To ward off enemy ground attacks at our Advisory Team 51 compound, several meters along the left and right sides outside our main gate had been dug into a trench and planted with sharpened bamboo spikes pounded into the ground. The only safe entrance into our compound was a road barely wide enough for a vehicle. Whenever the monsoons came, the whole entrance to our main gate totally flooded over partially hiding the bamboo stakes. I was carefully making my way into the main gate in a downpour when I misjudged the edge of the road and slipped onto a bamboo spike that penetrated my jungle boot at the ankle. It did not seem that serious when I made it to my hooch and removed my boots. Alcohol kills everything, so I poured some of the Johnnie Walker Red I had and went about my business. My ankle became infected, and a couple of days later I visited the team medic who gave me some antibiotics. The antibiotics did not respond, and my ankle developed into a severe infection and swelling of my left leg. At one point it was so severe I could not even bend my leg at the knee without extreme pain. I had learned early on in my army training that pain is only temporary. If it hurts, just suck it up and deal with it. It will soon pass. But this time it did not soon pass. When it became unbearable, I resorted to pot and alcohol as my saviors. They made life tolerable as my swollen leg throbbed continuously. "It'll go away" I kept telling myself.
Convinced now that my leg would not be healing soon and fearful my leg might have to be amputated at my knee, I hobbled on down to the field medic who suggested, "Damn, you really need some serious medical care before you lose that leg. I hope you took the pills I gave you!" I had opened up the side of my jungle fatigue trousers up to my thigh to compensate for the swelling of my leg. The field medic took me to a Vietnamese hospital behind our team compound where we had an Advisory Team doctor providing medical support to the Vietnamese. "That's a serious infection." said the doctor. "Why didn't you come in sooner?"
"I thought it would get better and go away, but it just keeps going further and further up my leg." I replied. "When I could finally get to the medic, he gave me some pills for the infection. They didn't seem to work."
The doctor pressed his finger into my reddish swollen thigh and released after a few seconds. The spot turned whitish against the reddish thigh and the depression lingered for a few seconds before it vanished. He didn't seem alarmed which made me feel better. I fought the urge to ask him if I might lose my leg. I just didn't want to know really. The doctor gave me an injection then directed the team medic to give me some pills for the infection warning me not to drink any alcohol for it would inhibit the antibiotics. I took my medication immediately. By morning I could see the leg had taken on a different hue. I took to controlled drinking because there was nothing for me to do but sit in my hooch and read. A couple of times a day I would hobble over to one of the empty bunkers and smoke my pipe. After some ten days, the infection was under control, and I was feeling almost normal again. I could walk almost normal, but there was that layer of skin from my previously swollen leg peeling off.
With my leg now healed, I arranged for four days off then left for Can Tho to catch a flight for Saigon. At Can Tho I checked in with our sister unit, Advisory Team 96, wanting a bed for the night but found no beds available, and the downtown hotels were not safe. At the mess hall, I sat with a group of advisors and who quickly identified me as not being a member of their team. I told them my story and how I needed a bed for the night until I could catch a flight to Saigon that next day. An NCO suggested he could open up the team chapel, and I could sleep there if I could not find anything else, so that developed into a plan.
After dinner, I found the team chapel and discovered it was unlocked as the NCO had told me. I threw my laundry bag that always served as my suitcase into one of the back pews and tried to get comfortable, but I needed a shower. So I walked around the team compound with my towel and bag of toiletries looking for the shower and ran into a Specialist Five who greeted me as a long-time friend. I tried to remember him but couldn't, and he kept asking me about other friends whom I remembered, but I just could not remember him. Finally he asked me upfront "You don't remember me, do you?" I shook my head, and he proceeded to tell me he worked in the classified cage in Tan Son Nhut where I would go pick up and deliver classified documents. He was the one who would inventory the documents being deposited or released and how we had several beers together both at Tan Son Nhut and in Saigon. I still didn't remember him, but I lied saying I did. I told him about my plight of sleeping in the chapel because there were no beds and I would be leaving for Saigon in the morning. He suggested I take his bed since he lived downtown with his girlfriend. I moved my laundry bag from the chapel and slept comfortably in a real bed unlike the cot I had back at my team. I caught an early flight and arrived at Saigon early morning.
My first stop was St George NCO Club where I had my first decent meal in weeks. After lunch I walked up to the bar and noticed they had Dr Pepper which had always been my favorite but had not seen since leaving the 'World'. As I left the bar, I picked up two six packs of Dr Pepper and two bottles of Johnnie Walker Red. Carrying my laundry bag, my Johnnie Walker bottles in side pockets and my six packs of Dr Pepper safely stashed in my laundry bag, I walked down the road to the Victoria Hotel where I usually stayed while in Saigon. A couple of doors down from the St George NCO Club I passed by Hai Cua (two crabs) restaurant, a favorite of mine since I had discovered it several months earlier. I stepped in, dropped my bag by the entrance and ordered two shrimp dinners to go. The shrimp were fried in some type of tempura and were the biggest shrimp I'd ever had anywhere else.
The old Vietnamese lady who ran the restaurant remembered me and stiffly waddled over to me with a broad grin proudly displaying her glittering black teeth. I had learned early into my first tour that Vietnamese women of an earlier generation traditionally blackened their teeth with betel nut. Mamasan sat down across the table from me and made small talk in broken English asking me where I'd been. I was always suspicious when any Vietnamese asked me these type questions, so I just played it off. My shrimp dinners were brought to me in a covered reed basket. As I paid for my shrimp dinner, I asked if they could put them in something else because I didn't want to take the reed basket. The old Vietnamese lady offered "No problem, my friend. You take now. You bring next time. No problem."
After signing in at the Victoria, I took the elevator up to my floor. A curiously attractive and well-dressed Vietnamese lady probably in her late twenties and in the elevator with me asked me if I was going "back home". I have always disliked talking to people I don't know. I curtly answered "No."
"Smells good. What you eat?"
I told her it was shrimp from Hai Cui.
"You stay here long time?" she asked.
Not really knowing if she was asking about staying long time in Vietnam or at the hotel, I curtly answered "No."
She noticed my bottles of Johnnie Walker sticking out of my side pockets. She smiled asking "You need friend to help you drink?"
Once more I curtly answered "No."
The elevator stopped, I lugged my laundry bag and myself to my room and opened my Johnnie Walker mixing it with Dr Pepper. I just wanted to be alone. As David Thoreau offers in Walden Pond, "I have a great deal of company in the house, especially in the morning when nobody calls." I, too, enjoy the company of myself at times like this. I drank, slept, drank, slept. When I'd wake up I'd drink some more. Morning came, and I found myself with a terrible hangover, thirsty and dreadfully hungry. I must have drunk seven or eight Dr Peppers with a good portion of Johnnie Walker. My two orders of shrimp were still sitting there unopened. I was terribly hungry, so I opened the now limp, soggy shrimp and tried to eat one.For whatever reason, these were now the most hideous, tasteless shrimp I ever had. I emptied the shrimp into the trashcan to return the basket to the old Vietnamese mamasan.
As I passed the Victoria front desk on my way to the St George Hotel NCO Club, I noticed the well-dressed elevator lady working at the front desk. I returned her wave then headed to dinner at the St George NCO Club for lunch. I was in no mood for conversation.
After a bowl of chicken soup and feeling quite lousy, I decided to visit a friend in Saigon, a friend I had not seen in months. Jackson had an office at the Cholon PX complex and was a Food Inspector. He drove all over Saigon, Cholon and Tan Son Nhut inspecting military mess halls, snack bars, military clubs, commissaries and any military establishment where food products were prepared. Jackson and I were just coming out of the Cholon PX when a unshaven and darker than black soldier in raggedy jungle fatigues and his M-2 carbine strapped over on his shoulder stopped us wagging his finger at Jackson. "Hey, man, where you frooom?" he asked. I noticed he was wearing a MACV patch, so from his M-2 carbine and MACV patch, I quickly surmised he was fresh from the field and assigned to an advisory team.
"Why the fuck you wanna know?" Jackson shot back.
Pointing to Jackson's name tag, black man said "Man, your name is Jackson. Are you from Aleebamma?"
"Fuck yea. Why you ask?" said Jackson.
"Well, man, I'm a Jackson, too, from Aleebamma. Just thinking we may be related in some way."
"Man, just keep on walking, asshole," said Jackson. "I sure the hell ain't got no black blood in my family line!"
Black Jackson made no reply but started chuckling and shaking his head as he strutted away. My buddy Jackson never got over black Jackson suggesting they might be related. "Godammit, Tony, you have no idea how we despise these people back home. He would be ostracised if he ever suggested that shit on the streets back home." Jackson was okay with Mexicans, but it was quite evident that blacks would never be in his inner circle.
Jackson and I cruised the bars and when that got old, he pulled out a vial of tar-looking opium pieces. A small piece mixed into a lit pipe of pot caused a super mind-numbing sensation. I always carried my bamboo pipe with me. My buddy had a Vietnamese friend who provided him with the opium rocks for cartons of American cigarettes from the PX. Since I did not smoke cigarettes, I still had my monthly authorized four cartons of cigarettes unused on my ration card. That next morning my friend and I walked into the PX. I bought my month's ration of cigarettes which I gave him for trading material. In return, he gave me the vial of opium rocks. I had now graduated into the second tier of drugs.
On my return to Victoria hotel, I started another serious session with leftover Johnnie Walker, the remaining Dr Pepper and my opium rocks. I settled into the balcony alone drinking, smoking and watching daylight turn to dusk then once again to dawn. I staggered on over to my bed and slept well into that next afternoon waking to the dreaded penalties of overindulgence.
Before I left Saigon and headed back to my Advisory Team, I dropped by my old friend, Papasan Bich, and took him my remaining ration of liquor. I always got the best deals from him. As I was checking out at the Victoria, the Vietnamese elevator lady at the front desk wished me well and asked me when I was coming back. She had been so friendly, and I had been overly rude to her. I gave her my unopened bottle of Johnnie Walker Red. She smiled telling me "Oh, I keep this for when you come back."
Having completed my self-prescribed decompression therapy, I took a taxi to Tan Son Nhut main gate and caught the first flight back to Can Tho. From there I caught a ride on a C-123 delivering supplies to my Advisory Team 51. It took several days to get over the Johnnie Walker with Dr Pepper experience. My stomach rejected solid food for days. I was unable to drink Johnnie Walker for many years after that. Similarly, for many, many years after that weekend, I could not even stand to look at a Dr Pepper without gagging.
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