When I arrived at Dulles airport in October 1969, I met two other young women who also were heading to Vietnam. We traveled to San Francisco and then on to Travis Air Force Base and on and on to Ton San Nhut airport in Saigon. One year later we left Saigon for Travis Air Force Base to come home. In between, was the most intense year of my young life.
I was 22 years old, fresh out of college when I went to Vietnam for my first full-time job. Not quite sure what I would be doing, I was against the war, interested in South Asia, and ready to travel. Working for the Army but not in it is the descriptive phrase I use today. Department of the Army Civilian, D.A.C., Non-Appropriated-Funds, N.A.F-5. Equivalent, should I be captured, of a 2nd Lieutenant is what they called me then. Working in US Army Service Clubs — handing out ping pong and pool equipment, and calling BINGO games for war-weary enlisted men in Pleiku, then An Khe, Vung Tau, and finally Phuoc Vinh is what I did. In Pleiku, I discovered the magic of photography, the intensity of monsoons, and the intricacies of working as a female in a man’s world. I learned to lead battle-weary, dead-eyed men through games of BINGO, “Roll it and Keep it” and other games relegated to the dim recesses of lost memories. I also learned how to hitch a ride on a helicopter or a C-130.
Vietnam was where I saw and photographed a dead Viet Cong. I had never seen a dead person before. I had never photographed anyone who was no longer moving but I had a new Pentax camera and others were taking photos. I had not loaded the film correctly so the film never was exposed. I am grateful for that inexperience.
After Christmas and New Years in Pleiku, in February I traveled to Singapore for a weekend while our club and all our worldly goods were moved to An Khe from Pleiku. Later I traveled from Pleiku to An Khe via convoy. Clad in my steel pot and flak vest, our open jeep was at the head of the convoy. Why were we in a convoy? I don’t know, but we were never supposed to travel long distances by vehicle. We waited while we watched something being dropped on the An Khe pass before we drove through. What was it? I never knew. Working for US Army Service Clubs meant being transferred as needed. My next club was in a former in-country R&R center in Vung Tau. It was beautiful. Our housing was in an old and formerly elegant hotel. Mornings we drove to work through the town in a rattly Dodge truck. Lunches were often at the Australian Army’s Officer’s club where the pool beckoned to us. Paradise doesn’t last of course.
In the Service Club in Vung Tau, I discovered a bag of flour. It was buggy so I threw it out. Later I discovered that our Vietnamese Club personnel took the flour home in tiny packets. What to me was contaminated was food to others. I was chastened. I also found a commercial size can of peanut butter. From that, I learned to barter to get what you need. I had a cookbook — Betty Crocker — a recipe for peanut butter cookies, peanut butter, and a mission to make cookies. Somehow I bartered for butter and all the ingredients needed to make peanut butter cookies. The day I made cookies in our Service Club oven was a glorious moment. So many enlisted men were drawn into the club by the smell of home. Cookies make so many things better.
We were all transferred as our club was due to close. Our wonderful mama-sans gave each of the three women at the club a gift. My gift was three statues representing longevity, health, and prosperity. Fortune smiled that day since my supervisor had been given the statues. She did not like them and, preferring what I had been given, she re-wrapped her gift and took mine.
My final duty station was in Phuoc Vinh. By then the routines of work were ingrained and easy to follow. There were sweat-dripping down your shirt days when I lived in the sauna of the Service Club. There was talk of returning to the States and of returning to Vietnam. I was on R&R when the incoming struck close to our hootch. Returning home (to the USA) to hostility and attitudes of “I don’t want to hear about it” bruised the need to share the experience right out of me.
Words that come to mind when I think of my tour in Vietnam:
Round-eye.
Unavailable.
Subjected to unwanted attention from Lt. Col. S., and many others.
Who could I trust?
Learned to hold my liquor.
Bought my cigarettes for $2 a carton in the PX.
Stopped smoking on the plane home and never smoked again.
Hot.
Cold.
Rain — monsoons.
Earned money, nothing to spend it on.
Trust?
Traveled to Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia, Bangkok.
Saw amazing statues in Bangkok that were only photographs in my art history textbooks.
Met good people.
Met some not-so-good-people.
Broke a heart and I am sorry.
My heart was broken, pretty sure he was not sorry.
Felt a camaraderie with others who were there.
We were all in it together.
It — was hell, adventure, work, incoming, seeing death, seeing the enemy, being objectified, smell of kerosene burning the “night soil” daily, wearing a uniform that hearkened back to 1940s airline flight attendants, shopping in the PX and finding nothing that you needed, and it was for 365 days.