I was 14 years old when I, my mother, and my older and younger sisters arrived in Saigon in the summer of 1967. My father was an industrial security executive, working for Standard Oil. Before moving to Viet Nam, we had lived in a tiny coastal village in southeastern Connecticut. These are some of the memories I carry: Saigon market, oppressive heavy air, filled with diesel fumes and the stench of rotting garbage Tropical fruit, vegetables, animals, loud engines, carts clattering over bricks, human voices, cats screaming, dogs barking, sweltering humidity, sweat running down my face and neck and torso, rats larger than cats, open sewers.
City of Saigon: dirty, noisy streets, trucks, jeeps, cars, motorcycles, bicycles, pedicabs, US soldiers, Vietnamese women and children, and old men. Shops and open markets selling silk, ceramics, paintings, furniture inlaid with mother-of-pearl, dry goods, clothing, conical hats, paper garlands. Soldiers yelling “Round-eyes, where are you from?”
Our house: built by the French during their occupation of Viet Nam. Concrete walls two feet thick. Ceilings 12 feet high. Ceramic tile floors. Curved staircase to the second floor bedrooms. Large casement windows with strips of wide masking tape on the glass. Sandbags on the wall under the stairs and against the outside wall of the stairs – our bunker. Concrete walls two feet thick. 12 feet high topped with concertina wire surrounding the perimeter of the property. Servants quarters. Thick steel gates topped with spikes. Water boiled twice and filtered. Spring rolls, nuoc mam, and rice. Bird-of-Paradise flowering. Geckos.
Stars and Stripes newspaper. MIA/KIA.
American Red Cross volunteer at 3rd Field Hospital: Tan Son Nhut. Card games and flashcards. Wounded soldiers on the recovery wards. Cookies from home on the coffee carts. Blood soaked bandages. IV drips. Smiles. Tears. Blood being hosed off the tile floor after intake of wounded soldiers.
Clerk GS-1 Naval Supply Activities Command, Saigon: Personnel records. Mail and memos. Telephone reception.