Lighter Times in Vietnam...Helicopters, Women, and Beer!

[SASless]

Ran across this today....brought back some memories. Got whacked on the back of the helmet by a golf club one afternoon....met some Gold Diggers....and fell in love with Joey Heatherton (as did about a million other guys too!).

Entertaining Vietnam | Watch Documentaries Online | Promote Documentary Film (http://www.cultureunplugged.com/documentary/watch-online/play/10371/Entertaining-Vietnam)

[Janda]

Just back from a second holiday in Vietnam. Wonderfull time not like those that had to visit 40 odd years ago. Great bit of film.

[chuks]

A jeepney was parked outside our club at Tan Son Nhut, and inside were cover bands, always from from the Philippines.

The bands performed the lame hits of yesteryear, words done by ear, in that bizarre club with six or perhaps eight air cons in a row up there under the roof, blasting out a fog of cold air so that it was 110º in the shade outside but about 60º inside.

Beer went for a dime and mixed drinks for a quarter. Nobody with any English to speak of worked there, so that you had to order either "whiskey Coke" or "rum Coke." "Rum and Coke" got you a whiskey Coke because the waitress only counted the number of syllables before "Coke": two meant "whiskey" and one meant "rum," and nobody cared enough to sort that one out, certainly not the lifers who ran the club.

Bob Hope showed up with his lame-ass show and got booed for the first time ever in his long career.

We had a Caribou painted up in Christmas colors called the "Santa-Boo" that made the rounds, but it just didn't help all that much; we were not happy bunnies, we Saigon warriors. Perhaps it was different for the guys out in the field, but by how much?

I went to visit the Aussies, living under canvas and sweating it out in their little shack of a clubhouse, to find them ever so much more cheerful than we were living the true American "air-conditioned nightmare."

I had this idea that we should turn off the air-cons and let anyone who needed them leave, so that we could get on with fighting a war. What was it then, about 15% of our troops actually fighting, and the rest of us in various support roles? Was there something wrong with that picture?

[SASless]

My unit had a formal, well somewhat formal, exchange program with the Aussie's down at Nui Dat. We had great parties at each end. When one sees an Aussie Brigadier hanging upside down from the Gazebo Rafters drinking a pint of Beer....only to be bollocked by my unit commander (a Major)....the General was out of uniform at the time...but upon standing upright again that got all sorted out and the Major wuz sent to his Quarters after a real Bollocking by a One Star! Yes....the Aussies knew how to enjoy life....but so did we!

Chuks dear boy....if a Caribou made the Christmas Round it would have had to start on Independence Day to make it in time as slow as they were.

There were Air Con's in Vietnam? Cor....you REMF's lived well...but then you were bedded down with the Air Force as I recall. Hardship for them was when the Pizza Joint ran out of Pepperoni!

[BBadanov]

Chuks, we only paid a nickel (smallest denomination in MPC) for our beers in our Aussie Mess, and by the end of the week we had made so much profit, we had free beer on Saturday night...a skinful of grog, a good BBQ, then up to the Yank O'Club to watch the Filipino band.
:)

I posted the following (last November) about one adventure I had in country.

I did a weekend visit in 1970 down to stay with FACs in Ca Mao, in the southern delta (then IV Corps in SVN). While I was having a beer with the FACs, this Brit came over for a beer (or two). He had been ex-Brit Army, or perhaps RM, and was serving in a mercenary role leading out small long-range patrols on search and destroy. Perhaps I should say he wasn't "leading" - he would bring up the tail as he didn't want to be shot in the back.

He had previously served in this role in Africa, Congo I think. He had several chain type scars across his face, so had been in the wars. We drank for the afternoon, then we piled into his jeep and went off-base to a civvie-type house. This was the local Ca Mau CIA chief's house. We had a very pleasant BBQ, sitting around a large table with all the CIA chaps - and their wives!! And me, still in my sweaty flying suit. Eventually my new-found Brit mate and I stumbled off and back to base in his jeep. Ahhhh, happy days.