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From: Joe Moore
Date: 9/29/2005
Time: 7:06:39 PM
Remote Name: 216.10.189.243
From: Sloan, Kent - Legal Dept. Sent: Wednesday, September 28, 2005 3:49 AM To: Joe Moore Subject: Vietnam
In Can Tho
It is about 2:00 p.m. and raining like no other place I've ever been to, before
or since. In comparison, Bangkok and Singapore have only modest showers.
Literally, it seems as though buckets of water are pouring down with more wind
than I remember. I had lunch at a restaurant in central Can Tho with the locals.
Not sure what I ate, I thought it best not to ask. The food was tasty enough, I
just hope I don't get some stomach ailment from the experience. Fortunately, we
made it back to the hotel before the rain started.
The drive from Saigon was uneventful enough and I had vague recollections of the
scenery along the way, but much has changed. The road was only one lane when I
made the trip in the 70s and now they have widened it to two lanes all the way
to My Tho. We stopped just outside My Tho at a road side restaurant and had some
fresh coconut juice. It was a fairly new open air building catering mostly to
tourist according to my guide. The one thing I did remember without hesitation
was the river ferry crossing from Vin Long to Can Tho. They are only just now
building a bridge across the Mekong at that point, not likely to be finished for
another year or so. Getting on the ferry, one is still constantly harassed by
dozens of beggars, hawkers and people just staring at the only westerner I saw
along the way, that is me.
Another thing I remembered immediately upon seeing it was the intersection where
you turn to go to Can Tho Airfield. As you may remember, driving straight
through the intersection would put you in Ben Xi Moi. I haven't been out to the
airfield yet as the hotel is in the central part of Can Tho so we turned in the
opposite direction. As soon as the rain stops we are going back out that way to
visit the airfield and to take some pictures. I also want to see if I can locate
my battalion headquarters building, which was in a non descript French villa off
one of the river tributaries that winds through Can Tho. I know where the turn
is, I just don't know that I'll be able to recognize the building when I see it.
In many other ways nothing has changed. There are still few cars on the road
this far out in the provinces and even Saigon doesn't have many cars yet. The
Honda 50cc motorcycles are ubiquitous and they drive like crazy as they did when
I was here long ago. In fact, the drive was harrowing with no one following any
highway rules, like staying in your own lane. How they avoid frequent accidents
is still a mystery. I remember when I first arrived here I thought to myself I
would never be able to drive in such chaos and yet after only a few months I was
out there twisting and turning through the traffic just like the locals. I am
not sure I would be up to the task of relearning that skill. One thing I noticed
though was the absence of cyclos. I was told the city government of Can Tho
banned them a few years ago as being unsafe and anyway most people own their own
motorcycles. Another sign of improvement was the lack of TVs set up in outside
areas with a crowd of people watching TV. Again, I was told almost everyone had
their own TV these days and the number of TV antennas on the building was
certainly confirmation of that fact.
There are quite a few new buildings (either governmental or hotels) in Can Tho,
but for the most part the city exists much as it did 35 years ago. The streets
are clogged with pedestrians, bicycles, motorcycles and trucks of various
shapes. I even saw a couple of old US army deuce and a halfs but neither of them
appeared to be in operational shape.
Break
Just returned from another tour of the city. We drove out to the place where Can
Tho Airfield was located and they have turned that facility into a R&R center
for the Vietnamese Army. We were not allowed entry and we were told not to take
any pictures so we drove around the perimeter on a road that only a four wheel
drive vehicle could manage and I got a few glimpse of the base from a distance.
Frankly, I don't remember the existence of this perimeter road, but my local
guide said it used to be patrolled by US forces. I was a little disappointed
that I couldn't drive around inside the place, but I was told most of the old
buildings were replaced. Then we drove out to Ben Thuy base a few miles further
outside the city. It too has largely been replaced with other facilities, but
they were using the landing strip for commercial aircraft and were modernizing
the airport. They have tried to develop a new housing addition on part of the
old air base, but I was told the lots were not selling very well because the
locals thought the land was still contaminated.
The exciting part for me though was finding my old headquarters building in
town. One of the friends of our sales guy who drove me there knew the exact
location where it was after I described what I did because the locals still
refer to it as Langley, a reference to the CIA. They all thought the CIA was
using the building because my unit was an intelligence headquarters, 525th MI
Group, and they just assumed involved the CIA. We did, of course, have contact
with the CIA, but I think their actual location was someone else. I took
pictures of the building, which was very run down and looked abandoned to me. I
recognized it immediately when we drove up to it though. I am not sure which
side this guy was on, but he claimed to have worked for the US Army and learned
his English with GIs. He is now a pharmacist and owns a pharmacy not too far
from our HQ. We had dinner with him and several of my company's clients in Can
Tho, neither of which spoke English. One of these guys claimed to be former VC,
but I am not sure whether he was just giving me a hard. They were both quite
cordial and we drank a lot of 333 beer. During one of the dinner courses they
served bugs, among other things. I declined to eat them and, as I now think back
on it, neither did they. Probably another case of pulling the westerner's leg.
After dinner and the client's had left, we tried the local club scene for a few
hours, but that also did not meet my rather finicky "culinary" tastes. The red
light area has moved away from Ben Xi Moi and, since it was dark when we went
there, I am not sure which part of town we were in.
As I left this morning, I thought, well, I have experienced all the same
emotions of the first trip, nervous on arrival and elated upon departure. I was
very happy to be back in a first class hotel with decent food (the Hyatt is new
and first rate). Tomorrow, I am going to wander around the area near the hotel.
It is in the central part of Saigon where most of the tourist visit and it was
the center of much of the US presence in the city during the war. We had dinner
a few nights ago at the old Continental Hotel, which as you know has always been
the hangout for the press corp for the last hundred years or so. It is showing
its age as is the old Caravelle Hotel across the street. For those who might
want to go make this trip themselves I would recommend the Hyatt or the
Sheridan. I stayed at the Sofitel. the first few days in Saigon, but I didn't
like it, although it was definitely less expensive than the Hyatt or Sheridan.
By the way, I also learned on this trip I have been mispronouncing Can Tho for
all these years. It is pronounced by the locals as Can Tha, with a more or less
silent h, rather than Toe, as I have been using.
I have a few pictures, which I'll send you when I get back, but as usual, I was
not a very contentious picture taker.
My last day in Saigon was spent sitting in my hotel room working on company
business. I have little desire to do anymore sightseeing. I came to the
conclusion at some point during the last few day that this place sucked in 1970
and nothing has changed. For me this chapter of my life is closed and I have no
desire to ever return, although I would not discourage anyone else from making a
similar trip if they had the urge as I did.
While I was waiting for the hotel car this morning at 4:00 a.m., for the ride to
the airport, the young doorman asked me why I was visiting and when I told him,
he explained to me that he wasn't even born when I was first there, but his
Father had served in the South Vietnamese Army and because of that when he
applied to be a policeman after high school graduation, he was refused
admission, the inference being his whole family was unreliable. He was openly
bitter and he didn't think it was fair to be punished for the "sins" of his
Father. I certainly agreed. Then, he asked me why the Americans left. I told him
that was a very complicated question, which would require hours of explanation
and even after he heard it, he wouldn't be satisfied with the answer. It was
interesting to me that even now, after 35 years, a second generation Vietnamese
was still asking for an explanation of our rather inglorious departure. Too bad
President Bush didn't serve in Vietnam. Perhaps if he had, we would not be
wasting more lives and resources in a place where our military intervention is
neither wanted or appreciated.