Saigon Kids: An American Military Brat Comes of Age in 1960's Vietnam
By Les Arbuckle
3.5/5
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About this ebook
In 1962, when US Navy Chief Petty Officer Bryant Arbuckle brought his wife and three sons to his new post in Southeast Asia, Saigon was a vibrant, dirty, exciting, and perilous metropolis filled with exotic temptations. Young Leslie Arbuckle was fourteen at the time. A fearless and inquisitive American boy, he was eager to explore the city’s forbidden wonders, from its bustling black market to its late-night brothels. The new world surrounding him was intoxicating, and he enthusiastically drank it all in.
But Saigon in the mid-sixties was a lit powder keg about to explode, as an expanding war in the Vietnamese countryside began creeping closer. For Les, an exciting overseas lark would soon turn darker and more dangerous. Instead of running from angry street vendors, he found himself fleeing machine gun fire and witnessing the self-immolation of Buddhist monks protesting a corrupt political regime. As life went on within the confines of the US military compound, Les watched the city dissolve into chaos on the other side of the barbed wire.
At once vivid, funny, beautiful, and frightening, Les Arbuckle’s Saigon Kids is an unforgettable evocation of a unique adolescence spent in a strange and volatile world—a remarkable memoir of growing up American on the edge of a war zone.
Les Arbuckle
In the years between his birth in 1949 and his nineteenth birthday, Les lived in Texas, North Carolina, Florida, New Mexico, California, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Hawaii and Vietnam as a dependent of the US Navy. His father, Bryant Joseph Arbuckle, was a Chief Journalist who managed the Armed Forces Radio Station in Saigon, Vietnam, from June, 1962 until June, 1964. After a stint with the 50th Army Band at Fort Monroe, Virginia Les attended the Berklee College of Music (BA) and New England Conservatory (MM). He is a professional saxophonist living near Boston, Massachusetts with his wife, Joyce Lucia. He has performed with a variety of musical acts including The Brian Setzer Orchestra, Lou Rawls, Bernadette Peters, The San Diego Symphony Summer Pops Orchestra and The Artie Shaw Orchestra. His recordings for the Audioquest label and he is featured on the recordins of well-known jazz musicians Kenny Barron, Mike Stern, Cecil McBee, John Abercrombie and Victor Lewis.
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