DaNang, like many other places I was stationed or visited in Vietnam, bears no resemblance to the cities of today. There were still lots of French influences, villas with bougainvillea and quaint streets with no building over two stories. It was a rabbit warren of shacks and shanties also. I would visit Hanoi 25 years later and it resembled this “city” of DaNang when I was stationed there in 1966. Today, Hanoi is a modern city also–covered in Part III of this narrative. Saigon now resembles Hong Kong as I remember it. I question the direction of our world population–where will it stop? Some argue we are at a peak now and will drop to pre-1800 levels. I’m not so sure. The third world will continue to proliferate–at least some countries. Vietnam is one.
After four months back in Port Hueneme training and taking deserved leave, and having climbed a few mountains, I climbed back aboard a C-141 Starlifter once again. I would spend another 6 more months with the Navy Seabees’ MCB-10 up against Hill 327 shown in the foreground below. Just prior to landing, the captain informed us that we would make a “combat approach” or a very steep descent. Bracing for the worst, a good half hour went by without any detected motion–in fact, I thought I could have already landed. Then a huge smack and roar of engines and we had arrived. Upon departing the aircraft, the first thing I was greeted with was the familiar smell of tropical heat, wet bamboo and open sewers. Welcome to Vietnam again. The top photo was taken from the cockpit of a C-130 on my R&R to Bangkok on the first deployment to Chu Lai. There are now three more bridges north of the one here on the right. Note the rice paddies adjacent to town. 
Here’s a Google Earth rendition to compare with the photo below. The lead photo was taken from a C-130 transiting left behond the airstrip but before the river. Our base was located where the white roof can be seen just above the “SIO” at the bottom.
Here is a photo I took from near the top of Hill 327 in 1966. This is the DaNang airport–the one I jumped the fence on and crossed the center six months earlier. Due east of the airport was a small village we nicknamed “Dogpatch–in the center of the photo at the crossroads–after Lil Abner’s hometown in the Sunday comics. At the foot of Hill 327 where I took this photo is our base, Camp Hoover.
This is the reverse perspective showing the Officer’s Club. The views from Hill 327 were magnificent. I would be invited up to this club–read on….
This photo was taken much later–the end-sheet from our yearbook and about a year later. The thatched church on the far right was built just after I arrived in April, 1966.
Looking the opposite direction. Just to get you oriented, here is a Google Earth view of where things are today. Amazing growth. Hill 327 is now labeled Hoa Phat.
Looking south from Hill 327 is Marble Mountains–today a popular tourist attraction.
This little girl, about 7 or 8 was named Be (pronounced Bay) and her title was “Em” which meant child. “Co” meant an unmarried woman or teen, “Om” a male and “Ba” meant an older woman–usually a grandmother. I would run work patrols later in this deployment–two days a week just for diversion and language learning. My work teams always got ice-water (Nuoc-da) and I was regarded as a “Number 1 Honcho” for this special service. Sometimes I’d find ice tea (Nuoc-cha da). The word to work was “di lam.” I dressed all the workers with cheap sun glasses and western hats and gave them names of our movie stars–Frank Sinatra and so on. They loved it. I would walk around snapping both fingers singing: “Co di lam…….ba di lam……..all god’s chillun’s di lam, di lam to a jazzy beat. Hollywood would have been proud. We built fences and other mundane projects on the base perimeter.
Em Be would hang out at the medical clinic every day without fail. She had lost both parents in her village and was brought to us probably to bandage her toe. I later learned she, too, was killed. These are the horrors of war–and we’ve learned nothing judging by today’s failures in foreign policy. (Read my synopsis at the very end in Part III)
My work crew with one other Seabee–we always paired up. Half way through this deployment, I was transferred to S-2 working directly for a Lieutenant in charge of base security. I recommended that we start a language program and he set it up immediately. He also graciously let me work outdoors with the civilian helpers we would hire locally to repair the base, build fences, etc. It was a perfect fit for me.
With Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra (I’m the one in the middle).
These two gals always teamed up with myself and a fellow from Gross Point Michigan named Wardell. He was a bit of an aristocrat and came from a wealthy background. His shoulder is just visible here on the right. They would bring their lunch wrapped in palm leaves or some green leaf–sticky rice was the main ingredient.
We’d drive these “cattle cars” or huge wire-meshed trucks south of the battalion to pick up these workers–civic action of sorts. Sunglasses and sport hats–that was the key.
The officer’s club during a storm. Lightening was prolific especially during the monsoons. Just before my departure, I would be invited up to the officer’s club…….read on……
This is the construction of the church–all of local materials and constructed by our domestic workers. It took them half the time to complete this building than it did a Butler building which was begun the same time. It was quieter during rain and didn’t leak.
Compare and contrast. One day the Seabees were requisitioned to build one of these Butler Buildings for the Marines. During the deployment and mount-out, the tape measures got wet and had stretched somewhat–they were the old WWII canvas tapes. Well, as a result, the basement pad was slightly bigger than the plans called for. They didn’t realize this error until the sides and rafters were up. By then, there was no turning back–and of course, the apex of the roof didn’t meet precisely as they should have. No problem for a Seabee–we’re a “Can-Do” bunch and they simply bent the sides in and bolted things up. Well, problems just kept getting worse and worse, with siding and ultimately the roofing. When the Seabees asked for a thank-you and perhaps a commendation letter or two from the 3rd Marines, the Commandant stormed over and dressed down the officer in charge. There was lots of chuckling in Headquarters Company when this paperwork crossed our desks. “We Build–We Fight!”
A blurry base photo with Monkey Mountain in the distance–no it’s not erupting.
Don’t know where this ultimately came from–likely the French War and from the other side perhaps. Catch my hand-grenade story in the third part of this series.
Both in Chu Lai and DaNang, we had a camp mascot. The irony was that Boo-Boo, our Chu Lai Sun Bear was as mellow as they come. He was initially introduced to us via a parachute drop over our camp–Boo-Boo was one terrified bear but really became docile. He had his own service record and would walk around camp like a pet dog. He was also a shameless begger and got hooked on hard candy. Our battalion dentist had to do some dentistry on him–again, not improving his disposition much. One day he sauntered in my office area, opened the file drawer and pawed through the records–his own drawer even. I suspected higher intelligence–perhaps a bit higher than some of our regular Seabees. This bear–named Boom-Boom–was a nasty bear–and hated everyone and everything. I’d simply pass by his cage (he had to be jailed for the duration) and he’d hiss and snap his jaws. Both bears became permanent residents of the San Diego zoo.
Between the Butler Building and church and our Admin area was a huge ditch–and this is what happened during the monsoons. One could drown in this. I went back 25 years later to this very spot:
The old Butler Building still stands. Ditch on the left–now a culvert. I’ll cover this return trip in Part III.
Dogpatch from our base. Intervening rice paddies still existed then. I would spend considerable time in these rice paddies–read on……
But first, one day I got wind of an USO show featuring Roy Rogers and Dale Evans–here they are signing “I’m back in the Saddle Again.” No kidding!
The traditional dress of young Vietnamese women–the Ao Dai (the “D” is pronounced almost like a “Y”)–on a walk to Dogpatch. I spend weeks in these rice paddies–but not picking or planting rice–here’s the story:
Our skipper, who will be identified in a bit, always wanted to be an Admiral. Now, there’s an old saying that there are no “Peacetime Admirals.” That all advancement to this prestigious rank occur in wartime–and Vietnam was, for all intents and purposes, a war. With his eye on this prize, the skipper recruited all of the elite Seabees in his command that could further this purpose…..including me. He called me into his office one day and ordered me to retype all the BuPers (Bureau of Personnel) Manuals–that is all “Notices” and “Memorandums” pursuant to our conduct on the base. And I had to do this on my spare time. That’s the reward I get for wielding my Remington Automatic (typrwriter, that is) in such a proficient manner…… Night after night, I’d sit in my office and buff out the paperwork so the skipper could get his golden cuffs. I could hear the men down at the enlisted men’s club cheering on sand-crab races and the like……click, clap, click, clap…… One night I was retyping this rather lengthy (and quite useless) Memorandum–a full 6 pages, no less!–on “Duties and Responsibilities of the Vegetable Preparation Man.” I’m not making this up. A six page treatice on how to peal g*ddamn potatoes! I was livid. But that’s not all…..he wanted in quadruplicate without any erasures–six pages! I struggled through this evening steaming mad but by the end of the night I came up with an even better one…… How to use the crappers. TCW–as our skipper was sometimes called–was always trying to pinch pennies, and at one time had us plant lawns, and if you recall Lyndon B. Johnson’s “War on Waste” program, you’ll get the idea. Well, I worked a bit overtime that night……and here was the brilliant result:
This was perfect, right down to the codes, initials….and the forged signature. Well, maybe a little bit too perfect. You see, committing the perfect crime in a battalion of 600 men, you could probably find one or two capable of such brilliance–and I hadn’t figured upon this. Proceeding with my prank, I hastily ran off about 50 copies, and nailed them up on all the crappers around the base. I could just see a fomenting mutiny. Of course, I sent out copies on the distribution list which included CINCPACFLT which stands for Commander in Chief, Pacific Fleet–that’s the top dog in the western theater! Hell, Joseph Heller couldn’t even come with this good of an idea (he wrote Catch-22–a parody of the military). Oh, what cleverness! However……I made one simple mistake……and that was the signature. Damn, it was good! Almost a perfect replication that perhaps some of the battalion officers might be duped–so up on their commodes went this notice. I slept like a babe that night, quite content with my little jest.
The skipper didn’t quite see it that way. The next day was my off-base supervisor job with the Vietnamese. Now I must insert one other element of disdain here–we had one Marine liaison attached to our battalion. Now, what Marine in his right mind would want to work for the Seabees? Well, the Marines would likely assign members of their organization who perhaps didn’t quite shine as bright…. and we got a very tarnished one. His name was Cogan and he was built like a bulldog and was about as mean. Further….of all coincidences, I was routinely tasked with waking him up each morning after his horrific binges the night before at the NCO club….and he didn’t like this one bit. His barracks reeked of booze until 10 in the morning when I tried, sometimes unsuccessfully, to wake him. It was like lighting a fire-cracker and running like hell. And it was Cogan that morning that I first caught at a distance marching with a small cohort of Marines over to my off-base worksite. They looked serious. As they got closer, I could see the expression on Cogan’s face and he was not happy. “Leen” he shouted, “Fall in!” And so I was marched back to camp and told to sit at my desk until an officer came to speak with me. It was my immediate boss, Prather, and he was also rather upset also. “Leen,” he said with spittle running down his chin, “you misspelled diarrhea.” Well, I hadn’t actually–because I did look it up–wanting everything to be perfectly executed and all…..but I quickly caught this ruse intended to expose me. Then in came Zacker. Now Zacker was also a yeoman and he worked for the Chaplain. Zacker also lifted weights and was about three axe-handles across. He glared at me justifiably since he was perhaps the only other one capable of pulling off such a brilliant stunt. He came up to me with a solid glare and thumped me in the middle of my scrawny chest: “Leen, one of us is going to confess!” Holy sh*t, I thought, and then it dawned on me that sometimes brilliance can backfire (now, come to think of it, that would make a perfect TV Serial title–“Brilliance that Backfires–My Time Spent in the Seabees”). We both marched over to confront the skipper himself and he was also not in the best of moods. Prather asked me in front of the skipper “who is erp?” (the authorship code on all Navy letters). Well, Zacker got his wish–the ruse must be defused, and quickly, as I thought the skipper would explode–seeing his Admiral Stripe fly away on bird-wings to the clouds. He stammered and sputtered and finally got it out: “Did you send this out to the Distribution List?” A trial was scheduled in two weeks. I was confined to my office space and once again began typing these damn BuPers papers……
In the end, I got 6 weeks of “hard labor” which was mowing rice-paddies to keep the Viet Cong at bay between Dogpatch and Camp Hoover…..at night! I had to put in my 10 hours first–and then spend two more after dinner mowing rice paddies. At least I got hazardous duty pay–or perhaps they docked this from me also. I once calculated my hourly salary during these two years and it came out to about $0.03/hour–that’s three cents per hour! They gave me a golf-club like thrasher and I did my time–perfecting my golf swing–quite relieved I wasn’t drummed entirely out of the Seabees. Imagine having to confess you got tossed out such an august organization? On the last night of my “duty” to my country, I was walking back in the dark past all the hooches (huts) and I heard a whisperish psssst, psssst. A white tee-shirt appeared from between the huts–it was about half the officers there to greet me and pat me on the back: “Never seen the skipper so mad!,” said one. “Good job!,” said another and they took me up to the officer’s club and bought me a few drinks….. Thank the lord the skipper was absent–he was probably down at sick bay getting is nightly dose of tranquilizers….
Indeed, there was a silver lining to this cloud……I studied the BuPers Manual in minute detail and came across two salient “rules” that only applied in war zones: 1. Early out for education, and 2.) “Circuitous” leave. I applied for both–six weeks early for college entrance–I found one in Florida (of all places) that exactly coincided with the maximum time allowable. The “circuitous leave” was a real hidden treasure–if one was leaving a war zone, you could apply for two weeks R&R and I had never been to Hong Kong….. I waited until the maximum amount of paperwork crossed the skipper’s desk and shuffled these “signature required” requests in the middle. I sat with bated breath and voila! I was approved. I began my countdown calendar, filling in the blanks as I approached my departure date–November 1, 1966.
On the day of my departure, I had my airline ticket in my pocket…..of my dress blues (required for R&R) and showed up at the motor-pool for a lift down to the DaNang airport. Of course, everyone else was in their khaki’s and when I showed up, I got jeered for being “out of uniform.” Typical for this Seabee they mocked. Cogan marched us into the truck and again at the airport. As we marched in ranks down the corridore, I veared out of ranks at the Pan Am counter and dropped my seabag (now completely empty of beer). Cogan went berserk and began yelling at me (he was still no fan of mine). I whipped out my leave papers pointing proudly to my destination of Hong Kong. I caught the last civilian flight out of DaNang on PanAm.
My recollection is still quite vivid of that day–I boarded a 727–then the pride of Boeing–ate Salisbury Steak for dinner with a glass of wine. In about 2 hours I was in Hong Kong’s Kai Tak Airport (then you landed right in town). I stayed in Kowloon as it was cheaper. I quickly got a hotel and changed into civvies and was finally a free man (well, nearly so). I went down to the nearest (French) restaurant, Au Trau Normand and ordered two things (I had just eaten on the jet): a huge bowl of tomatoes and a glass of milk! The French waiter gasped in a French accent and stated they had the finest steaks and French cuisine possible. I stuck with my “dessert” and enjoyed every bite. Here is my best Hong Kong pics:
This was Hong Kong in 1966–no sky scrapers. Kowloon is on the left in the distance.
The reason Hong Kong didn’t have any taller buildings, is that scaffolding was made of bamboo and it could only support about 15 stories in height.
Daily crossings into Hong Kong cost only three cents (an hour’s work in the Seabees), and 10 cents if you wanted first class. On one trip, I was one penny short so had to take to the lower deck with the pigs and chickens. I always appreciated the value of a penny after that.
Hong Kong’s famous Tai Pak restaurant. This was towed to Cambodia for storage but sunk enroute (in Hong Kong harbor I recall a few years ago). I had lunch there–quite the experience.
At the Red Chinese border–these folks have probably had their photos taken more than Michael Jackson or Elvis. It was rice paddies then and strictly off limits to cross the border. I visited the Chinese embassy in Hong Kong and the woman there told me I would be welcome to visit “Red” China. At the time the Red Guards were active and executing everyone. I stuck to my leave schedule.
In those days, they had an aerial tram up Victoria Peak above the city. This view looks out toward Aberdeen–a rural fishing village then. This large villa’s occupants had the entire southern view to themselves.
Hong Kong at night was quite colorful.
On November 22, 1966, I was formerly discharged after flying home to Treasure Island in San Francisco Bay. The third anniversary of Kennedy’s assassination. It took about a week to process my papers–hell, could have done this in a few hours. I would catch a bus up to Berkeley and visit my uncle Ted–he was a civil and structural engineer at the time and a total eccentric. And solidly behind the Vietnam war–he asked me my thoughts and of course, I knew nothing. That was about to change. The first thing I did when I visited, is run to his refrigerator and grab a glass of milk–missing it for almost a year. What I grabbed was goats milk and thought it odd but really couldn’t remember what it should taste like (I grew up drinking raw milk from neighbors). I chuckled to myself when I read the label). I flew home to a different world. Everyone had long hair and the music was weird–I had been cut off from civilization for almost two years–excepting leave and stateside duties. My old neighborhood was being dismantled by a new freeway which had not cut through the very center of Seattle with a spur (I-405) tearing through the enter of this bucolic farmland that I grew up in.
When I was in DaNang, I sent each paycheck to “Navy Auto Sales” expecting a new car when I returned home. Needless to say, it was all a fraud and I ended up with less than half my total savings. I settled on a used car–a 1965 VW–for $1200 and attended Junior College until I could make enough money to attend the University of Washington. There was no GI bill so I had to count each penny–like the Hong Kong ferry–it would be another year before the GI bill would be reenacted. I was still only 20 years old and couldn’t vote nor buy beer but I was home and in one piece and had a 4-A draft status (served).
Next–Vietnam–Part III–A Retrospect and a Return.