Christensen - Policing Saigon

POLICING SAIGON

by

Loren W. Christensen

POLICING SAIGON

LOREN W. CHRISTENSEN

Copyright 2017 Loren W. Christensen

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form

without written permission from the author.

All rights reserved

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

A big hug to Lisa for her encouragement, support and critiquing.

A fist bump to friends Kevin Faulk and Truc Than Tran

for eyeballing the manuscript for typos and story problems.

All photos are by the author with these exceptions:

(1)Saigon [Traffic], (2) Saigon [Traffic] and

(3) Le Loi Avenue [Students Demonstrating] by Manhhai https://www.flickr.com/photos/13476480@N07/9404427093/

and are licensed under 2.0, Creativecommons.org

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

Cover photo: The author in Saigon, age 23

Part One: The first few Days (culture shock)

Chap 1: Flying there

Chap 2: Door gunners and policing for cigarette butts

Chap 3: Welcome to Saigon

Chap 4: Python

Chap 5: Culture shock

Chap 6: Dead mens gear

Part Two: Routine Days

Chap 7: Day after day

Chap 8: EOD (Explosive Ordinance Division)

Chap 9: Skylight

Chap 10: Cobra

Chap 11: Bob Hope

Chap 12: Papa-san and the ammo truck

Chap 13: Dead mama-san

Chap 14: Jail window

Chap 15: Karate number one

Chap 16: Sampson

Chap 17: 100-P alley

Chap 18: 200-P alley

Chap 19: The swimming pool

Chap 20: Dance to the Music

Chap 21: Drugs

Chap 22: Tracer rounds

Chap 23: Puff the magic dragon

Chap 24: Almost a coup

Chap 25: Vietnam blues

Chap 26: Tension

Chap 27: A shaky fork

Chap 28: Illusions of relief

Chap 29: Korean Marines

Chap 30: AFVN radio: Goooooood morning, Vietnaaaaaam

Chap 31: Im not a crook

Chap 32: Running Code 3

Chap 33: Fire

Chap 34: Riot

Chap 35: Power and rank: a deadly mix

Chap 36: The vision

Chap 37: Screams

Chap 38: Meyerkord Hotel

Chap 39: Resisting arrest

Chap 40: Letters

Chap 41: One GI who went home and came right back

Part Three: Losing It (instances when GIs went insane)

Chap 42: Silencer

Chap 43: Hangman

Chap 44: Johnny Walker Black

Chap 45: Escaped prisoner

Chap 46: The punch

Chap 47: Death of the spirit

Chap 48: Grenade

Part Four: Prostitutes (10,000 in the city. Cute, dangerous, and a victim of the war)

Chap 49: Boom-boom number one

Chap 50: Clap

Chap 51: Peter

Part Five: The Indigenous

Chap 52: A fellow martial artist

Chap 53: A most excellent shot

Chap 54: Everybodys talkin bout me

Chap 55: China girl

Chap 56: Date night

Chap 57: The old gravedigger

Chap 58: Altered states: the Buddhist temple

Chap 59: Dog sex and an alligator baby

Part Six: Street Children

Chap 60: A Tu Do paperboy

Chap 61: Cemetery kids

Chap 62: Country kids

Part Seven: Home: The first year

Chap 63: We gotta get out of this place

Chap 64: Mom and dad

Chap 65: Youre home now

Chap 66: Small adjustments

Chap 67: Martial arts

Chap 68: Your name Christensen?

Chap 69: First-year triggers

Part Eight: Ten years after

Chap 70: Some talked about, some didnt

Chap 71: I have to get more guns

Chap 72: The power of smell

Part Nine: 40 years later

Chap 73: Recognizing and Recognition

Chap 74: Vietnamese at home

Chap 75: Agent Orange: And the hits just keep on comin

Chap 76: Fire, blood, and paint

Chap 77: Army vet spends his days comforting the dying

Conclusion

"Sometimes you need the anesthesia. Because what you learn about yourself when fear finally overtakes you isn't pretty. You understand that the person you thought of as yourself, your immutable, indivisible self, is just an overlay, fragile and frail. Fear strips away the facade. And having to see what lies beneath, and accept it, makes you different from everyone who hasn't been similarly forged. You've been aged; they remain neophytes. You have brutal clarity; they, comforting illusions. You've looked into the abyss, and can still feel it looking back; they don't even know such a place exists. And for all of it, you hate them."

- Barry Eisler, Requiem for an Assassin

INTRODUCTION

I grew up in Vancouver, Washington in a suburb called Fruit Valley, so named because of the many surrounding orchards. My buddies and I were called the Valley Boys, not a gang, just a bunch of guys that grew up together from the age of 10 until the last one moved away 11 years later. I was 18 years old when Walter Cronkite began talking about Vietnam on the news, but I didnt pay attention because I was too busy being 18, starting college, and working at a grocery store. Vietnam was just something going on over there.

Howard was the first Valley Boy to go into the service. He was shorter than the rest of us with an unruly mop of dirty blond hair, a little slow on the uptake, which made him the butt of our relentless teasing. Whatever went on in his house caused him to stutter around his old man but never around us. When Howard left for the airport to fly to Vietnam, he told his dad, Im not coming back.

Larry went in next. He was my best friend, and we looked so similar that people thought we were brothers. He went into the Marines, and after his advanced training, he shipped to Vietnam. We heard he was in the thick of things, though we didnt know what the term meant.

Richard went into the Air Force, and I never saw him after that. I heard he made a career out of it.

During my last year of college, I began to pay more attention to the news, mostly because Larrys mother, half mad with her boy fighting in Vietnam, was constantly giving the Valley Boys updates about where he was in the steaming jungles, whatever steaming meant when applied to a jungle. What happened next would push Larrys mom over the edge.

My mother greeted me at the door as I returned from work and told me to sit down. She said she just received a hysterical telephone call from Larrys mother. Howard was dead. He had been in the country less than two weeks, based on some nameless hill when a rocket attack slammed into his camp, killing him and others.

My mother told me later that when she gave me the news my head had snapped back. All I remember of that moment was sinking deeper and deeper into my chair as her words repeated in my brain: Howard was killed Howard was killed Howard was

A few weeks earlier, I had embarrassed Howard.

He had been home on leave from the Marines, looking sharp in his uniform, taller, older, and more mature. All the Valley Boysexcept for Larry who was still in Vietnammet at Richards house to drink beer and listen to Howards stories of his first few months in the corps.

Although he had always been the smallest of our group and the butt of our practical jokes, he preferred being around us to being home with his father. Im sure he hadnt forgotten the loving yet rough treatment he had received from the Valley Boys growing up, but now he was enjoying admiration from the same guys who had barely matured at all.

At one point, he told us about his hand-to-hand training, and how he had developed a skill level to destroy anyone foolish enough to attack him. I had been studying karate for two years at that point, and I was training hard for the coveted brown belt. I was 20 years old, cocky and full of myself. I piped up that I had been training four days a week for two years, so there was no way his eight hours of training could match a karate mans techniques. I told Howard the service had brainwashed him, and that I had read an article that said Marine boot camp was all about convincing young and impressionable young men that they were unbeatable.