Since I would often catch hops from my Advisory Team 51 to get to Tan Son Nhut Airbase, arriving at the airbase sometimes caused me to arrive after 2200 hours which required a special letter from my team allowing me to leave the airbase; otherwise, I was required to stay in the airbase temporary quarters overnight.   The first time I was met with this predicament, I called Papasan Bich, my Vietnamese contact who instructed me to give him some thirty minutes.  “No worry, my friend.   I send military taxi for you.   You wait front terminal.   You look for lady drive Army car, okay?”

I had gotten to know Papasan Bich by coincidence.   During my first tour I had run into a friend downtown Cholon who worked in the Signal Directorate with me.   Staff Sergeant Takada was a Japanese-American who loved blending in with the Chinese in Cholon.   He once took me to a bar owned by Papasan Bich and introduced me as a good friend asking Papasan Bich to help me out whenever I needed anything.   I, in turn, would bring Papasan Bich my cigarettes and liquor rations.   He paid the best price in town for blackmarket sales.

Papasan Bich was a powerful man and was into many thriving businesses through a network of contacts inside of the Tan Son Nhut Airbase and various army installations in and around Saigon.   He would illegally rent out available and unscheduled army and air force sedans from his military contacts and staff them with Vietnamese drivers who served as bona fide military taxis performing an official military duty.

By the time my lady driver arrived in her Army sedan, the terminal was pretty much cleared out, so she spotted me and jumped out to open the curbside rear door for me.   I asked her to drive me to the Victoria hotel in Cholon.  “ Sir, I take you outside gate and you take Vietnamese taxi.   I have go back.”   She dropped me off about a block outside the main gate where several Vietnamese taxis were lined up.   She would not take any money, so I understood I owed my Vietnamese contact a favor.

I met Papasan Bich that next morning and tried to pay him for arranging my Army sedan.   He refused money saying “ No problem, my friend.   You bring me new customers.   You bring me cigarettes.   You bring me whisky.   I give you best price.”   I called Papasan Bich a number of times over the next few months whenever I landed in Tan Son Nhut after hours.   Sometimes he would send an Army sedan and sometimes a fully covered Tuk Tuk, a three-wheeled motorized vehicle with a fully covered rear cabin with space for four passengers.   When I traveled in a Tuk Tuk, the rear compartment was fully zipped up with a small window to the front.   The driver would briefly stop at the main gate, produce some bogus document to the gate guard then proceed on to the taxi stand.  I would then take a Vietnamese taxi to the Victoria.

 Tuk-tuk taxi similar to Papasan Bich's

I had gotten openly brave and calloused about trying to conceal my blackmarket operations during my second year there.  I was living mostly on the money I made from selling cigarettes and liquor.   Papasan Bich took good care of me and provided quality weed both for myself and for my friends at the Advisory Team.

I once asked Papasan Bich for a vial of opium.  “I give you before.  You finish already?” asked Papasan.  “Don’t use too much, my friend.   Cần sa¹ good.  Make you happy.  Opium you die,” said Papasan.  “Next time I take you opium place for you see. Be careful, my friend.”

I seemed to have a built-in system that guided my drug and alcohol use.   Perhaps our bodies are equipped with a mechanism predisposed to tolerate only so much of a bad thing before the desire begins to wear off.   Perhaps that is what makes the difference between certifiable druggies or alcoholics and casual users.   I never resorted to treatment programs as I slipped in and out of both drug and alcohol use.   Or perhaps it’s a strong and resolute mind that decides when enough is enough and gives up the desire for the bad habits.

¹ Vietnamese word for marijuana, weed.

. . . On the Black Market Plum

"Ho Chi Minh City’s Cholon is Vietnam’s largest Chinatown with roots dating back to the 1770s; A large variety of Chinese products can be found in any Cholon (big market) so it should come as no surprise that during the Vietnam War Cholon was a thriving black market for US soldiers trading in American Army issue supplies. - Remlig, guest at tripadvisor.com