trouble.
For want of something better to do, I began to explore the terminal area. Around one corner was a sight I shall be a long time remembering. There were several rows of metal caskets, attended by armed sentries, and each carefully draped with the Stars and Stripes.
I did make a decision after all, but in retrospect I don't think it was a hasty one. Americans are dying violently and prematurely in Vietnam.
* * *
THERE are doubtless hundreds of "Saigon Warriors" in reasonably secure areas who sit around writing war stories to the folks back home. (We won't bother to mention some specifics we have personal knowledge of.) But we do know one trooper who pulled the stunt in reverse-and flubbed it.
Shortly after his unit arrived in Vietnam early in 1965, this guy wrote his wife, telling her how safe and secure he was, comfortably ensconced in a base camp behind a formidable perimeter of paratroopers. Less than a week later, UPI sent a radiophoto out of Saigon showing the NCO in the jungle, bearded, bedraggled, and bedecked with ammunition bandoliers and grenades hanging all over him, carrying a wounded comrade.
A "friend" of this character, who worked in a news agency in the same state where the sergeant's wife was living, ran off a print of the photo and thoughtfully delivered it to the complacent wife!
* * *
AN Irish friend of ours, a staff sergeant assigned to the 1st Infantry Division, still hasn't been caught.
He has been in Vietnam for a year and a half, arriving on Saint Patrick's Day 1966, and just extended for another six months. His parents still live in Ireland, and he doesn't want them worried about him.
Recently he received a letter from Galway telling him that mother and dad were so relieved every time they get a letter from him and see that he is still in APO San Francisco and not in Vietnam,
* * *
AS we waited at the 15th Aerial Port in Danang for a ride back to Saigon, a huge jet landed with a load of new arrivals from the States. As the bewildered passengers deplaned we heard one young private, still in winter uniform, turn to his buddy and say: "Just think, Jake, only 364 more days to go."
* * *
LIEUTENANT (junior grade) Berry Wood was a Skyhawk attack bomber pilot aboard the Seventh Fleet carrier U.S.S. Oriskany operating in the Tonkin Gulf during the summer of 1967. He flew many missions against the enemy, and distinguished himself in the air war on more than one occasion.
He was assigned to our office for a month as a liaison officer, and we were on hand to meet him when he arrived at Tan Son Nhut. We noticed that he was uneasy in the new and unfamiliar surroundings, so we did what we could to allay his apprehensions.
"First trip into Vietnam on the ground?" we inquired lightly.
"No," said the lieutenant matter-of-factly, "I've been in-country twice before."
He still seemed nervous and we wondered why. Several days later, his boss told us that this was, in fact, Mr. Wood's first trip to South Vietnam.
We were still trying to figure out why the flier had told us it was his third trip when the commander added: "Lieutenant Wood was shot down, forced to eject, and rescued twice ... in North Vietnam."
* * *
CONVERSATION overheard between a pair of Boonie Rats on a Nha Trang street comer as a Vietnamese peddler passed by:
"Imagine that. Two thousand years of progress and they've learned to pick up one grain of rice with two sticks, and two buckets of shit with one."
AIR FORCE Tech Sergeant Eddie Warren had a problem. There was something about the Vietnam climate that didn't agree with his ears. It seems they were always becoming clogged due to an excess accumulation of wax, and appreciably cutting down his hearing ability; an occurrence which medical people have told us is not uncommon among Americans in this part of the world. As a result of this abnormality, Eddie was an almost daily visitor to the 17th Field Hospital where a dutiful medic was always available to syringe out his ears, apply a little medicine, and send him on his way-until the next time.
We wouldn't recommend this to everyone with a similar ailment, but one day we jokingly suggested to Eddie that he try washing out his ears with Ba Mui Ba beer, a beverage not unknown for its acidic properties.
Well, he did, and he swears that from that day to this, he has never again been troubled by the malady.
* * *
WHILE on a search and destroy operation, the unit we were with came across a huge Viet Cong rice cache. The rice was neatly bagged in burlap and, as we watched, a young trooper took out his knife and cut out a patch from one and put it in his pocket.
"I'm going to send this to the old man to show him where his tax money is going," he said. Emblazoned on the front of each bag was the red, white, and blue emblem of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).
But the real incongruity hit us when we took a closer look. Stamped under the emblem was the address from which the rice had been consigned, albeit indirectly and unintentionally, to the Communists: Wall Street, N.Y.
* * *
MISS Cao Thi Bach Tuyet is a very attractive Vietnamese secretary, employed by a U.S. governmental agency in Saigon. She is good natured, well educated, and efficient. Her bilingual capability entitles her to a substantial salary for which she really works hard.
We wondered why then, as we entered her office one day late in September 1967, she was reading an English language book entitled How to Live In Vietnam for Less Than Ten Cents a Day.
* * *
WHEN Prime Minister Nguyen Cao Ky decided to put aside his own political aspirations of becoming president in favor of running as the number two man under Chief of State General Nguyen Van Thieu, it caught most everybody unawares.
Nearly everyone was discussing the current political state of flux in which the government was operating, and Army Major Aaron Harvey was no exception. We talked with him at length on the subject and solicited his opinion on the outcome of the upcoming election.
"Well, far be it from me to prophesy," said the major, "but it appears as if General Thieu has the Ky to success."
* * *
AT times we find it small wonder that there is an alleged credibility gap between the Saigon Press Corps and military information officials in Vietnam.
This gem of ambiguity was lifted from the MACV (Military Assistance Command Vietnam) communique of December 22, 1965":
"A decrease was noted in the number of Viet Cong incidents; however, the intensity of incidents increased."
* * *
AND speaking of the credibility gap, we found this one a bit hard to swallow, too.
During a lull in the fighting midway through 1967, we spotted an operation report from a Seventh Fleet rocket-firing ship which credited the vessel with, in addition to bunkers, gun emplacements, trenches, and cave
