Jehovah’S Windfall

By Joe Hoover

JEHOVAHS WINDFALL is set against the backdrop of early 1960s Vietnam, where Air Force documentary cameraman Joe Hoffa finds himself involved with beautiful Chinese heiress Nit Noi Ho. Joe is soon committed to helping save the Ho family treasures from the clutches of Diems corrupt South Vietnamese government.

From the opening action to the exciting conclusion, protagonist Joe Hoffa, aka Ja-ho-fa, (as his driver and compatriot, Dong, nicknames him), is soon immersed in a dark world of smuggling and deal making. This illuminating slice of life takes the reader through the back streets of wartime Saigon, peppered with peasant girl prostitution, black marketing, and unbelievable corruption, and into the towns and villages of that war-torn country.

Through daring and bold undertakings, including brushes with Diems secret police, Joe and Nit Noi overcome insurmountable obstacles and finally realize their dreams of wealth and happiness in America.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Jul 22, 2014
• ISBN: 9781491732205

Joe Hoover

During the early sixties, Joe Hoover was an Air Force combat cameraman caught up in the Vietnam conflict. Late sixties: Lookout Mountain, Hollywood, California: Joe filmed "There is a Way," nominated for "Best Documentary" at Cannes Film Festival. He filmed national TV commercials for Red Lobster, Circus World, and early live INTELSAT uplinks from Walt Disney World, Epcot, and Sea World for Italian National TV. He directed "Whiz, the Elf Who Made Christmas Special," a prime time television special sponsored by Sears; syndicated in 122 top-rated markets. He wrote and produced, "Secrets of Top Private Eyes," a PI training course.

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Prelude

The big Pan American contract 707 flew high above the endless Pacific, heading southwest toward Viet Nam. Every one of its 141 seats was occupied with loud and boisterous US Army troopers and US Air Force personnel. Almost all were men, with the exception of a group of six US Navy nurses, seated at the front of the aircraft. All aboard were officially advisors, on their way to Viet Nam to help out America’s Asian friend in defense of their little country against the Communist aggressors of North Viet Nam and China. President Kennedy had recently announced 16,000 US advisors would be sent to The Republic of Viet Nam, which was really South Viet Nam, . . . a strategic Southeast Asian friend and ally.

Airman First Class Joe Hoffa read again the temporary duty orders for 100 days, dated 1 August, 1963, assigning the young documentary cameraman to . . . Detachment 3, 1352nd Photographic Group, Ton Son Nhut Air Base, Saigon, Republic of Viet Nam, to document US Air Force activities throughout Southeast Asia.

Joe Hoffa had seen a lot of action for a young man of twenty-three; first at age eighteen, as a still photographer, then starting at age twenty, as a motion picture cameraman.

Joe was embarking on yet another adventure, this time a documentary filming assignment. He was to be part of a seven man still and motion picture team of shooters, all volunteers, according to the scuttlebutt, coming together to film US Air Force activities in the growing conflict affecting the stability of all Southeast Asia. The team would be traveling throughout Viet Nam, into Thailand and the Philippines.

Joe recalled a few of his more exciting assignments:

He filmed Air Force and Navy C130’s landing on skies on the remote Greenland Ice cap to re-supply Dew line Dye Sites, radar facilities built twenty feet above the snow and ice, to provide cold war early warning of an over-the-pole attack by the Soviets. At another early-warning ocean platform, one of the Texas Towers, perched a hundred feet above the Atlantic ocean off the coast of Massachusetts, Joe was part of a team documenting the testing of a diving bell-like rescue apparatus for Tower personnel who might find themselves caught in violent weather with no other means of escape than to get into the rescue unit, a cross beteen a diving bell and a space casule, and drop to the ocean floor. Joe spent two months in the latter part of 1962 at Homestead, Florida, poised, along with a ten-man photo team, for a possible invasion of Cuba, and if the order had been given to attack, he would have been strapped into the back seat of a F100d to film the action.

He had also filmed President Kennedy at Homestead AFB, in close-up detail, reviewing the thousands of men and aircraft there on the apron, waiting for the word from the commander-in-chief to invade Cuba. Later, following the disastrous Cuban Bay of Pigs debacle, Joe was assigned to Miami to cover the infamous prisoner swap for medicines. He had recently flown to Panama with a five-man film crew to document the Jungle Survival School training of allied Latin American air crew members.

You what? asked Kort Hackett, Staff Sergeant and fellow cameraman upon his return from Panama.

Volunteered, confirmed Joe.

"Volun-teered? Are you out of your mind Hoffa? Haven’t I taught you better? ‘Never volunteer!’ You volunteered for Viet Nam? Son, that’s a war zone!"

I heard it was a ‘conflict’, Joe replied, knowing the Viet Nam conflict had recently been escalating into a full-fledged war with ongoing battles involving thousands of South Vietnamese fighters.

Hoffa, I think you’ve lost it. Viet Nam is the hottest, wettest, dirtiest place on that side of the world.

I heard it wasn’t all that bad, Sarge. Plus, there’s pussy everywhere—couple a’ bucks or a carton of Salem’s.

You’d take a chance getting your ass shot off ‘cause pussy is cheap?

Joe didn’t bother answering that one, thinking, well, it’s too late to back out now, anyway. Headquarters was cutting orders. He was due at finance at 1600 to draw advance per diem. He’d just have to take his chances. Adventure, after all, has its dangers, right?

Staff Sergeant Kort Hackett had held the same rank for the past eight years. What the guys called frozen in rank. An older guy, probably in his late thirties, and still a staff seargent. In the USAF of the moment, promotion was frozen for mechanics, Hackett’s former specialty, so when a notice had come down the wire from higher headquarters, stating the USAF was putting together teams of film Shooters to document important Air Force events. Even though Hackett had no history of talent for either photography or documenting events, he had been quick to sign up for motion picture cameraman training at Orlando Air Force Base in Florida. Hoffa had signed up, too. The men had completed the 13-week training course with a class of ten others from equally varied backgrounds—most from career fields where promotion was frozen and from career fields that had no relationship whatsoever to the documenting business. The others had also been mechanics, loadmasters, supply specialists, and other low life, dead-end, wasting-your-time, jobs.

Only Joe Hoffa had any sort of background and experience in the making of photographic documentaries. Now he was on his way to Viet Nam as part of a pentagon inspired Kennedy administration program to tell the story of American involvement in this little known country so far from home. Was it propaganda or would it truly tell the story from the government’s point of view, as witnessed through the lens of the combat documentary cameraman?

CHAPTER 1

TAN SON NHUT

A blast of hot, muggy air rolled over the tired passengers as they filed out through the hatch of the Pan Am contract jet and descended the pickup truck-mounted stairs. Most were Kennedy’s young advisors, pouring into little Vietnam, one contract jet load after another. The stench of garbage and tropical rot accosted their noses. They sensed the tension in the air. This was serious business. There was a real war going on out here. At the edge of the airfield Huey gun ships, armed with machine guns and rocket pods, patrolled at treetop level, adding to the sonorous din of the flight line.

WAMP! The shock wave of a big explosion rolled over the bewildered group. Artillery! declared one of the older guys, an Army noncom. Big stuff. Howitzers.

BOOM!! Closer this time. Thousand pounders, an Air Force captain advised. None too distant, either.

Welcome to the conflict! a boisterous Spec-4 yelled up to his buddies emerging through the hatch and earned a laugh from the rest of the passengers. He meant, Welcome to the war.

Joe’s temporary duty orders stated that he was now a Combat Documentary Cameraman, ComDoc, to use the USAF vernacular, and for the next 100 days he would be filming activities around Southeast Asia, out of Tan Son Nhut Air Base, Saigon.

A gaggle of Gooney birds, a few Marauders, a single Aussie Caribou and a lone C-130 Hercules squatted around the airbase passenger terminal. The transport birds were the ones he would be hitching rides on. But, where were the jets? The fast fighters he had been flying backseat in the last couple of years. The fighters here were ancient WWII and Korean era prop jobs.

Outside the busy maintenance hangers, ground crews ran up power plants of old T-28’s—trainers converted to fighter-bombers. On the ramp, ordinance men shoved 1000-pound blockbuster bombs into the bellies of B-26’s and slung rockets and napalm and white phosphorous under stubby wings. Joe would probably be flying photo missions in those birds, too. Is this the best air power Uncle Sam could come up with to help our little Asian buddies fight their war against the Commies? He thought.

Huricane floor fans pushed hot, humid air around the old WWII era hanger that served as passenger terminal for incoming advisors. Sweat beaded up on Joe’s forehead as he waited for customs to stamp his passport. The Vietnamese customs inspector didn’t even look inside his flight bag or camera cases; he just marked each one with a stub of white chalk and waved him through with a big grin.

Joe inventoried his gear. One bag was missing.

Hoffa! Someone hailed him from across the big hanger. From behind a chain link fence built to separate the arriving passengers from the outside world an Air Force officer, a lieutenant, was waving. Beside him stood a skinny tech sergeant whose stance and demeanor, even from that distance, projected lifer. Joe used sign language to let them know he was waiting for one last piece of gear, a leather ditty bag packed with 8000 feet of 35mm Eastman Color Negative film, enough raw stock for maybe a week of documentary filming. It was probably worth a fortune on the local black market. One could produce a full-length feature motion picture in Manila or Bombay with 8,000 feet of ECN.

Without film we don’t make movies.

Both the photo officer and the non-com were garbed in green, short-sleeved fatigues, jungle boots and matching go-to-hell hats. This was the advance team sent ahead to get things set up for the hastily mustered ComDoc crew, the motion picture and still shooters who would be arriving from stateside bases during the next couple of weeks. Until the rest of the team got here, Hoffa had the dubious distinction of being the only US Air Force shooter in the country.

Although Vietnamese customs and immigration officials quickly cleared the new arrivals, as usual the Army did things by the numbers and by the book, and was once again holding up everyone else’s progress. A squad of sweaty, ill-tempered clerks commanding ranked tables near the back of the old hanger was now lining up the incoming Army troopers for processing into the country.

Man, am I glad I didn’t join the United States Army! Ground pounders all. Beetle-crushers. Foot solders. Look at them, waiting in line for the jerk clerks to check them in and mark them off.

And now, adding insult to injury, the troops were being loaded aboard muddy six-packs to be trucked to their new duty assignments: bivouac camps in the boondocks, tent cities in the sticks. VC country.

A half-dozen big trucks started together with a roar, blowing thick black diesel smoke into the faces of GI’s dressed in stateside suntans and dress greens. Poor bastards: fresh off the air-conditioned contract jet and smack into Vietnam’s energy-sapping heat and humidity.

Before leaving Orlando he had studied the big world globe at the base library to get an idea of Vietnam’s relationship to Florida. Vietnam is exactly on the other side of the world from Florida, but farther south, more or less at the same latitude as the Windward Islands of the Caribbean. Vietnam would be hotter than Florida, he had reasoned, hot, but hopefully bearable. He would soon find out that although Florida got real hot in July, Vietnam would be a real a steam bath.

Maybe the film got downloaded when we landed in Hawaii for refueling, Joe thought. Nope, there it is. The film, rode all by itself centered on an ancient Air Vietnam luggage tram. Must have been overlooked in some dark corner of the 707.

Joe breathed out a sigh of relief at the sight of it. A grinning Vietnamese man handed the bag over and Joe hustled it past the bored customs agents to meet his party.

The lieutenant’s eyes were very pale blue, his hair Nordic white.

Airman Hoffa, Sir. Joe Hoffa.

Lieutenant Matthews.

Joe gave him a salute and shook his hand. Pleasant fellow. Jock grip. U.S.C. film school? Certainly enthusiastic enough. He knew from his orders that the lieutenant’s first name was Mike, not that he would be calling his C.O. by his first name.

This is Sergeant Boner, Hoffa, our acting first shirt.

Sergeant.

Boner’s soft handshake confirmed his harmlessness, his etched plastic nametag proclaimed: T/Sgt J. Boner. How the hell did our acting first shirt ever get stuck with that handle? The jokes the poor sapsucker must endure."

Guess I’m the first one in.

Yup, Matthews confirmed. Got a TWX on you this morning. The other men’ll be in tomorrow, day after. You get first pick of bunk space.

Bunk space. Well, fuck: that means on-base quarters. Poof! There went Joe’s vision of a big comfortable hotel room with a/c and hot and cold running maids. Unfortunately, when government quarters were available, the new arrivals were obligated to utilize them.

The three men hoisted Joe’s gear into the back of the open Jeep assigned to the photo detachment and he perched atop to keep everything from sliding off. Boner drove and Matthews did the talking. Sergeant Boner and I’ve been in-country goin’ on two weeks now. Seems more like a month, doesn’t it, Sarge?

Boner nodded but didn’t reply.

Secured a small office for the ComDoc team. Telephones, typewriters, desks, even got a coffee maker. TWX machine’s next door in the PIO office. Barely enough room to turn around in, but it’ll have to do for now.

Joe visualized seven or eight shooters with all their film gear crowding into one small office. Sounds like we’re ready to go to work.

Right. Hey, speaking of work. Got an easy shoot for you tomorrow morning. Award ceremony on the flight line: General Hawkins pinning medals on some VNAF aircrews. That’s the Vietnamese Air Force. CINCPAC wants coverage.

Who’s General Hawkins?

Army four-star in charge of each and every GI and US Government civilian employee in this part of the world.

CINCPAC?

Commander-in-Chief, Pacific.

Brass moves, we shoot it.

Right, Matthews laughed. Sergeant Boner’s got you cleared to shoot on the flight line. I’ll go over the details with you in the morning. First thing, let’s get you settled into quarters. After that, Boner’ll show you around the base—get you oriented so you’ll know where everything is.

Boner, a lean balding man of forty or more years, had nothing to say. He was the acting first sergeant; a job usually given to master sergeants, but this was a detachment, after all, not a squadron. Boner seemed resigned to his role as assistant and right-hand man to yet another wet-behind-the-ears ROTC newcomer, yet another junior officer. No doubt Boner was thinking that everybody should just realize NCO’s were the ones that really had a handle on what was going on . . . Didn’t people know the best way to get the job done was to let the more experienced noncoms run the show?

Boner! If my name was Boner, I’d have it changed to Bonner, or Bone . . . No, wait, not Bone! A monikers like that would induce even more witticisms from GI poets and smartasses. Joe stifled an urge to giggle. Jet lag . . . had to be!

Boner maneuvered the Jeep through a maze of traffic. Bicycles, motorcycles and military vehicles of every description, Cyclos, three-wheeled motor scooters with a tiny driver section and a passenger compartment big enough for 10 Vietnamese or four GI’s crowded in, driven by grinning old men who risked death at every passing, served as base transportation. They zipped around Boner’s jeep, directly into the path of oncoming traffic, then, at the last possible second, ducked into any available space, as though their very lives depended on gaining meager advantage. Transports, tankers, Jeeps, half-tracks, six-packs, pickups, and busses sped past at full tilt. No traffic cops in sight; no speed limits posted.

"Flippin free-for-all!’ as one of Joe’s Australian buddies would say.

The newer vehicles belong to us, advised Matthew. Or to the Vietnamese military: equipment we’ve given them in the form of ‘aid’. The older junk, the rattletraps and the cyclos you’ll see on the streets in Saigon are French—or Japanese. Some of the junkers date from the occupation. The oldest ones wind up in the hands of the kamikaze drivers. The most dangerous are the cyclos, where the passengers ride up front. Those aren’t permitted on base.

To make matters worse for everyone driving, the roadways that crisscrossed the ragged fields surrounding the overworked airport and air operations center were pot-holed and rutted. Not only was Tan Son Nhut the headquarters of the ragtag Vietnamese Air force, Joe learned from Matthews, it was also home for thousands of American airmen, soldiers, and civilians. And if that wasn’t crowding things enough, Saigon International Airport shared ramp and runway and ground support with everybody else. All around them were hundreds of peasants clad in the cheapest of synthetic black pajamas, many sporting conical coolie hats.

Road repair gangs, trash collectors, building crews . . .

How do you tell the friendlies from the enemy?

I don’t think you can. The enemy’s all around us, Hoffa, believe me.

He believed him.

The big prize for the winner of this conflict’ll be the capital. Whoever controls Saigon—where virtually every important military and political decision is made—controls Vietnam.

Supposedly. How far is Saigon, Lieutenant?

Starts right outside the front gate.

From everything Joe had heard and read, Saigon was a wide-open city where one could buy just about anything one had in mind, a fast-paced city where a smart trader could make a big pile of dough—one of his favorite pursuits.

Matthews pointed out the mess hall, the Base Exchange, finance, and the Airmen’s Club: the important base facilities. The facilities did not look all that inviting. Joe saw himself, after a refreshing shower, stretched out on the big hotel bed, the a/c blowing in chilled air, he is sip

. . . You exchange your dollars for piastre when you turn over your pay records, Matthews quickly brought him back to reality. At the moment, the official, ‘legal’ exchange rate is seventy-three-to-one.

Seventy-three-to-one.

‘Course, on the street downtown Saigon, you can easily get 140 or 145 ‘p’ to the dollar. But that’s the black market—and it is highly illegal. Matthews turned around in his seat to catch Joe’s eye. Don’t get caught exchanging money downtown, Hoffa. I mean it. You’ll have the MP’s or the white mice on your tail.

White mice?

Local cops.

Okay.

And you’ll be lucky if it’s our MP’s catch you. They just throw you in the stockade. The locals, on the other hand, will stash you away and negotiate for your release. Embarrassing to everybody—if you know what I mean. Plus, you do not want to spend one minute inside one of those Saigon lockups. Nasty. Just not worth the hassle, stories I’ve heard . . .

I’ll be on my usual good behavior, Lieutenant, Joe assured the boss.

A convoy of noisy six-packs loaded with Vietnamese Army troops raced past the intersection ahead. Every boy soldier wore a blood red beret and gripped an automatic weapon.

Everything’s cheap anyway.

Roger. He knew what the guy meant and knew he meant well, giving him this good big brother advice and being the leader and all, but there were certain things Joe would just have to find out about on his own.

What’s the situation with the government, Lieutenant?

What’d’ya mean?

The Buddhists. On the way over I was reading in one of the San Francisco papers that a Buddhist monk poured gasoline over himself and struck a match—burned himself up: protesting the government’s treatment of the Buddhists.

Oh, yeah, that. Got a little hairy here for a while. Government’s got things under pretty tight control again, though.

Yeah?

Besides, that situation really doesn’t concern us, Hoffa.

I’ve had my briefing.

Hundreds of wooden structures, called hooches—rows upon rows of them—each a uniform 20’ x 30’ and each a duplicate of all the others in shape and size, had been thrown up to house increasing numbers of Air Force personnel arriving daily; aircrews, advisors, ground support personnel, technicians and specialists, the advisors the Vietnamese had requested President Kennedy send over to teach them how to hold back the waves of encroaching Commies. Plus all the support personnel needed to take care of the advisers; cooks, paymasters, clerks, supply people, medics, chaplains. Morticians.

Thick brown canvas tents provided top and sides for the uninviting hooches, with planks quickly nailed to vertical support beams for strength and to keep the rain from splashing in. Screening stapled to these boards and the wooden frames supposedly kept out the mosquitoes.

Matthews assured Joe they were not too bad. You roll the sides down when it rains.

Yeah, and then the temperature really builds up. Joe had experienced unbearably hot days and freezing nights in military tents in desert climes, a most unpleasant experience. All military tents reeked of old oil or cosmolene, or whatever foul chemicals the tent makers applied to keep the rot away.

Yuck. Bad luck. A poor fuck. Situations that suck. Joe’s mind was made up in a pair of New York seconds: He would not spend the next three months and ten days of his precious youth in one of those sweltering hooches!

. . . Every hooch has its own house girl or houseboy, Matthew prattled on. . . . They come early, clean up, make the beds, and shine your boots. Everybody chips in to pay them—about ten bucks green a week, I think. Isn’t that right, Sergeant Boner?

Good pay for a Vietnamese, drawled Boner. ‘Em hooch girls really hustle for the dough.

How do we know which ones are the Viet Cong? Joe asked, and his innocent question earned hearty laughter from the more experienced hands. Not all that funny to him. How did one tell?

Boner pulled the Jeep in next to empty hooch erected too near the poorly surfaced roadway. They dismounted and entered through a spring-loaded screen door.

BLAM! The door slammed closed behind them. The photo hooch’s floor was composed of nailed-down unfinished wooden planks. The ground showed through the cracks. So much for insect-proof, Joe thought. Bare light bulbs hung from roof struts. Heavy steel bedsteads and thin mattresses stacked in the center of the open bay awaited dispersal. Fifteen or twenty newly assembled stand-up double-door steel lockers stood ready to store personal items and clothes.

Well, this is it, Matthews almost apologized. Best we could do under the circumstances. When the rest of the team gets moved in, it’ll seem like one big, happy family.

Oh, joy, Joe muttered, bet he didn’t have to live in a damn hooch. He wondered what kind of quarters the officers and NCOs had been assigned to. He hefted his personal things from the Jeep, but left the camera gear to be secured in the photo office—wherever that was.

Hot as hell, stated Boner as he helped Joe set up a bunk and move a locker next to it.

Good thing we got air in the office, huh? said Matthews.

I had t’ work all day in this heat, Lieutenant, I’d put in for early retirement, proclaimed Boner. It came out, re-tar-ment.

Boner’s accent was either Tennessee or West-by-God-Virginia. He could be a mountain man, or a hillbilly, but Joe didn’t think he was a redneck. Make a wrong guess and you just might piss off one of ‘em good ol’ boys who don’t forget an insult.

Any chance of getting a fan, Sarge?

We’ll check you one out of supply. Next door to linen exchange.

You got a lock? Matthews asked.

Yes, sir.

Good. You’ll need it. The Vietnamese aren’t so bad. It’s our own guys’ve been lifting things.

Joe shoved the B-4 and the duffel bag into the stand-up locker; snapped closed his indispensable combination lock.

The photo office consisted of two small rooms within a squat, thick-walled structure that resembled a French Foreign Legion headquarters. Joe chuckled to himself, Right out of an old ’40s film. Which one was it? The one with Bogart in it.

He and Boner lugged the camera gear into the office. Condensation ran down the old stucco walls as two heavy duty air conditioners blasted in ice-cold air. Like walking from a furnace into a deep freeze. Boner quipped. Crowded but cool. And hell when the power goes."

I’ll bet.

Power goes, that’s when I adjourn to the NCO Club. Got our own generator.

There’s an NCO Club?

NCO, Airmen’s, Officer’s. Nickel slots. Highballs and stateside brew for a quarter. USO entertainment. All the clubs’ve got emergency generators case the power goes—which you can count on a couple times a day around here.

Matthews flopped into a swivel chair behind a smallish desk. He dialed an ancient black telephone: officer business.

There was not much storage room and very little space to move around in. Joe thought, If five or six shooters bring even half as much gear as I’ve lugged over, we will be inundated with cameras and tripods and lighting kits. We might have to load film and write captions in shifts, he said to Boner.

Maybe y’all won’t be here all that much, the acting first shirt replied, forebodingly. All at the same time anyway.

This one-ten Sarge? Joe asked Boner.

Yeah, all the current from our generators is one-ten. Watch out for the Viet juice though: two-twenty.

Joe plugged in a heavy-duty camera battery pack and one of the newly issued flexible belt battery packs for a top-off charge. Boner poured himself a cup of muddy coffee, but didn’t offer him any. Just as well. You bring your personnel records?

Joe located his ditty bag, unzipped it, and pulled out the fat brown envelope he had lugged halfway ‘round the world. Here you go, Sarge.

Sergeant Boner seated himself at his desk, a noticeably larger version of the lieutenant’s, seeming to make the statement, This is the real operations center; this is where the work gets done. A well-worn Underwood electric hummed atop a collapsible WWII-era typing table. Boner had organized official blank forms into three cardboard boxes, slotted, gaff-taped, and stacked to function as his forms storage unit. A battered three-drawer file cabinet contained the photo unit’s official records. Boner typed information on official forms sandwiched with carbon paper. That done, he gathered up several copies of Joe’s orders, his pay records, and the documents which had to be processed. We’ll go by finance, linen exchange, and supply. Ready?

Sure. He had just got chilled down, and now it was back out into the furnace.

The supply sergeant, a heavy, balding lifer, issued him a rotating fan, a pillow, two changes of linen, and a blanket. Bring these back you get clean ones.

Why the blanket, Sarge?

Part of the issue. That certainly explained that.

Since Joe was slated to spend the next 100 days in Vietnam, he was entered into the official payroll at base finance. The brisk no-nonsense NCO behind the paymaster window wanted to know if he had any dollars or travelers checks in his possession.

Some. He withdrew a worn leather wallet to reveal an apparent net worth of $62.

You can’t spend greenbacks off-base, the unsmiling sergeant stated incisively, for probably about the fiftieth time that day. You’ll need p.

I don’t plan on spending much time off-base, Sarge. But he knew that was a barefaced lie. I’ll just change $20. He got back 1400p. Downtown the same twenty bucks was worth 2800p . . .

Joe’s true wealth, his grubstake and total worth, was secured in a cloth money belt around his waist: thirty United States of America $100 bills, most valued currency in the world. Let’ see, he mused to himself, one-forty times three thousand . . .

Fill that out, instructed the clerk at the next window, a tall black guy, an airman first class with a thick Harlem or Bronx accent. Joe couldn’t tell which at first, until he said, You get a new ration card every month. He said munt, for month. The Bronx.

The ration card authorized the purchase of duty-free booze and cigarettes. There were blank spaces for name, rank, serial number, and unit. All around the card were little squares marked, 1 BTL, and 1 CRTN, to be punched out or X’ed off when the card-holder bought something.

Back at the hooch, Boner pointed to a gravel path between the rows of tent-covered barracks. Follow that path in about 10 hooches an’ there’ll be the latrine.

Great.

You goin’ somewhere on base, hop a cyclo. When you come to where you’re goin’, pay papa-san five p.

Got’cha.

You goin’ off-base, Boner pointed over his shoulder toward the south, front gate’s less’n a quarter-mile that way.

Okay.

You might wanna’ wait’ll the other men gets in, be somebody to go in with you. Safer.

What’s the deal with civilian clothes, Sarge?

Wear what you want. Myself, I avoid goin’ downtown like the plague. Stinks down there. Disease, infection; you catch my drift. Too dirty an’ too damn hot. Chances a’ gettin’ killed’er real good, too: VC’s gettin’ more an’ more active ever day—blowin’ things up and such. Ain’t worth the risk, son. Hell, you got everthang you need right here on base.

What time does the general pin on the medals?

Ten hundred hours. Joe should have known Sergeant Boner would give him the time in military. Report in at zero-seven-thirty.

Roger, wilco, Joe played the game. All I need to do is load a couple of mags and clean my camera.

Boner studied his Seiko. Fifteen-thirty now. Mess hall opens at sixteen-thirty. Get there before eighteen-thirty if you want t’ eat. You’re on half per diem, so you pay for meals.

Right. Joe knew he would not choose to eat in a GI mess hall when a thousand exotic restaurants awaited, . . . less’n a quarter-mile that way.

Thanks for showing me around, sarge.

Stoic Boner pulled away without a fare-thee-well.

CHAPTER 2

DONG AND NIT NOI

BLAM! BLAM! The screen doors slammed closed announcing men entering and exiting a hundred close-packed hooches, men clad in towels and flip-flops (one of Hong Kong’s most heartless exports), as they made their way to and from the showers.

Joe dialed the numbers on his combination lock, snapped it open, jerked the locker doors open, pulled out his B-4 flight bag, and dumped everything out on the bed. Uniforms got hung up, towels stacked, the various accouterments of travel lined up on the locker’s shelves. He arranged several paperback novels against the middle divider—adventure stories, spy thrillers. He stripped, wrapped a beach towel around his waist, slipped on canvas deck shoes, grabbed his shaving kit, snapped closed the combo lock on the locker door, and was out the door like a shot.

BLAM!

The latrine was a double-hooch with a tin roof and plumbing run in through the chest-high plank walls. Every vestige of privacy had been removed. Fifty matching commodes, ranked back-to-back, divided the building. A hundred men of every make and model shaved, showered, washed-up, pissed, and crapped—all at the same time! It was a never-ending commotion of laughing, joking men, playing grab-ass and making a whole lot of boisterous noise. Joe wrapped his towel around his shaving kit, left it on the wooden bench, and got under one of the continuously running showerheads. Fuck! Not even lukewarm. He soaped up quickly with four or five other guys of various colorings and physiques, rinsed, stepped out of the shower, dried, tugged on deck shoes and headed for the hooch to dress. Even the heavy-duty fan blowing full blast across his still-damp body did little to cool him down. He knew he would never adjust to the muggy heat and the stink of cosmolene.

And fuck military togetherness, surrounded on every side by loud, boisterous GI’s. Not for me, not when I am carrying close to three grand in my money belt. Time for action.

He hiked to the front gate, where a guard shack had been built onto the middle divider of a narrow two-lane road, the air base entrance. A contingent of US Army MP’s worked alongside their Vietnamese counterparts, the QC’s, who did the actual work, checking ID’s, inspecting trucks and busses. New guardhouses were being constructed on either side of the road and until those were completed and in operation, vehicular traffic was one constricted, jammed-up mess in both directions. Joe fell in step with guys like himself, young American men dressed in shirts, slacks, and a variety of uniforms, all heading into town. Judging by their unsophisticated dress and wide-eyed comportment, it was obvious many of his fellow Americans were away from home for the first time.

And there it was: the other world. Across the intersection, several wide streets converged. Shops, bars, food stalls, pushcarts, and makeshift noodle stands filled every space, and everywhere people sold things—persistent kids, hustling young men, and shrill old women—everyone pushed something to eat, drink, wear, smoke, fuck, or amuse one’s self with. Easily distinguishable from the tiny, universally black-haired Vietnamese, American GI’s roamed the sidewalks, rambled the alleyways, and stumbled into and out of the many bars and food joints. A familiar scene to Joe, not unlike air bases around the Orient, although the people here appeared somewhat smaller. The streets, the confusion of madcap traffic at the intersecting roadways, the noisy, unruly crowds: this could be Jakarta or Manila.

One following another, little Renault taxis discharged GI’s returning from downtown Saigon. Almost to a man, each carried some wrapped or bagged purchase. Bucks were pouring out of the front gate and into the hands of Vietnamese allies. The miniature cabs loaded as soon as the returning passengers clambered out. It was mid-afternoon and many of the troops leaving the base were getting an early start on an evening of fun and entertainment, sharing the cost of transport to the action wherever that was.

Taxi! Taxi! Squeaky-voiced cab drivers called out as they skidded their little toy cabs to a halt.

It was Joe’s turn to grab the next cab. Two guys behind him, fresh from the shower and clad in bright polyester slacks and checkered shirts, looked as though they might want to share the ride, but he didn’t encourage their asking and bent to query the driver, Speak English?.

The old man shook his head. Tu Do? he asked. You go? Joe let the two guys behind him have the cab.

A grinning young hustler drove the next taxi.

Speak English? Joe asked.

Speak En-grish! Yes! Where you wan go? His disembarking passengers, three big GI shoppers, paid him off and headed for the front gate. Joe got in. The taxi zoomed into traffic, the real thing, a hodge-podge of every motorized vehicle known to man, from zippy little putt-putt scooters to big, lumbering eighteen-wheeler gasoline tankers.

Joe leaned over the front seat to ask his driver, You work by the hour?

Okay, I do.

How much?

Fo you, hun-dled-fif-ty p for one hour.

How about five dollars for three hours?

Five dol-lar! Gleen?

Gleen.

Where you wan go?

I wan go everywhere. Show me the city. I want to see the historical sites, government buildings, hotels, shopping areas—all that. Show me where the president lives, point out the roads that lead out of town. When we’re done, you can bring me back to the base.

Okay. I know ev-ly place you wan go!

Joe relaxed, as much as was possible, sitting crosswise on the Renault’s abbreviated back seat, designed by the French for their smaller Asian subjects—and certainally not for Americans. At six feet, two inches and 160 pounds, two other skinny guys like himself in the little car would be a very cramped ride.

You wan young gir? his driver asked.

It is remarkable how taxi drivers the world over feel compelled to ask this question; their nature, Joe guessed. Plus, they all get kickbacks from the whores and the mama-sans.

Later on. Today I just want to become familiar with our city and how it’s laid-out.

‘Rayed-out’?

Learn my way around.

Okay, I do! I know where evle-thing you wan! I show you!

The driver hadn’t stopped smiling since he got in. Could this guy be a VC?

What’s your name?

Name Can Tran Dong. He turned to offer his tiny hand as he accelerated around a long Army fuel truck.

Joe Hoffa. They shook hands quickly. It was like shaking with a little kid driving the Indy 500.

Jo-ho-fa, Can Tran Dong repeated. Like God!

Oh, boy . . .

What do people call you, Tran or Dong?

Dong! My name Dong. Dong’s singsong speech was spiced with a lilting, French accent. Fam-ree name come fust. Given name last.

Good to know, Dong, he chuckled. First Boner and now Dong. Joe was beginning to enjoy himself, despite the heat.

The sprawling city of Saigon was crowded with war-weary refugees, desperate people scarcely surviving in tin and cardboard huts added to the sides of structures already bursting at the seams with poverty-stricken peasants. He could not imagine himself being unable to rise above that filth and poverty or having no place else to go. But there was action everywhere! Saigon felt like Mexico City, a metropolis he had explored when he was sixteen and traveling with his family through Mexico and Central America to their new home in Costa Rica. Mexico’s capital was one of the fastest-growing and most over-populated cities in the world. Everyone on the street seemed to be on the make for the peso. Here it was the p—for piastre.

North Vietnam not have p. Have ‘Dong’—same-same my name! Dong’s high-pitched giggle made Joe laugh with him. Dong zipped the little taxi along smartly, if not dangerously, shooting into side streets, merging without a care onto wide boulevards jammed with thousands of equally motivated kamikazes.

You wan change money, I do.

Maybe later, Dong. Joe wondered if any of the guys had ever bothered to explain the American street meaning of Dong’s name to him . . . His eyes and senses confirmed the scuttlebutt: the little Pearl of the Orient was wide open and booming! Big bucks—millions and millions of dollars—were being poured into the economy each and every day. The roads were jammed with commercial and military vehicles hauling goods and war material. Much of this generous US emergency funding was surely finding its way into the pockets and bank accounts of President Diem and his family and his friends, and into the pockets and bank accounts of crooked officials, power mongers, and mobsters, of which Dong assured Joe there were many, many!

Before Diem, ni-teen fif-te fi, Saigon, Cholon, all cities have gangs of clooks—like Binh Xuyen—control every pla-sure: gam-bring, fuck-fuck girl, whiskey . . .

Gook Mafia.

. . . Diem fight clooks. Chase all clooks to Delta.

Dong showed him the Presidential Palace where Ngo Diem and his two brothers, Nhu and Can, lived, along with Diem’s notorious sister-in-law, Madam Nhu. His driver painted a vivid picture of Madam Nhu as a major behind-the-scenes influence and power broker in the family dominated government. Said her ideals of morality were being foisted upon the population. Madam Nhu velly sneaky. Pee-po no like her. No like Diem fam-ry too. Ngo fam-ry Cat-tho-lic. My pe-po Buddhist. I am Buddhist. Diem aw-ways make tluble for Buddhist. One ho-lee man, ‘caw’—what you call ‘monk’—name Quang Duc, burn up for pro… how you say?

Protest?

. . . Yes, plo-test. Say Diem take away flee-dom. Dong was talking about the monk he had read about in the paper. How could anyone ever forget the picture of the hairless old monk sitting in a peaceful lotus position, surrounded by his followers, mostly women, burning to death in the middle of a busy Saigon street. It caused an outcry in the Kennedy administration and uproar in the world press.

Joe asked Dong, Do you have a map of Saigon?

Map? No have. Know ev-ly place. Where you wan go? I take you.

No, it’s not that, Dong. I just want to look at a map as we go along so I can become oriented.

O-lient?

Familiar.

So. ‘Fami-yar’. Okay, I get map. Dong pulled the cab to the curb in the next block, motioned for Joe to