Saigon, Sixty-Nine

Saigon, Sixty-Nine

Thom Whalen

Copyright (c) 2019 Thom Whalen

All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction, either in whole or in part, in any form. This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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Chapter One

If you didn’t live in Saigon at the peak of the War in Vietnam, you’ll never understand the quiet desperation that permeated the city. I can tell you about the despair that worked its way into a man’s gut, day by day, but I can’t make you feel it. You had to be there.

We knew we were losing the war, yet life carried on despite watching disaster creeping ever closer to the city. Or maybe life carried on because we had no other choice. We could do nothing about the rockets that arced over the dark horizon nightly and the distant rumble of explosions. We could do nothing about the flood of distraught refugees that poured into the city. We could do nothing about the steady advance of the Viet Cong on all sides.

All we could do is live each day as it came and hope that the war would end soon, one way or another.

I don’t know how I got through it. All I know is that the man who flew back home a year later wasn’t the same man who’d flown into that steaming pressure cooker in sixty-nine.

My slide into hell began in earnest on a night like any other night, a few weeks into my posting.

When Joe, Lance, and I walked into the So Lucky GI Bar, the place was packed. That was no big surprise. The So Lucky was always packed. It was lucky that it was only Tuesday. If we’d arrived at six on a Saturday night, we wouldn’t be able to get through the front door.

Joe took point. He’d honed his skills playing first string tackle on his high school varsity football team. Elbows out, shoulders forward, he powered through the crowd while Lance and I followed close in his wake.

The GIs he pushed aside were none too happy, but if his muscles didn’t intimidate them, the sergeant’s stripes did. A mere private wasn’t going to cross him. Not if the private valued his cushy life in Saigon. It took only a few words in the right ear to get a man sent up country where bullets and bombs flew day and night and body bags were in constant demand.

Joe wasn’t an idiot. He didn’t muscle aside any officers. He didn’t want anyone talking trash about him in the officers’ mess.

It wasn’t only people that we had to push through, the blue smoke was so dense it was almost a physical barrier. Everyone in Vietnam smoked. Even if you never put a cigarette to your lips — and I never did — you inhaled enough smoke in every office, every restaurant, and every bar to develop a nicotine habit. Smoke even drifted along the sidewalks, riding the hot, humid air.

Nicotine is powerful stuff. Within a week of arriving in ‘Nam, I found myself seeking out the smokiest spot in every room to satisfy my craving. I should have gone out and bought my own cigarettes, but I was too stubborn to admit I’d become hooked without ever having smoked.

The noise was the third barrier. When you walked through the front door, you hit a wall of sound. The Stones, the Dead, and the Doors followed each other without a break. Eight track tapes have no end, they just go round and round. To make themselves heard, every man and woman in the room had to scream over the music.

Between the acrid smoke and the need to scream, I went home with a sore throat every night.

There were no tables free, but that was of no import to us. A table ties a man down, limits his opportunities. We three musketeers needed freedom to roam.

At the bar, Joe held up three fingers.

The So Lucky was staffed by three bartenders. It’s not right to say that all Vietnamese look the same, mostly because they don’t, but these three did. They were brothers and had inherited the same genes. They could have been triplets, but they weren’t. I was told once that they’d been born ten months apart. Their dad hadn’t given their mother any down time between pregnancies. They were so similar in appearance that I couldn’t tell which was the youngest and which the oldest.

One of them glided over and popped the caps off three bottles of Thirty-Three, the most common beer in South Vietnam during the war. There was no draft beer in the So Lucky. It wasn’t worth the staff’s time to mess with collecting and cleaning glasses. The only option was to drink from the bottle, which suited us fine.

Lance threw a couple of coins on the bar. Lance always got the first round. Joe and I picked up the rest of the evening. That wasn’t a fair share of the bill, but we didn’t care. Beer was almost free during the war. You could drink all night and never notice the cost. Most of what Lance paid would be left as a tip for the bartender because he couldn’t be bothered waiting for his change.

As soon as we grabbed our bottles, a Vietnamese beauty in a tight silk top and short, short miniskirt grabbed me and Joe by our upper arms. She didn’t like that we’d bought our own beers. She wanted to be our waitress. And maybe we’d like to buy her a cocktail. She didn’t say explicitly that she was available for any other service we might want, but she made that clear.

It’s hard to tell the age of a Vietnamese woman. They all seem to be about eighteen until one day, they become sixty-year-old grandmothers. This woman might be fifteen, or she might be thirty-five. I couldn’t tell. I always found that disconcerting.

I took it upon myself to tell her to get lost, but in polite terms. No, thanks, miss. We’d rather drink our beer in peace here at the bar. There’s plenty of other guys who’d be happy to buy you a cocktail, which would cost a bundle and consist of water and something to add color. Waitresses never got drunk in the bar. They weren’t stupid. You’re wasting your time with us.

So long, Mr. GI. If you get lonely, just whistle. Unless you’d rather go home with your friends. You look like that kind of man. She giggled and drifted back into the crowd.

I never liked a sore loser, not even one who was pretty as a pinup poster.

Lance looked vaguely disappointed, but that didn’t bother me. There were plenty of girls available for the asking. When he was ready to leave, he’d whistle for one and be besieged. After we’d drunk our last beer of the night, Lance always took a woman home. Joe did the same, more often than not.

I’d only followed suit a handful of times. I found little satisfaction in paying for something that would be free if I could find a woman who liked me. I found it degrading to have to pay a woman to lie about wanting me.

For a man who’s willing to pay for decadent gratification, Saigon during the war was the land of plenty, but for a man who wanted romance it was a desert. And I was parched.

We downed our beer and surveyed the crowd.

The faces varied, but they were the same as every other night. The men were young, and all trod the same path. When a man first came to ‘Nam, he tried too hard to be cool. His pretense at sophistication was painful to behold because it so poorly masked his fears: fear of being thought young and naive, fear of someone taking advantage of him, fear of having arms and legs blown off in the jungle, fear of dying and flying back to his family in a body bag.

But it wouldn’t take long for his cool mask to be replaced by jaded resignation. What was going to happen was going to happen, no matter how cool he was. In ‘Nam, you took what pleasure you could every day because tomorrow might see your cold corpse zipped into a black bag. Alcohol, drugs, and women were cheap and plentiful. Each vice dulled the ache for home in a different way, but in the end, they all gave the same unsatisfactory result. Through grinding repetition, day by day, each vice became as boring as the others.

Despite the name of the bar, not all the patrons were GIs. Soldiers, marines, sailors, and airmen mixed equally. The rest were civilian contractors. Saigon was crawling with contractors during the war. For every man on the front, a dozen men stood behind him, supplying him with equipment, communications, food, medicine, bullets, and bombs — many, many bullets and bombs — and the army’s supply lines followed a tangled braid of private companies.

Lance was one of the contractors. He installed, maintained, and upgraded our electronics. Frequent upgrades because that was where the real money was made. The companies that built the equipment insisted it needed to be upgraded every couple of months. No matter how well it worked, they assured us that the newest upgrade would make it work better. Which wasn’t a hard sell, because the equipment never worked as well as advertised, no matter how new it was or how often it had been upgraded.

The civilians were trapped in ‘Nam just like the soldiers. They signed contracts with crippling penalties if they didn’t serve their full term. They, too, could be sent to the front to maintain equipment; they, too, could be blown up in an enemy attack; they, too, were homesick as hell. The only difference was they were payed a whole lot more for the risks they took.

So, we spent our evenings in the bars together, soldier and civilian alike, looking for something different and always seeing the same old same old.

After I bought the second round, Joe, Lance, and I wandered into the crowd, carrying our fresh bottles, nodding and smiling at faces we recognized, not bothering to engage in conversation, saving our voices for more important discussions with more important people.

All the women in the room were Vietnamese. Young, short, perfect skin, gleaming black hair. They were a beautiful, exotic people. There were more men than women in the room by a factor of ten, but that didn’t matter. The women got around. They were interchangeable, as far as we were concerned. One slender, black-haired beauty in a tiny miniskirt and flowing silk blouse was no different than the next. They looked the same, talked the same, and felt the same.

The women left the bar in a slow, steady stream, men on their arms. Sometimes they returned alone half an hour or an hour later, having made another GI so lucky. Other times they never came back, having been paid for a full night of pleasure.

A woman was cheap in Saigon during the war. Even on a GI salary, a man could afford as much pleasure as he wanted.

§

It was around eight-thirty, close to curfew, when we saw the blonde woman.

I was standing between Joe and Lance when I looked out across the sea of short, raven-haired women, and saw a flame of golden hair shining like a beacon through the fog of cigarette smoke. She was a head taller than the Vietnamese women; her pale face was a jewel bobbing over waves of spun coal.

Her features were fine and symmetrical, her eyes blue as ice, and her lips burnished copper. She was a beauty.

A Western woman was an anomaly in this bar. I’d never before seen any but Vietnamese women in the So Lucky GI. I was mesmerized by her slow meander towards us. We were frozen in place lest any movement spook her and send her fleeing in a different direction.

As she approached the middle of the room, an officer, a major in the Marines — possibly the highest rank in the room; this was a dive for enlisted men — leaned close to shout a few words in her ear. From what I could see from afar, the major was a fine-looking man with a strong jaw, straight nose, and serious eyes. Though in his mid-thirties, his hair was sprinkled with gray, giving him a distinguished air. He moved with the solid grace of a natural athlete. There was serious physical power inside that uniform. He was no paper-pushing desk jockey.

A man that handsome was a natural match for a woman that beautiful. My heart sank. I was certain the major would monopolize her company for the evening, depriving me of any chance to strike her acquaintance.

But she gave him only a fleeting smile, spoke a few words to him, and shook her head. His face fell slack. She’d let the major know his words had not impressed her, and by the look on his face, she’d not been gentle about it. She moved another few feet in our direction.

My heart soared for a moment, then fluttered back to reality. Let’s be honest here. I know what I look like; I see myself in the mirror every morning. I’m no matinee idol. My eyes are crooked, my teeth irregular, my chin weak, and my forehead over large. My cheeks are pocked from acne, and the pores on my nose are enlarged. My stringy hair is a dull mousy brown.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not hideous. My flaws make me no less attractive than average, but I’m no more attractive, either. I’m a solid member of the hump in the middle of the bell curve.

And the woman drifting my direction was no average catch. She was exceptional. An outlier living far out on the lean, rarified tail of the curve. So far out that even the impressive-looking marine had failed to meet her standards.

The day would come when I would wish she had paired with the major and spared me, but that night, her beauty gutted me of all common sense.

Joe nudged me. I call dibs.

Joe was better matched to her than me, no question about that. He was the archetype of the all-American boy. Blond with blue eyes and hair that mussed in a cute, impish spray.

I nodded in agreement, happy to let him have the field. If I couldn’t have the beauty, then I could enjoy the company of the man who did. It would be better to be but a single remove from her than lose her completely.

Another man, one of those eighteen-year-old new arrivals who was trying too hard to be too cool, made a move on the blonde. She didn’t even smile at him; she waved her hand in his face without bothering to look in his direction and kept closing the distance to the bar.

If she wanted a beer, she was going to have to order it herself. The waitresses were too stunned to react. They’d never been this close to such an exotic creature and were overwhelmed.

Yet another new recruit made his play and was also brushed aside like an annoying gnat.

Joe, not in the least discouraged, pushed forward to meet her.

Lance and I followed at a discrete distance, stopped when Joe stopped, sipped our beer — the fourth round of the night — and waited for the show.

We expected the blonde to shoot down Joe as quickly as the others — she’d shown neither deference to authority nor respect for age — so we were shocked when she stopped and listened to Joe’s opening line: What’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?

I wanted to throw up my hands in horror. That was a terrible line. Old, trite, hackneyed. Joe was asking for rejection. Begging for it.

But she responded: What makes you think I’m a nice girl? She didn’t shout, but she managed to project her voice through the din. It helped that every man within ten feet had stopped to listen to her.

You look nice.

Ouch. Surely Joe could have done better than that. He wasn’t a world class wit, but he was no dullard, either.

A tiger looks nice, but it has claws and teeth. I might bite your head clean off. Her strong accent told us English was her second language.

Are you a tiger?

I’m a Finn.

Joe looked puzzled. You have a fin? Like a shark?

No. I’m Finnish.

That explained her accent.

You’re a fish? Joe misunderstood again. He was falling into a death spiral now. We were going to see him crash and burn.

She rolled her eyes. It’s too noisy to talk in here. Introduce me to your friends.

We closed in on the pair.

I’m Joe. He turned and looked surprised to see us standing near. This is Lance and Tim. He turned back to her. You want a beer?

I want to go where it’s less noisy.

I knew you were too classy for this dive. He downed the last third of his beer in a single gulp.

Lance and I followed suit.

Joe handed his empty bottle to Lance and broke a path through the crowd toward the door. The blonde followed in his wake. He didn’t need to push anyone aside now that she was following him. Men parted like the Red Sea before Moses.

Lance dumped our bottles on a table that was already groaning under the dead weight of empties and scurried to catch up with Joe and the blonde and me.

The sidewalk was almost as crowded as the bar, but here the music wasn’t loud enough to drown out our conversation.

I didn’t catch your name. Joe was encouraged by her invitation to step outside. He’d forgotten his clumsy attempt to strike up a conversation inside and was ready to take his seduction to the next level: learning the girl’s name. When he picked up a Vietnamese woman, he never asked her name. The blonde was getting special attention.

I’m Marisa. I’m a graduate student from Finland. The University of Helsinki.

Oh. I’m a soldier. A sergeant in the American Army.

Yes. I noticed your uniform. You have stripes. She smiled impishly. Like a tiger. She was teasing him. That was a good sign.

He failed to rise to the occasion. He should have replied with a quip, but instead he said only, Yes, Ma’am. He took his uniform too seriously. Most soldiers didn’t wear service uniforms off duty, just green fatigues, because the tropics are hot, even at night, and the inside of the bars are hotter. The full uniform doesn’t breathe well. Joe, though, endured the heat because he thought the uniform made him look good and gave him an air of authority. He wasn’t wrong about that. Even with short sleeves, his sweat stains did detract somewhat from the cool image he was trying to project, but we all sweated constantly in Saigon.

It was time for me to join the game. Our stripes are a warning that we have claws and teeth. God, I was no cleverer than Joe tonight.

She and Joe turned to look at me. Joe looked displeased that I was moving in on his action, but she smiled, so I didn’t care.

You’re a soldier, too?

Guilty as charged. I didn’t wear a uniform or fatigues when I was off duty. I kept a small wardrobe of civvies. Most GIs couldn’t be bothered with civilian clothing because they expected to be shipped out at any time and would need only their military kit. I was posted to Saigon for my full term of service, so I would never have to fit my wardrobe into a duffle bag.

What are you guilty of?

Getting drafted.

She frowned. How long do soldiers have to stay in the army after they get drafted?

She’d noticed that I’m five years older than most draftees. Most men were inducted at nineteen and released from service when they were twenty-one. I wondered why a Finnish girl would be aware of the age of draftees. Maybe because so many hit on her. I only have to serve for two years like everyone else, but I was older than most when I got drafted because I got student deferments for six years.

What did you study?

Applied math. Computers. Computers were new in the mid-sixties. My university hadn’t created a separate computer science department yet, so my degree was granted by the Math Department.

I’ve never touched a computer. I’m a doctoral candidate in the Anthropology Department.

Lance had been left out, so he jumped on an opportunity to speak up at last. Is that why you’re here? To study the anthropology of the war?

She nodded. I’m starting my research for my dissertation. I’m looking at the impact of the American occupation on traditional Vietnamese culture. Nothing causes a major cultural shift faster than a foreign invasion and occupation.

Joe bristled. He couldn’t stop himself from spouting the official American party line. We’re not invading Vietnam. We’re assisting the South Vietnamese in repelling the invasion of the North Vietnamese.

She laughed. Right. You aren’t invading. You’re tourists. You have a half million soldiers here to see the sights and enjoy the pho. It’s the Vietnamese who are invading their own country.

Damn right. Joe glared at her.

No political discussion ever lured a woman to bed. It was time to change the subject. How long have you been in Saigon?

She swiveled back to face me. Two weeks. I’m just beginning to learn my way around.

Maybe we can help.

I’m sure you can. How long have you been here?

Two months.

Joe hated to see the conversation get away from him and could trump my measly few weeks. I’ve been here for five months.

Lance wasn’t to be outdone. A year and a half. He was the old timer.

She looked at him. Is this your second tour in Vietnam? She’d done her research. It seemed that she knew that, though soldiers were drafted for two years, they were required to spend only one year in ‘Nam.

I’m not a soldier. I’m a civilian contractor.

I see. That explained why he was so much older than Joe and me. How long will you stay here?

Until I get tired of it. Maybe another couple of years. Vietnam is a cheap place to live. I can bank most of my pay. Lance was in it only for the money and was never embarrassed to admit it. I don’t know how much he earned, but it was a hell of a lot more than the government paid us soldiers.

I already knew enough about Lance; I was curious to know about more the lady. How long will you stay here?

I hope to finish my research in a few months. But it might go more slowly than that. The collision of two such different cultures is a complicated topic.

It’s a massive topic.

I know. I’ll have to narrow it down considerably before I can submit a research proposal. I’m starting with an overview, but I’ll be looking for something more specific to study in depth. She looked back toward the bar. I’ve already been thinking about concentrating on sexual mores. That seems to be the area where a half million young American males are having a huge impact.

Lance and Joe both grinned. The blonde beauty was raising the topic of sex all on her own.

Joe spoke first. I like the sexual customs here. The Vietnamese women are hot. They’ll have sex with anyone.

She shook her head. Not traditionally. Traditionally, women in Vietnam kept their virginity until they married. Vietnamese men are not so particular and are not discreet if they successfully seduce a woman. They brag. Previously, a woman who lost her virginity got an instant reputation. She would no longer be considered suitable for marriage. Her life was pretty much ruined. There were always prostitutes, of course — there are prostitutes in the shadows of every culture — but traditionally, they were only a tiny minority of women in Vietnam. I get the impression that there are increasing numbers of Vietnamese women who are not prostitutes, who have never asked for money for sex, but who are willing to live with an American soldier for love even if he won’t marry her. If I’m right, that’s a new cultural shift. But I may be wrong. I’m basing everything on what I’ve read. I haven’t been in Saigon for long enough see for myself.

Lance nodded. That happens. Some Vietnamese women share an apartment with an American. They’re desperate. A lot of women lost everything when their villages were bombed. You can see refugees living in all the public parks.

Joe was unhappy about the downturn in the conversation. He raised a rakish eyebrow. What about women in Finland? What do they think about casual sex?

I believe men and women should be treated equally. Men should be held to the same standard as women. My view may not be universal in Finland, but it’s common enough. Most of my friends back home are feminists.

That didn’t give Joe the answer he wanted. He didn’t want to hear that she was a feminist; he wanted to hear that she’d love to go back to his place with him and conduct some personal research on the different sexual customs of Finns and Americans. I’d like to hear more about that. I know a quiet bar a couple of blocks from here. A small place. No loud music. More traditional.

No prostitutes?

Not as many.

She looked thoughtful for a minute, then shook her head. No thanks. I’ve had enough excitement for one evening. It was great meeting you guys, but I’m going to call it a night. She smiled and turned away.

Wait! Joe took a step toward her. Can I see you again?

She turned back. You might.

How can I contact you?

I don’t have a phone, but we’ll probably run into each other. Saigon isn’t such a big place. She turned away again and began walking.

Where do you live?

But she’d already disappeared into the crowd. Joe’s question was lost in the dark, humid air.

Saigon wasn’t a big place? Was she kidding? There had to be a couple million people in the city, and more refugees arrived every day.

I never expected to see Marisa again, and my heart felt like lead.

Lance was the old man in our group — nearly forty — and wiser than both us youngsters put together. Just as well. She’s dangerous. Hanging around her could get a man killed.

I should have listened to him, but I didn’t know then what I know now.

Lance looked back at the bar. I need another beer.

I shook my head. Not me. I’m calling it a night. I’ve got a lot to do tomorrow.

Joe and Lance looked at me like I was crazy.

Curfew was imminent, so it made sense to go home, but we didn’t. We still had time for another round. Besides, there were plenty of girls available in the bar and Lance hadn’t chosen one for the evening yet.

He picked up a girl every night and went to the clinic and got a shot of penicillin every two weeks, regular as clockwork. In those days, before AIDS and herpes and all the rest, a shot of penicillin cured everything.