(last row)
Let me tell you there is nothing so frightening as the whistling scream of the enemy rocket traversing its arch to land who knows where.
As an aside, when first in country, the newbie would hasten to the bunker at the onset of distant canon fire. As time passed, he would enter into the discussion whether the sounds reflected incoming (enemy) or outgoing (friendly) action, then run to the bunker. After a while, having consumed a few drinks in the O Club, which was another plywood shanty on stilts painted forest green, one just recognized the sounds and stayed put knowing there was no safe place if the missile had your name on it.
After passing east off Highway 1 through the MP-guarded gate, the dusty dirt road meandered past the enlisted men’s hooches on the north, several surrounded with revetments built from fifty-five gallon drums filled with sand.
Enlisted hooch with sand-filled fifty-five gallon drums (MACV in the background)
On the west was our ball field and the female nurse’s hooches. Continuing south, one observed easterly the nearby concrete mound-shaped ammo dump, which was labeled in red and white for all to see. The track then turned slightly west toward the Orderly Room from which the compound was governed. It too was protected with army-designed revetments of sand, plywood ends, corrugated metal on the long sides, and green chain-link fence posts.
The dull white building was decorated with scrubby, unhealthy appearing palm trees planted in two-foot high metal troughs, offensively painted a sickly orange red.
That’s the building where I initially had checked in, and it proudly displayed at its entrance the 85th Evac’s shield like crest inscribed with the sentiment “Miracularum Laborantes,” which we not Latin scholars, interpreted as “Miracle Workers.” And we were! If the wounded were alive when they reached the 85th Evac, there was a 95 percent salvage rate.
More westerly of the Orderly Room were the officers’ hooches, which included the docs. Bob, Casey, and I shared a hooch, which had been partitioned into three rooms. The shanty like structure was elevated about two feet on two-by-four stilts to avoid flooding during the monsoons. The walls and sand-roughed floor were constructed of two-by-four’s supporting sheets of plywood. The roof consisted of corrugated metal reinforced with the weight of deteriorating sandbags. Small horizontal screened-in windows below the eves allowed for ventilation.
Our hooch (second from the right), shower (first from the left), and roof of the gym (behind the tree)
Bob and I entered from the front facing the shower and the bunker.
Male nurses and MSC officers
Directly across from us was a hooch of male nurses and Medical Service Corps (MSC) officers. With them we shared an outdoor grill constructed from a fifty-five-gallon drum, blow-touched in half, and elevated on metal tubular legs.
A pathway made from ten-foot-long-by-sixteen-inch-wide pierced steel planks (PSP), partially overgrown by Vietnam’s grasslike vegetation, wandered by the hooch residences. PSP was pierced with multiple three-inch holes in the ten-gauge steel. The perforations decreased weight, facilitated drainage, and added traction, especially for landing aircraft. PSP could vary from sixteen to thirty-eight inches wide and was used for roads, bridges, landing strips, and helipads.
HOME SWEET HOME
When I inspected my new room, it was starkly furnished with a metal spring bed frame, worn out thin mattress, mosquito netting, and a metal upright locker.
Not to worry, I knew how to scrounge and we had Penney’s and Sear’s catalogues from which to order. PACEX stood for Pacific Exchange, and one could order essentially anything, including stereo equipment, china, flat wear, jewelry, tea services, cloths, cars, cameras, etc., at reduced prices. I sent bronze ware and a few rings to Robin and ordered a Sony reel-to-reel tape deck and a Minolta SRT 101 camera with various lenses for myself in Vietnam.
Robin was a lifesaver for she sent me an electric blanket. Really, in Vietnam? During the tropical monsoon season, every item of clothing and your bed became uncomfortably damp and emanated a musty odor. The remedy was to use the electric blanket during the cool nights, having placed one’s clothes for the next day under the heated blanket to dry them. Another trick was to hang a lighted 100-watt light bulb from the ceiling of the steel locker to combat the dampness.
One vision that sticks with me is of my freshly mama san laundered fatigues, hanging under the overhang of the hooch’s roof during the monsoons, drying at a snail’s pace. She also vigorously complained that my operating room-bloodied combat boots were “number 10” (worst on a scale of one to ten). Older Vietnamese women, mama sans, never utilized chairs and squatted on the floor when ironing, doing other chores, eating, smoking, and chewing the ever-present beetle nuts. Their appearance in wide-based conical, woven straw hats, silky knee-length tops (Ao Dai), baggy black pants and displaying a greenish black-toothed smile was universal.
As other docs rotated out of country for home on their Date of Estimated Return from Overseas (DEROS), furnishings were unloaded at reasonable prices. I invested in a large comfortable red leather chair, a lamp for reading, metal shelves, a desk and a chest of drawers. I hung decorative curtains on the windows and covered the top of the chest with a greenish towel ordered from Penney’s. The latter was my serving area. I needed cabinet space for storage of booze, snacks, texts, stereo equipment, slides, cameras, etc., so I gathered as many wooden rocket boxes, which were about three feet long and utilized for shipment of mortar rounds, as I could find.
I knew carpentry from working with my dad. Some of the boxes were broken down for lumber to panel the inside of the hooch, others were hung intact from the walls as cabinets. The hinged lid made a great door with its own hardware when hung vertically or with the hinge side down. Shelves were added. A coat of black paint brightened the cabinets. The five-finger discounted, partially filled gallon can of sea green paint covered the ceiling and interior wall below the windows. There was not enough for all the interior walls, and I was reluctant to repeat the theft from the army storage. So I added art to my bare knot-filled plywood walls by painting a disgruntled Charlie Brown with a cloud over his head declaring, “Phu Bai Sucks.”
My home
A loaded 38 holstered revolver hung at the head of my bed, hopefully never to be used. There had been occasional attempted intrusions of the compound’s perimeter by the Viet Cong (VC). It was reported to us that Vietnamese locals who had worked on the compound by day were killed at the wire at night. These sappers carried explosives hoping to slither through the encircling protective sharp-edged Concertina wire (improved barbed wire) to blow up the compound. One did not enter another’s hooch without announcing your presence for you could be shot.
Charlie Brown and my 38
Now, Bob’s side of the hooch was a thing of beauty.
The room held a small refrigerator, an electric frying pan, an AC, a fan,
