For the sake of security, traveling from Duc Hoa to Saigon had to be done either by helicopter or by convoy. Since it was unsafe to drive a lone jeep for fear of ambush, at least two or three vehicles would convoy with enough separation between them to preclude being trapped in an ambush. Helicopter travel was not much safer. There were a few helicopters shot down during my tour there. I was in one of those, but we sustained no casualties in this incident except for broken legs and concussions during the hard landing. We were quickly picked up by a friendly chopper in mere minutes.
Ojeda found another means of travel. I had been to Saigon on business and had to deliver some classified documents to the team. I had missed my rendezvous with a departing convoy, and there were no choppers scheduled to my Advisory Team 99 in Duc Hoa that late in the day. I was in Cholon carrying my documents and contemplating whether I should get a room at the Victoria hotel, a favorite hangout of mine because it had all the essentials of a cheap and comfortable room, rooftop bar which stayed open till 0200, and a rooftop swimming pool. Conveniently, the NCO club and restaurant at the St George Hotel was only three blocks from the Victoria.
On my way to the St George NCO Club, I passed a main bus terminal where buses from all over the area were arriving and departing. If these buses were designed to hold twenty people at most, their normal capacity was probably ten or more additional travelers. I started to cross the street at the bus terminal when I had to stop for a bus coming toward me. I noticed it had a sign center top in front indicating "DUC HOA". That's where I was going! And I knew where the bus drop-off point was in Duc Hoa. I jumped onboard, handed the driver payment in MPC because I had no Vietnamese Piastre currency. There were no seats available so I stood in the aisle towards the back of the bus. A few stops later an old Vietnamese man by me got off the bus leaving an empty seat for me. I was the only non-Vietnamese on the bus now loaded down with caged chickens, tightly bound bundles of leafy veggies and me. Several bags of rice lay on the floor with numerous boxes, suitcases and weaved baskets tied together on the roof of the bus. It was a Beverly Hillbilly moment but on a bus.
We were on the outskirts of Saigon when I started regretting my error. I should not have boarded this Vietnamese bus with classified Army documents on my person. I would be toast if the wrong people on the team found out what I had done. We chugged along stopping at every one of the many bus stops enroute even if there were no passengers waiting there.
A Vietnamese man in probably his forties and sitting across the aisle from me asked "You go Duc Hoa?"
"Yes I am going to Duc Hoa," I answered.
"Why you don't take chopper?" he asked. He then added "I work with Americans. What kind work you do?"
I began to get suspicious. He was getting too inquisitive too fast. "I am a guard," I lied.
"What you have in suitcase [briefcase]?" he wanted to know.
"Oh, this is just my clothes," I lied. I then closed my eyes pretending to be asleep while he kept asking me more questions. I ignored him and the many bumps and holes on the road.
After a couple of more questions, he gave up on me.
It was dark when we got to Duc Hoa. I quickly got off the bus and started walking the quarter mile towards our advisory team compound. It was a nerve-wrecking twenty-minute walk in the dark and expecting our regular mortar or rocket attack to begin any moment. When I got to the main gate, the gate guard asked me "Ojeda, what the hell are you doing outside the gate this late?"
"I just come from visiting a friend," I lied.
No one ever discovered I had used the Duc Hoa bus transportation system. No one knew that I had classified documents with me on a Vietnamese bus. I got to work early the next day before anyone else walked in and secured the documents in our safe. No one ever knew. Ojeda got away with yet another security violation.
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