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toDALAT

Dennis Swanson

It’s a semi-true storyBelieve it or notI made up a few thingsThere’s some I forgotBut the life and the tellin’Were both real to meAnd when they all run togetherThey turn out to beA semi-true story

Jimmy BuffettSemi-true Stories

She was just a Saigon bargirl. It was late 1971, probably late October or early November. I had been in-country since January and would be headed back to the world soon, either with an “early out” and home by Christmas, or, if I had to finish my enlistment, around the 6th of January. Either way, I was “short”. I was in Saigon for few days, visiting friends and taking it easy. By this time the war was winding down and my office was pretty slow. I was assigned to a highly classified unit at a place called Marble Mountain just outside Da Nang as the NCO in charge of the Awards and Decorations office. The unit was part of an operation known as MACV SOG, SOG standing for Studies and Operations Group though Special Operations Group would have been a better designation. The unit was actually designated USARV TAG(TF1AE) which stood for US Army Republic of Vietnam Training Advisory Group (Task Force 1 Advisory Element). Prior to Nixon declaring that all Special Forces had been withdrawn from Vietnam it had been known as 5th Special Forces, Special Operations Augmentation, Command and Control North (5th SF, SOA, CCN). The only thing that had changed was the name; the make up of the unit was the same as it had always been, Green Berets. Let me be very clear here, I was not a Green Beret, I was simply a “leg” assigned to the unit to do a job. “Legs”, in GB speak, are any soldiers who are not “airborne” qualified. In essence it is a derogatory term referring to anybody who doesn’t care to jump out of perfectly good airplanes. The unit’s mission was to gather info for the CIA and it was so secret that if you were turned down for a “Top Secret” clearance you were automatically reassigned. Anyway, with the American participation in the war winding down, the number of assignments coming to our unit had dropped off dramatically and the workload in awards and decorations had become pretty much the routine stuff of meritorious service decorations as opposed to valor awards. That being the case I took advantage and got my boss, the adjutant, to give me a several day pass to Saigon.

While in Saigon I was supposed to stay at the operation’s safe-house on Nguyen Minh Chieu (ngwee-en ming chew) Street. It was a pretty nice place with it’s own bar and grill, decent bunks and everything needed to be comfortable. The problem with the safe-house was that you had to sign in and out and so the Army knew just a little too much about how you were spending your time – it didn’t really feel any different than being on the compound at Marble Mountain. The signing in and out had something to do with the classified nature of the unit and maybe it was necessary during the height of the war but by late 1971 it really was overkill. In order to avoid the oversight, when we landed at Than Son Nhut I simply walked away from the group, grabbed a may-xich-lo (my sic lo – a motorized pedi-cab) and had the driver take me down to Nguyen Van Thoai (ngwee-en vung twai) Street where I walked to a buddy’s hooch. I knew my way around this Saigon neighborhood because I had been here a few times before. Those previous visits also taught me that I could get away with not staying at the safe house. I was going to stay with my buddy Vern. He and I had attended the Defense Language Institute in Washington where we ostensibly became proficient in the Saigon dialect of Vietnamese. We weren’t in the same class but were in the same barracks and when we were allowed to move off post we shared an apartment in Alexandria. By the time we went to Nam we were good friends. I have to admit that in reality I had absolutely no idea where I was in relationship to the rest of Saigon. It really didn’t matter much because if I knew the address most times the xich-lo driver could get me there.

Vern was a military intelligence guy who had a soft assignment, lots of time off, and a whole lot of opportunity to contribute to the local economy of the neighborhood his unit was stationed in. The easiest place to unload your excess Piastres was at the numerous bars on Nguyen van Thoai Street. The names of the bars were a great example of the fact that dictionary translations do not always work. The owners would decide on the Vietnamese name they liked for the bar, then go to the dictionary to find the equivalent English word. The bar we frequented most often was the “Surprise”. This name was one of the few choices in the neighborhood that actually worked. One of the nearby competitors was the

“Nice”, another was called the “Fun”, and although I couldn’t swear to it, it seems to me there was one called the “Pretty”. I think if these were bars catering to the locals and they were named with the Vietnamese word the owner started with they would make sense. A lot of them obviously didn’t translate well and they always struck me as hilarious. This was a kind of tough neighborhood and I’m pretty sure that a bar called the “Nice” wouldn’t last long in the tougher areas of an American city.

The Surprise really wasn’t such a bad place and for the most part I felt comfortable there. It was, however, not somewhere you would take a date and you were always thankful that they didn’t serve food. There were several rather odd aspects to the bar that took some getting used to. The Surprise was on the second floor of a corner building – I have no idea what was on the ground floor. As you ascended the stairway to the bar room you were likely to, if you were any where near sober and cognizant of your surroundings, notice a Vietnamese family living in a room the size of a closet just off the stairwell. Strangely, the room was in the next building. You could see them in their bed because at some point the wall had been crashed and repairs never made. These people were, I suspect, amongst the poorest of the poor, folks just glad to have a roof - they didn’t have much else. The bar had electricity but no refrigeration. Beer was the beverage of choice here, Coca Cola being the only other offering. The beer was kept in barrels of ice behind the bar. How they acquired and afforded all that ice in a tropical city I never did ascertain and there were occasional shortages. When there was an ice shortage the beer was served warm, though if you pitched a bitch you could get a couple cubes in the glass. I never figured out how those glasses got washed, nor where that ice came from, and, more importantly, why I never got deathly ill from drinking that beer with ice. There were a couple other distinctive things about the Surprise. The lesser of the two was the live music on weekends. How the hell did they get enough electricity to keep the lights on and let that Vietnamese rock band crank up all those amplifiers without burning the place down? Those were big amplifiers because those guys liked it loud, and I must say, unrecognizable. I’m not kidding, really loud mystery music. But what truly set the Surprise apart was the bathroom. The “hallway with a urinal” would be a better description. The “hallway with a urinal connected to nothing” is better still. Even more precise: “the hallway, with a urinal connected to nothing, leading to the bar girls’ dressing room”.

The urinal was one of the old ones that resembled a wall mounted sink. It had a drain in the

bottom that entered a pipe that ran to the right and should have been connected to a down pipe. Only there was no connection, water just ran out the end of the pipe. In defense of the management I have to admit that it didn’t run out onto the floor. A hole had been cut in the floor and the water poured down on its way to the ground floor. I never actually looked, but I guessed that something had been rigged to catch the flow and direct it to the sewer. I always envisioned it as a large funnel stuck into the broken off pipe, though I was never sure at what level this contraption might be rigged. This facility would have been entertaining on its own merits but the really interesting aspect of the men’s room was the steady stream of bargirls walking past the urinal, and the GIs using it, on their way to and from the dressing room. Hey, I’m far from prudish but somehow this was disconcerting for the first forty or fifty girls. After a while I got used to it.

I had made enough trips to Saigon that I knew some of the girls at the Surprise, had spent a night or two with at least one of them, and was treated well whenever I went there. Being able to speak Vietnamese didn’t hurt my standing with the girls. GIs speaking the local language are rare birds anywhere, and were truly unheard of in this particular neighborhood. The girls, at least most of them, could be a lot of fun, but let’s face it; they were “working girls”. They could be sweet, tender, and quite personable, if you could comprehend their somewhat stilted command of English. They could also be quite hard and very cynical. Their cynicism influenced their humor and while I never did understand the

normal Vietnamese sense of funny, I did have a lot of laughs with the girls because cynicism I get. Their humor even extended to “poetry” in English. As an example, this is my favorite poem from a Saigon bargirl to a GI.

You love me beaucoupI love you ti-ti (tee-tee)You give me TVI give you VD

In case you need help with the translation, beaucoup is French meaning many or much, ti-ti is Vietnamese street slang for very little or almost none. No matter how many times I heard this it was always followed by raucous laughter by all the girls present. The attitude of the “poem” speaks volumes about the attitude of most of the girls. The best thing about these young women who were being forced by war economics to do what they would never do in normal times was their willingness to laugh and to be lighthearted whenever an opportunity came their way. I have to admit that by and large I liked them. I was keenly aware of the number one rule for GIs in Saigon: Never fall in love with a Saigon bargirl. This was an imperative and it was a rule I obeyed.

So, there I was with some time to kill in Saigon and on Thursday my friend Vern drew some sort of night duty so I had to fend for myself. The captain had given me a five-day pass; I had come in on Wednesday and would have to be back in Da Nang on Sunday. I didn’t figure I’d get another chance to get out of Da Nang so I wasn’t inclined to sit around the hooch when there was beer to drink and girls to - well, you get my drift. I headed down to the Surprise alone figuring on having a few beers and maybe spend the night with Kim Phuong (fu-ong). Quite often the really good lookers found some GI to fall in love with them and take care of them. Kim Phuong was a real cutie so I wasn’t sure she would be at the bar; maybe she had found somebody to “love”. I was prepared to be flexible with regard to with whom I would spend the wee hours after curfew. (By way of explanation, Kim Phuong means golden rose in Vietnamese. A whole lot of the b-girls were named Kim something or other. Some of them could have been the real names since golden could be combined with damn near anything to make a feminine name and was therefore extremely common even among non bargirl females in Saigon.) When I got to the bar it was the surprise at the Surprise – Kim Phuong was working that night. I ordered a Vietnamese beer called ba moui ba (bah moo-ee bah), which translates to 33. I have no idea of the significance of the number 33, if there was one, though I do know that the French had founded the brewery. A lot of GIs wouldn’t drink ba moui ba, believing it to contain formaldehyde. This belief was obviously downright silly, I mean who the hell would market poison beer? I have to admit, though, that beer did have a rather odd flavor. Perhaps that was attributable to its French heritage – the French are good with wine but beer doesn’t seem to be one of their talents. The odd French taste not withstanding I preferred 33 to the black market American brands that had, in some cases, been sitting out in the Vietnamese sun for up to two months prior to ending up in a Saigon bar.

I sat at the bar and shot the breeze with Kim and her friends for a couple hours. The place filled with GIs as the evening wore on, and since I wasn’t buying Saigon Tea for Kim or any of her friends they all went to work hustling drinks. Saigon Tea, by the way, was about two ounces of Coke in a liqueur glass for the equivalent of about $5.00. The whole idea was that if you bought a bargirl a Saigon Tea you would retain her company for a while. Once you stopped buying tea she moved on. If she didn’t, and she made a habit of not selling enough tea “mama-san” would tell her to get a new job. This was the big profit center in Vietnamese GI bars and slackers were not tolerated. In this particular bar if the girls were spending after hours with GIs mama-san let the girls pick who they would leave the bar

with and as far as I could tell did not require that the girls fork over part of the after hours fees. That was somewhat unusual but made for a pretty happy group of girls working the floor. Even if you didn’t buy any tea, you could still find a girl to spend the night with – this wasn’t the case in every bar and it made mama-san popular with the girls and the GIs.

Kim Phuong was off hustling drinks while I guzzled beer and before I knew it I was half in the bag and there was this very pretty woman sitting on the stool next to me. Most of the girls in the Surprise were pretty young, for the most part in their late teens or very early twenties. The lady next to me had to be 25 or 26 at least. Now that I’m in my 60s I wonder how I could have noticed the difference between a pretty 20 year old and a pretty 25 year old while drunk in a dark Saigon bar, but I noticed it immediately. We got to talking and moved to a booth. I had never seen this woman in the bar before and remember that she didn’t even try to hustle me for tea. Since mama san didn’t allow any of the street girls in to hustle the GIs I knew she worked here but she was different, real different. Mama- san’s rule was that you didn’t leave the bar with a GI until closing. We left for her place after about an hour so I surmised she wasn’t real serious about the job. I thought to myself “is this a street girl who just conned mama san into letting her hustle in the bar?” Hell, by then I had had enough beer that it didn’t matter, and since you were just as likely to get VD from the bar girls as from the street girls my only concern was getting mugged and that was unlikely.

At this point I guess I should explain that I can no longer remember her name, nor can I recall her face. Since I don’t know her name, from this point on I’ll just call her Co (ko). In Vietnamese Co means “miss”, as in Co Kim Phuong, or Miss Kim Phuong. Co had a room about a block from the Surprise. She must have had some money, her room was nicer than the rooms most of the girls had and she didn’t share space with anyone. It was clean and neat, as were the rooms of most of the girls and though the furnishing were sparse they were of a quality I didn’t expect in a bar girl’s place. The thing that really impressed me was that she had a private bathroom and all the facilities worked. It wasn’t luxurious by any means, I mean there was no whirlpool bath or any such thing, but on the other hand the drain was working, it had a shower, a commode, a sink and a medicine cabinet with a mirror and the whole damn thing was tiled. A short explanation of Saigon plumbing is probably in order here. I don’t know if there is any central water system in the city, I doubt it, though there is a sewer system. Most buildings have running water but it comes from a cistern on the roof and you don’t drink it. A hot water heater would be extremely unusual, but Saigon is so damn hot most of the time you get used to not having hot water and don’t really miss it. I don’t think most Vietnamese would find any use for it except maybe for washing dishes. One more thing, except on U.S. bases I never saw a toilet in Vietnam that had a seat on it – just the toilet bowl. Most of the toilets were old-fashioned French things that are referred to as “pull-chain conveniences” with the flush water tank mounted on the wall above the commode. Sorry, I didn’t really mean to go down this road but I really was impressed that she had a private bathroom.

I guess Co thought I had been too long without availing myself of a shower, or perhaps she wanted me to sober up a bit because a shower was the first thing on the agenda when we got to her place. Thinking back on it though, that really wasn’t all that unusual when spending the evening with a bargirl. As I mentioned, Saigon is hot as hell and the shower is a great way to cool off so usually the girls want a shower when they get off work and if they’re spending the night with someone they insist on that someone also showering. Most people don’t know it, I didn’t til I spent time in Vietnam, but third world folks like personal cleanliness just as much as we do. I think the only difference is that we have easier access to the required facilities. So, we both showered and we retired. I’m not going to

make anyone uncomfortable by detailing the rest of the night; it’s pretty easy to figure out without details from me.

The usual routine in the morning is to wake up and find last night’s sweetie sitting on her one chair drumming her fingers waiting for you to rise, pay her, and get the hell out so she can go about her daily life. To my surprise when I awoke I had the head of a lovely Asian woman on my chest and I had my arm around her. You have to remember that this is a prostitute. What the hell is she doing cuddling? This was really very strange. I lay there astounded for a while, then thought what the hell, found my cigarettes and lighter on the floor, and an ashtray as well, smoked a cigarette and went back to sleep. I had a pretty good hangover so sleeping through it seemed a great idea. When I awoke for the second time a couple hours later I was alone. I sat up and lit another butt and pondered the situation. Not that it was serious or dangerous, but it was curious. Then I noticed my uniform was gone. Now I’m really confused, there’s really no point in stealing a set of khakis except to make it so I can’t leave. Really, at this point I can’t go anywhere unless I’m willing to wear the clothes of a Vietnamese female. I’m a prisoner. Co returned to her hooch a few minutes later with breakfast for two. As I sat there with no chance of getting dressed and leaving I wondered what kind of situation I had got myself into. Co brought me fried rice for breakfast. My wallet was on the table so at least she hadn’t sold or stolen everything I owned but I assumed that she had raided it for money for breakfast. She went to a drawer and got me a fork and got a Coke out of the little refrigerator for me, smiling all the while. The breakfast smelled great, my hangover was passing and I dug into the rice without even asking about my clothes. I was about 5 fork-loads into the rice before it dawned on me to ask after my uniform. Co said it was dirty and didn’t smell very nice and so she had taken it to the local laundress and I should have it back in about an hour. She said she wasn’t going to get me cleaned up so I didn’t smell and then let me out in the street in a stinky uniform. She said all of this in Vietnamese so it had to be repeated and rephrased several times before I understood it all. When I finally was able to tell her that I understood, she laughed as if this was all a big joke. She genuinely found this to be funny. As I said before, I never really got Vietnamese humor.

We ate our breakfasts with conversation that was very similar to the conversations any two people anywhere in the world in our situation would have. It was inane and just a little uncomfortable, and for me the sense of awkwardness was compounded by my lack of clothes. I don’t think it should have been that way, but it was. When breakfast was finished Co excused herself and left, saying she thought my uniform should be ready and she would be back in 10 minutes. Before leaving she went to a storage cabinet that I guess could be called an étagère and came back with a tube of toothpaste and a toothbrush, and some shaving gear. The toothbrush was in its original container but it was obvious that it had been opened and the toothbrush used. I didn’t ask her about it and simply accepted it with a thank you. What were my options? Think about it. In the short time I had known her I had come to realize that I wasn’t dealing with your average bargirl. This lady was smart and wasn’t trying to pull the wool over my eyes – I could only assume that she had, in some fashion sterilized the brush. I figured what the hell, you’ve gotta trust someone sometime. In retrospect I don’t guess starting trusting with a bargirl would be everyone’s first choice but the situation being what it was I just went with the flow and went into the bathroom to get cleaned up.

True to her word Co was back in a few minutes and my uniform was pressed and starched, my shoes shined as well. I dressed and figured to be on my way and out of her hair. I asked her how much I owed her for the night and she told me 4000p, about ten dollars, which was the going rate in this neighborhood. I got the money out of my wallet and though I couldn’t be sure because of the amount of beer consumed the night before, it seemed that she had not taken any money, Vietnamese or American,

from me for the breakfast, laundry, or any other purpose. There was only one way to deal with it – I asked her how much for the laundry and the breakfast. The reply in Vietnamese was the equivalent of “on the house”. Not the response I expected. I paid her for the evening and no more. She thanked me and pretty much said, “Have a nice day” while I walked toward the door. It was about 10AM and already hot in Saigon so the door was open. Just as I got to the entryway she said “Xin Anh, khong di” (sin awn, kom dee). Literally, “please don’t go” but the “please” in this case is politeness, as opposed to any form of pleading. She was asking me to stay. I didn’t know for how long or for what purpose, but since I had nowhere to go and nothing that had to be done, and, since I was beginning to genuinely like this lady I turned to look at her. She looked me straight in the eye and smiled. I returned the smile and agreed to stay, figuring I can leave anytime I want anyway. We sat and talked for a while, harmless conversation. No real personal questions, the usual stuff that one would talk about with any woman he just met. The difference here was, of course, that I had just paid her to sleep with me. We talked and joked in a mix of Vietnamese and English, what in Vietnamese would be called “noi choi” – “fun talk”, to us, BS-ing. I’m pretty sure that that morning we shared nothing substantive, with the possible exception of her inquiry as to my marital state. Other than that, it was just talk, with me missing the Vietnamese humor, and her quite often not understanding why I thought something I said was funny. We did share a laugh about our lack of shared humor. She made me comfortable. You can share a lot of things with someone of a different culture, you can share a beer, a meal, a night, but comfort, that’s another thing. While there was still some occasional awkwardness, I was truly becoming relaxed in her company, and I’m pretty sure the feeling was mutual.

The morning passed quickly with the sounds and smells of a Saigon side street all around us. It was time for lunch and I offered to buy if she would decide what we would eat and go to get it. This was partially in my own self-defense as I was unfamiliar with Vietnamese cuisine; especially street-vendor food and I knew there were some things I really didn’t want to try. I trusted her to get me something my system would tolerate and it was my turn to pay, as I saw it. To my surprise she made a counter-proposal. She would, of course, select lunch and get it. However, she would also pay for it if I would take her to the Colorado Club for the evening meal. To restate the obvious, she wanted me to stay the day and take her out for dinner. The Colorado Club was an all-rank club not far from where we sat. I knew of it but had never been there. Back at Marble Mountain the chow was such that when I was in Saigon getting a steak dinner wasn’t high on my list of things to do. We had steak on the barbecue every Sunday, and good steak it was, because the Special Forces managed to get a lot of special treatment. Additionally they had some supply sergeants who were great at bartering excess materiel for niceties including good food. I figured the deal she was offering was a good one. It was Friday night and in all likelihood there would be live music at the club and I sure as hell wasn’t getting beat up on cost, dinner would be only a couple bucks each. Cost wasn’t really an issue here but it’s funny how it crosses your mind even when it’s totally irrelevant. So, we had a plan at least for the early part of the evening and Co left to get us lunch.

While Co was out her neighbor came to the door. We introduced ourselves and I could see she was surprised that I spoke Vietnamese. I as well was surprised as her English was superior to almost any other Vietnamese woman, or man for that matter, that I had talked to since leaving “the world.” The neighbor was an average looking average size woman around 20. She was distinctive in one way, however. Now I know that you can never be “a little bit pregnant” but I’m pretty sure one can be “extremely pregnant” and this lady fit that description. I was hoping she hadn’t come over to ask for help because she was about to deliver. I guess “hoping” is mild – I was actually terrified that I was going to witness a birth this Friday afternoon. I offered her a chair and we sat outside in front of Co’s room where we managed to find some shade. We talked somewhat awkwardly, the main part of the

conversation being about my ability to speak some Vietnamese. We talked about my teacher and the Defense Language Institute and some about where I was stationed, although I tended to say as little as I could about Marble Mountain because of its top-secret status.

Co returned with lunch for three and a couple of Saigon newspapers. I wasn’t sure if lunch with the neighbor was a standing arrangement or if she had been invited as Co left to get the meal. I determined that it really didn’t matter, the neighbor was friendly and seemed nice so the more the merrier. The Vietnamese have a similar saying though I can’t recall it exactly. The ladies found this similarity to be funny – I just pondered cultural differences and similarities and accepted that I would never get Asian humor.

We ate lunch and washed it down with Cokes. I could have used a beer but I saw no reason to make Co uncomfortable about her choices, the lunch was delicious and easy on my system so criticism would have been gratuitous. After all, all Americans drink Coke at every meal, right? The conversation during and after lunch was casual and I discovered that the neighbor lady was married to an American. She was the dependent of an enlisted man who had returned to “the world” and would be sending for her soon. She was a little concerned that she hadn’t heard from him in over two weeks but she didn’t seem too anxious about it so she must have believed. She had identification, as a military dependent issued by the Army so I knew the guy, whoever he was, was serious while he was in country. I was, however, somewhat skeptical that she would hear from him again and if he was out of the Army the US government wouldn’t help her. No sense in voicing my doubts, I kept my thoughts to myself. It was a nice day and not my place to rain on anybody’s parade.

We spent the afternoon talking and reading the newspapers. Co and her friend were impressed by how much of the paper I could read but I’ve got to admit that there were a whole lot of words I had never seen before in every article. I could pretty much get the gist of the stories but some of the details escaped me. Most of the stuff was war related and blatant propaganda. One would have thought the South Vietnamese army had never lost so much as a skirmish. The ladies, and I’m sure the rest of the population, took it all with a grain of salt. Some stories they actually laughed at, though the articles appeared to be trying to pass for serious journalism. The afternoon passed pleasantly and soon it was time to clean-up and head out for dinner. I had begun to suspect that the neighbor would be joining us since as a dependent she could get into the club with her own ID card and sure enough at about 6 pm the three of us started out for dinner at the Colorado Club. I didn’t mind the extra company though I was concerned about her ability to walk all the way and all the way back. This lady had to be 8 months along.

I suggested we get a taxi or a may-xich-lo but was over-ruled and had no choice but to follow these two city-wise ladies through streets, alleys, narrow passage-ways, and at one point right through a building that did not appear to be intended for use by the public. These two knew their way around this neighborhood and were not intimidated by ruffians or rats; they just kept going, ignoring both and laughing often. They talked to one another and left me out of the conversation for the most part. Their conversation was in what I called “street Vietnamese”, full of idioms and slang and I understood almost none of it. I didn’t feel totally left out, however, as from time to time Co would look back at me and smile. A couple times, in places where there was only the three of us she reached back and briefly touched my hand, as if to reassure me. At some point during the afternoon it had occurred to me that I was being used to get into the club, since Vietnamese nationals, except for dependents of Americans, were excluded. I dismissed the thought almost immediately because anyone authorized to get into the

club was also authorized to bring one guest along. I wasn’t necessary for this outing; the neighbor lady and Co could have gone by themselves. I actually felt pretty good about having been invited.

When we got to the club it was still early and the place was un-crowded. I had to show my ID, my orders allowing me to be in Saigon, and I had to sign in with Co signing in as my guest. The neighbor lady also had to produce her ID and sign in, after which the three of us found a seat in the main room which was a combined restaurant and bar with a bandstand that was obviously going to be in use this evening. The servers were, of course, all Vietnamese and while polite and efficient with the Americans, they were obviously disapproving of our Vietnamese guests. I ordered drinks for the three of us and did so in Vietnamese, which to some extent mitigated the disapproval level. While it was still frowned upon to be out with an American, it seemed it wasn’t quite so serious an offense if the American was civilized enough to speak at least a little Vietnamese. Evidently the club had music every Friday and Saturday evening and it started with the dinner hour and continued til closing. While there were a few officers in attendance, most with pretty Vietnamese guests on their arms, most of the crowd was comprised of junior NCOs like me, E4s and E5s and some Staff Sergeant E6s. Most were young, few were lifers, some had guests with them, others were with friends. In Vietnam just about every GI worked seven days a week, officers and enlisted men alike, but Saturday and Sunday were usually less hectic, less serious, more relaxed, so a lot guys were out having a good time on any given Friday or Saturday night. The place started getting crowded, the band started playing, and the ladies and I ordered dinner. Our third wheel insisted that she would pay for her own dinner but I insisted on paying as well, and since it was an American club, not a Vietnamese restaurant, my insistence won out. I ordered, steak well done for me, seafood, shrimp as I recall, for the ladies. The steak was pretty good though not up to the Sunday fare at Marble Mountain, and the ladies seemed extremely pleased with the shrimp. I got the impression that they had done this more than a few times before, they knew what to order and what to expect. They were not disappointed.

The band was from the Philippines, as were most of the bands that played in the American clubs. They were loud, they knew what the GIs wanted to hear and gave it to them, and as always, they had a very sexy young woman as the lead vocalist. As I mentioned earlier, I considered myself to be “short” but I still had over a month to go in country so I was not officially “short”. At any gathering of GIs anywhere in Vietnam, there was always a contingent of guys who are truly “short”. Because the normal tour was one year you have to figure that about one out of every twelve GIs you see is close to heading back to the world. No different in this group. If you were officially “short” you were entitled to shout as loudly as you could, whenever you felt like it, “SHOOOOOORRT!” It wasn’t so much that you were entitled to shout “short” as it was that you were obligated to shout “short”. There were a lot of guys in this crowd who would be going home soon, and I suspect a few pretenders and wishers, and the shouts were heard whenever the band was quiet for even and instant. The band itself was actually pretty good, some of them were, and they seemed to be happy to have the gig. It was obvious that they were experienced in playing for an enlisted crowd because they would do an abbreviated version of “We’ve got to Get Out of this Place”, which everyone would sing along to, and which brought on renewed proclamations of “short” from all those who were authorized to shout. It was a fun place, no fights, no officers or senior NCOs trying to stifle the fun, and, for the time we were there no outrageous behavior that I saw.

There was a small dance floor, and there were a few couples dancing. A few of the officers had American dates, nurses I suspect, and some of the enlisted guys were dancing with their Vietnamese dates. I noticed that the officers with Vietnamese girls were not making a show of it but that’s one of the prices to be paid for the privileges of rank, I guess. I asked Co if she would like to dance and was

most relieved when she declined the invitation. I’m not sure why she declined, the possibilities are endless, but I always suspected that she knew me to be a very poor dancer. Perhaps my complete lack of a sense of rhythm was obvious to her or perhaps she had danced with other GIs and was simply protecting her toes. At the time I didn’t care, I just sighed in relief and ordered another beer.

We stayed and listened and watched the activities until about nine o’clock when Co suggested we leave. I wasn’t sure what the plan was for the rest of the evening. As I saw it the options were limited to two; I would either spend another night with Co or we would say good-bye and I would see if Vern was at the Surprise, and even if he wasn’t I’d hang out there for a while and see what developed. What actually happened was a surprising variation on option one. As we walked back, retracing our earlier steps but now in the dark of night, whenever we were away from the throngs of people on the main thoroughfare and were in the unlighted alleys and passages Co would take my hand. At first I suspected this was a bargirl ploy to get me interested in staying another night with her, and another 4000 Piastres. On the other hand, the way she went about it and the way she held my hand seemed vaguely genuine. I had had bargirls come on to me before, and this was somehow different. As we got close to the Surprise, and therefore within about a block of her place, she asked if I wanted to spend the night with her. I answered in the affirmative without hesitation, I liked Co and spending a night with Vietnamese girl whose company you enjoyed was worth ten bucks easy. When I said yes she was holding my hand and she abruptly stopped walking and looked straight at me. She had to know that I figured on paying for the stay and that I objected not at all. Looking at me she smiled what didn’t appear to me to be a bargirl smile, then she said in a somewhat embarrassed way, “I souvenir you”. I damn near fell over on to the dirt street we were walking. I had heard of this happening, of course, but never believed it. To me it was kind of an urban legend, Saigon style. A bargirl spending a night with an American soldier and not having him pay? Up to this moment I would have said, “never happened”. I mean I liked these girls but knew them to be in business and trying to survive in a rough time in a rough place. Compared to most Americans this woman had nothing and yet she was going to give up something for my company. I’m not truly sure that a freebie from a Saigon prostitute should make you feel good about yourself but I was going to spend a night with Co as just two people instead of two people doing business and as unexplainable as it is, I was bordering on proud.

The neighbor lady said good night and went on alone. It was only a block to her place. I told Co that I would like to pick up a couple beers to take with us to her place and she knew just where to get them. She told me to stay where I was because the vendors always charge the Americans extra. I’m pretty sure she thought that it was ok to get all you could from the GIs but in this case she would get the Vietnamese price. I waited; she went around the corner and quickly came back with four 33’s. I took them from her and we walked on to her room. She put two of the beers in the little refrigerator where she kept the Cokes, opened one for each of us and had me move the two chairs to just outside the door. It was still early and on a Friday night there was a lot of activity, mainly GIs, in the neighborhood. Being on a sidestreet nobody could see us but we could listen to the goings on. I had never seen her have a beer before, though she had ordered a whiskey something or other at the club so I knew she was not a tea-totaler. We sat quietly, side by side sipping our beer, and probably didn’t say more than ten words each over the 30-45 minutes we sat there. Somehow conversation wasn’t necessary for now. We finished our beers at about the same time, needless to say I had been sipping at a slower pace than normal and she offered me another. I declined and I think I saw relief in her face – while she didn’t mind a drink I’m sure she wasn’t accustomed to more than one or two. We sat for another half-hour or so when she excused herself and went in to take a shower. It was still hot out and I was looking forward to a cool shower myself. She came out of the bathroom naked and lay on the bed with no self- consciousness. I went into the bathroom and took my shower and joined her on the bed after closing the

door for the night. A funny thing had occurred to me as I was showering. I was spending my second night with her; she was completely at ease unclothed; yet I had not seen her undress or dress. She invariably did so in the privacy of the bathroom.

I awoke the next morning, this time without the Saigon requisite hangover, and realized that we were in essentially the same positions this morning as we had been yesterday morning. She was sound asleep with her head again on my chest; the only difference being that today her left leg was thrown across me and my arm ran down her back, my left hand resting on her hip. I checked my watch and it was only about 7AM, too early to get up on a Saturday. I smoked a cigarette lying in bed and dozed back off. About an hour later her stirring awakened me and we laid in bed kind of in out of sleep for another half hour. She asked if I was hungry and when I thought about it I realized I was. She got up, went into the bathroom and when she came out she was fully dressed, right down to her everyday hat. She gathered my uniform saying she would have it pressed for me while she got us some food and out the door she went. I got up, brushed my teeth, etc, and went back to the bed to wait. In my life I had never been waited on like this. I was enjoying it, but being from a working class background it bothered me some that someone was doing these things for me. Co wasn’t gone long and her return brought both food and crisply pressed clothes. She had even brought back a steaming cup of coffee for me, while she had a hot tea. I gotta tell ya, a damn fine start to the day.

We ate quietly and afterward I got dressed. While I was dressing Co went for more tea and coffee and when she returned we sat in front of her door and drank. Her neighbor joined us with a cup of tea and I realized that Co was watching over the younger woman and trying to make here life easier and perhaps give her some time each day when she forgot her anxiety. A newspaper had also appeared and we drank our caffeine of choice and read all the news that the South Vietnam government saw fit to print. Our neighbor, Co’s neighbor, stayed about an hour then left to take care the necessities of her life. By now it was late morning and Co asked if I would spend the day or was there somewhere I needed to go. I took that as an invitation and said I would spend the day but would like to go somewhere nice, peaceful, quiet, and not full of motor scooters and xich-los. We talked of going to the Continental Palace, a hotel downtown but ruled it out because while it’s a great place to have a drink on the veranda, the activity around it is nothing if not frenetic. I asked her about the zoo, she thought that would be a nice place to spend a Saturday. We would not be limited to seeing the zoo. There would be music and good food, and, in all likelihood nobody to hassle a mixed American Vietnamese couple. She did warn me, though, to observe the social conventions, pretend we were nothing but friends, people who work together – no touching, no holding hands, nothing that would make the Vietnamese think we had a relationship and nothing that would lead them to think she was what she was. I got it, knew the rules, had followed her lead in these matters from the beginning, and so was confident of a pleasant trip. She asked if I would prefer she wear modern or traditional clothes. She had worn a traditional ao dai (ow yai) to the club last night and was stunning in it so, since she had made the choice mine I opted for traditional.

As usual she went into the bathroom to dress. She was in there for some time and I began wondering if maybe she was having second thoughts. The wait turned out to be more than worthwhile. When she came out she was wearing what I assumed to be her very best ao dai. In contrast to the black pants, the blue silk fabric of the dress portion was dazzling. I had always thought that the traditional Vietnamese feminine garb made the girls not just beautiful, but exotic as well. I had, however, never seen a Vietnamese woman who looked like Co did. She was slender and small, as they almost all are, and she was very pretty, as are many. Co, however, knew what it took to be exceptional. She had on black shoes that did not detract from the dress, and the hat was not the one she wore for everyday. The

ribbon that tied it on under her chin was of the same fine silk as the dress and of that same dazzling blue. She had put her make-up on for day, as opposed to the nighttime colors I had seen so far. I don’t know if she noticed, but she looked so good she actually made me gasp. She may have seen my reaction as from under that conical hat I got the most genuine feminine smile I had seen since leaving the world. Just to be sure she understood my appreciation I told her “dep lam” with a great deal of emphasis. Dep means pretty or handsome depending upon gender, lam is very much. I’m pretty sure my inflection was more American than correct Vietnamese, but I could see from the pleased look she gave me that she got it and accepted it as real. I was blown-away. At this point I was pretty sure we wouldn’t have problems with Saigon citizens thinking she was a bargirl or that we were anything but friends. The Vietnamese would immediately question why someone who looked like Co would be with someone like me.

I had this feeling of great inferiority as we left Co’s room to find a taxi to take us to the zoo. She got us one almost immediately as we got to Nguyen van Thoai Street and off we went. Saigon taxis are big enough for Saigon’s residents but we Americans don’t fit them very well. I felt somewhat like what a sumo wrestler would feel like in an original Honda. This car was really small. Compounding the problem for me was Saigon traffic and traffic rules. There was a lot of traffic while there were very few rules. Co didn’t seem to notice and we got to the zoo in about 15 minutes. I paid the taxi, Co said he ripped me off and I replied pretty much saying it’s what GIs expect and are used to. She grinned, the first time I had seen the mischievous look and I took it as a sign that she was completely comfortable in my company.

The zoo grounds were green and well maintained by Saigon standards. As we entered, on our left was a large open space, large enough to be a soccer practice field perhaps. Hanging out on the grass were 4 or 5 young guys with Polaroid cameras trying to make a few bucks taking pictures of the visitors. I don’t know if they had a system of taking turns but only one of them came up to us and offered to take our picture for the equivalent of 5 bucks. Co, it seems, knew the going price for Vietnamese was closer to 3 bucks and started bargaining with him. Vietnamese bargaining, to me, seems like a whole lot of haranguing and that the participants were quite possibly going to come to blows. I have never seen that happen but it sure sounds rough. They settled on a price and we had our picture taken. Since Co had made the agreement I assumed the picture was something she wanted as a keepsake. The photographer saw it the same way and offered to take another, for me obviously, for the same price. I don’t know where my mind was, what was I thinking, I declined. Obviously the correct answer, whether I wanted the picture or not, was “ok, let’s do it”. I’m sure that it was a good thing that I couldn’t see Co’s face at this moment, did the hurt she must have felt show from under her very pretty hat? In her mind had I gone from being a pretty nice guy to a complete jerk with just one word? I don’t know the answer to either of those questions because things started to go south very quickly. The photographer got pissed when I said no. He called me a few names then started in on Co. Even if she was crushed by my blunder she couldn’t show it now. Bargirls are tough and I don’t think the photographer expected what he got from Co. She saw his weakness immediately – the camera. She told him, as best I could make out, that if he didn’t shut up and go away she would take the Polaroid and throw it under the wheels of one of the army trucks that prevailed on the nearby streets. He thought she was bluffing but took a strong grip on the camera as he tried a half-hearted roundhouse kick at her. She was quicker than he expected and as he missed the kick she grabbed for the camera. He was off-balance and had to back up quickly, stumbling and swearing. She stayed after him til he caught his balance and he was by now really pissed. She was un-cowed and stood face to face with him, both of them glaring. I stepped forward to attempt to intervene, though I wasn’t sure how that was going to work or if the other camera guys would join in. Co saw me move and turned to me and put her hand up indicating I should stay out of it. I stopped but stood ready to get into it if it exploded. The camera guy flung a few insults Co’s

way, she responded, I looked at the other camera guys and got the impression that they were trying to keep a straight face. After some more insults the cursing camera guy turned to leave and Co Kicked him in the ass. I’m sure she could have kicked him harder but it surely got his attention. He turned on her with the intention of responding but she grabbed at the camera again and he realized he couldn’t take the chance. He knew she was both strong and tough and if he screwed up she would destroy his livelihood. This time he backed away before turning his back and the incident ended. The first thing I did when she came over to me was to apologize about saying no to the picture. After the confrontation it was way beyond repair so all I could do was let her know that I knew I was a heel. She accepted the apology but there was no smile for me. Then I asked why she had told me to stay out of it. She told me that it was unlikely that the guy would truly hurt her but the five of them would have taken great joy in hurting me and no one would have helped me. Then she told me that she knew it was not smart to kick the guy, shouldn’t have made him embarrassed like that, and that she was lucky the camera was involved.

The next hour or so was a long one for me. I was obviously in the doghouse for the picture blunder and we were on our best public behavior so I was extremely limited in what I could do to get out of it. We strolled and talked, even laughed, but she did not smile. We stopped to look at all the animals, the zoo is actually pretty small, laughed at some of their antics, and strolled some more. I bought her some kind of Vietnamese soft drink at a stand, was going to try one myself but she insisted I get a Coke instead. As we left the stand I asked about it and she said I wouldn’t like it and it would probably make me sick. It wasn’t intended for visitors. At least she wasn’t so mad she had stopped protecting me from Vietnam. We found a bench to sit on and drink our drinks, and as is usual in Saigon it wasn’t as clean as it could have been. I just couldn’t let that beautiful ao dai get ruined so I got her to give me a handkerchief from her bag and wiped the bench off for her. When I was done I thought I saw the hint of a smile but if it was she caught herself and her face went neutral immediately.

We shared the bench but sat apart as we should have, and talked and enjoyed the day. Despite our discretion some passers-by frowned at us. Most frowns turned at least to neutral, however, when they realized we were speaking Vietnamese as well as English. We even got a couple “chau ong”s and chau co”s (chau is hello and good-bye) from some of the strollers. It was a very peaceful place in center of an unbelievably hectic city. Co said she wanted to take me somewhere and got up to lead the way. We walked across the zoo grounds, I had no idea where I was but it was obvious Co had been here before. We came to a kind of pavilion, roofed but open air, filled with tables and chairs like a large outdoor bar, with Vietnamese music coming from it. We went inside and found a table and sat. We were near the entrance which I guess was at the rear of the building, at the front was a stage. A young woman was singing with back-up by a guitar and a piano. To me it sounded like it must be traditional music but when I asked Co she told me it was modern, the music you would hear on the radio. Vietnamese is a tonal language; the same word can be accented 5 different ways to mean 5 different things. It’s pretty much impossible to sing those accents so context is very important in understanding the song. I didn’t understand one word and so Co quietly explained the song as it went along. It was a love song and sad. The next song was a love song again, and sad. And so it continued. It made me wonder if anybody is Vietnam is lucky in love. The lady singing was quite good, as far as I could tell, the audience was appreciative and the mood relaxed. A waitress came and we ordered two beer 33’s and sat back and listened for about another hour. We decided to eat somewhere else and left not long after we emptied our beers. I told Co to choose where we would eat; it could be anything except seafood. I’ve never developed a taste for fish.

We left the zoo grounds and walked about a block to a small restaurant with a couple tables outside. Co ordered for us both including another of those soft drinks for her and a Coke for me. I don’t

know what I had for lunch, it wasn’t fried rice, it was delicious. I’m pretty sure I asked Co about it after we left but it escapes memory. We talked through lunch, again on our best public behavior. When lunch was over I paid and we walked back to the zoo where we found table with benches and sat facing each other. It was time for a serious talk, and while we could have it at Co’s, I was afraid we would not. I told Co that the war was almost over, that when the Americans all left the North Vietnamese would come, the South would fall, and she would be in grave danger. She needed a plan. She knew I was serious and that I was concerned for her safety. I asked her what she planned to do. Saigon bargirls would not be treated kindly by the new regime. Her reply confused me completely. She asked, “When will you go back to Da Nang?” I couldn’t connect her future with my leaving Saigon. I told her “I must go back tomorrow or be in big trouble with the Dai Uy (die wee - captain).” She looked at me for a few seconds then said, “You go to Da Nang tomorrow, I will go to Dalat next day. If you stay, I stay until you go, then I go to Dalat.” Wow, I didn’t see that coming. As we continued to talk I found out that she too thought the only thing propping up South Vietnam was the American presence and that it would all fall apart when we left. Her plan was to be in the mountain resort city of Dalat doing legitimate work, even if it paid very little in order to have a good story for the new rulers. As I had said before, she was intelligent, street smart, and tough. I had no doubt she could pull it off. I told her not to delay getting out of Saigon and getting her story straight – the North Vietnamese would be very hard on the South – they had suffered greatly and lost many and much. They could not make America pay so the South Vietnamese would have to. We had quite a bit of privacy where we were sitting so while we kept a watchful eye for eavesdroppers we talked for the first time about personal things. I explained how I came to be 27 years old and un-married. She related some of the details of how she ended up a bargirl. She had gotten married at 17, not unusual in Vietnam, an arranged marriage. Her husband ended up in the army, and at some point she stopped hearing from him. She doesn’t know if he’s alive or dead and the government has been no help. Assuming he was dead she met and married a merchant from India. He spent a good part of each year in Vietnam and returned to India for a couple months at a time. The last time he went back, he never returned and she never heard from him again. She was left with nothing from two marriages and had to fend for herself. I was not clear on her family though I believe her marriage to the Indian gentlemen pretty much screwed up her relationship with them. She had finished high school but didn’t have anyone to help her get a good job – everything in Vietnam runs on some form of patronage and she had no patron. Choices were limited to drudgery and prostitution. If she hadn’t been pretty she would have been limited to drudgery. She went with prostitution and had a fair amount of money saved. Not South Vietnamese money but gold and US dollars – again, smart lady. She could take a low paying job in Dalat and using her savings not suffer greatly. Before we met she had already determined it was time to leave.

It was getting to be late in the afternoon and we got up to go. She got my attention and without violating any social rules that anybody could see, asked me to stay again tonight, she would souvenir me. I took her up on the offer. I was going to suggest something along these lines myself so there was no hesitation in my acceptance. We caught a taxi back to her room and Saturday night passed much as Friday night had.

Sunday morning came much too early. It was very much a repeat of Saturday except that I would not be spending the day with Co. She was still asleep, her arm across my chest and her leg across me just like yesterday. I lit a cigarette and smoked without waking her. I didn’t go back to sleep, just laid there and listened to her sleeping. I don’t think I could lay that still for anybody today, but for over an hour I barely moved and she eventually awakened on her own. We had breakfast and coffee as yesterday, but conversation was sparse. Each time we passed each other for any reason we touched, sometimes on the hand, sometimes on the cheek. As we sat quietly we seemed to avoid looking at each

other for most of the time. When our eyes did meet we seemed to be saying to each other “I know, it makes me sad too.” We didn’t need to express these feelings out loud, it was understood. We had a second coffee/tea and watched the Saigon morning begin. I had to get to Than Son Nhut soon if I was going to catch a plane to Da Nang. I was supposed to fly on one of the SOG blackbirds but since I had not stayed at the safehouse there was no chance of that happening. I would have to come up with an explanation for coming in on a regular flight but as long as I got back before my pass expired anything else would be very minor and I would suffer only minimally. I had to go. I didn’t want to, but I had to. As I held Co to say good-bye she asked me to stay another day. It’s a funny thing how a scale kinda kicks in and you start weighing things. I would have given almost anything to stay another day. Almost is the operative word here. I had been in the army for 4 years. I had avoided serious problems throughout that time. I had a meritorious service medal and was being recommended for a bronze star, not for valor but for meritorious service. I even had a good conduct medal. I would be out soon, and back in the world before Christmas if everything worked out. If I stayed the extra day, considering I had avoided the safehouse, coming back a day late probably would have earned me an article 15 which would have, at the very least, resulted in no early out for me and would have kept me in Nam past the New Year. No matter how I turned that, no matter how much I enjoyed Co’s company, it just didn’t balance, and I didn’t need trouble now. I explained it all to Co and she, at least outwardly, agreed that I needed to go back. We held on to each other for a long time, in each other’s arms or holding hands and looking at each other. It was painful. I was worried what would happen to her. Then I did something I’m still not sure I should have done, and I’m not sure I did the right thing in the end. Having been in Da Nang, which was off limits to GIs, for 8 months I had a pretty good stash of dollars. I had a few hundred in my wallet. I told Co I wanted to help her with the move to Dalat and handed her a $100 bill. In my mind I was doing a nice thing. As her eyes filled with tears I realized I had screwed up once again, though this time I wasn’t sure exactly how. Then it became clear. She said “These days are you and me, I souvenir you because I like you. I do not want you to pay me for this time. Please do not.” I tried to explain myself; that I was helping someone who had been very nice to me and needed help. That if she didn’t take the money it would make me very sad. She thought about it for a while, a long while, then said, “I do not want to take your money, I do not want you to remember that you paid me. I want you to remember me as a woman you met, not as a whore you paid. I know you want to help but there is nothing you can do. Your money will not save me, I will save myself, or not. If it will make it easier for you to leave without sadness I will take your money, I would not like you to remember me as someone who made you sad. But I tell you, if I take your money, I cry to Dalat.” There was no room for discussion; one of us was going to be unhappy. Again the scale. If she didn’t take the money I would be unhappy that she had not allowed me to help. If she took the money she would be unhappy about our entire time together. That time had been good for both of us and that side of the scale far outweighed my helplessness. I took the money back and held her again and told her I was sorry. That I would remember her as the beautiful woman I knew in Saigon, and that I would have only good thoughts and tell only good stories about her.

We said our final good-bye in the street in front of her place. Her eyes were dry and we obeyed all the rules. We said good-bye without touching, not even hands. I turned and walked up the road to Nguyen van Thoai without looking back. I could feel her eyes on me, or I thought I could, the entire way. I turned right on the paved street to go to Vern’s to pick up my stuff and stole a sideways look down the side-street. She was gone.

I got out to the airport by noon and caught a 1pm flight to Da Nang direct. Across the runways I could see two of SOG’s blackbirds, one was getting ready to leave, to where I didn’t know. Well I figured I’d burn that bridge when I got to it.

We landed in Da Nang around 3pm and I got off the plane with my duffle bag and started thinking of how to get out to my unit. All I had thought about on the flight was Co and if not making her take the money was the right decision. Now I had a new problem to work on and I looked around the airport to see if anything came to mind. I knew I’d have to call the unit and I would catch hell for not riding the blackbird and if I could avoid the problem I had to at least try. The blackbird from Saigon was just touching down and the unload wasn’t far from where I was standing. If there wasn’t a deuce and half waiting then there would be one soon and I maybe could just blend in and no one would be the wiser. Just like walking away in Saigon, I would re-join in Da Nang. I got over to where the blackbird unloaded and quietly joined up with the 10 or so green berets from my unit. They paid no attention. We rode back to the compound and I was in. Sometimes things work out.

After we unloaded on the compound I signed in and walked to my hooch, figuring to think about the weekend and try to get back into working tomorrow. Jack and Larry, my two military intelligence type leg hooch-mates were surprised to see me – they hadn’t expected me back yet. I thought nothing of it, miscommunication of some kind.

Next morning I went to the office and my cohort Ron Mills was already there as was Nhan, our Vietnamese secretary. Mills too was surprised to see me and I figured nobody but me knows what the hell is going on around here. Mills brought me up to date and I got back to work. Captain Dunaway came to see that we were there and asked what the hell I was doing here. I told him I got back yesterday as we had agreed. He said, “Swanson, did you ever think to look at your orders? No! You didn’t did you? Take a close look at ‘em – you’re not going to be happy.” My pass was in my hooch so on my way to the mess hall for coffee later that morning I pulled it out of my locker. The captain had no idea how right he was. Out of the kindness of his heart Dunaway had given me a 7-day pass without ever mentioning it. I didn’t have to be back til tomorrow.

AFTERWORD

I never saw Co again. I don’t know if she went to Da Lat or if she survived the communist takeover. Around the 15th of December I flew to Nha Trang and from there went to Cam Ranh Bay by deuce and a half. I flew to Ft Lewis, getting there early in the morning of the 18th and was back home in the snow of the Upper Peninsula on the 19th. I was back in the DC area after Christmas and met Terry, my wife to be, at a New Year’s Eve party. Things had moved very quickly and Co was pretty much forgotten, or at least relegated to the place where distant memories are kept. Some years later, maybe six, could be eight, I awakened in the middle of the night and knew I had been dreaming about Co. Perhaps in those days I could still see her face and knew her name, but I hadn’t thought of her since before leaving Vietnam. Now, there I was laying in bed some years later knowing she had been in my dreams. I almost never remember anything about my dreams; Co is an exception. I didn’t know what the dream was about, only that she was in it. I don’t know if I told Terry about the dream or the story of Co at that time, but when, several years later, a Co dream again awakened me I did tell her the story of my weekend with Co. I share pretty much everything about my life with Terry and she had no illusions about my past and other women. I was, after all, 27 years old and single while I was in Vietnam.

Over the years Co has awakened me five or six more times, the last time in the winter of 2008 while we were in Ocala. Over that time I have told Terry the story in more detail and this last time we discussed it and agreed that it’s a pretty good story and I should write it down as best I can remember it. It was an interesting weekend with an interesting lady. I don’t dream of the other women and girls who were part of my life before Terry and I’m not sure why Co “haunts” me. After all, she was just a Saigon bargirl.