Nha Be

I’ve done this before. A very long time ago I wrote a story about Nha Be and my year in Vietnam, but I burned it up in my fireplace. I’d spent a year banging out each letter on an old Underwood until I had typed out over a hundred pages of my story.  Years earlier I had filed the whole thing away somewhere in my brain and let it ferment, not knowing what else to do with it, and then one day I got the crazy idea that I too could be a writer.  I thought I understood things. I thought I was ready to write, but then, I went to the movies and saw the meaning of my words gobbled up in a movie about Vietnam and I was done. I went home and started a fire in my fireplace and burned up the whole book, page by page. I sat there on the hearth smoking a cigarette and burned up my book about Nha Be and my year in Vietnam. There was no copy, no backup. It was a fitting sacrifice for not getting it right, for not being first to show. It probably wasn’t that good anyway. Thirty years ago I thought I was a writer. I thought I had lived enough to be a writer. I hadn’t! It took another thirty years of life to grind me down to a complete nothing and then, only then, could I write. I had gotten to that point in life where I had to write to breath.

It doesn’t matter so much if anyone ever reads what I write. It’s only important to me that I write it all down. Why do I write? The question haunts me. I don’t have an answer other than because I need to write. So nobody will ever read it? It doesn’t matter except to me. For some reason I have to write it down. Maybe I’m insane. Maybe I’ve slipped into the page and become a fictional character that types out words composing a story someone might read someday. Maybe I’m a writer, writing about myself writing about myself. It seemed strange at first, a little weird really, but then, self-examination comes in many forms. It’s not more unusual than looking at oneself in a mirror and wondering who is looking back at you!

After almost forty years, I still remember my year in Vietnam. It’s crystal clear etched into interior walls or ancient art gallery in my brain. I am no longer a Vietnam Vet. I gave that up decades ago. That experience does not define me anymore. The whole episode is only a single chapter in a much larger story; a story I could never have dreamed up or imagined, or even planned! Life happens!  Can anyone ever envision their future or script out their life story before it happens? It’s more likely we end up old and infirm staring in the rearview mirror and finally realizing ‘that was my life.’ The story of my life unfolded day by day, year by year, without a single thought for a plan or a goal. When the sun comes up I know it’s time for a new one-act play. It lasts only as long as the sun shines and then for a little while longer.  Now I’m a writer…an almost unpublished writer. They’re the best kind. But I distinctly remember my year in Nha Be….

Flying in from the Pacific we were all electrified to see the coastline of Vietnam looming on the horizon at the last light of the day. There it was right in front of us! The land we had seen on TV for so many years and now we were here. It was February 6, 1970. After twenty four hours on the jet, our journey was coming to an end. The adventure was upon us. By the time we landed at Tan Son Khut airbase in Saigon it was about 9PM. My first whiff of Saigon was a blast of hot wet air that swallowed me whole and choked the air out of my lungs. I inhaled water air mixed with diesel and something else. It’s the distinct smell of Saigon and there is no other smell on earth like it. It is Saigon! The bus driver told us to remove our white hats because they made good targets. That was good advice. The hotel they took us to in the middle of the night was really a bunker. The rows of fifty five gallon drums covered with about eight layers of sandbags and topped off by a chain-link fence that went up to the third floor tipped us all of that this wasn’t really a hotel. Lovely!  There was no doorman; only two G.I.s with M16s and flak jackets, unlocking the chain link gate to let us in. The first steps inside were down a stairway and as we walked down we could look up and see the drums and sandbags and chain link fence above us, protecting us from Charlie. The interior of the building was covered with a photographic montage of the 1968 Tet Offensive, offering graphic evidence of what happens when we get caught with our pants down.  The place was all bombed out with rubble everywhere. There was a sign over the photos that read, “Annapolis Hotel TET 1968.” I was looking around for the broken neon sign that read, “Magic Theater entrance. Not for everybody. For madmen only”, but I didn’t see one. It didn’t look nearly as nice and safe as it does now. We all remembered we weren’t on vacation or a school field trip.

During our check-in process, all of us began to realize this place was not a hotel. There was no bar, no restaurant, no consigliore. It was a barracks in a bunker! The Annapolis Hotel in downtown Saigon was a bunker where Navy personnel are billeted while awaiting their duty assignments in-country! We were all wearing out dress blues which was a big mistake. Somebody back in the States should have told us how to dress for the trip. We were all sloshing around in the sweat that had built up underneath our blue wool dress uniforms. Welcome to hell on earth, but of course as we would all soon find out, we were no longer on the earth. We were in Vietnam.  At least I could take a shower. By the time we hit the showers it was late.  No sooner had I started my shower, trying to rinse the shampoo from my hair, we heard several loud booms and then the water stopped flowing and the lights went out. About five minutes later, the water and the lights came back on. So that’s how it was in this place?  Things progressed downhill from this point.

The rest of the night was filled with the smell of diesel, steamy sultry heat of the tropics, ceiling fans that moved air that never actually reached a sweaty body laying in a bunk, and swarms of mosquitoes that bit me all night long. When I awoke in the morning, it was still dark outside. We got dressed and were instructed that our chow hall was about three blocks down the street, turn left into the alley, and we would see it about one hundred yards down the alley. There were seven of us that stepped out onto the streets of Saigon in the hot pre-dawn air. Immediately we found ourselves walking on the side of the road with millions of scooters, bicycles, and autos streaming by us. We could barely see them, but could hear the noise of their scooters. It was terrifying at first trying to figure out who were the Viet Cong. This was impossible as we stumbled and fumbled our way to the chow hall.

After morning chow it was even worse! By the time we left the mess hall the sun was up and all of us instantly felt our vulnerability to sniper fire. Now they could see us! Who is the enemy and where are they? How will we know them when we see them? It didn’t matter. None of us had weapons. We didn’t know what the enemy looked like. They all looked like the enemy. We were in a war zone! This was our first day in a warzone in Vietnam! This was the Catch-22 we’d been reading about-darkness or daylight! Only 364 more days to go if I’m lucky! I hadn’t received my calendar yet, so I made a mental note. Every GI gets a calendar when they arrive so they can start marking off the days until they can go home.

When we got back to the Annapolis we checked in at the desk and the desk guy asked if any of us would volunteer for mess duty at Nha Be. We all said yes immediately. Anyplace was better than here.  There were two black sailors decked out in their “greens” carrying M14s standing at the counter. “You guys can come with us” one of them said. And that’s how Rauscher and I found ourselves sitting in the back seat of a truck headed for Nha Be. But first our new guardian angels needed to make a little stop. We parked the truck on the street and went inside with them. “You guys want a woman?” the big guy asked. “No, but we’d like a beer?” We both said at once. Rauscher and I sat at a little table at the back of the lobby with two M14’s and a couple of bandoliers of extra bullets. Our buddies disappeared up a staircase.  It was cool and quiet inside the hotel or whatever it was. There was some kind of Vietnamese music playing softly and the atmosphere contrasted sharply with the steamy noise and confusion out on the streets. One thing we noticed right away was there were no mosquitoes in this place.

“Hey Smith, not too bad for being in-country less than twenty four hours huh” Rauscher asks looking very satisfied with his cold beer in hand.  “Not bad at all Yosarian.”I smiled back. The only thing that had kept our sanity the past six weeks was sharing a worn copy of “Catch-22”. It seemed like the perfect book to read for any eighteen year old going off to war, especially Vietnam. It was my mom’s, but she had read it years earlier and probably didn’t even know it was missing from her library. She had about a million paperbacks. Anyway, Rauscher and I needed a distraction as we prepared ourselves for war. Actually I stole the book from my mom’s library because I thought it looked interesting. After about forty or fifty pages I started talking to Rauscher about how funny it was, so we started sharing it. For the past six weeks I had the book every other night. We compared notes each day and had begun to act out our favorite parts.

It takes a whole day to fly from Travis Air Force base in California to Saigon, Vietnam. It gave me and Rauscher time to relive all the funny parts of the book and to act out the absurdity of war we’d recently learned about reading “Catch-22.” We were reading about World War Two, but Vietnam was after all another war. War is war and war is hell for so many especially if you were going to it. It wasn’t so much hell for us as it was a digression into the politically absurd notion of stopping communism on a foreign shore.  At least that was the idea. We were active combatants in a proxy war to save Southeast Asia first and the entire rest of the free world second from the invasive tide of communism. And by God we were Americans and part of the best equipped and best trained military force in the whole world!

After about an hour the two sailors came back down and collected their firearms from us. Our watch was over. We were able to salvage a couple of beers out of the deal.  We followed our protectors back out to the truck. The one riding shotgun looked the vehicle over closely especially the undercarriage. “Always check your vehicle when you park in Saigon. Charlie likes to bobby trap them” he said shooting us both a serious look.  We all loaded up and were once again swallowed up in the swarming traffic.

Vietnam, all of Vietnam, is an ancient land with an ancient civilization. It is extremely biologically hostile and at the same time extraordinarily beautiful. Everywhere you look there is life, there is beauty, and there is nature blooming right before your eyes. The term fecundity comes to mind or a word like fertile. The Vietnamese people are exotic. They are a graceful and beautiful people that seemingly bond with the natural hostility that surrounds them. Driving through the city with these two veterans and their rifles, with them knowing exactly where we were going, made me feel like I was being chauffeured first class to the front of the war. The sights, sounds, and smells of Saigon were exhilarating and exciting for an eighteen year old that had never been out of Fresno. I was on my own here and would have to depend on myself and my instincts to stay alive.

I had no idea where we were going, no sense of direction. The entire city is a beehive of scooters and bicycles. The poverty is massive and on a scale I never could have imagined. I saw hundreds of cardboard boxes the size of refrigerators neatly maintained on the wide boulevards of Saigon. Under the filth and silt that covered the city, you could see the wide streets, well maintained and manicured at some point in the past. “The Paris of the Orient”, yes indeed. I could see it through the filth and human anthill it had becomes. I came to understand that Saigon was built to accommodate maybe a couple of hundred thousand people and there were three million people living here now. I could see most of them today going about their business.

It wasn’t long before the city gave way to brief snatches of countryside and fairly soon, there were rice paddies and more countryside. And then there was just countryside. There were no more homes, no more buildings, only the jungle and rice paddies. We were on our way to Nha Be! Finally we were getting somewhere. It was a drastic contrast from the busy city to the tranquility of the country. The beauty of the sky and jungle and water was stunning! I had never imagined a land like the one unfolding before me. It was breathtaking and savage. I was swept away into an ancient Oriental world that must have always been this way. It was hot and wet and sticky and alive. Every single inch of the place was alive and hungry and willing to take whatever it needed from whoever offered themselves up in the moment. The environment itself forced you to become a predator. That’s what was required to survive in this place.

That’s what I was feeling as we rolled along the tiny dusty road to Nha Be. I couldn’t help but think of my mom back in Fresno going to work at Lauck’s Bakery in her white bakery uniform. She’d never been anyplace either and I wanted her to see this place with me. I wanted her to be sitting in the seat right next to me on the road to Nha Be so she could see the raw beauty of this place. She would have appreciated it more than anyone I know except my Grandma. My mom and my grandma were both very good with plants. They could grow anything and if they had been let loose over here, who knows what they could have grown. But she wasn’t here and all I could do was make mental notes of the place.

After another twenty minutes or so we roll through a small village of sorts. It was more like both sides of the road suddenly filled with makeshift buildings. They weren’t exactly real buildings, but there they were! It was the village of Nha Be, but I didn’t know it. I say makeshift because it looked like the buildings were made with old pallets and cobbled together with a few timbers and then covered with what looked like beer cans. I found out later that the Vietnamese would cut the ends off a beer can and use it as a shingle of sorts. Well it worked! It kept the rain out and the dirt floor inside was dry! That’s all that mattered. I also noticed all the wires hanging off the power lines. Later I came to understand the villagers would simply throw a copper wire over the power line and hook up their electricity. The whole setup was very simple, elegant, and practical.

We finally made a right turn at the end of the village and pulled up to the main gate at Nha Be. The Naval base at Nha Be was located at the tip of a peninsula on the Mekong River. There were actually two commands at Nha Be. One was the Naval Supply Activity Saigon and the other one was NSA Detachment Nha Be. Rauscher and I were not sure which command we were serving, but were glad we were out of the city and out in the country. The first thing we noticed was a swimming pool! There was a swimming pool! How bad could this place be?

Our chauffeurs dropped us off in front of a weathered bungalow and set us up in a room, if you can call it that. There were two bunks and it was hot, very hot! When we were in the room it was sweltering. All we ever did was lay there in the dark and stew in our own juices- very miserable.

Fairly soon someone came and took us over to the supply department where we were issued our very first “greens”. This was exciting for both of us. We had been wearing our dungarees and blue work shirts. We looked like sailors from a ship, which we were not. Everyone in Vietnam wears the greens, but us. Now we had our own set. We were officially part of the fighting force in Vietnam and we had on the right uniform! We were silently proud to finally blend into the local military effort. Rauscher and I laid there sweltering in our room until one of the mess cooks came and took us to the mess hall.

Our first night in Nha Be on mess hall duty was a strange and exciting night for both of us. Instead of sleeping and resting all day like we should have, we sat around the pool like we were on vacation. We toasted our good fortune to be in a war zone with a swimming pool as we roasted in the sun. We were soaking up the tropical sun like tourists and had no idea that sunlight could kill you and should be avoided at all costs. We should have realized this when no one ever came to swim in the pool all day long. Now we would be working most of the night in the mess hall with no sleep at all.

It was about ten PM when the first rounds went off. BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! Each round shook the building and you could feel the round as it passed overhead. BLAM! SCREECH! BLAM! The rounds would squeal as they passed overhead and then you could feel a percussion blast or sonic blast or something. You could feel those shells as they passed! Rauscher and I just looked at each other nervously. It was an ungodly noise those shells made as they passed overhead. The sound was as if they were ripping the air to shreds and making the air molecules scream as they were being destroyed. We thought we were being bombed. It felt like incoming. It felt like the bombs were exploding all around us and we just kept rolling out the dough for biscuits and donuts and whatever else the baker was making for mid-rats. (Midnight rations.) We had no idea there was an Army 105 Howitzer farm down the road lobbing 105 shells into the jungle across the river. We didn’t know that! No one told us and we didn’t ask. We just kept rolling the dough and looking at each other like we’d join the program here. Neither of us had a gun. We wouldn’t have known what to do anyway, so we kept on rolling out layer after layer of dough for the baker.

A couple of hours later they started coming in. There were probably thirty or forty of them and each one was a brave warrior. They must have come from the front. It was good they could stop shooting long enough to come in and have some food, some nourishment before they went back out to the war. Rauscher and I silently assumed the fighting was about two or three hundred yards away. We assumed this because these guys had walked to the chow hall in the middle of the night so they could have some biscuits and donuts and whatever else they were cooking up in the other part of the kitchen. These were brave souls and true American fighting men every one of them. Not like us. What did we know? We were just the guys that rolled the dough out.

About three in the morning our boss let us go and told us to get some rest. He’d come and get us when he needed us. We went back to our room and went to sleep. There was no fan, no breeze, but at three AM the night air was tolerable. We both fell asleep quickly and awoke when the sun came up. It’s not possible to sleep in this place when the sun comes up. As soon as sunlight hits the ground here, it’s hot! It’s very hot! We were growing accustomed to being soaking wet all the time. You never stopped sweating.

We found the shower area which was one long room with about twelve showerheads. Rauscher and I showered up and just as we were finishing up, here comes two or three old women with these strange little brooms sweeping the floor. We were both naked, but they didn’t seem to notice at all. They didn’t pay any attention to us at all, which was a relief because we were both terror stricken at being caught naked in front of strange women. Vietnam was a different kind of place. This was our first encounter with mama sans.

After the shower we went to the chow hall and ate breakfast and then we walked around the base. It was a good and beneficial expedition. We were able to get our bearing and understand where we were. There were a couple of administration buildings, a guard shack, the officers barracks, the officers club, the EM club, several rows of enlisted barracks, a couple of warehouses, several guard towers on the perimeter, and a helicopter pad. We learned later that the Army ran the helicopter pad. It was a place where the Army helicopters could get fuel and also reload with rockets and ammunition for their battles across the river.

The waterfront at Nha Be was very large. The entire base was at the very tip of the peninsula, so there was river on two sides of the base.  It was over a mile to the other side of the river. That’s where the war was. On one side of the base were the docks where they pulled the PBRs out of the water to patch them up during the day so they could go back out at night. The PBRs were made of fiberglass, so they didn’t stop bullets very well. All the holes had to be patched up during the day so the boats could go back out on patrol the next night. Quite a system I thought.  I began to understand the need for the base and the mission of the whole place.

Basically the entire base was three acres, maybe four acres tops. It was a very small shithole stuck on the tip of a peninsula on the Mekong River. It was perfect! Rauscher and I fell in love with it and hoped beyond hope that when we got back to Saigon, we’d both get orders back out here. In the afternoon, the EM club opened up and so we went in and ordered our own drinks. Beer was a nickel and mixed drinks were a dime! As an eighteen year old, I had died and gone to heaven! After a couple of drinks we both realized we had found our home in Vietnam.

That night we reported for duty again at the mess hall sometime after dark. The shelling started again. It was a strange feeling for it to be so quiet during the day and then for all hell to break loose at night. This was a night war we were fighting. Working in the kitchen at night, with fans and air conditioning, it almost felt like home, except for the shelling. Between the shelling barrages, there would be periods of silence. It was during those times I‘d think about my mom and brothers and sister back home. I was at peace knowing they weren’t here, knowing they had no knowledge of this place or the mysterious dangers it held. I had no idea myself, but was glad my family was no where around.

The next day the black guys came back and took us back to Saigon. Rauscher and I didn’t want to go, but our sea bags and our future were waiting for us back at the Annapolis Hotel in Saigon. So were our orders. When we got back to the Annapolis, we checked in and were told to wait. Our orders had come in and we would be assigned shortly. A couple of hours later they called our names. Rauscher had been assigned to the Naval Supply Activity Saigon at Nha Be, and I, I had been assigned to the Naval Supply Activity Saigon, detachment Nha Be. We were both going back to Nha Be! Our dream had come true! One of us would work at one command and the other would work at the other command.  We grabbed our seas bags and loaded up as quickly as we could. In a way, we felt like we were going home.

Looking back over the past forty years I have only fond memories of that place. It was a strange and magical land that consumed my youth.  The whole place was a portal from another time, a place where a modern war intersected a pre-historic civilization and I was there to see it. Why wouldn’t I want to write about that experience? How could I ever forget any detail of it? Burning my book thirty years ago was simply one act of a much longer play about a frustrated writer. Oh, the ways we find to express ourselves!

When I came back home the whole world had changed in some obscene way. When I left to go to Vietnam, my mom was a young and vibrant woman. When I came home 363 days later I could see how much she had aged and from the look on her face she could see that I had aged as well. My magical mystery tour in Vietnam had robbed my mom and me of our youth. Somewhere in the exchange for life and time and worry and love and living, there had to be a positive.  That one year has made all the difference in my life. It was an eight year college education in a single year. In Vietnam I learned how to tell time. I learned how long a year was when you counted it one day at a time.   

We are all lost children now looking to find our way home in a world of uncertain variables. The greatest horror for me on 911 was the remembering the terror of uncertainty in Vietnam and knowing it had been unleashed on our whole country, on the whole world. I was not a Christian when I was in Vietnam, but I had one rock solid belief and grace that sustained me: my family would never know the terror, the human tragedy, and the complete uncertainty of our immediate future like we felt it in Vietnam. When 911 happened, that illusion was destroyed.  I don’t know what else to do with my time in life except to write stories, even if people don’t read them. Now I have no problem asking God to help us. We need it!