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SAIGON NOTES: Talking Grunt Blues

The Saigon Post, Dec. 25, 1970

 

SAIGON NOTES

 

     Talking Grunt Blues

 

(Time: About a year ago during a lull in Red offensive. Place: A Special Forces camp, full of  shrapnel holes, near the Cambodian border. The young gunners of Charley Battery were a separate unit from SF, and sometimes at odds with them. They pointed out, for example, that SF  could stay inside its bunkers during rocket and mortar attacks. Charley Battery had to be out in the open, manning the guns, returning fire.) 

        

                   *

The medic wears Montagnard bracelets. "The 'Yards say if you remove your bracelets you may remove your luck."

                   *

Hot dinners were flown in. "Not so hot, but better than we expected."

 

                   *

"We used to have fun with the Montagnard kids. Then the little girl took shrapnel in the stomach one day. The kids are all evacuated now."

                    *

The pregnant Vietnamese woman in white pajamas follows her soldier mate down into their bunker near the barbed wire.

                     *

The old Montagnard 'Pop' wears jungle fatigues and enjoys his pipe. He points at the tobacco and smiles intelligently.

 

"Tabac Ban Me Thuot. C'est bien."

                     *

"Captain Coleman, our XO, came out with our paychecks one  afternoon when he had two weeks left in-country. He said he wouldn't ever do a crazy thing like that again. We took a mortar attack that same afternoon. The Captain died in my lap, right over there."

                      *

Colonel Sam, who used to teach literature at Saigon University, now commands the Vietnamese Rangers. He is paunchy and polite, but tough.  A Vietcong rocket once tore into his home where his wife and seven children lived.

 

"But I already build bunker for them. I teach them what to do. Rocket no harm them."

                   *

Special Forces Captain Palmer, who used to work in a Memphis bank, "One night a rocket would have finished off all seven of us in the Team if it came just three feet closer. That must be luck."

                     *

With a book, the young gunner is sitting off by himself under a howitzer facing Cambodia. The book is Herman Hesse's Steppenwolf.

 

"Hard to get good books around here, so I have some sent to me."

                    *

Cilenti makes a succulent pot of spaghettis in the SF bunker, adds clams to the sauce. "Man, smell that prevolone."

 

"We're adopting you, Wop."

 

"Hold on, Babe. Don't you mean I'm adopting you?"

                    *

Sergeant Brock says he knew the Green Berets when they were elite. He wants to put .105 rounds out there in the highland dusk.

 

"Ceasefire, hell!  Everybody knows they use it to get themselves re-supplied and re-grouped."

 

He plans to go to Saigon one day next week and see a woman.

                    *

"My grandaddy carried this flag as an Army dentist, WW I.  My Daddy carried it 36 months in the Pacific as a Navy pilot, WW II. I'm the last of the Potter line. Either I bring this flag home or the line ends with me."

                    *

In the SF bunker Lt. Turney's dark mustache droops. Oddly, he looks like a Middle East money changer in need of sleep. He sits down, eyelids drooping. Rat traps are set in the kitchen. A girl-famished Private jokes about sheep. Lt. Turney cracks a walnut and sips coffee. He mumbles something sleepily.

 

"All right, Merry Christmas, guys."

 

 

 

SAIGON NOTES: Dec. 21, 1970

(Vietnam Legacy Project. Details at July 4 post)

Dec 21, 1970 The Saigon Post

 

            SAIGON NOTES

 

                      by

                         Daniel Cameron

 

       JOB MARKET REVISITED

 

This column's Dec. 4 item,'THE JOB MARKETEERS,' described some shady 'employment agencies' which prey on semi-desperate men in Saigon. Herein are two subsequent developments: (1) December 16 'Global Assignments'  publicly announced the closing of its Saigon  office, adding that "No responsibility will be accepted for any past or future dealings with Global. (2) This column has received  a letter from Overseas Services, Inc, of Lynwood, California, dated December 8.

 

The letter is signed by Bruce Magruder, Jr. a former Lt. Colonel in the US Marine Corps who has served in Southeast Asia both in military and civilian capacities. Together with the letter, Mr. Magruder enclosed an impressive variety of documents and credentials testifying to the integrity of his firm.

 

These include advertisements, the firm's monthly pamphlet, transactions with the Governments of Vietnam,Korea and California, plus dozens of correspondences with employers like RMK, BRJ, Standard Oil, Sheraton in Hawaii, Philco Ford, Department of State, Lockheed Aircraft and the University of Maryland.

 

Mr. Magruder, during his visit to Saigon to open a liaison office experienced "dismay when learning of subsequent efforts of fly-by-nights to operate in Saigon."

 

He adds: "I note with interest that you refer, in your article, to the many 'so-called' employment agencies currently in Saigon. I couldn't agree with you more."

 

For the text of Mr. Magruder's detailed letter, please see page 3.

 

   A WORD FROM MARS

 

In a recent Letter-to-the-Editor, a Pedro L. Rodriguez says of this columnist: "I believe he is not worth a space in your paper because  he said he was born in the moon and is a naturalized citizen of Mars."

 

The reply to Mr. Rodriguez (in Martianese): "Awk-awk ot shash vim mazlimbka oosh ba ooshka!"

(For translation you must go fly a rocket.)

 

   VIM, VIGOR, VIRGINITY

 

Le Prince et la Vierge (The Prince and the Virgin) at the Eden. You must be 18 to see this, but it's worth it. A very professional Italian-French production in classic Latin tradition: sex as a symbol for fun, humor, wit and intrigue. with neat glimpses of Renaissance Italy. American-Swedish sexploitation is often boring and childish in comparison.

 

....An impotent Prince can make love only on rainy Sundays. His virgin wife has suffered through a whole year of rainy Sundays. Finally a truly stormy Sabbath arrives. The Prince rises to the occasion. Unfortunately he does it so well that he dies of heart failure. What is the Princely domain to do now for an heir? Enter the  Prince contender (Vittorio Gassman). This dashing contender, so often victorious, both on battlefield and in boudoir, gets three chances to prove himself with the lovely Virna Lizt. The royal subjects stand outside the castle all night, hoping and praying for success, But the dashing lover, who has bestowed himself on so many women in the past, begins to fear the prospect of failure. Has he spent too much of himself in prior adventures? Can he conquer this greatest of all challenges. A doctor offers encouragement. The doctor assures him that every healthy man, in his lifetime, "has 3000 arquebus shots in him."

 

The Prince and the Virgin. Not your typical sex movie.

 

P.S. TIPS? COMPLAINTS? WANT ACTION? Phone/write us at the Post. Names withheld on request.