[This is a continuation of the last post which was inadvertently locked into no-editing status.]
The promise I made to my squadron mates to motivate helping with Civic Actions visits to the orphanage was enticing to those who wanted a little more adventure in a typical "guy" way! "We'll stop by the marketplace downtown for a couple of hours on OUR WAY BACK! Those who want to can go shopping in the open air market & others can go for a drink in a nearby bar!" Of course, they knew there would be "waitresses" & the infamous B-girls (bar-girls) who would bring drinks or sit and talk with GI's for as long as one would buy them a whiskey & Coke to chat. These drinks were often, but not always, the well-known "Saigon Tea" which we had all heard about. Saigon B-girls had started the money-making tradition of charging for a whiskey & Coke and then drinking iced tea instead (it looked the same.)
The one or two times I can remember going into the bar in the afternoon with my GI friends (we were always in U.S. jungle fatigues), there were not many customers and the girls were certainly happy to see us! I do not remember what I did with the M-16 those times but the girls were more concerned with eventually getting our other guns operating. I recall some very beautiful Eurasian (French & Vietnamese) girls waiting on us - VERY beautiful! And me, not just a newlywed, but a secret newlywed! I think I just passed it off by saying I was engaged & could "not be butterfly boy" visiting all the beautiful Vietnamese flowers.
The troops were probably just as happy not to have the Trung Uy (1/LT) competing with them for higher payments in the private, little, back rooms (although my stock on the GI machismo market probably plunged with every downtown "after-trip" from the orphanage). Plus the girls understood I really WAS "taking care of my men." It's funny now, but I guess I sort of had command of an afternoon military patrol, then. More than most other AF officers I knew ever would. I probably SHOULD have gone Army! I always wanted to be a leader & had studied leadership extensively with my management & psychology courses. But, I had more command experience when I was an Airman Basic at Lackland (AFB in San Antonio) than I ever got again in 5 years of enlisted duty and 19 years of Air Force officer duty. That was when I was the Barracks Chief in charge of 50 of my fellow Basics when the Training Sergeants went home for the day. (And I didn't get "fired" like the other Barracks Chief -- good luck & the grace of God, I guess. I remember one night finding some of MY troops -- big ol' future football players for the United States Air Force Academy who were taking turns curled up on a table lighting a match to each other's live farts, of all things!) But, that is another story...
posted by Richard A @ 8:50 PM
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