Saigon Warrior: From the Saigon Good Life to the Long Binh Jail: A Cynic's Tale

By Al McDonald

Cynic. Opportunist. Weasel.

“A brutally honest and darkly funny take on the Vietnam War.” “McDonald’s memoir is as raw and real as they come.” “An irreverent journey through the Vietnam War’s lesser-known stories.” These are some of the nicer comments about Al McDonald’s military service. However, in 1966 the young airman only wanted to get the hell out of Mountain Home AFB, Idaho, the worst Air Force base in the country. He finally gets out by volunteering for Vietnam. As a Saigon Warrior and black marketeer, he revels in all the hedonistic pleasures the city offers. The good life comes to a screeching halt when he ends up in the notorious Long Binh Jail. This short memoir is a compelling read for all those people who were skeptical about the Vietnam War. It turns out that they were absolutely right. 

"McDonald’s memoir is as raw and real as they come."

"An irreverent journey through the Vietnam War’s lesser-known stories."

These are some of the nicer comments about Al McDonald’s military service.  However, in 1966 the young airman only wanted to get the hell out of Mountain Home AFB, Idaho, the worst Air Force base in the country.

He finally gets out by volunteering for Vietnam.  As a Saigon Warrior and black marketeer, he revels in all the hedonistic pleasures the city offers. 

The good life comes to a screeching halt when he ends up in the notorious Long Binh Jail.

This short memoir is a compelling read for all those people who were skeptical about the Vietnam War.  It turns out that they were absolutely right.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Outskirts Press
• Release date: Dec 7, 2024
• ISBN: 9781977280046

Al McDonald

Al McDonald is a retired IRS revenue officer, enrolled agent and tax consultant now living in Florida. A graduate of the University of Florida and of the Woodrow Wilson College of Law, he has traveled extensively in Southeast Asia, Australia, Europe and Latin America. A lifelong procrastinator, he hopes to complete a book about his French Foreign Legion experiences sometime in this century. He can be reached by email at [e-mail].

Book preview

Saigon Warrior: From the Saigon Good Life to the Long Binh Jail

A Cynic’s Tale

All Rights Reserved.

Copyright © 2025 Al McDonald

v2.0

The opinions expressed in this manuscript are solely the opinions of the author and do not represent the opinions or thoughts of the publisher. The author has represented and warranted full ownership and/or legal right to publish all the materials in this book.

This book may not be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in whole or in part by any means, including graphic, electronic, or mechanical without the express written consent of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Outskirts Press, Inc.

http://www.outskirtspress.com

Cover Image by Victor Guiza © 2025 Albert McDonald. All rights reserved - used with permission.

Outskirts Press and the OP logo are trademarks belonging to Outskirts Press, Inc.

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Saigon Warrior, noun -- A rear-echelon troop or civilian.

-- "Vietnam War Slang: A Dictionary

on Historical Principles" by Tom Dalzell.

REMF -- Rear Echelon Motherfucker

-- "Grunt Slang in Vietnam:

Words of the War" by Gordon L. Rottman

Dedicated to all LBJ alumni.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction

Jacksonville, Florida

Mountain Home Air Force Base, Idaho

Tan Son Nhut Air Base, Saigon, South Vietnam

U.S. Army Vietnam Installation Stockade, APO96491, Long Binh

Tan Son Nhut Air Base, Saigon, South Vietnam, Part 2

Orlando, Florida

Ho Chi Minh City, 1997 and 2017

Acknowledgments

INTRODUCTION

THIS BOOK IS about how I joined the U.S. Air Force as a teen in 1963; served at a bomber base in the middle of nowhere, Idaho, processing the payroll records for the people needed to launch nuclear bombs should World War III break out (spoiler alert: it did not); and after two years, four months and nine days and much pleading, I was shipped out to the war in Vietnam; how I navigated the rollicking nightlife and rampant corruption of wartime Saigon; how I was sentenced to the notorious Long Binh Jail for a minor currency offense; yet somehow made it back to the base and then home unharmed just before the shit hit the fan both at Long Binh and Saigon.

This is a 20th-century life journey that explains much, I believe, about that time in history, the military, American foreign policy in Southeast Asia, as well as my cynical and, let’s face it, pretty jaded attitude. It all really happened, and I’m not just relating all this to piss people off – which it will.

The names mentioned are changed because these are old guys now, and who wants to have their military prison time and war profiteering advertised to a judgmental world? A lot of them are dead and don’t deserve to have their memory tainted.

JACKSONVILLE, FLORIDA

MAYBE IT WAS my attitude.

Whatever the reason, in the summer of 1963, my parents presented me, a recent graduate of Orlando’s papist high school, Bishop Moore Catholic, with three life options: enroll in Florida State University in Tallahassee without any expectation of any extended financial support; join the armed forces, which would pay for college down the road; or pay them $25 a week for room and board at home.

What’s this, the Holiday Inn? I asked.

The very next day, Mommy and I were talking to military recruiters.

Clearly, none of us, especially my parents, saw sticking around at home and laying terrazzo flooring (my usual summer job) as an attractive option. Which was why, within weeks of signing up with a recruiter, my mother drove me to the Orlando bus station, where I would be taken to the Jacksonville Armed Forces Induction Center.

Don’t get married and don’t get tattooed, were her parting words of advice. A rare bit of parental counsel I actually took to heart.

There, on Aug. 1, 1963, I held up my hand and was sworn into the United States Air Force for a term of four, as it would happen, eventful years. Four years, one month and three days, to be precise.

The induction center took in recruits for all the military services, but most were there for the Army. I was one of only a couple of incoming airmen that day among 50 or more inductees. On arriving, I was sent to the Floridan Hotel on the corner of West Forsyth and Clay streets which was leased for the recruits, a seven-story, brick hotel that had been on the slide since its heyday in the 1920s. It was topped by a giant red neon sign that proclaimed, HOTEL FLORIDAN/AIR CONDITIONED, when all the letters were lit up.

Within 24 hours, two of my new Army guy buddies there had been ripped off by a pimp or someone pretending to be one. One more introduction to military life. And at 17 years old, here was a valuable life lesson: know your pimp.

The next day, papers were signed, oaths were sworn, and soon, I was on to the next place.

MOUNTAIN HOME AIR FORCE BASE, IDAHO

AFTER BEING INSPECTED, assessed, tested and sheared, the Air Force, in its wisdom, decided that I should work in finance, which sounded fine to me. After all, my highest aptitude test score had been in administration. So, after basic training in the August heat of Lackland Air Force Base in Texas and then tech school at Sheppard Air Force Base in Wichita Falls -- I found myself as the only guy stumbling off a commercial bus into a tiny bus station in the middle of some Western nowhere with walls decorated with elk horns, deer heads and bison heads. I had arrived at Mountain Home, Elmore County, Idaho, population 5,350. Lots of Mormons and sheep and not much else except the base. It was a week before Christmas in 1963. I had just turned 18.

A sign on