G.I. Judy Brackenberg was barely 5 feet tall with blonde hair bleached by massive hours spent in the sun. She had been a lifeguard before joining the Army. I once remarked, “How in the world did you ever join the Army? I thought you’d be too short to join.” She told me the story about saving a swimming teammate’s life. He was much taller and nearly twice her weight. While diving from the highest diving tower during a school swimming competition, he developed cramps after the dive and was struggling underwater. Apparently, Judy noticed this and dove in after him. “I may be small, Tony, but there’s another human walking this earth because I saved his life,” fearless Judy bragged.
Judy went to great lengths and used oversize fatigues to hide her small but attractive figure. She worked in our Signal directorate’s Operations Section and lived in the middle of our compound in a segregated inner compound surrounded by six-foot walls and built specially for the handful of female soldiers assigned to the US Army Vietnam headquarters. Nearly every man in our Signal directorate tried at one time or another to date Judy; yet, she never accepted any dates, so it was soon rumored that Judy was a lesbian. I pretty much ignored Judy primarily because she was just too short – even shorter than many of the Vietnamese women.
I spent a whole week training Judy to be a classified records custodian when her Operations Section centralized their classified records. Judy mentioned that I was one of the very few men who had not tried to date her. That impressed her, she said. She started contacting me more and more about security procedural requirements. We began to develop a close and harmless friendship. Judy was crushed upon learning that I was leaving the Signal directorate. That surprised me since I never thought of her as any more than a good friend.
"Who am I going to turn to when I need help with my security classified documents?" she asked. I introduced her to my main point of contact for security requirements at the US Army Headquarters Classified Records Division.
When Judy learned I was not leaving Vietnam but being reassigned to Advisory Team 99, 25th Vietnamese Infantry Division at Duc Hoa, Judy was elated. “At least we can stay in touch,” were the last words I remember her saying when I went around to all the sections doing my departure tour. Judy started to give me a hug as I extended my hand for a final goodbye. Another guy in the group kidded me saying, “Damn, Judy, maybe Tony’s got enough room for you in his duffle bag!”
I had been with Advisory Team 99 for a few weeks where we received mortar and rocket attacks regularly. Life was hard and quite uncertain on the team. Prior to leaving the Signal directorate at Tan Son Nhut, I had been aware the whole US Army Vietnam headquarters was moving to Long Binh as soon as their new headquarters complex was completed. I got a letter from Judy informing me of the move and telling me she had checked at the Long Binh airport and learned there was a chopper leaving Long Binh for Duc Hoa every morning and returning there in the evening. “As soon as we complete our move and get settled in, I’m going to come see you and experience advisory duty even if it’s only for a day,” she wrote.
I panicked when I read her letter. There was no way a woman would be allowed access to our team. I went by the team’s operations center and used a landline to call US Army Vietnam headquarters at Long Binh hoping to talk to Judy. Unfortunately, communications to the new headquarters was a total mess with lines not yet fully functional. Sometimes the person answering the phone on the other end would be in Tan Son Nhut, sometimes in Saigon but never in the new Long Binh complex. Aggravated at the totally dysfunctional phone system, I gave up opting instead to just write back to Judy asking her to give up on visiting the team telling her there was no way the Senior Advisor would allow a female soldier to the team even if it were for a short visit.
A week or so later, I received another letter from Judy telling me she had been to the airfield at Long Binh hoping to catch a flight to our team. She was not allowed to board the chopper to our advisory team. Female soldiers were forbidden in the forward areas. I kept getting letters from Judy quite regularly, but as with most of my past relationships, distance always seems to fade their promise. I was already out of the Army and in college in Corpus Christi when I last got a letter from Judy. I never replied. Judy’s friendship had sort of grown on me, but like many of my other relationships, this one, too, diminished with time.
©Copyright texan@atudemi.com - January 2022