The spellings of certain places and things here are a little foreign to me so I ask your indulgence should you see an error.
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I was sent to Vietnam in December 1968. I was 19, young, very dumb and full of cum. I was a PFC (private first class) in the army signal corps. I had gone through the army's infantry school at Fort Polk Louisiana but got lucky and was assigned to the signal corps. The flight to and from Vietnam is an especially long one, over 14 hours non-stop as I remember. I flew on a Northwest Orient Airlines charter but we still had stewardesses, that's what they were called back then, meals but movies hadn't happened yet. I really don't remember much about the flight except that when we got there a lot of the guys were drunk and all of the stewardesses were crying.
"Why are they crying?" I asked a sergeant I had been sitting next to during the flight.
He shook his head, muttered something that sounded like "stupid fuckin' newbie" and then said, "because they know a lot of the guys on this plane are going to die."
When you step off the plane over there you're immediately hit with two things, the intense humidity and the smell. The smell is like no other. I found out in time it was a combination of "honey buckets" and things burning. In Vietnam human waste was dumped into the rice paddies and the rice paddies were everywhere. Anyway, a short distance from the plane were several very large tents that we were all herded into. One-by-one we were all told to drop our drawers and bend over. We were given a "gg shot (gamma-globulin?). The theory was we'd be protected from things like malaria, yellow fever and a host of other diseases. Funny thing was, once a week for our entire tour we were supposed to take a malaria pill too.
I was sent to a replacement depot and from there to a place named Phu Lam which I only found out after returning was north and west of Saigon. We worked some very long hours, usually 12 hour days and often times six days on with a single day off. Most units were not at full strength and ours was no different.
One thing I learned to do extremely well in Vietnam was drink. Most guys took up drinking or drugging or both. I saw a lot of dope over there, something called Thai stick, but never anything harder although I heard guys talk about heroin amongst other things. So in our off time we did a lot of drinking. Most guys like to go to one of the clubs in "the ville." "The ville" was a GI euphemism for the civilian downtown area such that it was. There were places like the New York Club there and they not only served up lots of booze but a variety of whores.
Although this isn't a story about Vietnam's prostitutes suffice to say I did seek their comfort, such as it was, about four or five times. Having been a good Catholic boy all my life I was always guilt stricken after visiting one. But the thing that stuck with me and my conscience most solidly were orphans.
Sometime just before Christmas 1968 my C.O. looked for volunteers to go to my company's orphanage and bring them food and a few toys. I volunteered which was something we generally didn't do, ever. So we went armed to the gills in several ton and a quarter trucks. I found out afterward that our orphanage was almost right on the DMZ. I'm glad I didn't know this going in because I might have been scared shitless but then again I did say I was young and very very dumb at the time so who knows. The orphanage was also run by nuns.
When we arrived the kids thronged around us. Being so new in country I felt more than just a little out of place there and I should have. I remember pushing through the crowd of kids and coming upon one little girl who was off by herself in a corner. She had blond hair and oriental eyes. That was my first contact with the most unfortunate circumstances of war. When I got back to my unit I tried and tried to find out how I could adopt this girl. I had been told by someone that unless she was taken back to the states she probably wouldn't live to see adulthood. Orphans were pariahs in Vietnam so they needed every and any edge the could get. This little girl would get none. I was told that only a married person could adopt and I was heartbroken thinking about this little girl.
There were lots of organizations in Vietnam devoted to helping out GIs. The USO was one and they were always serving up USO shows, more than just the Christmas Bob Hope show everyone knew about. Then there was the USOM Club (US Overseas Mission). I don't know what they were all about but I did like drinking in their club. It was one of the nicer clubs over there. The guys in the field were regularly visited by American girls who were known by various names, donut dollies or biscuit bitches to name a couple. Other than nurses these were the only other American women we saw and our name for them was "round eyes." Then there was the service club. This was actually a branch of the army called special services but it was mostly manned by civilians. They too served up various types of entertainment but they also had their own building and it was air conditioned. I mention that it was air conditioned because army barracks, or hooches as we called them, were anything but. The air force had air conditioning but we didn't. Anyway, the service club was opened until 9 at night and provided us with a place to go play various games, ping pong and whatever entertainment they lined up. I remember there being three or four at our service club. One in particular caught my eye, Eileen. Eileen was a 22 year old strawberry blond. She had very curly hair, green eyes, pouty lips, a very large chest set on a thin five foot eight frame.
Even though I started going to the service club from right after I arrived I couldn't find the courage to approach her. I was incredibly shy. I had no idea of how to start a conversation with a woman like most guys did.
I remember it was early spring. My house boy told us at least once a day it seemed that the monsoon was coming in like 20 days and then 18 days. I didn't take him seriously but I should have. Anyway, I had been sitting off to the side near Eileen whenever I got the chance. I picked up on what seemed to be a Boston accent. Having gone to high school in New Jersey I was chided incessantly about my Boston accent so I had developed an ear for it as well.
Opportunity reared its head and I found the courage to say, "Are you from Boston?" I remember thinking that that sounded like the lamest question anyone could ask but it was out there.
Eileen smiled and said, "It shows doesn't it." It suddenly occurred to me that she had probably been asked this question a million times and here I was asking it once again. I blushed. She smiled and asked, "So where are you from?"
I had actually worked on getting rid of my accent while I was in New Jersey and then on my initial army assignments in Louisiana, Texas and Georgia. These are states where people live who actually think "damn Yankee" is a single word. "I'm actually from a small town about 25 miles north of Boston." I finally said.
So we did the small talk thing for a while and I eventually found out she was from Weymouth and had graduated from Boston College the year before. By the time we were done talking I was sure I was in love with her although the reality was I craved her attentions just like every other guy around. I did manage to find out that she didn't have a boyfriend at the moment. I could believe what I considered extremely good luck. She told me she had dated one officer for a while before he dumped her and then she had fended off the advances of other officers thinking they'd be much the same.
A couple of weeks went by and the monsoon hit before I saw her again. The monsoon season is really something else. I know it didn't rain all day every day for weeks on end but it sure seemed like it. I certain of that because I probably wouldn't have left my hooch to go out to the service club had it been a down pour as was common. I remember getting there a little late but immediate saw Eileen talking to some guy on a sofa. I went over and sat in an overstuffed chair near the sofa and waited. I didn't care that I was obvious.
Fortunately, as far as I was concerned, the guy left very shortly after I got there. Eileen asked, "Where have you been? I haven't seen you in a while."