Robin was a lifesaver for she sent me an electric blanket. Really, in Vietnam? During the tropical monsoon season, every item of clothing and your bed became uncomfortably damp and emanated a musty odor. The remedy was to use the electric blanket during the cool nights, having placed one’s clothes for the next day under the heated blanket to dry them. Another trick was to hang a lighted 100-watt light bulb from the ceiling of the steel locker to combat the dampness.
One vision that sticks with me is of my freshly mama san laundered fatigues, hanging under the overhang of the hooch’s roof during the monsoons, drying at a snail’s pace. She also vigorously complained that my operating room-bloodied combat boots were “number 10” (worst on a scale of one to ten). Older Vietnamese women, mama sans, never utilized chairs and squatted on the floor when ironing, doing other chores, eating, smoking, and chewing the ever-present beetle nuts. Their appearance in wide-based conical, woven straw hats, silky knee-length tops (Ao Dai), baggy black pants and displaying a greenish black-toothed smile was universal.
As other docs rotated out of country for home on their Date of Estimated Return from Overseas (DEROS), furnishings were unloaded at reasonable prices. I invested in a large comfortable red leather chair, a lamp for reading, metal shelves, a desk and a chest of drawers. I hung decorative curtains on the windows and covered the top of the chest with a greenish towel ordered from Penney’s. The latter was my serving area. I needed cabinet space for storage of booze, snacks, texts, stereo equipment, slides, cameras, etc., so I gathered as many wooden rocket boxes, which were about three feet long and utilized for shipment of mortar rounds, as I could find.
I knew carpentry from working with my dad. Some of the boxes were broken down for lumber to panel the inside of the hooch, others were hung intact from the walls as cabinets. The hinged lid made a great door with its own hardware when hung vertically or with the hinge side down. Shelves were added. A coat of black paint brightened the cabinets. The five-finger discounted, partially filled gallon can of sea green paint covered the ceiling and interior wall below the windows. There was not enough for all the interior walls, and I was reluctant to repeat the theft from the army storage. So I added art to my bare knot-filled plywood walls by painting a disgruntled Charlie Brown with a cloud over his head declaring, “Phu Bai Sucks.”
My home
A loaded 38 holstered revolver hung at the head of my bed, hopefully never to be used. There had been occasional attempted intrusions of the compound’s perimeter by the Viet Cong (VC). It was reported to us that Vietnamese locals who had worked on the compound by day were killed at the wire at night. These sappers carried explosives hoping to slither through the encircling protective sharp-edged Concertina wire (improved barbed wire) to blow up the compound. One did not enter another’s hooch without announcing your presence for you could be shot.
Charlie Brown and my 38
Now, Bob’s side of the hooch was a thing of beauty.
The room held a small refrigerator, an electric frying pan, an AC, a fan, and a huge metal cabinet stocked with food stuffs mailed to us by our wives, relatives, and friends. Sardines, Nabisco saltines, Ritz crackers, Hickory Hill meats and cheeses, MRIs (today called MREs, i.e., meals ready to eat), canned meats, and other staples.
Bob’s side with visitors from Quang Tri
My sister, Helene, successfully sent me a birthday cake. Both baked layers were wrapped in aluminum foil, placed in a sturdy shipping box with canned chocolate icing, and shipped to Vietnam, arriving totally fresh and intact.
In the late evenings after a hearty meal and some liquid refreshment, Bob would lay on his bed with headphones listening to reel-to-reel music and usually be lulled to sleep. My responsibility became turning off the Sony tape deck and removing the headphones as gently as possible.
FOOD SERVICES
Didn’t we have a mess hall for sustenance? Sure, but the food was often suspect and of marginal quality, especially when serving MUO, i.e., meat of unknown origin. So Bob and I always had a back up plan for dining on his side of the hooch.
The best meal in the mess hall was midnight breakfast with very palatable scrambled eggs, bacon, toast, and sausages. Needless to say, we were often up at that hour caring for patients.
Mess hall garbage
Much garbage was generated in food-service activity.
The discarded material was positioned behind the mess hall in two approximate locations labeled as “Edible” and “Nonedible” garbage in English and Vietnamese. The countryside Vietnamese people were chronically malnourished and welcomed sustenance from any source.
One day, I drove in the truck to the garbage dump utilized by the 85th Evac in the Phu Bai area and was saddened and astonished to observe Vietnamese men, women, and children scouring like ants the refuse for anything to possibly ease their hunger. Forget nutritional value and food pyramids.
The locals who worked in food services however recognized a good thing when they saw it and gradually the silverware, cups, plates, and stored produce would disappear. Hiding the contraband at the bottom of liquid-filled garbage drums deterred thorough inspection by those responsible for monitoring the local’s activities.
MONSOONS
When I arrived on September 7, 1970, the sun was shining, and the temperature highs were in the seventies with low humidity. By mid-October, it began to rain day and night and persisted into mid-March.
Orderly room (at top left), the Sugiyami Highway (behind white posts), my first Hooch (on the top right)
When actual raindrops were not falling, a soupy, thick, misty, wet blanket descended on the 85th Evac. The temperature dropped into the mid to upper forties. It was constantly cold and wet. The mama sans were unfazed and efficiently cleaned our boots. They washed, dried and ironed our clothes, swept the hooch floor with colonial American-appearing straw brooms, and squatted. Vietnamese women did not sit.
The flow of casualties continued, as did our daily pursuits. How to stay dry? The army supplied us with cumbersome heavy rain suits, which became saunas with the least physical effort. The Farmer John rain pants were discarded. The rubber boots were occasionally useful. The hooded jacket worked well.
Colonel Sugiyama, our commanding officer (CO), even directed the construction of a series of elevated pathways using PSP supported on wooden rocket boxes. The appropriately named Sugiyama Highway did effectively aid us in negotiating the deep mud and small lakes created by the constant rains.
During this time, there was an escalated incidence of immersion foot, often called trench foot, for the trooper’s feet were constantly wet in a cool environment. The combination of fungal and bacterial skin and subcutaneous infections were painful, debilitating, and often required hospitalization for intravenous antifungal and antibiotic treatment and intensive foot care.
Immersion Foot
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