Yes…. For a kid who vehemently did not want to go to South Vietnam…. And, let’s face it, back then I was a kid, even at the age of 23…..things surely did take a drastic, 180 degree spin in the gravel….or jungle, might be a little more accurate description. As you may have read in the previous post, going to South Vietnam was not at the top of my list when it came to my favorite dreams. I missed an opportunity for one of the medical officers to “enhance” my health records; I was turned down for a well-intentioned, but ill-conceived, effort on the part of my superiors at Ft. Benjamin Harrison to get me a direct commission as an officer in the Adjutant General Corps. Yeah…. Miracles happen. But, these schemes were probably beyond the limits of miracles.

After the harrowing, amusement park like landing at Tan Son Nhut Airport, I stepped out into a world that I felt I had been looking for all my life. It was sort of like meeting my best friend….whom I had never met before. Or….. To put it in the words of John Denver, “Coming home to a place I’ve never been before…..”

As the end of my military enlistment stealthily crept up on me, I was looking forward to simply getting out of the army and going back home. Of course, I had never intended to make a career in the military. Under ideal circumstances back in 1962, I would never have enlisted in the army. In fact, I probably didn’t have any intentions of ever leaving Rice County…..unless it was to move to Hutchinson! Sadly, back in those days, my career goals….not to mention my long-range personal goals…..were not very ambitious. I started out teaching in a two room school house. The move to a four room school was a big step upward in my eyes. And…. To land a job in the Hutchinson school system would have probably seemed like the pinnacle of success. Oh…. I don’t know. Maybe in time the desire to become a principal might have become the crowning achievement of my life.

On the other hand, while I was working for Dillons back during my high school and college days, my fondest ambition was to become the manager of a Dillon store. I was perfectly content working there: working at the cash register, stocking shelves, trimming produce, marking groceries…. I liked the people I was working with; I liked meeting and talking with all the customers….. I just liked the job, in general. Once I got the hang of things….and, let’s face it, it didn’t require a PhD or anything like that….I was good at it. There was a kind of satisfaction knowing that I was a valued employee….that I was doing my part in running the store efficiently….in making money for the Dillon family, who owned the corporation at the time.

I would go to work after school or on Saturday, do my job, and leave. That was it. No fuss; no muss. The only time I had to work overtime was when we did the quarterly inventory on a Saturday night after regular store hours. And… Counting all those cans and boxes….all those thousands of cans and boxes and packages….. Man… That was fun! Maybe I just liked to count! Or maybe I was not too bright back in those days! We would start counting as soon as we closed the doors and locked them…. And, we counted (and counted….and counted….) until probably 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning….

I am not sure why we didn’t start earlier. I mean…. What difference was it going to make if we sold a few cans of corn or a couple boxes of soap in the meantime? Actually, I am still not sure exactly why we even took inventory. They still do it, I guess, so it must serve some sort of useful purpose. As for me….. We got paid for doing it…. Time and a half…. Overtime, I think it is called. Wow…. A fortune. When I started working at Dillons in 1952, I made 60 cents an hour. For those six hour or so that I took inventory, I was making 90 cents an hour. Move over Bill Gates….

My boss’s name was Chet Dobyns. He was sort of a dour guy….short, just a little on the rotund side. At first he was a little bit intimidating. But, I found that he was actually a pretty funny man, when he wanted to be. After a while, when I got to know him….or when I got accustomed to him….I actually liked him. And…. He liked me, too. But, as I think (and hope) I have done all my life, I did a really good job for him.

I nagged him for months to change my title from…. Well, now that I think about it, I didn’t really have a title. Anyway, I wanted him to grant me the title of “Assistant to the Manager”. Now…. Come on. That is benign enough. Probably back then, I thought it had a few (desirable) attributes of prestige and grandeur. Everybody who worked in the store knew each other intimately. Our jobs were all pretty much chiseled into stone. There were only about a dozen employees total. And…. We all knew….understood quite well…..that Chet’s wife, Velma, really ran the store. And, she didn’t even work there. But, she always showed up around closing time, after she got off work at her job…..which was bookkeeper at a local ice cream manufacturing plant, I think. She would descend on the store…..and take charge of counting the money, balancing all the stuff…..and trying to make a good impression on the district supervisors, if they happened to show up. When Velma was around, everybody was on his best behavior.

I am digressing, though. One afternoon, I showed up at work, and Chet said, “Come over here. I have something for you.” Joy and excitement leaped into my heart! Oh….My wish had come true. He gathered all the employees who were free….and then….He handed me a Dillon ID pin that said, “Beryl Darrah, General Assistant.” Thanks for nothing. But, on the other hand, I am sure that it could just as well have said “General Pain in the Ass.”

But…. As said in another blog: Dillons did not give me college scholarships so I could waste it working for them. I moved on to my next dream…..to be a teacher. The army sort of put an end to that dream, for a few years, at least……with a free, all expenses paid trip to Saigon.

As my days in the army began to dwindle down, I began to give some thought to my future…..what I would do when I got back home. I had already told my sergeant-major that I did not want to reenlist. And, I didn’t. My old boss from back at Ft. Benjamin Harrison had become the military attache to Turkey. He sent a message telling me that he would like for me to be his NCO aide-de-camp. I was flattered that he wanted me to come and work for him. This was an enviable job….a job that most career soldiers would have given their left arm for. Just think of all the important people I could meet. All the important meetings and receptions I would accompany him to. And, my living quarters? I doubt if I would have been living in a dark, musty army barracks.

But… Turkey? This was back in 1965. Turkey? That did not have the exotic tourist appeal that it has today. I thought of it as more of a violent, lawless third world country….a place where I didn’t particularly want to go. Certainly not a place worth reenlisting for three more years. I turned down the offer. This, of course, was one of the things for which I would kick myself and berate myself for years to come. Oh well….

I arrived back home in Sterling sometime during the second week in September. I had already enrolled for the fall semester at Sterling College….through the mail. There was little….probably none at all….down time after I arrived home. College was starting immediately after I arrived. This was back in the “good old days” when colleges did not start until the middle of September….vastly different from most colleges today.

My plan….the grand plan for my life….was to return to college and become certified as an elementary teacher. I was already certified as a secondary teacher in American history, US Government, English…..and social studies…..sort of a catch-all certification that covered a wide variety of subjects….probably including brain surgery, if they had needed such a teacher! But, remember…. This was back in the days when there was a severe teacher shortage, for some reason. Upon completion of this certification, my job options would increase dramatically. Yeah…. I would be all set (as we said back then), ready for a bright future…..ready for the rest of my life.

Excited and eager to learn, I became a college student again. I enrolled in 15 credit hours of course work: Elementary Methods; Art for Elementary Teachers; Arithmetic for Elementary Teachers; Play Activities; and Elementary Student Teaching.

I am not sure what I was expecting. But…Man, these classes were boring! Not only boring, but irrelevant. Not only irrelevant, but worthless. When I look back on this semester, I think that I had simply grown and matured far beyond the man I was in 1960, when I received my bachelor’s degree. I think that back then….right after I had graduated from high school…..I had no concept of college…..what is was supposed to be like, what to expect from it. I had never been to college before. What did I know about it? I lived at home. My high school friends were still my “friends”. I had very little interaction with the other college students other than those who had graduated from Sterling High School Most of them were studying to go into some form of Christian ministry. And, there is nothing wrong with that. In fact, it was admirable.

After I graduated from college, I got a job teaching…..eventually two jobs, in fact. So I had already had two and a half years experience as an elementary teacher. It wasn’t like I had just crawled out from beneath a rock. I had stood in front of a class, taught them, planned the lessons, graded the papers….everything that a teacher does. All of what I was “learning” in these courses was pretty Mickey Mouse stuff….freshman stuff….. It took me less than a week to figure out that I actually knew more about teaching that any of my instructors knew. For one thing: I had actually taught school; they had not.

The head of the education department….the department was composed of two professors, neither with an earned doctorate…..was still there. Probably the last time she actually taught in a classroom was back in the early part of the century. Oh yes…. She was a good woman; she meant well; she tried. But, she just didn’t know what was going on inside a real classroom. She was sort of like the spinster school marm back in “The Little House on the Prairie” days. And….. She taught the elementary methods class.

Art for Elementary Teachers was a night class. I honestly thought the professor was gay. I was just a little nervous around him. It turned out that he wasn’t gay…..At least, he got married and had a child. But, he was also living….and teaching…..in the dark ages. He had one idea of art…..and to him, that was it. His way….or… Well, you get the idea. Creativity had no place in his classroom. Everybody did the same thing….and in the same way: His way. Oh, come on…. How many elementary teachers are artists? How many elementary students are artists….or even want to become artists. The point of elementary art is to teach and to foster and encourage creativity at an early age….not to train artists of the future. But…. Not in his classroom.

The class in Math for Elementary Teachers? Oh, wow. What can I say? Apparently something had happened in the three years that I had been out of the classroom. Two and two were no longer four. Ten times ten were no longer one hundred. For that matter….it seems that a five was no longer a five….or thirty was no longer three tens or two fifteens….. In fact, I really have no idea what they were. I struggled through the class…..base 10, sets, sub-sets…. I got a B….. Ask me how: I have no idea. Probably cheated! Were they actually teaching this bull in elementary classrooms? Who came up with the idea? My theory was that it was the textbook publishers. “Let’s come up with some crap that nobody understands. We can change all the textbooks….and make a fortune.” Fortunately, by the time I got back into classroom teaching four years later, it had been long forgotten.

That brings us to Play Activities. It was supposed to be a new “fun”, non-competitive, self-expression form of physical education. It was taught by some female kid….she had to have just graduated from high school…. No, more likely she had just graduated from Sterling College; this was her very first job; she was working for a salary of an indentured servant (like most of the professors were); and she was probably screwing one of the deans! Anyway, she is the only one of my college teachers that I actually clashed with. What she was teaching was so unrealistic, so utterly ridiculous, far fetched that it bordered on something from the Twilight Zone. And…. I told her so. I had already taught for two and a half years in an elementary school. I told her that no kid….boy or girl….who was halfway normal…..was going to fall for any of it. Why would a kid be interested in doing through all sorts of weird gyrations when he or she could be playing flag football or running a race or playing on the swings or shooting baskets on the outdoor court? That was no doubt a mistake. She never liked me from that point on. Oh well….. I didn’t like her either.

Ahhhh….. That brings us to student teaching. My neighbor girl’s (and remember, I was living in Sterling) boy friend had gotten a job teaching 6^th grade in Nickerson, a small town about ten miles from Sterling. He agreed that I could be a student teacher in his classroom…. Bless his heart. He had less teaching experience than I had.

So…. There I was. “Practicing” what I had already been paid to do for two and half years. My supervising teacher….the boy friend of my neighbor girl….. wasn’t, in my opinion, the most inspiring teacher in the world. After all….. He was teaching 6^th grade. How inspiring can that be….even under the best of circumstances. I doubt if very many…..if any….students were ever inspired by my rousing lectures to my 6^th grade classes, either. In general, the typical 6^th grade lesson does not fit into a category that can be called inspirational. 9 X 9 = 81. Use an auxiliary verb with the participle. The heart is the organ that pumps the blood through the body. The capital of France is Paris. Yeah…. That kind of stuff will never be made into a movie.

Since I spent a lot of time “observing”, that meant I had to spend a lot of time just trying to stay awake. I spent a lot of time just looking at my wristwatch! I spent a lot of time just trying to amuse myself…..trying not to fall asleep and falling out of my chair. No….really. The guy was not a bad teacher. He was a friend of mine. But, come on…. He wasn’t doing circus tricks or telling funny jokes or shooting half-court shots with a basketball.

No….. I think the entire thing was my fault. I was realizing that I probably knew from the very minute I stepped off the airplane in Wichita: I missed South Vietnam, and I wanted to go back. I didn’t miss the military; I missed the country….the people…..the laid back culture. I started searching for ways to go back to South Vietnam…..without reenlisting in the army, which I also came to realize was maybe what I really should have done.

This was a few decades before this thing known as the Internet came along. Finding a job in South Vietnam was obviously going to be a challenge. Quite frankly I doubted if it was even possible. Where did I even begin? There were no “job boards” back in those days. There were no advertisements in the Hutchinson News seeking civilians who wanted to go to South Vietnam. Certainly the Sterling College Placement Bureau didn’t have anything like that.

My only hope was to look up the addresses of all the non-government organizations, write letters to them asking about job opportunities….and then sit back and wait for a reply. Like I said, this was back when the Internet was only perhaps a wild fantasy in some science fiction story. There was, however, a publication called “The Readers’ Guide to Periodical Literature” which was an index of articles appearing in the most popular and important periodicals. It was found in virtually all libraries…..and still is, insofar as I know. I had to look up articles by their published date…..then search for them in the “magazine stacks”…..usually located in a poorly lighted, dark, basement with no windows. This was cumbersome and time consuming. Not to mention sending out a letter of inquiry….waiting for the reply…..filling out application forms….waiting even longer for a reply….. The chances of landing a job by this method was probably somewhere between zero and nothing.

But…. I think I must have been living a good life. Luck….good fortune….or something….was on my side.

I was sitting in the classroom….”observing”…..trying to stay awake. I was leafing through a magazine….”Redbook Magazine”, to be exact….as a distraction. I have no idea what Redbook Magazine was doing in a 6^th grade classroom. Maybe these kids were more advanced that I had assumed they were….or certainly a little more sophisticated. At any rate, I was sitting there leafing through the pages of the magazine….trying to be as subtle and unobtrusive as possible….when all of a sudden it hit me. If that magazine would have had fists, it would have smashed me in the nose.

Suddenly, I was wide awake. There in front of me was an article about an organization that I had never heard of. It was exactly what I had been looking for….even though I didn’t even know it existed. I knew the instant that I saw the title of the article that this was going to be my ticket back to South Vietnam. According to the article, there was an organization called The International Voluntary Services (IVS) that was composed of idealistic volunteers. They were working in the fields of education, agriculture and community development. The word that jumped out at me was “education”. And….the article went on to say they were always looking for “volunteers”.

I knew then….deep in my heart…..that I would be going back to South Vietnam…..with the International Voluntary Services. However, I didn’t tell anybody about my plan. I decided to wait until it was really THE plan. I copied the address of the International Voluntary Services from the magazine article. I “hid” the magazine somewhere (and I don’t remember the exact place) where I was pretty sure nobody would take the magazine. It never occurred to me to simply ask if I could take the magazine with me….and I was too honest to simply take the magazine without asking (bragging… Yes, I was an honest person, even back then!)

That evening I sat down at my ancient old typewriter and wrote a letter asking for an application form. In about a week, I received the application form in the mail….remember, this was long before there was even a hint of the Internet. I filled out the application immediately and mailed it back…..and waited hopefully….and eagerly….and expectantly…. In another week or ten days, a letter came from John Hughes, the personnel director of IVS. I ripped the envelop open….probably fortunate that I didn’t tear the letter apart in the process. Of course, if this would be happening today, chances are the entire process would have been accomplished in a couple days….instead of almost three weeks.

IVS was interested. An interview appointment was arranged in McPherson the following week. McPherson is about 40 miles from Sterling. I was super excited….but also super nervous. I had very little background or knowledge of this organization. For all I knew, all the volunteers had PhD’s or were “experts” in their fields. Maybe they were all experienced foreign service officers…. I was pretty young and naive back then. After all…. All the people who were applying were volunteers. Why would a person volunteer for a job they could get paid to do? I was still pretty confident….and I still “knew” that I would be going back to South Vietnam.

What should I wear to the interview? The only interviews I had had were….well, my job at Dillons. And, that wasn’t exactly what one would call an “interview”. My only other interviews were for the teaching positions. In all of these jobs….including the one later in Valley Falls….they were selling the job to me! That was how severe the teacher shortage was. Nevertheless, I did the only thing I knew to do. I put on a suit and tie…and hoped for the best.

I don’t remember who interviewed me. I am guessing that he was a former volunteer who lived in McPherson or close by.  And, I don’t recall where the interview was held. Probably a local cafe. I do remember that the guy who showed up to interview me was not much older than I was. He was wearing jeans and a t-shirt with some sort of logo on it. So much for professional standards! Fashion was certainly wasn’t going to be a factor in getting this position. He obviously was not a professional interviewer. We talked for a while….not about anything in particular. I asked him more questions that he asked me. I left the “interview” knowing that I would be teaching English somewhere in a provincial school….somewhere out in the boondocks. I was surprised to find that we would actually be given a “living allowance”. All I had expected was a place to live and maybe a few bananas….lots of rice and lots of tea! And…. The latter two things definitely came true.

As the interview….the meeting….came to a close, he told me that he was definitely going to recommend that I be accepted….and he thought my chances were excellent. (Actually, I think everybody’s chances were excellent!) As I drove back home, I was a happy camper. Sure enough, in about another week, I received a letter telling me that I had indeed been accepted. Hey….. High Five! I am going back to South Vietnam. And…. You said I couldn’t do it!

I decided that maybe it was time to start letting people know. Some people, of course, reacted with shock. Why would anybody want to go to South Vietnam voluntarily? Especially somebody who had already been there…. They probably thought I had gone crazy….probably suffered some sort of “war injury” while I was there…. (Just fighting off the women!) Maybe I was eligible for some sort of psychiatric treatment. (People have always thought that!) I had the feeling that some of my friends were probably talking behind my back: “Poor Beryl. There must be something wrong with him.” (No…. Not really.) A couple of my friends asked, “What’s the deal? Do you have a woman there?” (Well…. Not yet, anyway.)

Actually, my family was less surprised. They all knew that I had liked South Vietnam….and wanted to go back. I think they were rather astounded that it happened so quickly. None of them tried to talk me out of it…..other than saying things like, “Why don’t you just get a job teaching here in the USA?” or “It’s dangerous over there. Are you sure you want to go back there?”

Next came the process of preparing to leave. First there was the passport. I had never had one before. But, I got one. Then there were all those shots….the immunizations and inoculations…. I felt like a human pin cushion. I had been through all this before having received dozens of shots while I was still in the Army….and the old needle holes were still there.

My recollections of a lot of details have faded from my memory. I really have no idea how I got to Washington, D. C. None, whatsoever. The only thing I recall for certain is that for some reason, I landed in Baltimore. I didn’t even think that was unusual. That is how little I knew about what was going on. Somehow I got from Baltimore to Washington, D. C. And, somehow I found my way to the IVS headquarters.

You know….back in those days, nothing seemed to bother me. I just did stuff….and somehow everything seemed to work out. As I look back on those “Sterling” days, I often marvel that I am still around to tell about it. I did a lot of stupid things. Not bad things…..just stupid things. I took a lot of chances….did too many things without stopping to think of the consequences. I acted impulsively….spontaneously. I wasn’t insane or anything like that. I didn’t jump out in front of cars….or rob banks….or even wrestle alligators. I just “did” things….especially if it sounded or looked like fun. Maybe it never occurred to me that I was risking my health or well being. And, even back then, I looked upon myself as being sort of a coward. Maybe being so naive….such a country hick….that I didn’t recognize the potential results of some of the things I did…. Who knows? Maybe it was good, in a rather perverse way. At least, I didn’t expend a lot of energy worrying about things….

Yes…. You are right, if you are thinking that something rather drastic happened somewhere along the way……between the years when I was a (very) young man…..and now. I doubt if there are many people that I know who would ever accuse me of being spontaneous or doing things on the spur of the moment. If someone would file a charge of “spontaneousness” against me in court, there would never be enough evidence for a guilty verdict in any court in the world.

Nevertheless, somehow I made it to Washington, D. C. Somehow I found the IVS offices. Details….details…… The personnel director greeted me profusely….and soon I found myself being shuttled off to a hotel somewhere in close proximity of the World Health Organization. I remember, because this was one of the only things I could see from my window. This was no doubt a good location for the hotel, too. The place was so run down and dirty that I suspect there were diseases hiding all over the place….and probably few right in the open where we could see them, if we knew what to look for. If we got sick….. Well, the World Health Organization was right next door! At this point in my young life, I was hadn’t had a lot of experience staying in hotels….unless an army barracks passes for a hotel. And, believe me…. It doesn’t. But, even I knew that we were staying in a cheap, sub-standard, run-down building where IVS was probably renting rooms by the month at a fairly insignificant fee.

My roommate’s name was Robert Walker. I really don’t remember much about him. He was assigned to the agriculture team. I do remember, however, that we would lie on our beds, talk….and listen to Nancy Sinatra sing “These Boots Are Made for Walking”…..still one of my favorite songs. We rapidly drifted apart….especially after we arrived in South Vietnam and were dispersed to our various stations. In fact, once we got to South Vietnam, none of us rarely saw each other again. Our paths never seemed to cross. I would try to find Robert….except, I am not sure he is still alive. If he is….well, let’s face it: He is a rather elderly gentleman now. Plus….and this is the main reason: Do you have any idea how many Robert Walkers there are in the USA today? If not….just look in one of the online telephone directories.

Nevertheless, Robert and I got along well. We went got up, met the rest of our group, caught a bus to a large drug store, ate breakfast….and went to our language school. You are probably asking…. Ate breakfast in a drug store? Oh yes…. This was very common back in those days. Almost every large drug store had a “lunch counter” that served simple meals. These were popular places to eat for the morning rush hour crowd….and the lunch hour, too, for that matter. Yeah…..good old Walgreens is not what it used to be.

We spent the remainder of the day…..five days a week…..in school. We studied “Teaching English as a Foreign Language” at George Washington University in the morning. The afternoons were devoted to learning the Vietnamese language at the Foreign Service Institute.

The purpose of the course we attended at George Washington University was to instruct us the principles and methods of teaching English as a foreign language….more specifically to the Vietnamese students we would soon encounter. To be more specific, the class was offered to those of us who were destined to be English teachers in Vietnamese schools. The agriculture and community service volunteers went their separate ways to learn something that might be useful to them during their stay in South Vietnam.

This was the one….and only….class I ever took in this skill, so I am not really very qualified to give an enlightened appraisal of the course. I can only imagine that it followed accepted techniques…or best practices….in the field at the time. After all it was being conducted by George Washington University…..a university of considerable prestige and respect. Basically, the method we were taught was the “repeat after me” system. And…. It is exactly what it says…..rather like teaching a parrot to talk. The teacher says a word….or a phrase…..and then the students repeat it. “Model it” is the professional term, I think.

I was the only person in my group….a rather small group after the ag and CD people had been separated from us…..who had ever taught school before. I caught on to what was happening almost immediately. I mean…. Come on. How difficult can it be to say, “My name is Beryl” over and over the or twelve times? Or “Where do you live?” Or, “Duck…. Somebody is shooting at you.” (“Get down” would probably be a better term to use. To a Vietnamese, “duck” is something that quacks.)

But….. We spent six weeks….four hours a day….learning how to do it. Oh, I am sure there were some other things thrown in along the way just to make it a little more interesting and to make us feel we were getting our money’s worth. But, to summarize it in one sentence….. That is what we did. And…..I know you are not to believe this….a couple of the guys had problems with learning it. Since we didn’t have any foreign students to work with, we did a lot of play acting: We and the instructors were the “class”. Yeah…. It did get a little boring, for me, at least. But, I was a “good student”…..the star of the class, in fact! (See illustration.) And, the “teacher’s pet” too, I might modestly add.

In the afternoon, after we had eaten lunch…..probably at the same drug store….we all assembled at the Foreign Service Institute for our classes in the Vietnamese language. Actually, these classes were not a lot of fun. They were necessary…..and we understood that….but they were not something any of us looked forward to.

Vietnamese is not the easiest language to learn. It is a tonal language with five distinct tones. Let me see if I can remember all of them: There is the even tone with no intonation; there is the low rising tone….the low falling tone….the high rising tone and the high falling tone. That’s five, isn’t it? If you have ever wondered why languages like Chinese or Vietnamese sound so “sing-song”…. Well, wonder no longer. And the multiple tones are the reason why. But, don’t ask me why most Orientals speak in what seems like a nasal voice. I have no idea. That is a mystery for somebody else to figure out. I am pretty sure that none of us Americans spoke in a nasal, sing-song voice.

All words in the Vietnamese language have only one syllable. Strange…. Stop and consider: one syllable, one word…and five separate tones. And, I think I am correct in saying that many of their “words” are actually short “phrases” in the Vietnamese language. At any rate, it is a tricky language to learn. If you are not accustomed to the five tones….and what American is, unless they are an opera singer…..everything becomes very confusing in a hurry. Before I started studying Vietnamese, I don’t think I ever thought about it. I guess it never occurred to me about the “tones”. I suppose I just thought “that is the way they talk”. We found out in a hurry that there is a reason for that “sing-song” language they spoke.

In case you are wondering how to know which tone to make or how to pronounce a word….. There are little marks over the vowel that indicates the sound. Maybe you don’t think it makes any difference which tone to use. Well…. Let me tell you. It does! The same one syllable word can….and does….have five different meanings, depending on the tone. Let’s just say that the Vietnamese language is not a “natural” language for an English speaking person to learn to speak. And….. We haven’t even talked about the sentence structure, the verb tenses, the masculine and feminine noun and pronoun forms….. And, I am certainly not going into that here. Find a linguist, if you want to know that badly.

Just like we teachers were learning in the mornings at George Washington University, the method of teaching was the “repeat after me” system. I don’t know…. Maybe that is the only efficient way to teach pronunciation of a foreign language. We call it “modeling”. One thing that I am sure of, however, sitting for four hours “modeling” the Vietnamese language was pretty boring…..if not mind numbing. There were times when I…..and I am sure most of our little group….found it difficult to stay awake. I always wondered if it would have been better to start out the day learning Vietnamese, when our brains were still awake…..when they were still functioning in a semi-alert mode.

Like I said, the Vietnamese language classes were conducted at the Foreign Service Institute….a highly reputable institution. The actual teaching of Vietnamese was done by native Vietnamese. Vietnamese women, to be more exact. We were told….by somebody….they were wives of Vietnamese diplomats who were serving in Washington, D. C. at that time. These women knew what they were doing. I suspect that some of them may have been teachers back in South Vietnam….maybe on the university level. And, like most Vietnamese…. They were really nice women. Probably too nice for their own good. I think they found it difficult to use the word “No”. or “That’s wrong.” or “You guys are terrible!” or “You guys are never going to learn to speak Vietnamese.” Instead…. They just smiled at us and said, “Let’s says it again.” And again….and again….and again…..

There were two American ladies who were obviously in charge of the language classes. I wouldn’t swear to it under oath, but I doubt if either one of them spoke a word of Vietnamese. They were probably linguists of some sort. They did their best to explain the intricacies of the grammar…of the verb tenses….of the sentence structure….. Details that pretty much overwhelmed us.

Just like our morning session in “Teaching English as a Foreign Language”, we had nobody to practice on or with. So, just like we did then, we practiced on each other. Talk about the blind leading the blind. Yeah…. And, for the sake of honesty and full disclosure….. We also practiced with the instructors. In order to compensate for the lack of opportunities to practice, we were encouraged to go over to the State Department building and practice in their language lab at night. The State Department was within easy walking distance of our hotel. Perhaps three nights a week….and I am almost sure it was no more than that….my room mate and I would walk over there and spend some time.

In the basement of this sprawling building there was a huge language laboratory. I am assuming that this is where all U.S. personnel who were headed to an overseas assignment came to study or practice the language of their individual countries. And, in general, it was a very busy….if not popular….place, with people of all descriptions sitting behind tape players with their headphones on, practicing their language….just like we were. I have pretty much forgotten the details. Remember, this was back in 1966. But, the format on the tapes were much the same as we had been taught. A voice on the tape player said a word…. We repeated the word…. It said it again. We repeated it…. Etc….. Of course, there was no positive or negative feedback, but it did give up the opportunity to hear the word pronounced correctly, and it gave us the opportunity to “model” the word. Of course, we could go back and repeat words as often as we wanted.

Let me make it clear…. This was not our preferred way to spend an evening. But, on the other hand, it was useful in hearing and modeling words in setting that we could control….and without any interruptions….and we could proceed at our individual pace. Another advantage of spending these evenings in the State Department basement studying Vietnamese was that by the time we got back to our hotel….. Believe me, we were probably already half asleep and ready for a good night’s sleep. No need for anybody to sing us a lullaby.

For me….and I think it would probably be a unanimous opinion among our group….language training was not my favorite memory. We all knew that it was necessary if we wanted to survive our South Vietnam experience. Even with eight weeks of intense language training, we were miles away from any hint of fluency. But….a start is a start. “What is your name” “How much does that cost?” “Where do you live?” “What in the heck am I doing here?” ……or maybe, even more important, “Are you a VC?”

One guy who started out in our group never made it. In fact, he dropped out after less than a week. Poor guy. We were all pulling for him….trying to encourage him….trying to help him. I don’t remember his name. He was from Texas. We couldn’t help but like him. He was outgoing, friendly, funny. He was a cowboy….and he looked like a cowboy. He showed up wearing cowboy boots, a western style hat, blue jeans and a western cut shirt. The only thing he didn’t have was a six-shooter strapped around his waist. The Vietnamese would have loved him. He looked like he came straight off the ranch….and I am sure he probably had.

There was a problem though. He also talked like a cowboy! His Texas drawl was straight out of Hollywood. It was cool. The first day of language class it was apparent that he had a problem. He simply could not handle the five tones of the Vietnamese language. He just couldn’t….no matter hard he tried. Yes…. The Vietnamese would have love him….but there was no way they would be able to understand him. He talked with a southern Texas drawl. There was absolutely nothing sing-song about his voice! For a couple nights, we tried to help him, but to no avail. His voice just wasn’t suited to learning a language like Vietnamese. The guy understood this. Rather than prolong his frustration, which I am sure he probably thought of as failure…. He just packed up and went back home. We missed him, but we all understood quite well why he decided to quit. I am sure he was super successful helping people in another way, however.

To be sure, most of my day was devoted to the classroom….studying how to teach English as a foreign language and to learning the Vietnamese language. And, some evenings were devoted to study and practice in the language lab in the basement of the State Department building.

Despite these mandatory obligations, we still had plenty of time for ourselves…..in the evenings and on weekends. The rooms in the hotel where we stayed did not have a TV set in them. Actually, I am surprised they even had a bed. I mean, this was a cheap hotel. Maybe they were trying to toughen us up for our life in South Vietnam. No…. I am sure IVS was just cheap! So, obviously, we did not sit around in the evening watching TV at night. Sometimes, but not very often, we had some “homework”. Mostly, I think we just sat around and read or talked to each other. And, I can imagine that we went to bed quite early.

Once or twice a week, we used money from our “living allowance” to eat out…..always walking, I might add….or taking a bus. As I look back…. Maybe sometimes it is good to be young and naive and totally unaware of what was going on. Washington, D. C., at that time and probably still is, one of the most dangerous and crime ridden cities in the USA. And, here we were…. Out walking the streets at night like, probably thinking Washington, D. C. was one of the safest cities around. After all, it was the nation’s capital. Surely that meant it was safe. Nevertheless, we were completely not aware that Washington, D. C. was a dangerous city….especially at night. I am sure….positive….that I would not be walking the streets of Washington these days. Wow…. I would never consider walking the streets of Topeka at night….anywhere….

Nevertheless, nothing bad ever happened to us….not even a scary situation. Maybe there is safety in numbers. When we ventured out at night, there were always five or six of us. Perhaps we looked so tough that people thought we were a gang! At any rate, one of two times a week, we “went out” to eat.

Somehow…and it had to be a lucky accident or coincidence….we came across a steak house that looked pretty high class, at least from the outside. It was called  “The Black Angus”…..or something like that. With a name like that, it would have to be pretty good, wouldn’t it? “Yeah, let’s go in and check out this place.”

Well, indeed, it must have been a pretty exclusive place. We didn’t even make it in the front door. A superior-acting waiter or maitre d’ or somebody stopped us at the door and politely, but icily, informed us that in order to enter, men must wear a jacket and tie! Ohhhhh…. This was more high class than we had suspected. This was a place for the upper class of society…..not for us poor peasants just off the farm. We were embarrassed….at least, I was. I had never been refused entrance to a restaurant….or anywhere, for that matter….unless it as that one time I got thrown out of the girls’ locker room! Just kidding. We were dressed presentably….slacks and buttoned shirt and a jacket. What’s wrong with that? I guess we could call it my initiation into the world of “fine dining”. That night we had to settle for something a little more ordinary. Maybe we went back to the drug store. Who knows? Anyway, we didn’t let a little thing like this discourage us. Just to show them that we were “high class”, we all returned the following night, dressed like diplomats and spies. They didn’t bat an eye. They led us to a table….just like we may have been senators or congressmen. Hey…. This is fun. Sort of like Halloween. We got dressed up on our “costume”….and they fell for it. Actually, we went to this restaurant probably once a week for as long as we were in Washington, D. C. I don’t think we ever saw any important people. If we did…. We didn’t know it. And…. Who knows? Maybe we were the most important people there.

On weekends we mainly went sightseeing. We would just hop on a bus and ride to a central spot. Then we would get off…..and walk….and walk….and walk…. We saw a lot of important buildings….. We saw history…. Aside from the regular museums, we visited the Capitol Building more than once. Back in those days….early 1966….we were pretty much free to roam wherever we wanted. At least, nobody stopped us. We wandered through the halls and corridors of the nation’s capital freely. And, not just us….everybody did. I am sure we saw places in the Capitol Building that nobody can ever see today….except for the senators and representatives and their staffs. Those were the good old days….before our nation was gripped by the fear of terrorism. There were always armed guards walking around, but they seemed more protective than threatening.

One of my favorite buildings was the National Archives Building. Wow…. The original Declaration of Independence….and the Constitution….and the Emancipation Proclamation…. This was heavy stuff…..exciting and sobering. We walked leisurely through more museums that I can remember…..just looking….just passing time…. There was so much to see…. It was sensory and intellectual overload. And, don’t forget the monuments and memorials: The Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial, The Jefferson Memorial…. And all those government headquarters buildings, such as the Pentagon, the Supreme Court Building, the US Treasury Building, the Department of Justice (once Bobby Kennedy’s domain), the FBI (still under the tight control of J. Edgar Hoover)…..and, of course, The White House. We never got to go inside the White House, but walking past it was routine. We saw everything….. Arlington National Cemetery, Georgetown, the National Mall, Union Station…..

Yes…. We saw it all. Leisurely….no hassle…..no concrete barriers….no body searches….. It was more like, “Come on in and look. You are an American citizen. This all belongs to you!” What a sharp and vivid contrast from today’s world.

But…. Alas. Nobody in my group had a camera. I have no idea why. As for me…. This was long before I had developed an intense interest…an almost obsession….to take a picture of everything I see. Maybe you also noticed that nowhere in the list of sites and attractions that I listed will you see the word “art”. Wow…. Does this tell you something? I was a different person back in those days.

Today….. Well, since somewhere around the time I moved to Valley Falls….I have taken somewhere around 40,000 pictures. Admittedly, some of these pictures are duplicates….being saved in more than one folder. That, I think, is still a lot of pictures. Thank you… Thank you, digital photography. The truth is, however….. I had no pictures….zero….nada….pictures of anything I did in Washington, D. C. Eight weeks of sightseeing….eight weeks of wandering all around Washington, D. C…..and not a single picture. I guess this must be the “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” story of my life when it comes to taking pictures…. Now, I am definitely “Mr. Hyde”. Wasn’t he the good one?

And art? Why didn’t I go to art galleries? Don’t even bother to ask me. I have no idea why. Really. Back in those days, I had absolutely no interest in art. I probably didn’t even know it existed. I am sure I was never exposed to it….and that may explain a lot.  As they say, “You don’t think about stuff you have never heard of.” I think I first started to become interested in art while I was living in Saigon. But, more about that later on.

Needless to say, I wish I would have had a camera while I was in Washington, D. C. I didn’t. And, there is no point of worrying about something that cannot be changed. Although, according to one of Einstein’s theories, isn’t it at least theoretically possible to go back in time? Someday when I get bored, maybe I will give it a try.

To say the least, the time I spent in Washington, D. C. was basically not wasted. I didn’t lie in my bed and sleep….or sit in a bar and drink…..or go to a pool hall and play pool and games all day.

Usually on Sunday, I would go to church. From the late fifties through the early sixties, I attended the United Presbyterian Church….mostly because one of my good friend’s dad was the pastor of the church in Sterling…..and probably for no other reason. I continued that habit while I was in Washington, D. C. I chose to attend the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church….the church that Peter Marshall made famous. The church was a considerable distance from my hotel…..probably a good thirty or forty minute walk. The route I took to church took me down Pennsylvania Avenue, directly in front of the White House. This was a walk that I never got tired of. I would walk the couple city block, stopping often to gaze through the iron rail fence that separated the White House grounds from the sidewalk. There were always other tourists there also looking though the railing….except they were usually taking pictures. Everything was peaceful. There were a few armed policemen standing or walking around. They, quite frankly, looked like they were bored. There were no confrontations with the police. There was no shouting, “Stand back” or “Don’t take pictures.” or “Get away from the fence.” And….. There were certainly no concrete barriers or barbed wire or armored vehicles blocking streets or the view.

One Sunday I was walking to church. I was walking on the sidewalk past the White House. I was walking toward the east, so my head was turned to the south so I could see the White House as I walked along. For some reason I happened to look up, and there walking the opposite direction, toward the west, was one of my old college professors. We saw each other at almost exactly the same instant. I am not sure who was more shocked…..him or me? Both of did sort of a double take….like we were not really sure what we were seeing….and if it were really true. After hesitating for just a second, I smiled and said, “Hello, Dr. Jones. What are you doing here?” And, I am sure he probably said the same thing to me…..although he probably didn’t call me Dr. Jones. He was in Washington, D. C. attending sort of conference…..and was on his way to a different church. It was sort of a happy coincidence, I suppose. It is not very often that two people from Sterling, Kansas, meet each other…..anywhere outside of Sterling, that is….certainly not in Washington, D. C.

The eight weeks in Washington, D. C. was either pretty exciting….or it was pretty boring….depending on what we were doing. I hate to say it, but the time we spent “learning” was pretty boring. Yeah…. It would have taken a rather extraordinary teacher to make something like teaching English as a foreign language exiting….and an even more fantastic teacher to make learning Vietnamese exciting. So…. There is nothing unusual about that opinion. I don’t think either of those subjects were even meant to be exciting.

The hotel was completely unremarkable….and unmemorable….. No TV in the rooms, no bar or dining room or game room…. It was a place to sleep and take a shower….and nothing else. What made the time I spent in Washington, D. C. interesting were the “extracurricular” activities….those things we did in our free time: all the public buildings and monuments….the museums….the parks….the endless walks we took… The places we were able to eat. We took in some movies. We looked through book stores….large department stores…. We even went to Ringling Brothers’, Barnum and Bailey Circus….. The Greatest Show on Earth. I fell asleep about five minutes after the show started…..but at least, I can say I was there.

The truth was….. I was eager to get back to South Vietnam. Language training finally came to an end. IVS had about a week of “cultural” and “educational” activities planned for us. I had already satisfied my appetite for culture. I wanted to go to South Vietnam.

They looked at me with shock and horror when I asked if I could skip the week activities and fly straight to Saigon. Poor John Hughes, the personnel director at the time, practically sputtered with astonishment and amazement. Maybe nobody had done this before. Nobody had ever wanted to do this before. It just wasn’t done that way. We innocent, naive, inexperienced people just could not do this by ourselves. I mean….the war…the violence….the shooting….the mean streets of Saigon….the VC…..the VD….

After I managed to convince him that I had already spent a year in Saigon, that I knew city well….that I was familiar with the taxis, the cylos….that I was able to take care of myself…. And, after I sort of stretched the truth a little bit and told him that I had friends that I wanted to visit….that I wanted to visit my old army boss….. All of which was true, except I didn’t get around to doing any of it….. He finally agreed to buy my ticket and send me on my way. Oh yes…. He also had some things he wanted to send along with me…. You know… As long as I was going that way and was in the neighborhood.

So, a few days later, I happily landed at Tan Son Nhut Airport…..good old Tan Son Nhut…. Oh, how I missed you.

I checked into a hotel in downtown Saigon and spent a couple days just enjoying being there again…..walking around downtown….taking a taxi here….riding in a cyclo there… I really didn’t know anybody. I missed hanging out with my friend Ursel. Somehow it just didn’t seem the same. I considered going to see my old boss at Tan Son Nhut, but I figured that getting on the airbase would be more of a problem than it was actually worth. Strange, random civilians just didn’t show up at the front gate very often…..Tan Son Nhut was not a tourist attraction back then.

On the third day in Saigon, I decided that I had better pay a visit to the IVS office, if for no other reason than to deliver the two or three large envelops that I had been asked to give to them. I flagged down a taxi….showed him the address that I had written down. The driver muttered something to himself…and away we went….on my way to another adventure in South Vietnam.

Of course, I had never been to the IVS offices before, and I had no idea where they were located. In my mind, however, I had them pictured somewhere near downtown in a rather nice office building. After all, the organization was being fully funded by the United States government through USAID….the United States Agency for International Development. No wonder the driver was muttering to himself. We took off from the hotel, which was located in the center of downtown and headed west….and we kept driving west. When Horace Mann said, “Go West, young man. Go West.” I don’t think this was exactly what he had in mind. I was a little concerned that the driver had no idea where the place was located and maybe he was lost. Or that he was really a VC agent, and I was being kidnapped and would certainly be held for ransom.

After what seemed like an interminable drive, the driver finally smiled triumphantly as he pulled into the driveway. I said one of the few Vietnamese phrases that I knew at that time….and which seemed appropriate, “Cam on, ong.” (Thank you, sir.) I asked him how much…. “Bao nieu?” He said something in Vietnamese….something which I did not understand. He could probably tell by my blank look that I had no idea what he said, so he held up some fingers. I have him some money….which I knew was too much. But, what the heck? He was obviously pleased. At least, he didn’t try to hold me up for more money. He smiled, said good-bye….and drove away.

There I was standing front of the IVS headquarters….somewhere in Saigon. Somewhere I did not expect to be. But the logo on the old green Jeep sitting in the driveway said, “International Voluntary Services”. Who was I to argue with that? So, I walked to the door…..and went in.

I am not kidding! It was like the world just stopped spinning on its axis. Just like the picture had frozen on the TV set. Just like the batteries suddenly went dead! I walked in….and it looked like everybody simply stopped what they were doing in mid-motion….and looked at me. I am going to take a wild guest that not very many Americans….although I could have been English, Canadian, French….or even South African….just walked into the office randomly. Everybody just….well, stared at me. I finally walked up to one of the desks and said something like, “I am a new volunteer. I just came to say Hello to you.”

Something very similar to bedlam broke out….. On a small scale, of course. There were only about 5 or 6 people in the office. Again….and I am not exaggerating…. I was bombarded with questions: “Who are you?” “How did you get there”? “Where did you come from?” “You can’t volunteer here in Vietnam.” “You have to volunteer in the USA, and then they make the decision.”

I wanted to shout, “Just shut up and listen!” But, of course, I didn’t. Nobody had bothered to tell them that I was coming early. Or maybe they did, and the word simply had not gotten to them yet. It took mail about two weeks to get from the USA to Saigon back in those day. And, maybe using the telephone was too expensive…. I don’t know.

Anyway, I explained to them that our training in Washington D. C. was finished, and I had asked if I could come over early. That, of course, started a new round of questions…..most of them beginning with the word “Why?” “Why did you want to….?” “Why would you want to?” “Why did they let you?” “How did you get here?” “When did you get here?” “Where are you staying?”

Somehow I was getting the idea that these may not be the people that I would want to have answering 9-1-1 calls… Or maybe I would. They certainly asked enough questions. I was surprised by all the confusion that I caused…..and a little embarrassed…..and a little bit annoyed.

I handed the envelops that I had been entrusted with to one of the guys…. The only women were apparently the secretaries….sitting behind one of the desks. He turned out to be the Chief of Administration. At least, when he saw the envelops, he calmed down a bit. Obviously, the people in Washington, D.C. knew who I was.

Then the concern…..and confusion…. turned to where I was staying. “Oh, you shouldn’t stay in a hotel. It is not safe. You don’t know your way around. You might get (take your choice)…. Lost, kidnapped, killed, swindled….”

“Where are eating? What are you doing for money?”

“You must stay here where it is safe….where the food is safe….where the water is safe….”

“Why didn’t you call from the airport, and somebody would have come to pick you up?”

Call from the airport? Give me a break. I had no idea what their telephone number was. As a matter of fact…..I really had no idea where I was….really. It is a good thing that I had an honest taxi driver.

I told them that part of the deal I had discussed in Washington, D. C. was that I would come here and not bother anybody….or cause any unnecessary problems or inconvenience. I would just stay in a hotel until the arrival date of the rest of the volunteers. Really, all I wanted to do was deliver the envelops to them….and meet them….and then get out of their way.

They were amazed when I told them I had already spent a year in South Vietnam. And, even more shocked when I told them that I had just been discharged from the Army. This organization was not famous for attracting ex-military personnel….in fact, as I was to learn very quickly, it was the exact opposite.

They….and when I say “they” I am talking about the people at IVS, whom I had met only a few minutes earlier….insisted that I should come and stay at the IVS house. Well…. They were sort of my “boss” now. I agreed to go get my suitcase and move in. They even dispatched a driver to take me to the hotel. I am not sure if they were just being “nice”, or whether they wanted to make sure I would return.

So…. Now I was back in South Vietnam….and I was “officially” part of The International Voluntary Service.

Far from being located in an office building in downtown Saigon, the IVS headquarters was located on the outskirts of Saigon on Le Van Duyet Street (sorry there are no diacritical markings.) not so far from Tan Son Nhut Airbase. Also in the immediate vicinity were a South Korean military base, a South Vietnamese military base…..and the Saigon horse racing track. Le Van Duyet Street was a major thoroughfare basically lined with small shops, stores, assorted businesses, and markets. Similar to the downtown area…..if it was for sale, you could probably buy it somewhere along Le Van Duyet Street. Just a huge Walmart….only out on the sidewalk. Only, I am pretty sure there were things for sale on the sidewalk and the little kiosks and the market places that you would never find at a Walmart.

Many of the owners of these various businesses lived in their stores….in the back, upstairs…. For many, I am sure it was a life of mere subsistence….with multiple generations crowded into small rooms….no personal space, few, if any luxuries, except maybe for a TV set. It seems that somehow a surprising number of people were able to come up with a TV.

Just like the rest of Saigon, it was a busy street, full of all the interesting collections of vehicles that I had become accustomed to seeing in Saigon…. Automobiles, motor scooters (not motor cycles), cyclos, both with and without motors, bicycles, buses, military vehicles…Jeeps, two and a half ton trucks….even tanks, and the ubiquitous taxis. There was even an occasional ox cart, thrown in for good measure. And, we can’t forget the walkers, the strollers…. The streets and the traffic had the appearance of chaos, but yet somehow it worked. It is all a matter of perspective, I suppose.

The IVS headquarters was located on the north side of the street. There were two large buildings: The “main” building, the building that actually housed the headquarters and the men’s dorm, and another building which contained the dining room, the kitchen and the women’s dorm. The two buildings were connected by a covered walkway. This covered walkway was useful during the frequent rains. On the second level of the headquarters/men’s dorm building were living quarters (translations: private room) for each of the permanent male staff. Although I never checked, I am assuming there was a similar arrangement for the women on the upper story of the dining room/women’s dorm. I am just assuming this….and reporting “hear-say”. Because in the two years I lived there, nobody ever invited me to “inspect” it. On the second level of the men’s dorm was a large open-air terrace or patio….or whatever the correct name is. It was a pleasant place to sit at night…. Or it would have been, had it not been for the mosquitoes….the ever present, ever hungry mosquitoes…

So….. As I was saying, a driver took me to the hotel where I was staying, I collected my belongings….and moved to the IVS house. I really do not recall long I was there. The remainder of the volunteers showed up….. We had more language training….. I am sure there were indoctrination sessions….of some sort…..but most of that has long been filed in a subconscious “inactive” file somewhere in the basement of my brain.

After about two weeks, I suppose…..because, like I said, that short period of my life has been blocked from my memory…..and it really isn’t important anyway….we were called in….somewhere…..and told what our assignment would be. Although there is no picture in my mind of the event, I am assuming that the current Associate Chief of Party for Education would have been the logical person who told me.

While I was attending Vietnamese language training in Washington, one of the Vietnamese instructors kept urging me to try to be assigned to Ca Mau, in the very southern part of South Vietnam…..way down in the delta region not far from the South China Sea. She extolled the beauty of the land, the kindness of the people, the productive rice paddies….. What she failed to “extol” was the fact that this was one of the most dangerous regions in South Vietnam. I am not sure…..but maybe she didn’t like me as much as I thought she did! Perhaps this was her way of getting revenge for some secret grudge she was holding against me.

At any rate, Ca Mau was not in my future…..then or ever. If I could have chosen my own work station, it would have been in Saigon. But, that assignment, I would gradually become aware, was an assignment which was exclusively awarded to females…..maybe because it was considered a relatively secure place to work. We did have one guy who was stationed in Saigon…. Sam Delap, who would later become one of my best and long-lasting friends. He was a science instructor….the only one employed by IVS. He operated a mobile science unit that sort of rotated around some high schools in the Saigon area. My assignment was in Phan Rang, the capital of Ninh Tuan Province, located on the central coast of the South China Sea, about halfway up the Vietnam peninsula.

One day I packed my belongings, which had probably never been unpacked…..and said a sad good-bye to Saigon. I was accompanied by the Region II Director for IVS, Gene Stolftfuz, as I made the journey to my new home and work station in Phan Rang. This was the first time I had been anywhere in South Vietnam outside of Saigon. And, believe me, Toto, “We are not in Kansas any longer.”

I was looking forward to arriving in Phan Rang, a place that I had never heard of…..a place that I couldn’t even visualize in my brain…. Having never been outside of Saigon, my vision of South Vietnam fell into one of two categories: primitive villages in the mountains which were constantly being attacked by the VC…..or primitive villages in the delta which were constantly being attacked by the VC.

My knowledge of South Vietnam mostly came from watching the news on TV….even while I was stationed in Saigon in the Army. Yeah…. Watching the occasional TV program….and also reading the coverage of the fighting and other hostile activities in “Stars and Stripes”, the military newspaper. And dealing with reports and updates that appeared daily in our office while I was the secretary to the Adjutant General. As I said somewhere in a previous blog, in the early days of the war, I drafted letters to each of the parents of soldiers who had lost their lives in some sort of military related action. And, there were, of course, the stories told by soldiers who were stationed in remote outposts in the Highlands…..and also in the Delta region. Most of these stories were probably slightly exaggerated, but still, they didn’t exactly encourage me to take out a government loan and build a house in either of these regions.

Both of the visions seemed exciting; both of these visions seemed dangerous. Both of these visions turned out to be wrong.

Up to this point in my life, the only type of aircraft on which I had flown were commercial passenger planes. Now that I think about it, not only were they passenger planes, but they were all jet airliners. All other types of aircraft only existed in movies, on TV and in magazines. Keep in mind that I was basically a “country boy” from Sterling, Kansas.

We boarded an Air America plane…. A two-engine propeller driven aircraft. Instead of heading straight for the South China Sea like we did when I was entering and leaving South Vietnam during my Army days, we headed north over a South Vietnam that I had never seen before. No reason was ever given….maybe because I never thought to ask….why there was no immediate steep ascent into the sky. It could have been that the aircraft in which we were flying was not capable….powerful….enough to accomplish such a feat. Or, more likely, that was a military maneuver….and we were now in a civilian aircraft.

Once aloft, it occurred to me that we were flying at a remarkably low altitude, and again I am comparing to the only other flight I had taken in South Vietnam. I am sure we were well beyond the range of any small weapon fire….like a rifle, for example. Yet, on this first flight, I was apprehensive about my very immediate future! Gene kept telling me to relax. I tried my best to follow his advice. It didn’t help matters that a couple times he tapped me on the shoulder and pointed out the window. “See the helicopters over there? They are firing down into the jungle at something.” Sure enough, two or three Army helicopters were circling a target somewhere down in the jungle and appeared to be firing a massive amount of ammunition upon it. Maybe this was not the most favorable thing to see on my first flight. But, our Air America plane was flying at a much higher altitude than the helicopters, so we had a good bird’s eye of the action. It was interesting and exciting, I suppose, but I kept a close watch for any shells or bullets that might happen to come through the floor of our aircraft.

We landed at the Phan Rang Air Base, home of the 101^st Airborne Division. Somebody must have picked us up. At least, I do not remember hitchhiking the five or six miles into town…..or walking, which would have been even more memorable, probably. I think I would tend to remember getting shot at!

It is sort of strange how little, but important, details such as this can be blocked out of my memory. But, I have no recollection….not even a fuzzy inkling…..of my arrival in Phan Rang. One would logically think that this would be crystal clear in my mind. After all, for me, it was the beginning of a new and very different life.

In all probability, we were met at the air base by my new station mate, Robert Hargreaves. I do remember Robert….Bob….quite well, though. He had a very distinctive mustache…..that was a feature one could not miss. He was medium height, was a thin guy; he had a shock of dark hair and wore glasses. He made me feel welcome immediately, which I appreciated.

After depositing my suitcase at my new home, Gene lost no time in taking me to meet the principal of the public high school, which would be my primary assignment. I don’t remember his name, but he was a rather diminutive fellow….probably only middle age, although he appeared to be older, perhaps because of the horn rimmed glasses he was wearing. He appeared to be delighted to meet me…. Yeah…. Why not? A free teacher? Who is going to turn that down? I don’t think there had been an IVS English teacher in Phan Rang prior to my arrival. If there was, it was before this principal’s tenure. He was rather tentative about my teaching schedule, but said to come back, and he would have everything arranged.

Also that day, Gene took me to the USAID (United States Agency for International Development) compound to introduce me to the senior American representative, who incidentally, was a former volunteer for IVS. After than introduction, Gene took me back to the IVS house. Bob and I gave him a ride back to Tan Son Nhut Airbase where he would catch the plane to where ever he was headed.

On our ride back to our house….my new home….I got to know a little bit about Bob. I found that he was from California and had a degree from the University of California in poultry science. He was nearing the end of his two year commitment to IVS and planned to return to the USA. Before joining IVS, he had been active in the civil rights movement, having participated in various marches and protests in the South.

Back at the IVS house, he did his best to make me feel welcome. I really have no idea where the house was located. If somebody would guarantee me a million dollars to go find it today… I would be a poor man. For one thing: When Gene and I got off the airplane at the airbase, I had no idea where I was. I had no sense of direction….and it stayed that way for the duration of my time in Phan Rang. In fact, in this strange environment, my directions were 180 degrees wrong! The sun came up in the west….and it set in the east! For weeks it drove me crazy; I mean absolutely bonkers. But, nothing that I tried ever changed it. Finally, I just resigned myself to it and accepted it as normal. I mean…. Does it really make any difference where the sun rises?

For me….and I do not know about other people….the way I see…or perceive…. something the first time is the way it stays forever. And, unfortunately, that first day in Phan Rang, getting my sense of directions straight just didn’t occur to me. A big mistake on my part. Actually the same thing has happened in Berlin. On my first trip there in 1995, the exchange student that I was with seemed very nervous about riding city buses. He always preferred to ride the subway. I am not sure why. Maybe he thought buses were dangerous so soon as the reunification; maybe he thought they were too slow; maybe he just liked riding in the subway.

One afternoon…..a rainy afternoon with no sunlight….we took the subway to Check Point Charlie….a major historical tourist attraction in Berlin. Like it usually happens, after I ride in a subway, when I got out and walked up the steps to the sidewalk, I had no idea where I was. But…. There in front of us was Check Point Charlie. Success! I have been back to Check Point Charlie many times in the intervening years. We always take a bus….I insist on it. Everything is fine during the bus ride. I know my directions. Everything looks familiar. All is well with the world…… Until…. We reach Check Point Charlie. Then, instantly, in a split second, everything reverts back to that fateful day in 1995 when I walked up the steps from the subway. I had no idea where I was on that day….and (if I didn’t know better), I wouldn’t know where I was now. After I get back on a bus….and have ridden for only perhaps a half block….everything falls back into place again.

It is rather strange how the mind works…..my mind, at least. I was born and raised in central Kansas. The land is laid out in squares….sections of land. At every mile, for all practical purposes, there is an intersection. It is all logical. And…. The sun rises in the east and it sets in the west. We know and experience this from the time we are born. So….It is only logical for us to say things like, “OK. Go two miles east….a mile north…and then a mile west.”

Anyway, one day….and I am not really sure how long I had been there….it suddenly struck me that my directions were turned around 180 degrees. And, from the time I arrived in Phan Rang until I was transferred to Saigon, the sun came up in the west and went down in the east! Yeah….. That is a long way to go to explain why I really have no idea where I lived in Phan Rang!

Getting back to the story, though….. Maybe the most important thing, he showed me my bed….where I would sleep. Again, I do not have even a dim recollection of the rest of the house. I know that it was a two story house….quite small and rather disheveled….and dimly lit. Of course, it had electricity and running water (at least, I am pretty sure it did). It seems to me that we spent a great deal of our time sitting in the kitchen. Fortunately, I had brought some books with me…although I am not sure why. Maybe I had a premonition that this might be my only leisure time activity.

Of course, there was no such thing as a TV set…..not even a small one. This was a Vietnam long before there was TV in the provinces. Even if we might had had a TV, the all the programs would have been in the Vietnamese language. I do not recall if the Armed Forces TV Network had been established or not. Even if had…..why would they be furnishing it to the residents of Phan Rang? Maybe to the Phan Rang Air Base….but certainly not the town.

I did, however, have my trusty transistor radio…..my only real luxury. The only problem was: I couldn’t receive any English language stations….not even Armed Forces Radio. Again, I can imagine that the signal came in loud and clear on the air base…..but not in town. And…. Why should we? Fortunately, my little battery powered transistor radio had a one or two short wave bands on it. On a good night, I could pull in the Voice of America from the Philippines. However, the only justification I can think of for listening to the VOA would be if I were suffering from insomnia and trying to fall asleep. It was largely what today we would call “Talk Radio”….and then its programs were definitely tailored to its audience…..propaganda intended for the Filipino people. One thing is was not: A rock and roll station. Or a country music station. Or a classical music station. Not by any means. It was just boring commentary. The same was true of the BBC World Service….only it was more boring that the VOA….and with a British accent.

Late at night….never in the daytime….there were a few English language stations lingering out there on the short wave bands. They tended to fade in and out. What else could I expect with a little radio powered by a couple 2-A batteries? I was really never sure where the stations were located? I mean…. Who speaks English in Southeast Asia? Or… Were they even coming from Southeast Asia? I am not sure. At any rate, it was comforting to hear somebody speaking English on the radio. The music they played? It was strange music….music that I had never heard before or have never heard since. Except for the English language…and even the language was not being spoken by native Americans….everything about these stations was strange. But, yet, I would turn on my radio at night, pull out the little antenna…..move it around until I got the best reception possible.

One very vivid recollection I have of that rather dismal house occurred one night only a day or so after my arrival. There were two small bedrooms upstairs: one for Bob and one for me. Bob consistently went to bed earlier than I….and was apparently slept rather soundly. I would sit on my bed, pillows behind my back and a lamp with a dim bulb shining over my shoulder. I would often review the lessons that I would present the following day…..or just sit there and listen to the strange programs on the radio. One night, shortly after I had turned off the lamp to go to sleep, there was an explosion. It almost propelled me from my bed. Then it was followed by another equally earth-shaking explosion…..and another…. “Oh, Wow!” I thought, not knowing whether to grab my clothes and run….to get under the bed….or hide in the closet. Or just to go outside and surrender….and become a prisoner of war.

I waited for the next round of explosions….but they never came. I fully expected Bob to coming running to my room, shouting something like, “We’ve got to take cover. Grab your stuff, and let’s get out of here.” But…. Nothing. I didn’t even hear him turn over in his bed. Surely, he had to have heard it. It was an explosion…. You know? I am not talking about a gunshot…. I am talking an explosion that would have easily destroyed our house. I sat on the edge of my bed for what must have been several minutes….expecting to hear sirens….jeeps and tanks rumbling through town….return gunfire. Instead, I heard….. Nothing. Silence.

The following morning, you can better believe that the first topic of conversation when I went downstairs was, “Didn’t you hear those explosions last night? What’s going on? Weren’t you scared? Where did they come from? Were we being attacked? Bob sort of chuckled, “I didn’t hear them….but were there three of them?”

“Yes….and they sounded very close.”

“Oh, almost every night around midnight, the local militia fires three or four artillery round off into the distance…..just as a sort of warning to the VC (Viet Cong). I don’t think anybody is really out there, but it is just sort of a way of saying, ‘We are here waiting for you…..so keep away.’ I don’t even hear them any more.”

It was always rumored….and who am I to argue?….that our province, Ninh Tuan Province was perhaps the safest province in South Vietnam. It was the birthplace….the ancestral home….of President Thieu…..and also his brother, who was reported to be a top general for the North Vietnamese army….theoretically his arch enemy. So, there was a sort of “gentlemen’s agreement” to simply leave it alone. Neither of the generals wanted to harm their ancestors, their graves or their common home. Lucky us. I have no way of knowing if this was true, although I know that the Ninh Tuan Province was scarcely touched by enemy activity until the TET Offensive.

This helped allay some of my fears of these regular midnight artillery incidents….but it took me a few weeks to simply fall asleep and ignore then, like Bob did.

My main source of news in those months I spent teaching in Phan Rang came from the “Stars and Stripes” newspaper, which always seemed to be available at the USAID headquarters. Mother would send me newspapers occasionally, but that was only for local gossip, not national or international news. I suppose one could say that I took at least one-third of Timothy Leary’s advice to “Turn on, tune in, drop out.” During the time I spent in Phan Rang, I just sort of “dropped out”…. But, that decision was made for me. It didn’t require any conscious effort on my part!

I still kept up a rather active correspondence with family and friends….sort of my lifeline to the outside world. I wrote letters to Mother, to high school friends, to relatives….even to friends that I had made while in the Army. Believe it or not….. They actually wrote back, at least from time to time. To my family and relatives….and even to most of my old high school friends….I was somewhat of an anomaly. Sort of that creature to be pitied….and humored….and, no doubt, to say, “Thank Heavens, it is him and not me.” Most of these people felt sorry for me what I went to South Vietnam in the military. When I returned to South Vietnam voluntarily…. They thought I was crazy!

I woke up the next morning….my second day in Phan Rang….and Bob said, “Come on. Let’s go eat breakfast.” Bob had made a deal with a little cafe for a meal plan. It was probably a standard thing. I don’t know. We paid a fixed fee, and we could go there and eat the standard “meal of the day”. It really was a pretty good arrangement, insofar as I was guaranteed of three meals a day. This certainly was not a three or four star restaurant….and it was not listed in the Michelin Guide. In fact, if it were, it would have had zero stars…..maybe Minus Zero stars. However, the food was sufficient….always rice, of course. Rice for every meal, including breakfast. Also some sort of meat….of some sort. Don’t ask; don’t tell. Chicken or pork, in all likelihood. A vegetable. Some bread….French bread, always. And, that was it. For a fixed monthly or weekly price. No…. It was not “all you can eat”. A waiter brought the food to you. When it was gone…. It was gone. But, it was sufficient. Bob always said that they gave the foreigners a little more food because we are bigger people. However, as long as I ate there, I didn’t have to worry about going on a diet! And, maybe that is why I continued to weigh l45 pounds during my tenure in Phan Rang.

There came a day when I thought if I ever saw another grain of rice, I would go bananas…. Stark raving crazy…. Even looking at rice could bring on a feeling of nausea. However, there was nothing else to eat. Even if I had chosen to prepare my own food at the IVS house…..Yeah, like that was ever going to happen……about the only thing on the market was rice. So, out of an instinct for survival, I had no choice but to continue to eat rice. And….Life has a strange way of dealing with things. When I came back home to live three years later…. What did I miss the most? You guessed it: Rice. Ironic, isn’t it?

I have no recollection of ever eating a meal in the house where Robert and I lived. Why would we? We had a pretty good deal at the little cafe. It was so much easier….and probably cheaper….than preparing meals at home. We didn’t have to bother with the daily chore of buying food, for one thing. We had no refrigerator that I can recall. There would have been no way of preserving the food, so it would have indeed been necessary to go out and buy food on a daily basis. Neither do I recall any sort of cook stove….or a stove whatsoever, for that matter. If we did have a stove (that I have forgotten about), it would have been a bottled gas stove, and I would have surely remember taking the portable tanks to have the refilled. We would have no doubt have cooked our food like everybody else did…..In the back yard or back porch on a charcoal cooker. Neither of us had time to do that.

Insofar as I can remember, Phan Rang did not have a Walmart store….or a Dillons….or a Quick Shop! In fact, there was nothing that resembled what we think of as a grocery store. Instead there were a series of open air markets and food stalls and kiosks, usually specializing in one food product or at least one type of food product. For example, there were vegetable markets, meat markets, fruit markets….. These markets could have been impromptu markets, part of a larger “farmers’ market” sort of set up spontaneously. Or in many cases, they were semi-established wooden stalls or kiosks, owned and operated as family businesses…..and many times in set up in front of their living quarters.

Of course, too, there were the necessary bread vendors….almost always French bread. Remember, South Vietnam was a colony of France for many years, and the French influence lingered long after the French were expelled. During my entire three years with IVS, I do not recall ever coming into contact with sliced bread….the kind of sliced bread that is a staple food of our lives here in the USA. One thing about the bread: It was always advisable to buy bread first thing in the morning. The bread vendors opened up their little stand early, and when the last loaf of bread was sold…. Well, Tough luck. It was gone.

On many occasions, either Bob or I would buy a loaf of bread and take it home to eat. Those long loaves of bread were beyond delicious. They would have been a meal in themselves. Hard and crusty on the outside, melt in your mouth texture on the inside. At least, while they were fresh. Along with the ubiquitous rice, bread may have ranked second as a staple food of South Vietnam.

There is only one time that stands out in my memory of eating meals….at least evening meals….in the house where Bob and I lived. As I recall, Bob was gone for a few days. He had no doubt made a trip down to Saigon for some reason. He could have gone down to pick some baby chicks….or some seed…..or medicine that farmers needed….. Anyway, he wasn’t there.

On my daily visit to the USAID office, somebody told me that somebody from the Phan Rang Air Base was trying to get hold of somebody from IVS….and it was very important. They gave me a telephone number…. And, Yes… We did have telephones! I called the number and was connected with a colonel who was obviously somehow in charge of food service….or maintenance…..or health and sanitation…. He said that he had heard that the International Voluntary Services had good relations with the farmers in the province.

“OK…..”

He would really appreciate it if we could use our contacts and influence to help the Air Force Base…..

“OK….”

They were accumulating a large amount of garbage from the mess halls (dining halls), and it was becoming a genuine problem. Could I possibly help him out….

“OK…..”

Could I please drive over the air base and meet with him? He would explain the problem to me….

I told him that I had a two hour period the following day that I had no classes. Yes… I would drive over and meet with him at 2:00 in the afternoon…. Sorry, I mean 1400 hours!

He thanked me several times and told me how much he appreciated it.

The following afternoon I got into my Jeep….the old World War II surplus Jeep assigned to me….and made the five or seven miles trip over to the air base. I managed to find his office in the obstacle course of buildings. Wow…. He was the commander of one of the air wings at the base. Must be important, I thought to myself as I walked into the office and identified myself. I must say, it was sort of novel for me….walking into a commander’s office to be greeted by a guy that used to be “ME”….back when I was in the Army.

Anyway, I told him my name and that I had an appointment with the colonel. The poor guy was confused and maybe embarrassed. Nobody had told him of any appointment. “Are you sure you have the right office?”

I assured him that I had talked to the colonel on the telephone the previous day and we had agreed to meet at this time. “He’s out flying right now. I am sure he will be back soon, though,” the guy said. (I call him” the guy” because I do not know his official title.) “Why don’t you sit and wait for him?”

I kept looking at my wristwatch nervously. I was scheduled to teach a class at 3:30. I had to be there. At about 3:00, I told “the guy” that I had to leave….that I had another appointment. He was not happy…. Now it was his turn to be nervous. He probably was not used to people walking out on a colonel….a commander.

Personally, I think fifteen or twenty minutes is long enough to wait for a person….anybody….especially when both people have previously agreed to a definite time. I didn’t leave out any sense of disrespect or arrogance. I left because I had a commitment to teach a class at 3:30….and if I didn’t show up, there would be nobody there to teach them. How many times did you walk into your English class….and find that the teacher simply had not shown up?

I stopped by the USAID office later that day after the class had finished. The colonel had left an urgent message for me to contact him. I called him. I told him that I had to leave because I was obligated to teach. He was very apologetic, somewhat sheepish….and I think I detected a trace of panic in his voice. I agreed to meet him the following day. He assured me….strongly assured me….that he would be in his office ready to meet with me.

It turned out that the mess halls (dining halls) at the airbase were accumulating an alarming amount of discarded food….food thrown away or not eaten by the airmen. I don’t know what his says about the quality of food they were serving…..although I always found that the food in the Air Force mess halls was consistently higher quality than that in the Army. (What does that say about the quality of food served by the Army?) Anyway, disposing of the food was becoming a major problem for the Air Force. The amount of food, combined with the consistently hot temperatures, were ideal conditions for attracting various rodents in large numbers….not to mention the millions of mosquitoes, flies and other insects. And….. The food was also producing an odor that seemed to waft over the Air Force base.

The colonel….the commander of something….said he had been advised that the International Voluntary Services worked with local farmers. Would it be possible that they might be interested in using the food to feed their animals….especially their pigs? If so, they were free to come and get it…..as much as they wanted…..as much as they could carry…..and take it away. For free! All they had to do was come and get it…. Just Come on Down!

I told him and I would check around and see what I could find out. I mentioned it to a couple of my Vietnamese contacts….who in turned mentioned it to some farmers he knew…. Wow. Were they interested! This was a virtual gold mine for them. Free food for their livestock. And…. Who knows? Maybe for their families, too! I never saw the colonel again. However, about a week later, an Air Force Jeep dropped off a couple large boxes for me at the USAID compound. Each box contained 24 boxes of C-Rations….the well-preserved, already prepared, ready to eat food that military personnel carry with them to eat when no other food is available.

Surely you have heard the jokes about C-Rations….. Or maybe not. Anyway, many military personnel do find them to be of the same quality as a hot, home cooked meal….. Not the kind of food that their mothers served them. As for me? I was delighted! I had a month of free food! And, for those of you who know me are well aware that I don’t make much of a distinction between food. Any food that I do not have to prepare…..or buy….is good food. Just set it in front me me….. And, I am happy. And…. Those are the only days that I actually ate meals in the IVS House that Bob and I lived in.

My primary placement in Phan Rang was the public high school. However, only a couple days after I arrived in Phan Rang, Bob (and also the people at the USAID office) to me that other high schools in the city were also interested in having my services as a teacher. This was fine with me. I was only assigned two or three classes a day at the public high school, hardly enough to keep me busy….or even justify my presence in Phan Rang.

There were at least three other high schools in the town, aside from the public high school. There was a so-called semi-public high school, a Buddhist high school and a Roman Catholic high school. They were all interested….if not eager….to have me teach in their school.

Although sometimes it was difficult to decipher the rules and precise reason things happen in Phan Rang, supposedly the public high school was open to those students who among the higher academic achievers. There was, at some point, a qualifying exam which students took, and the results of that exam determined who was admitted. I have no doubt that this is true. But, on the other hand, I also strongly suspect that the position that the student’s parents occupied in the community….both financially and politically….may have been of equal importance in the admittance process. Of course, I have no way of actually proving that assumption, but, South Vietnam, being what it was at the time, this would be a logical conclusion to draw.

I can also imagine that the public high school was probably assigned the better teachers, too….although saying that is probably an oxymoron.

The semi-public high school was the home of what I can assume was the “second tier” students…..both in the terms of the entrance test scores….and the social and economic and political status of their parents.

I am not sure where the students in the Buddhist high school came from. They must have been seriously off the charts….and I mean dropping off the bottom…. no matter how one looked at it. They were what was left over at the bottom of the barrel.

The students at the Catholic high school were obviously children of members of the Roman Catholic Church. Students at the Catholic high school paid a fee or tuition to attend the school, so I am going to go out on a limb and say that almost anybody who had the money to pay the tuition may have been accepted into the school. Although, again, I am not going to swear to that under oath.

As I said earlier, I met the principal of the public high school the first day I arrived in Phan Rang. He was a slightly built man….and by slight, I mean very thin and rather short, even by Vietnamese standards. He was middle aged, although it is often difficult to judge a person’s age once they reach a certain point in life. He wore thick, horn-rimmed glassed….and appeared to be very intellectual. And, like almost all Vietnamese, he wore sort of a perpetual smile. I saw him the first day of school when he introduced me to the other English teachers….the Vietnamese “English teachers”. After that, I do not recall ever seeing him again. We obviously did not become best buddies.

The principal of the semi-public high school was a much younger guy….maybe somewhere around my age, if not a couple years older. He was a personable, friendly man, and spoke quite good English. His family owned a store in “downtown” Phan Rang. I would stop on occasions to visit him. Like most other store owners, he lived in the back of his store. His wife and other family members operated the store while he performed his duties as principal. He is the only principal that I would call a “friend”. He and his family were always appeared to be happy to see me when I could stop to see them. They would rush to find a chair and to serve me tea. His wife also spoke passable English, so I was able to carry on a conversation with them. I normally only stayed for a few minutes. They asked me far more questions about my life and the USA than I asked of them. They longed to go to the USA some day. I hope their wish came true.

The principal of the Buddhist high school and a young-ish guy, too. But, I never got to know him very well.

The principal of the Catholic high school was a priest…. Probably no surprise there. He was a friendly, intelligent man….and very supportive of my teaching efforts. He spoke quite good English, too. He had other duties, too, aside from being the principal of the school…..like being a priest, for example. Our paths never crossed outside of the school. In fact, I doubt if he ever left the school/church compound very often.

Of course, I agreed to teach English classes in each of the four high schools. And, it did not take me very long to give each of the schools….the public high school, the semi-public high school, the Buddhist high school….a rating or grade. Here they are, in the order which they are listed: Near chaos; chaos; and beyond chaos. The Catholic high school was in a class of its own. It was actually a fairly well run school with a focused faculty and orderly, purposeful classes.

The discipline in the public high school was acceptable. A trip to the principal’s office could potentially result in some dire consequences….including suspension or expulsion. There would be no problem replacing a student who had been suspended. And, the “shame” and embarrassment that would result from such an expulsion would have been a difficult pill to swallow for the parents and family…..and also for the student. In general, it was not a huge problem to maintain control in these classes. I had the impression that expulsions were few and far between, however.

The semi-public high school. Well….we are on a downhill slope here. As I said before, these students were the “almosts”, the “not quites”…..maybe what in basketball terms we would call the “bench warmers”. It was more difficult to maintain their attention.

The Buddhist high school. Oh, wow! Sometimes I wondered why they were even there….or how they got there. Most of them, it seemed, had very little interest in getting an education…..much less learning to speak English.

The classes in all three of these high schools were vastly overcrowded. Here in Kansas, a class of 25 or 30 is considered to be an unreasonably huge class. In the first place, the classrooms simply are not constructed that large, which means that the students are packed into an abnormally small space. As most teachers know, there is no way that a teacher can give adequate individual attention….or hardly any attention at all….to thirty students. Stop and think: If a class period of 50 minutes long, that means an average of one minute per students. And…. What if I decide to teach? Where is the time for actual teaching? For instructional time? Yes…. Thirty students are simply too many to teach with any sort of positive results. And, I haven’t even talked about discipline, grading papers and all that good stuff.

In all of my classes in Phan Rang, in the three high schools that I referenced, thirty kids would have been on the low end of the spectrum. I taught a couple classes with upward of fifty…even sixty students…..and they were packed into the room, literally standing room only.

Never did I have the feeling that the chaos in the classrooms was aimed at me. In fact, some of the biggest “trouble makers”….and I do not use that word in a mean sort of way…..were the kids….mostly, if not exclusively boys…. who were the friendliest to me outside of class….who went out of their way to smile and wave when they saw me outside of the classroom…..downtown or while riding their bicycles…. No, I think the problem was a more generic or universal problem. They did not like school; they saw no purpose in school; they did not want or like to study English….they saw no need or reason for it. In other words, they were being forced to do something they did not want to do. They saw no future benefits from it. Is this so different from kids anywhere?

Another problem was the lack of textbooks and the lack of teaching tools. I am not certain about the other classes, but insofar as the English classes were concerned, we….and I mean IVS….and ultimately USAID or JUSPAO (Joint United States Public Affairs Office) provided the English books. There were not enough books for each student. Each English classroom has given a certain number of books. The books stayed in the classroom. They had to. They were used by the next class. Consequently, students were not permitted to take the book home to study. If the class happened to have more students than the number of books that were provided, two students had to share one book. It was not an ideal situation. As one might expect, books gradually disappeared as the weeks went on. Who know what happened to them? Carried out of the classroom by mistake? Stolen? Fortunately, however, we were sometimes able to replace the books….so the process could start all over again.

Let me give you a brief glance into one of my typical classroom sessions. We used the “repeat after me” method of teaching. This was the same method that was used in Washington when we were learning to speak Vietnamese. Basically, it was the only technique I was familiar with. And, I was one of the very, very few “teachers” in the organization who had a degree in education or who had actually taught in a classroom prior to arriving in South Vietnam. The other people who were members of the education team had never stood in front of their own class and taught their own students.

Why were they there…..teaching English in a Vietnamese high school? Remember, this was back in the 1960’s. They were volunteers; they were not salaried. It was before it was considered proper or mandatory to have a degree or certificate in teaching English as a foreign language. I had a degree in education and I had already taught for two and a half years, but I was not certified in TEFL. These young people were idealistic; they were eager and willing to serve; they were cheap. In fact, none of the positions or jobs in the International Voluntary Services really required any special education or training.

Getting back to a typical day…. I would show up at the assigned time and to directly to the classroom(s) that had been assigned to me for the particular class. I was dressed casually….certainly a jacket and tie were not necessary. Shortly before the final bell rang, the students began to file into the classroom…. Well, most of them showed up on time. Before the sat down….assuming there were enough seats…..they would take a book from the stack on my desk. When it appeared that all….or most….of the students had arrived, I would welcome them by saying something creative like, “Good Morning, Class.” Or “Good Afternoon, Class.” In unison, they would reply, “Good Morning, Teacher.” And…. Then, we were off to the races.

I would ask them to turn to the page the day’s lesson started on. And…. I wrote it on the chalkboard behind me. At that time, my grasp of the Vietnamese language was not very good, to say the least. Fortunately, their books (and my teacher’s edition, also) was written in both English and Vietnamese. For the remainder of the class period, we did the “repeat after me” thing. And, let me add, these lessons were generally “fill in the blank” type lessons.

Some days the lesson might concentrate names of things…. of nouns containing the name of an item of furniture: “This is a(n) ___________.” a chair; a table; a lamp; a bed; sink…. Other days we would learn names of animals: “This is a(n) _____________.” a dog; a cat; a cow; a horse; elephant.

Other times the lesson taught verbs. “The boy and girl are ______________.” playing, walking, running, swimming, talking, eating.

We also introduced prepositional phrases. “The dog is ____________. under the table; on the chair; in the yard.

Well, you get the idea. Maybe you also get the idea that I was never able to carry on a deep or meaningful discussion with any of my classes. Their grasp of English and their skill level was simply not developed sufficiently to exchange anything except the most basic ideas. I can imagine that there were a few students who were advanced enough to express rather complex ideas….but this was certainly the exception.

You are probably wondering why I have not mentioned the Catholic high school. To me, the Catholic high school sort of stands in a class of its own. In my opinion, it was the only high school in town that truly offered an “education”. From the beginning, I recognized they had a sense of purpose. One of the first things I noticed was that the school had a structure to their classes….to their method of teaching…..to their discipline….to the dedication….and maybe even the education…..of their teaching staff. It was certainly more “business like” than any of the other high schools where I taught. From the very beginning, I could tell there were firm expectations….not only of the students, but also of the staff.

Since this was a private school, they could be more selective in who attended. I am not sure that all the students were Roman Catholic. It just never occurred to me to pose such a question. Although I never asked, I can imagine that the students paid a tuition to attend the school. I can also imagine that the school required a rather rigorous entry test. It also seems reasonable to assume that if parents are paying a great deal of money…..tuition…..for their child to attend the high school, they would expect equivalent academic results. If this were true, the school and its administration probably had the full support of the parents. On the other hand, since the Catholic high school was clearly the most “elite” of the town’s schools, most parents were probably eager to do anything they could to make sure their child or children stayed enrolled. And, the two major points of consideration in his regard would have been to maintain an acceptable grade point average…..and to stay out of trouble…. and not risk the consequence of being kicked out of the school. Again, I have no actual proof, but I suspect that many….if not most…. of the students came from the more affluent families of Phan Rang.

The time I spent teaching in the Catholic high school was a joy compared to the hours I spent in any of the other three schools. Classes were not overcrowded. Nobody ever had to stand in the back of a classroom. There were sufficient books so each student had one. The classrooms were always clean. The students were polite.

Shortly after I arrived in Phan Rang….in fact, within a couple months….Robert’s two years came to a close, and he left to return to the USA. However, upon his departure, two new volunteers were assigned to Phan Rang. This necessitated finding a new, more spacious place to live…..a house large enough to comfortably house three people. Through my contacts with the USAID office, I located a newly built, larger house, which, in fact, was located adjacent to the Catholic high school. So, for all practical purposes, the Catholic high school was located almost in our front yard.

As a matter of fact, I could have walked to my classes at the Catholic high school. But, I am almost sure that I didn’t. Probably because I had other commitments, things to do and places to go immediately after my classes.

I remember quite clearly the first day I taught at the Catholic high school. The principal introduced me to the other faculty members and then took me to what would become my classroom. The students were already sitting at their desks waiting for my arrival. The principal greeted the students, and they….in unison….returned the greeting. Then he introduced me….going into a rather lengthy discourse, most of which I did not understand. I am pretty sure he was talking about me, though. The students kept glancing at me….more or less in unison….at regular intervals. I couldn’t help thinking that he was threatening them with some very dire consequences….including serious bodily harm or even worse…. if they didn’t behave themselves….

As for me…. I just stood there rather helplessly, but trying to look serious, stern….yet friendly, helpful and “teacherly”, all at the same time. When he finished talking, the students all stood up, clapped their hands and said what I hope was, “Good Morning, Teacher.” I smiled at them. The principal sat down at the back of the classroom….and I said something like, “I am glad to be your teacher. My name is Mr. Darrah,” turning around to write my name on the chalkboard behind me. “I am looking forward to a good year. If you need extra help. Please ask me. Now, open your books to page one,” turning around and writing “Page 1” on the chalkboard.

“Now…. Repeat after me……”

After about five minutes the principal got up and walked quietly out of the classroom, leaving me alone.

At the end of the class….and I don’t think I was assigned to teach the first class of the day….there was a short break or recess. Most of the faculty members headed toward the teacher lounge. Just the fact that the school had a lounge….more of a room with a large table surrounded by chairs, plus a refrigerator and a couple storage cabinets…. says something about the school, I think. Most faculty members approached me, smiling, and introduced themselves to me. After all the formalities were over, we all sat down. One of the teachers….and they were about equally divided between teachers dressed as priests and “civilians”, men and women, although there were probably slightly more men than women….opened the door of one of the cabinets and produced a bottle of bourbon. I was shocked, to tell the truth. Never before….and never again since teaching in that Catholic high school….have I ever seen a bottle of liquor in a teacher’s lounge. Each teacher….priests, men and women….poured a bit into a paper cup. When the bottle reached me….I was not sure what I was supposed to do. I didn’t have a lot of time to stop and consider the situation. The next teacher was eagerly waiting for the bottle to be passed on. So…. In the interest of harmony and good will, I poured a sip into my cup….and passed it…..just like it was something I did everyday in my former school in the USA. Man…. This was a custom that I could get used to in a hurry. I couldn’t help but think that it may have been the faculties of the other three high schools that really needed it even more, though! Who knows? Maybe this might be a good custom to adopt in the schools here in the USA. It might be a step in developing more relaxed and calm teachers.

Another custom that I learned to like was each morning, a student brought me a cup of water…. You thought I was going to say bourbon, didn’t you?…..and set it on my desk. I was never sure if they did this for all the teachers or not. I hope so. For one thing, all of them deserved it. And second, I certainly did not want to receive any special treatment, even though I was not Vietnamese.

Compared to the other three high schools where I taught, discipline in the Catholic high school was great. Just the fact they had some discipline was noteworthy in itself. Maybe one of the contributing factors was the fact that the fact that the classroom was not overcrowded. Each student had his own seat….and his or her own book. One of the major factors in discipline problems in the other schools….other than apathy and the fact they probably didn’t want to be there….can be attributed to the fact that in some cases the students were packed into the classroom like sardines. I am (again) not certain, but I had a feeling that perhaps many of the other classes….the non-English classes…. were not so packed with students….that they were packed into my classroom simply because I was the only native speaking English teacher available. If this was true, the administration was not doing the students a favor…..nor me. I can imagine that very little learning took place in those jam-packed classrooms.

At the Catholic high school, however, my discipline problems were minimal…. And, ask my former students: I am rather strict when it comes to goofing around in class or not paying attention. A sharp look….a raised eyebrow….or a slight negative shake of my head was usually all it took to get the offending students’ attention and get them back on the straight and narrow path. I do not want to imply that I conducted my classes like a prison guard. Kids are kids. And, interaction between them is bound to occur. As the old saying goes: “Choose your battles carefully.” If minor stuff was going on….and it was not disturbing the class….often I simply chose to ignore it. I mean…. These were not “bad” kids. And, as one would maybe logically expect, 99% of the time is was the boys who were “misbehaving”.

However, on more than one occasion, the principal would suddenly swoop into the classroom, seemingly out of nowhere, grab a boy….or two….by the back of his neck and practically drag him out to the parking lot…..a parking lot covered by thick gravel….and order then to kneel in the gravel. Often he would leave them there, kneeling on their bare knees on the gravel in the blazing sun until I began to wonder if I should go rescue them.

Let me briefly describe what happened. In most South Vietnamese schools….all that I worked in, at least….the rooms open directly to the outside. Schools were built in an “L” shape or a “U” shape. Because of the heat and the lack of ventilation, I assume, there were no interior hallways. All the rooms were entered from the outside. A rather wide sidewalk served as the “hallway”…..an exterior hallway. A sloping roof extended out over the sidewalk, shielding the classrooms from the sun….and the rain. And, it provided the needed air-flow to keep the classrooms bearable. There was no such thing as air-conditioning in those days…..not in South Vietnam, at least.

The principal, who, as I indicated, was a priest….maybe even the chief priest, I am not sure…..was a mid-size middle age man with ever so slightly buck teeth. He always wore a dark color flowing garment, probably an indication of his rank or official position. His jet black hair was always slicked back. He, like most Vietnamese, seemed to wear a perpetual smile. As you have no doubt been warned: Don’t be fooled or misled by the smile on an Oriental’ face. It often conveys nothing…..

During irregular intervals, the principal would walk up and down the sidewalk that ran the entire distance of the classrooms, sometimes stopping to peer in briefly, but most of the time just seemingly passing by. On occasion, however….out of nowhere….he would strike! Before I hardly knew what was happening, he would suddenly appear in the classroom with absolutely no warning. Apparently, while walking past, he had observed some kid (and, by kid, I am talking about high school age boys) misbehaving or not paying attention. Woe be unto them! I mean…. He sometimes scared me half to death, so I can’t imagine the fear he must have inflicted on the unsuspecting boys.

No…. He never beat them or anything like that. But, stop and think. Put yourself in the position of the boys. Here you are, wearing shorts with your knees exposed. You find yourself kneeling in a gravel driveway….gravel, crushed rock….in the hot sun and 15 or 30 minutes. Come on, now. I don’t even like to get down on my knees to change a tire or look under the car. The point is: The students knew they were expected to behave in class, to show respect to the teacher and give their attention to learning. Set standards, enforce those standards consistently and uniformly….and the students will obey and meet the standards.

As I said, after Bob’s term had expired, and he left the organization, we gained two volunteers…..Jay and Charles. Both of them were members of the Community Development Team. The house where Bob and I lived was totally inadequate to house three people. Actually, it was probably in adequate to house any human life. Although I do not recall any exact details of the house, I certainly remember it well! To me….in my convoluted sense of directions….it was located as the southeast edge of Phan Rang. In reality, it could have been located almost anywhere….such was my sense of directions at that time and place.

I can recall Bob sitting somewhere….probably at the kitchen table….smoking is ubiquitous pipe and reading a magazine called “Commonweal”. It is a magazine….and I think it is still being published….published by the Roman Catholic Church….and leans toward the liberal side of issues. It was apparently his favorite magazine. I have no problem believing this. Bob, himself, seemed to lean a little to the “left” on most issues. He sometimes would entertain me with stories of his experiences following various civil rights marches and demonstrations back in the USA before he joined IVS.

His specialty was poultry science…..chickens. In fact, I think his degree….or at least the emphasis of his degree…..was in poultry science. He worked with area farmers to demonstrate the value of raising chickens, and he was constantly ordering various medicines for the chickens to keep them healthy and disease-free. I was never able to accompany him as he made trips into the nearby countryside to help farmers, but he talked about his work a lot. It was easy to see that he was well-known and respected by the local farmers. We could scarcely enter our little restaurant without being approached by a farmer, either for a serious discussion….or just a friendly chat.

As we walked around the town, it was obvious that for the most part, chickens simply ran free…. No packing chickens into little pens in that part of the country! I was never sure how the owners of the chickens could identify their chickens from the others. But…. That was not my problem. It seemed that no matter where we went, there were chickens. To me they were sort of a nuisance….stepping over them or around them…..or the mess they left on the sidewalks. Yes, to me a “chicken” was simply a “chicken”. But…. Not to Bob. A “chicken” was a “CHICKEN”! Chickens meant something to him. This explains why he was known around the area as “The Chicken Doctor”. He could pick up a chicken and tell me things about that chicken that I would have never thought possible. Probably more than I really wanted to know! No matter how many times I looked at a chicken….any chicken….I could never empathize with a chicken to the degree that Bob did…..if any at all.

After Bob left and I had two new station mates, we moved into a larger, new house. As I indicated earlier, this house was located adjacent to the Catholic high school, a rather short walk from the main street of Phan Rang…..not that I ever remember walking from our house to the main street, though. Who is going to walk when you can drive?

I am pretty sure that I found the house through come contacts at USAID. The house was considerable larger than the house that Bob and I occupied. It was a two story house. The downstairs, as I recall, had a kitchen/dining room, plus a living room. Upstairs were the bedrooms. Chuck and I shared one of the bedrooms, and Jay’s bedroom was on the other side of the upstairs, along with the room for the cook/maid whom IVS employed. It was a rather strange architectural design. Although Jay’s bedroom was just beyond a wall, there was no access to it from the upstairs. If we wanted to visit his room, it was necessary to go downstairs, through the kitchen into the opposite side of the house and then walk up a separate stairway. I suspect that the house was built as a duplex, probably intended for two different families. Although…. Who knows? Maybe not. Maybe the architect simply forgot to add a door connecting the two rooms upstairs. But… Why did he add a door downstairs to connect the rooms? Or maybe whoever built the house simply misread the plans (assuming there were some plans) and failed to add a door when the house was constructed. It will remain one of those great unsolved mysteries of life, I suppose.

Nevertheless, the house was new and it was brighter and lighter and more spacious than the house where I have lived previously. Another stroke of luck was in the form of a lady whom IVS hired as a cook/maid to work for us. I have no idea where she came from. I suspect she simply came with the house. In my recollection (and you have already seen how reliable and extensive that is!), she was….well, just always there. She was an older lady. I have no idea how old she was….and I do not even want to venture a guess. She had worked in a similar position as a maid and cook for a…or some?….Catholic priests. So, in that regard, she came to us highly regarded and qualified. She was invaluable to us! She prepared our meals, cleaned the house (although it ever got to the point where it was “dirty”), did our laundry, and probably took care of all sorts of little jobs that we were not aware of. I shudder to think what our life would have been like without her.

She was paid directly by IVS….not by us volunteers, thank Heavens. The money was sent to us by courier through USAID channels or the mail….or some such means. This was certainly long before Internet banking, money transfers, debit cards….and all the financial resources we have today. I simply handed her a sealed envelop containing the money. And… That was that. However, it was our responsibility….we three guys….to buy our food from the living allowance that we were given each month. Each of us contributed an equal amount of money each month which she used to buy our food.

Her method of preparing meals was “traditional”, to say the least. There were some food items our cook could buy, and they would “keep” for a period of time without spoiling or molding, or any of the other things that can happen to food in a hot, humid climate. But, primarily, she would go to the market every day….often twice a day….and buy the food she would prepare.

Almost everything was prepared on our back porch…..more of a concrete slab right outside the backdoor. There was a table in the kitchen/dining room area….even a kitchen counter. But, this was not the way she had traditionally done it. Old habits are difficult to change…..some even impossible. Why change to something new when the old way works just as well? If it ain’t broken….don’t fix it. Or…. You can’t teach an old dog new tricks. She sort of proved all of these old sayings. Our meals were consistently delicious. Maybe not delicious in the American definition….but they were always tasty and nutritious and satisfying. We all survived…..and thrived.

One of our volunteers somehow arranged for an electric refrigerator and a propane stove to be installed in our house. No doubt he used his USAID or perhaps military contacts to procure these appliances. These are two highly desirable and sought after appliances….normally found only in the homes of upper class families…..a real status symbol. All three of us guys thought our cook’s face would light up….that maybe she would even physically embrace us….and then run out to tell all her friends of her good fortune. All of her friends would crowd into the kitchen, touching and admiring the two sleek modern conveniences.

But….No. It wasn’t exactly like that. Yes, she smiled. Yes, she thanked us profusely. Yes, she listened intently as we explained their usefulness and how to use them….although with a perplexed and rather bewildered look on her face. But…. No…. She rarely used them. In fact, I don’t recall her ever using the propane stove. She much preferred to cook and fry and bake and simmer and stew the food on her little charcoal stove on the back steps….and that is what she did. We probably asked her a couple times why she didn’t use the modern stove. She probably just smiled….and went about doing things her way.

I think she did learn to use the refrigerator, however. To a limited extent, at least. Maybe we convinced her that it was the practical thing to do. Maybe she realized that some of the modern appliances can be useful…..maybe make her life easier and more pleasant. Surely, it was more convenient and less work to be able to put left over meat and vegetables…..along with other food…. in the refrigerator and use them later. I think she started to understand the value, the usefulness…and perhaps the “magic”….of being able to store perishable food. I can sort of understand her reluctance or hesitation….if not outright refusal…..to use the propane stove. I would have probably been the same way! Besides, we volunteers would have had to buy the propane, so maybe she was doing us a favor.

Water was always a problem….no matter what we used it for: drinking, cooking, bathing, washing. Clearly, the water supply in South Vietnam was not safe….anywhere! At our house in Phan Rang, we had “running water”. We had a sink and a faucet that water spilled out of. (How’s that for ending a sentence with two prepositions?) The only problem was: The water was contaminated. I mean…. If one were to drink it as it came out of the faucet, some sort of very unpleasant…and potentially dangerous….. sickness was almost sure to follow.

For our drinking water, we solved the problem by (1) boiling our drinking water and then (2) filtering it. We had a large container. I am not sure how to describe it. I do not have a very scientific mind, and I just sort of trust that things will work out OK. Apparently they did. However, I think it looks somewhat similar to the picture shown here. And, again, I am not sure…..but I think we boiled the water even before we put it into the filter. Or, maybe my mind and imagination are doing some wishful thinking. Anyway, for thing is for sure, we did not drink water straight from the faucet. Even our ice cubes were made with the filtered water. Believe me…. Freezing water does not kill germs or bacteria! Maybe this is the reason we drank so much pop…and beer….and other bottled or canned products while we were in South Vietnam.

Our housekeeper/cook was a real gem. She took care of us willingly and with great devotion. We sort of adopted her….and she sort of adopted us. We left the operation and details of the house to her. She cooked our meals, cleaned the house, did our laundry, and did the shopping. We more or less just lived there! Her dedication and efficiency enabled us to do our respective jobs and not be burdened or preoccupied with all the domestic details.

One little semi-amusing detail that I remember: Jay, one my housemates, had a rather droll sense of humor. He tried….in vain, I might add….to teach our cook to call out, “Eat it!” when it was time to eat. Neither Chuck nor myself had the nerve to intervene in his amusing, but devious, little scheme. Fortunately, she suspected that what he was trying to teach her was not an appropriate….and certainly not the normal….way to call people to the dinner table. She never did adopt his suggestion….much to her credit. Poor Jay…

Our “bathroom” was in a separate little building….right outside our back door. Our shower consisted of a large concrete “tank” and a bucket to scoop up water to we could pour it over our body. And, let me add that the water was constantly covered with hundreds, if not thousands, of mosquitoes. What else could we expect in a constant tropical climate?

Speaking of tropical climate…. You may think I am exaggerating or joking, but one could almost see plants grow! A plant or tree that was five inches tall one day could well be a foot tall the following day. It was actually sort of spooky. I spent far too much time checking out the growth of various plants we had growing around our house. But, if you are from Kansas, so would you. Plants simply do not grow that fast around here. It is not very difficult to understand why a jungle can simply swallow up anything in its path, if not controlled.

You know….. Now that I think about it, I have no idea who was in charge of mowing the grass and stuff like that. It wasn’t any of us. It must have been whoever owned the house. We didn’t have a “lawn” in the sense of what we think of here in the USA. Plants just grew. It was inevitable.

As I said, there were three of us guys who worked in Phan Rang and lived in the same house. Two of them were on the agriculture team, and I was on the education team. I really have no idea what they did. We rarely, if ever, talked about our work. There were too many other things to talk about. We never brought our work home with us, so to speak. Since I had been around the longest, I was appointed….or anointed….to be senior person in our household. This didn’t consist of much, actually. No crown; no throne; no bodyguard….. My main responsibility was that I got to pay the housekeeper/cook. And…. I got to drive the Jeep. The other two guys had Vespa motor scooters. Actually, the motor scooters were much more practical and most of the time, they were more maneuverable. Their motor scooters were brand new; my Jeep was some sort of surplus left over from some previous war…..and even though we always won our wars. I think the Jeep “lost”!

A typical day for me in Phan Rang went something like this: Wake up….Take shower….Eat breakfast…..Go teach (somebody, somewhere)…..Come home….Talk to my station mates…..Go to bed. If that sounds pretty routine…. You are right. That is pretty much what I did. There was no outside entertainment in Phan Rang that I was ever aware of. Schools in Vietnam did not typically provide a variety of entertainment for the community like American schools do…. Things like ball games, concerts, school plays…. Schools in South Vietnam were a place where a student went to learn….and that was it. Any idea that the school existed to provide entertainment for the public was unheard of. There were no athletic teams. Even today, this is largely an American concept. There was no school orchestra or band or chorus. There was no drama class.

Neither my team mates nor I spent any time in the local bars at night. In the months that I spent in Phan Rang, I never even went inside a bar. If we wanted to drink, we simply bought some beer, took it back to our house and drank it. As I think back, I never recall anybody even suggesting or inviting me to go to a bar. The streets of Phan Rang were mostly deserted after the sun went down. Of course, we had no TV. Even if we had been lucky enough to have had one…. What would we watch? A bunch of poorly made Vietnamese programs? Or equally bad Chinese or Japanese movies (with subtitles)?

When I finally got home from work in the late afternoon, I was usually so tired that I didn’t feel like doing much. As the days and weeks went by, I gradually began to take on other “jobs” outside of the schools. The local police force asked me if I would teach them English one or two nights a week. Of course, I agreed. It always helps to be friends of the police in an underdeveloped country. I did this for a few weeks. Let me tell you something. Even my worst….most unruly….students at the Buddhist high school were model students compared to most of the policemen in that class. I am not sure what you would expect of a class of policemen…..but I somehow expected them to be disciplined, mature, serious, eager students. Find an antonym or opposite for each of those words, and you will have a pretty good description of the class.

Teaching….or trying to teach….this group of policemen gave me an eye-opening insight to the state of public servants in South Vietnam. From the very beginning, there was nothing but chaos. To be sure….and to be fair….a few of the policemen…..and they were packed like sardines into one of the high school classrooms….were serious students. They sincerely wanted to learn to speak….or to improve their English language abilities….speaking, writing, reading, understanding. These serious students….these policemen…..were in a distinct and small minority, unfortunately. Most of the men….and, of course, they were all men….came to socialize, to have fun, to talk to their fellow policemen….to clown around. For me, at least, observing this level of behavior….not only observing, but experiencing it first hand….did not do a lot to enhance my opinion of their professionalism.

After a few weeks, I gave up and dropped the class. It was really no big deal. I simply found that I did not have enough time in my schedule to accommodate them. Most of them probably didn’t care or maybe ever realize that the classes had ended. Or maybe they though the classes had ended because they had become proficient in speaking and understanding English. At any rate, for the remainder of my time in Phan Rang, policemen continued to smile and wave happily to me when we happened to meet.

Another incident also stands out in my mind after all these years. IVS furnished an interpreter for each team….every team that wanted one, at least. Our team in Phan Rang had at least a couple different interpreters while I was there. The first one, of course, had worked almost exclusively with Bob as he went about his responsibilities of meeting and helping the farmers of the area. He quit shortly before Bob’s term was up. I am not sure what happened to him. When Jay and Chuck joined me, we hired another guy who was to be our interpreter. Chances are he was referred to us through the USAID office, who came into contact with a lot more people that we did.

He was a rather unpleasant young man….and I don’t think I will get any disagreement from Jay or Chuck…..but he spoke English quite well. Neither Jay nor Chuck liked him very well. I think that he got off on the wrong foot, so to speak, in the very beginning. For some reason, he seemed to be under the impression that he was hired to work for me…..not them. I am not sure how he got this idea. Actually, for the most part, I really had little use for him. It was Jay and Chuck who worked with people from the general public a lot more than I did. And, that meant they were working with people who probably did not speak very fluent English…..if, indeed, they spoke English at all. We soon got that misunderstanding taken care of…..although the damage had probably already been done.

One day he happened to be with me, however. We were on our way somewhere….no doubt doing something in connection with the library that we were building. We were driving on the road that connects Phan Rang with the air base. It is a narrow road. I wouldn’t exactly call it a highway, although it probably was. As one will find everywhere in South Vietnam, vegetation….trees, bushes, tall grass….lined both sides of the road. Vegetation is almost inescapable in South Vietnam.

I was driving the Jeep, when all of a sudden a Vietnamese soldier jumped from the tall vegetation maybe fifty feet in front of us. He was standing in the middle of the road, brandishing a rifle. Actually, he was pointing the rifle straight at us. He was covered with blood. Not only was he shouting at us…… I didn’t understand a word he was saying, although I was pretty sure he was not inviting us to eat dinner with him….he started walking toward us….the rifle still pointed directly at us.

Never before in my life….and never since….had I had a loaded weapon pointed at me. Several thoughts raced through my mind, chief of which was, “Well, this is it. I wonder what it feels like to be shot?” The second thought….maybe more of an instinct than a thought….was to push on the accelerator and run him down….or at least, get out of there. Actually, my heart was racing so fast that I probably didn’t know what I was thinking. I pretty much knew that flooring the Jeep….pushing down on the accelerator and trying to make an escape was not going to work….not with a surplus Jeep from the Korean War or maybe even World War II. There was certainly no way I could outrun him…..or his rifle.

To be sure, I was terrorized. I had no idea who the soldier was….whose side he was on….what he was saying….what had happened….what he was going to do. Of course, my first thought was that he was a VC (Viet Cong). I mean…. They all looked alike. And, why would a friendly soldier being pointing a rifle at me….an American who was basically fighting the war for the country?

So….. I slowed down to a crawl. He came along side the Jeep, still pointing the weapon, and began to say something….gesturing….pointing…. All I could do was sit there and fear for my life….and wonder what it would feel like when the bullet first entered my body….or if I would feel anything. My interpreter sat beside me rather calmly….maybe too calmly, I thought…..and listened to him. After a couple minutes, he turned to me and said something like, “It’s OK. Let’s go.”

“It’s OK???” “Let’s go???” What’s going on here? As I slowly….or maybe it was rather quickly….drove off, I asked what was happening. What did the guy say? What did he want? It turned out that the poor soldier….and he was a South Vietnamese soldier….had wrecked his motorbike….and it was lying somewhere back in the bushes. He wanted….needed….a ride to the hospital back in Phan Rang. Our interpreter told him that we were busy….just to wait….an army vehicle would be coming along sometime.

I was furious! I had just been frightened half to death…I think my hands were still shaking a half hour later….and now we were refusing to take a wounded soldier to get medical treatment. Wow! This was my entire purpose for being in the country…..to help them. And, that certainly was a very real and tangible way that I could have helped. Obviously my interpreter didn’t feel much obligation toward his fellow citizens, though. That was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I told Jay and Chuck about it. The guy was gone the next day! On the bright side, though: When somebody asks, “What was the scariest moment in your life?” I have a ready answer.

It would be difficult to place a value on the friends I made during the few months I lived in Phan Rang. It is difficult to be dropped off in a strange place….a place where I didn’t know anybody….a place where I was just starting to learn a new language….a place where nothing was familiar….a place where I had nowhere to turn for companionship or advice. Of course, I knew my team mates, but they were basically in the same situation as I when they first arrived. The first few days…..or even weeks….can be rather lonely. And little things can seem much bigger than they really are. All I could look forward to was doing my job….and then going back to a rather dark, uncomfortable house….a house with no radio, no TV, no American newspapers or magazines; no telephone….. I don’t want to over dramatize it, but in the beginning, it was somewhat lonely and uncertain, even being surrounded by scores of kids, teachers, USAID employees, team mates….and other assorted people.

Fortunately, I started making friends soon. South Vietnam….and Phan Rang…..was full of friendly, welcoming and accepting people. Maybe a person might think it is strange that my best friends were not teachers. And, to be honest, I think it somewhat strange, too. One might think that these people would be a ready-made group of friends. A person might think: He spends all day with these people….these teachers….so these would, of course, be his best friends. In reality, I did not spend all day with these teachers. They were there at the school; I was there at the school. However, our paths did not cross that often. They were in their classroom; I was in my classroom. My schedule was sporadic. A class here; a class there. I came and went. I was never there all day, some times not even for a few hours. Except for the Catholic high school, there were no teacher lounges. When I arrived at the school, I would check in at the office, just so they knew I was there, and then went directly to my assigned classroom. When I finished teaching, I left and went to my next teaching assignment. I never spent the entire day in the same school.

I did have a few friends who were teachers…..not close friends….buddies…..but friendly enough that we talked to each other frequently. The only close “teacher” friend that I had was the principal of the semi-public high school. As I said before, his family owned a business in downtown Phan Rang. He told me where their business was located, and invited me to stop by. I don’t even remember what they sold. I did stop and see them….fairly often. I got to know him and his wife and his kids and some other assorted relatives quite well.

When I was in their home….located behind their business…. invariably the first thing that happened was that a cup of tea appeared almost like magic, along with perhaps a Vietnamese pastry of some sort. Both the principal…..his name was Choung (sorry I can’t include the diacritical markings)…..and his wife spoke very passable English, so we were able to communicate fairly easily. I suspect that part of the reason they like for me stop and see them so often was each time I went to their home, they received a free English lesson. That’s seems fair. I got a free cup of tea and a pastry.

The assistant province chief also became a good friend. The actual province chief was in military officer, of course. He was a colonel in the South Vietnamese army. I knew him and saw him regularly…..mostly at the USAID office, although there were a few times when I had a reason to go to his office. He spoke English….but he was far from fluent. It was always a good idea to have my interpreter….or a South Vietnamese USAID employee….with me when I had an occasion to meet him on an official basis. Like most Vietnamese, he smiled a lot. Actually, I have no idea where he lived. But, wherever it was, I am sure it was a fairly nice place…. And, I am sure it was well protected.

Getting back to the assistant province chief. He was a civilian, probably in his 30’s. He also spoke English quite fluently. He had spent some time in the USA. Maybe we became friends because he was very curious about the USA. He wanted to know all about the latest news in the USA….. the movies, the sports teams, the music…..and also he was curious about the growing protests against the Vietnam War. He told me stories about his brief visits to the USA. Sometimes, I think it was his dream to come here and live…..and I hope this was the case.

The assistant province chief took care of most of the “minor” public relations obligations in the province…..especially anything having to do with education. Many times when he was visiting schools out in the province….distributing supplies, presenting awards, dedicating buildings, etc…..he would invite me to go with him. We always traveled by helicopter, of course. We would make the trip. He would present whatever he had to present, sometimes he would introduce me, and then we would get back into the helicopter and fly back to Phan Rang. At the time, I felt like a minor celebrity, but looking back, I can imagine that I was sort of a symbol….maybe a token American….a reminder that the USA was supporting the war effort. Whatever…. I was always glad to accompany him.

As long as I was in South Vietnam, I was pretty much willing to go along with anything…. Try anything…. Do anything…. One time, however, I drew the line! The assistant province chief decided to throw a surprise birthday party for me. It was either my 27^th or 28^th birthday. And, it really was a surprise! I totally did not expect it. I was lured to the provincial headquarters under some pretense. That was not difficult at all, because, as I said, I was accustomed to working rather closely with the office. I walked into the office to find a rather large group of people assembled….people from USAID and people from the schools and the province office.

“What are all these people doing here?” I wondered. Then they began to sing “Happy Birthday”. To tell the truth, I was probably not even aware that it was my birthday. Those days sort of went by without any sort of fanfare……except maybe a couple birthday cards that would arrive either a week early…..or a couple weeks late. There was a birthday cake….from somewhere…..and a couple gifts….and lots of congratulations. “Ahhh…. This is pretty nice,” I thought. Then we sat down to eat a mini-banquet that had been prepared for the occasion. There were toasts…. I gave a little speech…. Then the meal was served! That is when I drew the line! The main entree….or at least one of them…..was some pickled, unborn baby chickens! They were considered a very desirable delicacy in South Vietnam. But, they were not for me. Just looking at the dead baby chicks almost made me sick. There was no way I was going to eat them….or even taste them. I mean….. Little baby chickens….unborn….with little feathers on them….. The assistant province chief was very disappointed. Maybe I had created an “international incident”……a serious breach of protocol….. But, I didn’t care. I graciously let somebody else eat mine. It was probably the assistant province chief!

The assistant province chief was a good guy. I enjoyed his friendship. We remained friends until I left Phan Rang and moved to Saigon. After that, as usually happens, we sort of lost touch with each other. If I had been older….more mature….I would have probably made more of an effort to stay in touch. But….. I was young. I moved to Saigon. Phan Rang sort of became a thing of the past.

My best friends…..my real friends….while I was living in Phan Rang were just ordinary people….not teachers or government official from whom I could potentially profit. No…. They were mostly just guys that worked for the USAID office and members of a South Vietnamese voluntary organization which happened to be patterned after IVS. The friendships I formed with the guys who worked at the USAID office were fairly natural, easy to come by friends. I saw them almost every day of the week….and making friends with them came pretty easily. The guys from the South Vietnamese National Voluntary Service came a little later….but just as easily. My former station mate, Bob, had worked closely with them while he was the agriculture representative in Phan Rang. Not only had he been working with them to improve agricultural techniques in South Vietnam to bring about changes that would make production more profitable and prosperous, he had been giving them English lessons for quite some time. When he left, they were obviously left without an English teacher. They came to me and asked if I would consider taking up where Bob had left off and become their English teacher. I stepped in and filled the vacuum. They were making good progress….and they were very happy and grateful that I agreed to continue the lessons.

From the beginning, they were aware that I had little or no expertise in agriculture….nothing that would benefit them, at least. I had been raised on a farm, but I had not yet achieved the level of “expert” when we moved into Sterling when I turned 13 years old. The fact that I was not able to assist or advise them…..or even work with them….in the area of agriculture or community development was not important to them. They were all eager to improve their English language skills. There were eight or ten of them….including a couple girls, if I recall correctly. I liked them immediately…..and it was one of the better choices I made.

All of these guys….both from USAID and the NVS….were just regular guys. The association with my friends from both of these groups made life in Phan Rang much more pleasant and enjoyable. Not to mention, I am sure we both learned from each other. All of these guys were speaking at least at a low conversational level…..some were better than other, though. All of them certainly spoke English at a much higher level than I spoke Vietnamese! One might say that our friendships were all mutually beneficial, insofar as learning a new language was concerned. At all times, each of us carried a little pocket English-Vietnamese….or Vietnamese-English….dictionary with us. These little dictionaries got us through a lot of rough spots….and they were invaluable to us in our communication with each other. This was decades before cell phones and automatic translators. We learned our language “the old fashioned way” to paraphrase an old commercial. I was rarely, if ever, without my little dictionary. In fact, I still have it….two or three of them, in fact.

All of us were in our twenties at the time. And, there are certain things that all guys in their twenties are interested in….and talk about. We were no different. Of course, we both asked a lot of questions about each other’s respective country….its customs, it laws, its people, its government, the war…. But, it didn’t take long to find that we also had common interests that all young men seem to have…. Sports, cars, movies, popular music….and, of course, women and sex. You didn’t think I would leave those two out, did you? If you are wondering why we didn’t sit around all day and play video games…. This was decades before anybody had ever heard of a video game. And, I am pretty sure we were all better off because of that fact.

Unfortunately, South Vietnam was at war, so our choice of activities was limited….very limited. As a product of small town America, I was used to driving to Hutchinson for an “exciting” time. Yes…. When you live in a town like Sterling, Hutchinson was a pretty exciting place to go…..even if all we did was drive up and down Main Street and stop at McDonalds for a Big Mac, some fries and a coke…..all of which cost somewhere less than 50 cents. In Phan Rang, I suppose Nha Trang would have been our “Hutchinson”. The distance between Phan Rang and Nha Trang is about 60 miles. That is enough distance to be shot at….oh, let’s say…..5 times! Obviously, there was no way we were going to drive to Nha Trang.

We made do with what Phan Rang offered, instead. We sat in the little pho (there is a diacritical mark above the “o”) stands and eat the traditional Vietnamese snack and drink a beer. Most likely, however, we went to the beach. The South China sea was only a short drive…..and a relatively safe drive….from Phan Rang. We would take our transistor radios and some food along with something to drink. Maybe the beach wasn’t as clean as we (at least, I) would have liked it to be, but there were trees close to the beach. It was an ideal place to spread out some towels…..sit and talk and listen to music….and occasionally walk the short distance to the water.

Immediately adjacent to the public beach was a beach for the 101^st Airborne Division….separated by rolls of razor sharp concertina wire…..and complete with armed guards. Back in those days, the military wasn’t very inclusive! But, at least, just the mere proximity made us feel a little safer. It was here, to a large extent, that I started to “extend” my proficiency in the Vietnamese language. Unlike some other nationalities with whom I have dealt….Germans come to mind….they never laughed at my mistakes. They just kept urging me to repeat a word until I finally got it right. Of course, they were expanding their English speaking ability, too. All of this….and we also spent a relaxing time just chilling….and talking.

With my friends from the National Voluntary Services particularly, we often spent time exploring the Cham temples….ruins from past centuries. Many times they also invited me to their compound….located somewhere a few miles outside Phan Rang….to eat dinner with them. I was always impressed….and amazed….how their entire team pitched in to create a simple, but very delicious, meal. And, I remember, most of these people were young men, except for or three girls. Whenever I could, I always brought some food with me….even though they always protested that I was their “guest”. That worked the first couple times, but after that, I more or less felt like I was part of their group.

On a few occasions, time sort of got away from us. Darkness quietly, and unexpectedly, crept in. I certainly was not brave enough to drive back to Phan Rang by myself….even after a few beers. I may have been young and impulsive back then….but not crazy. On the nights when this happened, what other choice did I have? I spent the night in their compound. It took two or three times before I was able to get a good night’s sleep. This compound was sort of out in the boondocks, so to speak. I lay awake, waiting for a VC to barge in and either shoot me….or take me prisoner. They laughed at my fear. But being four or five miles from nowhere….no streetlights, or lights of any kind…..just pitch darkness….and an eerie silence out there…. Any slight sound brought me to full alertness… I guess I just had an instinct for self-survival. Here I am though…. We can assume that all my fears were for nothing.

The nights that I spend at the NVS compound, we made enough noise talking and laughing and clowning around that our presence was no secret. If there were any VC out there lurking in the darkness, they must have decided that we were not worth their time and effort. At some point, someone or two or three of the group were bound to get out a guitar and start singing….sometimes even songs that I knew.

I am going to take a wild guess and say that my friends from the National Voluntary Service were probably better educated than my friends who worked for USAID. Most of the NVS volunteers were college students…..maybe even a few graduates….and my friends from USAID were not. On the other hand, the USAID friends spoke better and more fluent English because they spent the day working with Americans, if for no other reason. No matter what, I liked them all, and they, together, made my months in Phan Rang much more pleasant and happy and meaningful.

Of course, my only reason for being in Phan Rang was to teach English. And, believe me….. I did teach English. In the four high schools, I was solidly booked for the entire day. I was teaching about 35 hours a week between all of the schools. I met with the National Voluntary Service a couple times a week for probably a total of four to six hours total. I sponsored a couple English clubs in the schools…..a couple hours each week for each club. As I mentioned earlier, I taught a class of unruly policemen a couple nights a week. No doubt there were other classes, too, that have been forgotten or misplaced in my memory.

If all the hours were totaled, the number of hours spent teaching of some sort would probably total up to around 50 hours a week. It is very difficult to say “Yes” to one group….and then say “No” to another group. Generally speaking, if somebody asked me to teach English…..I simply said “Yes”. Although it is true that most of these classes were simply “Repeat after me” type instruction, there was still a great deal of planning that was required. There was homework to be read and (gently) corrected. Plus, just keeping track of each class’s progress was at times complicated. “Should we go back and review this section?” “Do they need additional instruction on this?” “Why aren’t they learning this as quickly as I think they should?” All of these kinds of questions required time to figure out.

The end of the first semester was coming to an end. I was starting to feel the effects of all the long hours. What were all the other teachers doing? Were they working so many hours? I had no way of knowing what others were doing. I had no yardstick to measure by?

More and more I looked forward to free time that I could spend at the beach….or climbing among the ancient ruins of the ancient Cham temples.

One day I noticed that I was feeling sick….rather nauseous….I was simply worn out. I could hardly force myself to get out of bed. Going to school and standing in front of a class took all the resolve and energy that I could find. I found myself leaning against the chalkboard, clinging to my podium….even sitting at my desk barely able to stir.

“I’m working too many hours,” I told myself. “I am going to have to cut back.” But, before I could put that wish into reality, I woke up one morning. I felt terrible; every muscle in my body ached. It felt like I had something the size and weight of a small cannon ball in the middle of my stomach. I was simply not able to get out of bed. I asked my station mate if he would stop by the school and tell them that I would not be at school that day.

“A day of rest is all I need,” I assured myself, “and then everything will be OK again.” It wasn’t, though. I continued to lie in bed the next day….and the next…. Our cook would come upstairs and say things like, “You must eat something.” I couldn’t eat anything. Looking at food of any sort almost made me sicker. “You must go to the doctor,” she would urge. She would shake her head and look at me pleading that I do something. I simply could not. I struggled downstairs to go to the bathroom….and take an occasional drink of water. But, food? No way….

On about what must have been the fourth day, I determined to find out the problem and so something about it. By that time I had started to realize that the problem was something more serious than overwork. Give me some credit for having a few brains. I struggled out of bed….I was starting to feel a little better….took a shower in our mosquito infested makeshift shower….drank a cup of coffee….ate a piece of toast. I got into my Jeep and drove to the USAID compound to see the Air Force doctor.

Oh… And, I neglected to mention…. All this time I was also trying to build a library.