continue sporadically, so the curfews remain in effect and the lid is clamped on all movement from 1900 to 0800 every night. Apparently, the VC hoped they could spark a general uprising aimed at evicting the “Free World Forces” (i.e., U.S.) but their own atrocities largely thwarted their own attempt. The lowest figure for South Vietnamese dead in the fighting (not counting ARVN) is over 500, with 2-4000 wounded. This is probably a conservative figure.

It’s now anyone’s guess when the mop-up operations are sufficiently complete to allow of our complete processing and assignment. The CMO office, which was confused enough before all this began, is doubtless utter chaos now, so the last thing they want hanging around is a bunch of green processees. I’m inclined to doubt that anything significant will happen for most of us in the remainder of this week, and in my own case, it may be two weeks before the hiway to Long Binh is secure and buses re-established. C’est la guerre!

Love to all,
Bruce

The tourist Hotel was one of the most pestilential places I ever stayed in: I was amazed there were no bed-bugs. Once again CA and I were in the same room, but there was a 10KW generator-set right outside the window providing power for the building 24/7. It made a heck of a racket and smelled of diesel fuel. Even so, we were fortunate: most of our group wound up on the top floor which was just a barracks with rows of beds. The dude with the .45 undertook to clean it one afternoon, and forgot to unload it first, so managed to fire a ram-rod across the room, narrowly missing a fellow nearby. This chap was on the next plane out, contract torn up, assignment rescinded. The other unfortunate thing about the Tourist Hotel was  that it stood directly in the line of fire aimed at the Palace, and it was hit once or twice later on. But mainly, it was horribly run-down: about all that kept it alive was that infernal generator!

Pathetically, there was one older man there who was being sent home: according to gossip, he’d been on a bender for over two months, and I never saw him sober. A couple of days later two men were assigned to dry him out so he could fly, and one of them went with him to keep him from arriving home soused. We were told this failed, and he had to be poured off the plane back in Los Angeles.

I spent my 32nd birthday in this hell-hole, as mentioned in the next letter.

Just turned 32 Photo taken in the Loc Building, probably just after my birthday.

8 February 1968 (here!)

Dear Folks,

Well, today’s my 32nd birthday here—tomorrow at home—so I guess I’ll celebrate twice! We did get out to CMO today—it’s still there, but utter chaos—and managed to get letters off, buy stamps, change some money, and—miraculously—found my transfer papers to Long Binh!

Got the nicest possible birthday present from PA&E—a raise! And I haven’t done an hour’s useful work since I arrived. Somewhere along the way I was classified as GS-13 equivalent, which carries a base salary of $1100 per month instead of the $960 that I hired in at. The classification is retroactive to 25 January, so every day I’ve been here I’ve been on that salary. From what I’ve seen of the cost of living here in Saigon, I should be able to live comfortably on $350/month, and am going to do my best to sock away the remaining $1000 per month. (1100 + 250 living allowance = $1350/mo).

Things are slowly returning to “normal” but it’s obvious that it will take longer than anyone first thought. Latest G-2 (intelligence) places the number of VC in Saigon at about the same number as were here before the offensive began: this is normal, as there are generally thought to be about one battalion (1800) in Saigon at all times. Normally they are underground and indistinguishable from other LNs.

I must digress here to explain the ludicrous parlance the U.S. military has built up to describe the various peoples here:

1.  The native population is variously known as

First Country Nationals (FCN)

First State Nationals (FSN)

Local Nationals (LN)

or (least often) Vietnamese

2.  U. S. Civilians are

Second Country Nationals

Second State Nationals

or Civilians

3.  Koreans, Filipinos, Australians and so forth are

Third Country Nationals

etc.,

or (least often) Koreans, Filipinos, etc.

4.  U. S. Military are

US Military or MilPers

5.  Vietnamese soldiers are

ARVN (Army of the Republic of VietNam)

6.  All other Military are “Free World Forces”.

The FWF, of course, includes the US military in fact, but the  distinction is generally made  as above.

All this is purely ridiculous, of course, but that’s how it’s done and there is certainly nothing I can do about it!!

Presumably, I will go out to Long Binh tomorrow to begin work in earnest. We’ll see about that! I’m not yet certain whether they actually want to get the lab functioning, or whether they just want to dress it up a little and make it look like it’s functioning. I’m told they’ve hired—or at least requisitioned—a bacteriologist to work with me (I’m a Chemist, remember) but it’s anybody’s guess when he will arrive. The lab lacks the basic equipment to do either quantitative chemistry or bacteriology, so until we can solve the supply problem I’ll probably be sitting on my hands anyhow! As I’ve said before, c’est la guerre!!

Cheers to all,
Bruce

Worth mentioning here by way of background: PA&E was begun by one Thomas E. Spicknell, Retired Military, who had a lot of friends in the right places. Basically, he had a contract with the US Army to supply bodies (called personnel, of course) to do whatever the US Army wanted done that it didn’t want to bother doing itself. The contract was a “Cost +” contract: every expense that the Company could document was reimbursed with ten percent added. [I believe PA&E has “gone straight”, and now operates in many countries as a fairly legitimate engineering firm. But in VietNam, it was just a money-making scheme, and it made a lot of people quite rich. It is probably the model for the likes of Haliburton which operates in Iraq today.]

Essentially, every warm body PA&E could get into the country made money for the company on salary alone, and whatever items they needed to do their jobs—or for that matter, to exist—were imported and marked up as well. The system was rife with corruption, and many of the men (relatively few women) who came over were retired milpers just there to augment their retirement pay: it was understood they were not expected to do much useful work, and many did none at all.

Naturally, all these people lived off base, and most of them had Vietnamese girl-friends: a few married their women, but most did not. However, children were produced in some numbers. CA used to quip that for the next war, “we’d only have to send the uniforms.” The truth is that most of the half-breeds were later shunned by the Viets themselves: many were eventually re-patriated to the U.S. Only a very few were sent-for by their biological fathers.

Also by way of background, some discussion about money! Our salaries were paid directly to banks of our choice back in the States; our per-diem was paid locally in MPCs (Military Pay Certificates) or Local Currency (Vietnamese Dong). The Viets were not supposed to accept MPCs (although they did, since they had back-channel methods of redeeming them for Dong or for US Dollars). MPCs were really only useful at Military installations and the PX. Dong, of course, were universally accepted by the local populace for anything. US dollars, (referred to as “YouEss Green) though, were strictly forbidden, although of course there was a huge black market in them. Indeed, the black market was probably larger than the local economy! There was nothing that could not be had for a price, and anyone willing to pay in dollars was afforded the best rates. Many U.S. civilians would have dollars sent in by mail, which they would sell for MPCs, with which they would buy hooch and other items at the PX, then sell these items on the BM for Dong which they used to augment their fairly lavish off-base life-style. It was a mess, and now and then the Government would suddenly change the design of the MPCs in the hopes of catching-out speculators in them: but leaks always allowed the speculators to dump the old designs before they became worthless. It was a cat and mouse game the mouse always won!

Military Pay Certificates (MPCS

No MPCs were issued in denominations larger than one dollar: there were two reasons, one being that items at the PX and elsewhere were usually priced far below true value. The other reason was that the Vietnamese were not supposed to have these, so if they did, they would have to accumulate large piles of them to have any real value. It was not unusual to see someone carrying huge bundles of these!

All the costs of printing these and Dong were borne by the US Treasury, of course.

Dong were colorful: it was rare to find them in decent condition, however. Many of those I saved are still filthy dirty and look quite bad.

Vietnamese Dong

The per-diem we got was to be used for two purposes: to procure housing off-base, and to get money into the local economy. When I eventually took quarters in Saigon proper, the rent far exceeded my per-diem, so I was not able to save the $1000 per month I had hoped for, but I got close. Occasionally, I used Dong to entice the local boys, but usually they were sufficiently interested in me as a foreigner that money was not required.

I will continue my narrative on the next page, coming up soon.

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