After spending about two weeks in abject misery, one week of which was spent in my room, in my bed, aching, not being able to eat or drink….wondering what I had done to deserve such punishment, the malady was finally diagnosed as hepatitis. Never once during those two weeks…..those long two weeks…..did hepatitis ever enter my mind. If, indeed, I was even in such a state that something could actually enter my mind.

I certainly am not going to say that I was relieved to learn I had contracted hepatitis. On the other hand, at least I knew what the problem was. Maybe the my “end” wasn’t as close as I had suspected it might be! The doctor didn’t show any overt alarm. In fact, he told me quite casually. “Go home, sit down or lie down and don’t do anything. Don’t eat any fried food…..and absolutely no alcohol.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Yes. You can go to the beach and lie around all day, if that is what you want to do. Just stay out of the water.”

Wow. Maybe this wasn’t going to be so bad after all.

I never had an opportunity to find out.

Back in those days….and I am talking about South Vietnam during the Vietnam War…. Hepatitis was a fairly common disease. It is spread predominately through… well….unsanitary conditions. And, believe me…..unsanitary conditions were never very far away in South Vietnam. Contaminated drinking water was probably near the top of the list of suspects. At our IVS house, we had a large ceramic jar with a series of filters in it. It supposedly filtered out all the contaminates in the water. We also boiled our water before we used it for anything…..drinking or cooking.

Any time we were at a restaurant or bar, we always drank bottled drinks. There was one exception…..and I suppose I didn’t think much of it at the time. Whenever we drank beer from the tap, we always asked for ice to put in the glass. Yes…. Ice…..In beer! Normally the beer was not cooled or chilled like we here in the “real world” are accustomed to drinking our beer. Nobody….at least nobody playing with all his marbles….and believe it or not, I was playing with ALL my marbles….likes to drink warm or hot beer. So….. We would put ice into our glass of beer! Maybe it never occurred to me at the time…..but the ice was probably not made with water that had been filtered or boiled. It was probably ice that was simply made with plain old water. And….also looking back….the water could well have contained all sorts of germs and bacteria and other little living creatures just waiting to create some sort of disease!

Nevertheless, when the doctor informed me that I had hepatitis, I pictured myself taking a couple weeks off from teaching….and lying on the beach with some of my Vietnamese friends….relaxing and recuperating. Before I left the USAID compound where I had met with the Air Force doctor, all the employees wished me a speedy recovery with the usual polite, “If there is anything I can do to help you, just let me know.” Knowing, of course, there was really nothing they could do. But, it was nice of them, anyway.

Just knowing what the problem was made a huge difference in my attitude and in the way I felt. I hopped back into my Jeep and drove back home, ready to face the recuperation process…..lying on the beach all day. The Vietnamese lady who took care of us…..our housekeeper and cook….was happy to see me up and moving…..hopefully thankful that I was going to survive for a while longer. She fixed me something to eat and made some coffee…..hopefully with germ-free water….and I went upstairs to go back to bed.

Sometime in the early afternoon, the head of the USAID office stopped by the house and informed me that I was being “evacuated” to Saigon to recover. His visit was totally unexpected, and, I might add, totally necessary. There was really nothing special that I could do to “recover”. Just like the doctor said: Do as little as possible; don’t eat any fried food; don’t drink any alcohol. Looking back from today’s perspective, I wish that all my physical problems were that easy to cure!

The USAID director’s words were not exactly a request. They were more of an ultimatum! Get your stuff packed. I will be back around 5:00. “Wow!”, I thought, “They commandeered an airplane just for me?”

I packed some clothing in my suitcase, and I was waiting when the USAID van arrived to pick me up. The USAID director, his wife and another USAID officer were all in the vehicle when it arrived. “Wow,” I thought. I didn’t expect this sendoff. “Maybe they are really going to miss me.”

Well, that was wishful thinking. When we arrived at Phan Rang Airbase, maybe five or six miles from the city center, the driver pulled up at the front entrance. I had my suitcase on my lap. I opened the door and got out. So did the other three Americans: the USAID director, his wife and the other guy. “Since we had to get an airplane to take you to Saigon, we figured we may as well come along.”

Oh….. Now the situation was starting to make a little more sense. The light was starting to shine a little more brightly. This trip wasn’t so much about me as it was about them getting their own transportation to Saigon. And, what better excuse could there be than to evacuate some poor sick American for medical treatment? OK…. But, I really did not want to go to Saigon! There was really no need for me to go to Saigon…. But an hour later, the airplane…..the medical evacuation plane…..landed in Saigon at Tan Son Nhut Airport. The USAID director said that he had notified the IVS office in Saigon, and that somebody would meet the plane and take me to the IVS house. I automatically assumed that they would send one of the volunteers who was sitting around doing nothing…..or one of the drivers, at the very most. Let’s face it, picking up another volunteer at the airport…..maybe a couple miles away…..probably does not come with a high priority rating.

Once I was inside the airport waiting room, I was surprised to see our Chief of Party waiting for me. After the normal greetings, I put my suitcase in the IVS Jeep, and we headed out on our short journey to the IVS house. Somewhere en route to there, he casually asked me if I would accept the position as Associate Chief of Party for Education. At first, I thought the hepatitis had affected my hearing….that maybe I was hallucinating. Surely, I had heard him wrong.

 

 

 

 

 

But…. I had heard correctly. I was almost speechless. This was something that had ever entered my mind…..not even for a second. It was totally unexpected. It was certainly nothing that I had aspired for. I wasn’t even aware that the current Chief of Education had any intention of leaving the job. Of course, I really had no idea of anything that was happening in Saigon….and I really didn’t care. It was something about which I had zero interest. I was rather content with my job and my work in Phan Rang…..the teaching schedule, the organizations I sponsored, the library project. I was making new friends. The students seemed to like me….. My goal was to finish out the two years…..and who knows? Maybe extend my contract by another year or two.

What a day that was! A day of contrasts…..from learning that I had hepatitis to learning that I was the new Associate Chief of Party for Education. Man, talk about going from bad to good in a hurry.

As it turned out, the current Chief of Education was not leaving for another two or three weeks. I really do not remember exactly, but I do recall that he would be hanging around for a while longer. So…. During that time, I was more or less suspended in a state of limbo. It actually worked to my advantage. I was under doctor’s orders to do nothing….absolutely nothing…..for the next couple weeks. And, to tell the truth, I really didn’t feel like doing anything! I was constantly worn out; always feeling a little bit nauseous; often sleepy. Even just a little bit of activity left me feeling drained of all energy. Walking from the men’s dorm….where I was staying…..to the dining room felt more like a hike to the summit of Mt. Everest.

One day after perhaps a week in Saigon, I decided to make a trip to the PX….the military Post Exchange store. When I started out I was feeling pretty well….like I was really starting to recover. When I returned to the IVS house, I felt like I had been chased down and beat up by a band of thugs. I obviously need some more recuperation.

A week later, however, either on Christmas Day or a day or two after Christmas, Bob Hope was presenting his touring Christmas show at Tan Son Nhut Airbase. I had already seen the show once before while I was stationed at Tan Son Nhut in the army. There was no way that I was going to miss his show. So, along with a few other volunteers, I sat in the hot Saigon sun and enjoyed a couple hours of nostalgic American entertainment. There were a few thousand military personnel in attendance…..and, as one might expect, they went wild, especially when stars such as Kim Novac, Jayne Mansfield or Raquel Welsh performed their intentionally provocative dances. Each show ended with the singing of Silent Night or I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas….or both. It was our little taste of Christmas and the holiday season.

 

 

 

 

 

At any rate, I returned to the IVS house feeling not so bad….at least, not in the exhausted condition as I was when I returned from the PX. This was a hopeful sign….a sign that I was on the road to recovery. A few night’s later it was New Year’s Eve. Against my better judgment….well, a little bit anyway…..but at the urging of other volunteers, I had a sip….maybe a large sip….of champagne to celebrate the start of the New Year…..1967.

1967….. The start of a new adventure. Associate Chief of Party for Education.

As I said previously, for a couple weeks I was suspended in a state of limbo. There I was, finished with my old job….the new job looming just ahead. It was sort of like being locked out of my house…..just sitting there waiting for somebody to unlock the door and let me in. There was nothing to do except wait.

The outgoing Chief of Education was helpful….as much as he could be. He gladly explained the basics of the job, and gave me an idea of what lay ahead and what I was expected to do. Unfortunately, there was not a lot of on the job training. I was still “sick”. Accompanying him to his office or traveling with him to visit volunteer teachers was out of the question. I simply did not have the strength or the energy.

Let me recount a little incident that should have alerted me to what I would not come to realize for several more months. I was young; I was inexperienced; I was excited about my new job; I was eager to get started; I was certainly naive in those days. And, I was a bit blind. It was somewhat like walking out into the bright sunlight after being inside, maybe. It takes the eyes a little while to adjust to the brightness. Or, probably more accurate, it was like walking from the bring sunlight into a dark room, and slowly adjusting to the darkened conditions. Either way, I don’t blame myself for failing to recognize the signs immediately. Hey…. I was new at this; I had a lot to learn.

Our Chief of Party asked me to write down on paper my thoughts about my impending job. What was my current assessment of the work that was being performed by our volunteers? How did I intend to approach my new job? How did I think our job performance and our service to the schools could be improved? What changes did I recommend?

This was a reasonable request. The main reservation I had was that I did not want to write anything that our current Chief of Education could or would interpret as criticism of the work he had done. I certainly would not have liked for somebody to criticize my performance….to have second-guessed me…..to have nit-picked my performance….. even if only implied or inferred and not stated directly.

I told this quite frankly to the Chief of Party. He said he totally agreed, and anything I wrote would be kept in the strictest confidence….and would be considered as a professional assessment and not construed as any sort of personal judgment or critique. So I found an empty desk in the office and set about writing my thoughts about the topics he had suggested.

The document was 13 or 14 pages long. I still have a copy of it. Even I re-read it today, I am surprised at how clearly I understood the IVS organization after only a few months as a volunteer English teacher in Phan Rang. And, I am surprised to find that the observations and suggestions I made are in large part the same observations and suggestions I would make today…..more than fifty years later…..only probably I would be somewhat more emphatic today. There was nothing personal in the document. There is nothing demeaning or derogatory in the report…..unless they are implied…… The Chief of Party, as I said, assured me that it would be held in strictest confidence….that only he and I would see it. In reality, it was really nobody else’s business.

Some days or weeks later, I receive in the mail a large envelope from the IVS headquarters on Washington, D. C. Inside the envelop was the original copy of my report with a Post-It note attached, in my boss’s handwriting, saying, “Make 8 copies.” This obviously meant that he had also shared my writing with the other Associate Chiefs….and probably the regional team leaders. So much for promises. So much for assurances. I was not pleased. Fortunately the previous Chief of Education, my predecessor, had already gone back home. I never knew if he read the report or not. If he did…. I hope….and I am fairly confident….that he understood the purpose of the report. I am not sure why the people in the headquarters in Washington did not remove the little Post It note…..or even why they returned it. For the two years that I was Chief of Education, I had an excellent working relationship with everybody on the headquarters’ staff. The Executive Director also attached a note saying, “Excellent observations. Maybe a little bit idealistic. You have our support. Keep up the good work.”

The point I am trying to make….. This breach of trust should have been a warning sign….a foreshadowing….of what to expect during the next two years.

I am not going to go into great detail about my day-to-day activities. You are going to find them to be boring…..and they are mostly irrelevant anyway. Instead I am going to give you an overview of my life in South Vietnam…..as Associate Chief of Party for Education…..and equally as important, my life and impressions of Saigon and South Vietnam in general.

 

 

 

 

 

 

First of all, let me give you a brief explanation of what the International Voluntary Services (IVS) was and explain just a bit its intended mission. The publicity generated by the organization asserted its purpose as an “Agent of Change”. It was intended to be an organization of volunteers….idealistic volunteers, I suppose…..who would give two years of their life to spend in an underdeveloped country working side by side with its people to teach them new and useful techniques and methods and to assist them in improving their own skills to bring about a better quality of life.

Admirable. In theory, at least. The volunteers, both young and old….but mostly young….would live and work with the Vietnamese people, mostly in province capitals, because that is where it was most secure. They would work with local leaders in implementing simple, but meaningful, changes and reforms which would hopefully improve the standard of living and increase productivity. Volunteers would offer their services in one of three broad areas: Education, agriculture or community development. Education and agriculture were probably the two best defined areas. Community development was perhaps a little more vague and undefined….a bit more general.

As recounted in a previous installment of this blog….. As I sat in that 5th grade classroom while I was doing student teaching to obtain certification in elementary education…..trying desperately to stay awake….. I was idly leafing through a “Redbook Magazine”. I unexpectedly came upon an article whose title was something like “Voluntary Organization Offers Service Opportunities in South Vietnam”. Well…. Maybe those were not the exact words, but they are close enough. I snapped immediately out of my drowsy coma-like state….and I bolted wide awake. The article had my undivided attention. I knew at that instant: This was going to be my avenue back to South Vietnam.

I read through the article. Wow. It sounded great….something I was qualified….even born….to do. I jotted down the address that was given…..and hid the magazine the best I could at the bottom of the stack, hoping that it would still be there the next day. I don’t recall if it was or not. Looking back…. I wish I had been just a bit more dishonest and would have taken the magazine with me. If I had, trust me…. It would be among my most valuable possessions today. Over the years, I have searched and searched for the magazine. Back in the “old days”, I looked for it in the “Readers Guide” (Don’t worry about it…. If you are younger than 50 years old, you have no idea what I am talking about!)…..but I was never able to find it. Subsequently, I have searched the Internet many time….with equally disappointing results. Nevertheless….. I had the address of the headquarters in Washington, D. C. I sat down and wrote them a letter as soon as I got home.

The concept of “Agent of Change” sounded great….something I agreed with wholeheartedly. Vietnam needed to change….it had to change…. if it was to grow and prosper as a nation. And, what better way to approach the matter than at the grassroots level, where most lasting changes usually begin…..with the people.

And….. What better person than I? I had a degree in education; I had two and a half years of teaching experience; I was already familiar with South Vietnam…. I was their man!

When I returned to South Vietnam, it never occurred to me that anybody would volunteer for such a position for any other reason than the selfless desire to help the people in an underdeveloped nation. It never occurred to me at the time that accepting a job as a volunteer had anything remotely to do with the war that was being fought. There was nothing in the mission statement that mentioned the war. In fact, I thought that it was implicit that this was one of the factors that made us stand out…..that we were there to give our assistance and our expertise as volunteers regardless of the war….in spite of the war.

The previous installment detailed my experiences as a volunteer English teacher and also my experiences building the Peter Hunting Memorial Library. Now, let me give you a brief overview of my job description as Associate Chief of Party for Education.

Well…. To summarize…. To make it brief…. There was none.

I just sort of assembled a job description as time went along….and as issues came up.

My predecessor took me to meet the Vietnamese government officials with whom I would be coordinating. The Minister of Education….the equivalent of our Secretary of Education here in the USA…. was, of course, the main guy in the Vietnamese government with whom I would be working. He was in charge of administering the education system of the country. Off hand, I don’t recall his name. It has been too long ago. I could look it up, but, you wouldn’t recognize his name anyway. And, besides that… this position changed hands a couple times while I was Chief of Education. Being a government Minister in South Vietnam back in those days was sort of like playing a game of musical chairs….if you are old enough to remember that old party game. The Minister of Education had to approve all the placements we made in the country’s public schools. As I said in a previous installment, the public high school was the “official” job of the volunteer teacher. Any other duty beyond that was at the discretion of the teacher and the other organization.

And, for some reason that I never quite figured out, the Director of Sports and Recreation (a department within the Ministry of Education) had an interest in what we were doing. There were no organized school athletic teams. The only sports that I saw kids playing were pickup games of soccer and maybe some volleyball. They were not organized games…..and certainly not sponsored by the school. The games were just a bunch of kids with time on their hands trying to have some fun.

Most of the games I observed….and most of the kids who I saw in these pickup games were boys….and were not very organized. The kids sort of made up the rules to fit the situation. There may have been other, more organized games going on somewhere, and I just didn’t see them. For sure, however, there were were no organized, sponsored city league….or intra-country leagues. If there were, they were a closely guarded secret. But, then again….. There was a war taking place in the country.

All the guys with whom I had contact….and remember I was only in my upper-20’s back them….. I really was young once upon a time….were constantly asking me questions about the rules for baseball, American football, basketball…. I tried to explain the rules of these games, but I probably confused them more than I helped them. Someday just try explaining all the detailed rules of American football to somebody who has never seen a real game! It probably sounds easy to somebody who has never tried it. You will probably be rewarded with blank stares….albeit “polite” bland stares from the Vietnamese. And, then come the questions…. “What about this?” “What about that?” “Why do they do this?” “Why do they do that?” It was sort of like I felt when I attended my first professional soccer game in Berlin! When I was kid, we played “soccer” at recess. We would kick the ball as hard as we could downfield. The other team would kick the ball back toward our goal as hard as they could. This went on until the teacher blew a whistle and herded us back inside the school building. Much later in life….I found out this is not the correct ways to play soccer! Unlike my Vietnamese friends, however, I really don’t care much about soccer….and have no desire to be an expert on the rules!

There was another Ministry that had some interest in our organization. It was called the Ministry of Social Welfare…or Public Welfare, or some such title. I was formally introduced to its Minister, too. I don’t want to forget the Ministry of Youth…..actually also a division of the Ministry of Education. Although I do not recall much about this Ministry, I do recall that the Minister’s age seemed to be somewhat less than 60 or 70. That was a good sign, I thought.

There were other government ministries….ones with which I had no direct connection, but worked with the other two divisions of our organization, such as the Ministry of Agriculture and a Ministry, whose exact name I can’t recall, that was the contact point for our volunteers who worked in Community Development. It could have been the Ministry of Labor or the Ministry of Revolutionary Development…. Something like that.

In all these Ministries, we were received politely….almost with reverence ….in their well-appointed and sometimes opulent offices. The Ministers were all smiles, cordial, urbane… They were attended by subservient aids who silently and politely served tea…..and then disappeared. The conversation was always polite, somewhat stilted…and also somewhat uncomfortable. Being absolutely new to the job, I really had no idea of what to say….or even what I was expected to say. Mostly I just answered the polite questions…..and tried to respond graciously to remarks….sort of act like I really understood what was going on…..and I tried to always keep a smile on my face. Fortunately, each meeting lasted only a few minutes…..and after a lot of shaking of hands and lot of smiling and a lot of complimentary remarks, we were gone.

The only Minister that I really had a working relationship with was the Minister of Education, of course. He…..or somebody in his office….had to approve each of our proposed placements. During my tenure in Chief of Education, I don’t recall any of our placements being denied. As a matter of fact, it was quite the opposite. The Ministry of Education was constantly pressing us for more volunteer teachers…..more than we could ever hope to supply. And, why not? We were at least a partial answer to the shortage of teachers which existed in South Vietnam.

Even back in the 1960s, in an underdeveloped, war-town country like South Vietnam, every high school student was required to study a second language…..either French or English. For many years, as you may recall, a great deal of Southeast Asia was under French control. In fact, it was a colony of France, known as French Indochina. This domination of Vietnam lasted from 1858 until May 7, 1954, when Vietnamese forces defeated France at Dien Bien Phu…..a period of almost 100 years.

French influence pervaded South Vietnam….architecture, food, street and building names, language, customs, even education, plus little things like the kind of coffee they drink, the kind of bread they eat…. For decades, French was the only foreign language that was important. However, when thousands of American military and civilian personnel began to descend on South Vietnam like swarms of locusts….and hundreds, maybe thousands, of jobs began to become available….English suddenly became the most important language to learn. Learn English… Get a job.

Almost anybody can probably teach a foreign language, in theory, at least. I studied Spanish for two years in high school from a teacher who I am reasonable sure could not have carried on an intelligent understandable conversation with a native Spanish speaking person, even if her life depended on it. I am pretty sure that she could perhaps read some Spanish…..enough to teach a bunch of first time learners in a little high school in Kansas. And, none of us really cared. This was back in the early 1950’s…..and none of us were probably ever going to have an occasion to use the language in a real life conversation. I certainly never expected to, and for that matter, I never have!

At any rate, I was in fairly constant contact with the Ministry of Education….if not visiting or consulting with the Minister, then talking or conferring with one of the deputies or department heads. As I look back today, I am amused at the strikingly different way we dressed. I am sure it reflected differences in our cultures….or maybe even status. Very few of the people who worked in the same office building where I worked dressed formally. I mean it would be a special occasion that we would even consider wearing a jacket and tie to work. For one thing…. It was simply too hot and humid. Give us some credit… We were not very much into self-inflicted torture back in those days! When the temperature is in the 90’s or even higher….when the relative humidity is hovering somewhere north of 70 or 80%…..wearing a jacket and tie may not be the smartest…or most comfortable….way to dress. Nobody wants to spend the day in a cloth sauna….walking around with sweat dripping from his clothing and constantly wiping perspiration off his face. That is just the men. Who knows what it is like for the women.

Except for very special events, men simply wore a nice buttoned shirt and dark colored trousers. Well… We also wore shoes and socks! Most of the time, at least. On special occasions, we would wear a necktie….temporarily until we could safely take it off, at least. An event had to be fairly extraordinary before we would even consider wearing a jacket. The guys who worked in the office of the Ministry of Education….and the other Ministries, also….never failed to be attired flawlessly with a dark suit and tie. Many times I was tempted to ask them if they were just a little bit warm. “Take off that jacket! It is hot in here!” I never did. And, strangely enough, they didn’t even appear to be hot. They never seemed to perspire. Their clothing never appeared to be damp! On the other hand, they were acclimated to the climate. They were accustomed to the heat and the humidity. And, they never seemed to mind that we were wearing only a tie. They were probably thinking, “Those strange Americans.” Oh well….

So, the day finally arrived. The office staff threw a going-away party of sorts for the out-going Associate Associate Chief of Party. I think he was ready to leave….to go back home to whatever was a normal life for him. He had been in South Vietnam for three years…..one year as a volunteer teacher and two years as the Chief of Education. Unfortunately, there was no paid leave….no paid-for trips back to the USA….in IVS. We could go home….and then sign up for another two years, I suppose. In fact, I am sure that a few volunteers did that. Maybe not immediately after they got back home. But, no doubt some of them got back home….found it difficult to adjust…..maybe were unemployed with no prospect of a good job…..maybe facing the prospect of being drafted into the military staring them in the face…. Who knows? But, I am pretty sure that some of the former volunteers re-volunteered to go back to South Vietnam. This guy was not one of them, however.

The next morning, I drove him to Tan Son Nhut Airport on the western outskirts of Saigon, waited with him until his flight was announced, said good-bye to him…..and watched him disappear up the ramp into the airplane.

And, then…. It hit me. I suddenly realized that I was now the Associate Chief of Party for Education. I stood and pondered that thought for a minute…..then turned and walked back to what was now MY Jeep….and drove back to the IVS compound.

Let me tell you a little bit about the IVS compound, since it was to be my home for the next two years. The compound, and I suppose that is as good a name as anything, was located on the extreme western fringe on Saigon, in very close proximity to the sprawling Tan Son Nhut Airbase. Also nearby, and probably even closer to the compound, were large military bases or facilities of the South Vietnamese army and the South Korean army. Let’s just say that if you had never seen a military vehicle before…..you would not be able to say that after living at the IVS compound. They were ubiquitous in our area of town.

This compound consisted of two main houses, a few outbuildings, which served as homes for the people IVS hired to keep the compound up and running: housekeepers, cooks, groundskeepers…..maybe even a mechanic thrown in there somewhere. If I remember correctly, all of these people were members of two different families. The compound was sitting on perhaps an acre of land. There was ample vegetation…..a lawn, for example. But, in South Vietnam, there is vegetation everywhere. You can almost stand and watch the green plants grow.

Le Van Duyet Street ran in front of the compound. It was a major thoroughfare connecting points in central Saigon with the military bases which were located in the western suburbs. Since it was a major traffic artery, it was almost constantly clogged with traffic…..both military and civilian. Across the street from our headquarters were a series of small, locally owned businesses. Shacks, actually. In typical South Vietnamese fashion, the small stores or businesses were located in front, facing the busy street, and behind the stores were the owners’ homes….where they lived. Everything was pretty much in the open air. There was very little privacy, as we know it here in the USA. The last time I was in South Vietnam was in 1968. A lot has probably changed in that rather lengthy period of time….maybe.

At any rate, this is where the IVS Headquarters for South Vietnam was located. There were two sizable buildings on the property. The smaller of the two buildings was the location of our communal dining room and the kitchen.

The dining room was a large room which was large enough to seat perhaps thirty or forty people….maybe more….if they scrunched up a little bit. It was not what one could ….or would…..call Five Star dining, but it served its purpose. There were three or four long tables which crossed the room horizontally. Actually, they were probably multiple tables pushed together. I don’t ever recall seeing them without some sort of table cloth on them…..so they could have been about anything. At any rate, probably at least six people could sit comfortably in each side of the table. Only on rare occasions were the tables all completely occupied. The number of volunteer sitting around the table at mealtime was a fairly good indication of how many volunteers were in town and were milling around Saigon at any one time. It was possible that some of the volunteers were hanging out in other places, and were not eating at the IVS House. But, since the meals were dirt cheap, most of them were probably there. (Oh, yeah! You can be sure they charged us for our meal!)

Meals were always served “family style”……with all the food on the table….and passed around the table at the beginning of the meal…..just like we were one big happy family. There was only a limited…..or finite…..amount of food. “Take it while you can get it!” By the time each dish of food had made its way around the table, there was seldom much, if any, food left in the dish or on the plate. Second helpings were rare. Even though the food may not have been overly abundant, it was well prepared. Unlike our cook in Phan Rang, who persisted in using the little charcoal burner on the back steps, the cooks at the IVS House prepared the food on a rather traditional propane stove in an actual kitchen, although I obviously did not spend much time in it. Another good thing was that the food was always “well done”. Maybe this was done simply because this is the way the Vietnamese cook…..or maybe it was done to insure that all the germs, or as many as possible, were killed in the cooking process. There were no “special orders”. What you saw was what you got. Take it or leave it. On the other hand, I don’t recall any major outbreaks of food-related illnesses or other unpleasant bacteria associated maladies.

The remainder of the building was devoted to staff-housing and to the women’s dormitory. Unfortunately, I never had the opportunity or the occasion to become acquainted with that portion of the building!

The second main building also served two main functions. First of all, it was the “Headquarters” building……the building where the Chief of Party has his office, and also the Associate Chief of Party for Administration’s office was also located there. The “headquarters” was located in one large room. The Chief of Party’s desk was tucked away in the far corner of the room. Aside from his desk and a few accompanying chairs, there was a table which was used for conferences or meetings and there was also probably a filing cabinet. Everybody has to have a filing cabinet. It was not very impressive….nothing that would indicate that he was an “executive”……or even had much of a job. And, that is probably the truth. Of all the “chiefs”……education, agriculture, community development, administration…..he probably had the least to do of any of them. I never did figure out….and I was never quite sure…..how he spent his time….exactly what he did.

Included in this large, single room were two or three additional desks. IVS employed a secretary or administrative assistant, Kim Dung (pronounced Kim Zoom), for many years. She probably knew as much about the organization as any of the American employees knew. There were a couple spare desks, too, that were used sporadically by volunteers who might need a desk while they were in Saigon. Actually, I used one of these desks during the few weeks that I was in Saigon recovering from hepatitis and waiting to take over as Associate Chief of Party for Education. Of course, my office was actually in a USAID office building downtown, but this gave me a place to sit and try to keep myself occupied while I was waiting….at least, when I finally gained the physical strength to get out of bed for a few hours at a time!

Also located in this building were the men’s dormitory and additional rooms for permanent staff members. The men’s dorm was not very elegant, to say the least. As the name suggests, it was a large room filled with rows of beds. I never counted the beds….most because the thought never occurred to me, most likely…..but I am going to go out on a limb and estimate there were somewhere around 15 beds in the room…give or take a few. Our Chief of Administration was constantly reminding the guys to keep the place in at least a minimal state of neatness…..pick up your clothes, put them in your locker, make your bed, don’t throw stuff on the floor….. The place was never “neat”, but due to the constant urging and the constant threats, it was never out of control. Maybe just the kind of place one would expect with several young men thrown together. However, compared with the Army barracks I lived in….. It was a complete mess!

Across the hall from the dormitory, was the bathroom and showers. I took a shower every morning, but I rarely recall seeing anybody else in there taking a shower. Maybe they took a shower at night before they went to bed……or maybe…. Well, who knows what their personal hygiene habits were. I know that I did not miss the dorm after I had moved upstairs to my private room. When moving day arrived…. Believe me, I was packed and ready to move…..even if was only up a flight of steps.

The second story of the building was home to the Chief of Party, to the Chief of Agriculture, and to the Chief of Education….. That’s was me! We each had a room. There was another bath room and shower room….albeit smaller…..upstairs, too. My room…..the first to be encountered….was…..well, just another room. There was a bunk bed covered with mosquito netting, a small desk, a couple straight back chairs, a chest of drawers with a mirror…. And, that was it! It was not a room from a 5-Star hotel, but it was mine! Oh yes….. I almost forgot about the closet. That is obviously where I hung my clothing…..slacks and shirts and jackets.

I am trying to think back to those days. I don’t remember owning a pair of jeans…..but surely, I did. Most of my clothing was tailor-made by a tailor in Saigon. It was cheaper to have clothing tailor-made than it was to have Mother buy it in the USA and then pay the postage to mail it to me. Consequently, I owned mostly a wardrobe of made-to-order clothing. Sounds sort elite, doesn’t it? Actually, it wasn’t. It was merely practical….and more economical.

As time went by…..and starting almost immediately…..I began to add “enhancements” to the room. For example, somewhere I came upon an old bookcase. This came in handy because I joined the a Book-of-the-Month Club. By the time I received the accept/reject slip, it was usually too late to reject any of the books. Consequently, I began to build up a small library…..mostly of unwanted books. But, still they were books. Books that I could read…..books that I could loan to volunteers as they came in from the provinces and wanted something to pass the time. Many times the volunteers borrowed the books and simply took them back to their home out in the provinces. Sometimes they remembered to return them. Sometimes….most of the time…..they didn’t. No big deal. I seldom loaned books that I had not read. And, even as it was, the bookcase was filling up much too rapidly.

It didn’t take me very long to buy one of the supreme status symbols of living in South Vietnam: a shiny new reel-to-reel tape recorder! It was a rather large, bulky, heavy machine, but I didn’t care. It was the pride in owning one that counted. It was a stereo machine, with two speakers. I picked it up on one of my trips to Hong Kong. I wish I still had the receipt…..but I don’t. I am going to go out on a limb and venture a guess: I think I paid somewhere around $250 for it. Back in those days…..1966 or 1967…..that was a small fortune….probably a large fortune…. for me…..most people, probably. But, I was young. Maybe money didn’t mean as much to me back then. Back in those days, I paid cash! I didn’t even have a credit card. In fact, I don’t ever recall being in a place where credit cards were accepted. I mean…. Come on. This was South Vietnam. In the middle of a war. Most merchants were lucky if they had an old cash register. All transactions were cash….receipts were written out by hand….

The reel-to-reel tape recorder was my main source of entertainment during the time I spent in my room. The only problem was: There was no place to buy pre-recorded reel-to-reel tapes. I doubt if they even existed. Like most problems, though…. There was a solution. The Air Force library on Tan Son Nhut Airbase that had a rather large selection of pre-recorded tapes that were available to Americans living in South Vietnam. They had a number of tape recorders set up to transfer music from one tape recorder to another. Play their tape on one machine….record the music to my blank tape on the other machine. I would buy blank reel-to-reel tapes at the PX (Post Exchange), take them to the military library and record music on to them and take them home to listen to them.

As I look backward over the more than fifty intervening years, I almost laugh at the quality of the music that I once thought was so great! Even though the reel-to-reel recorder was “stereo”, it often certainly did not sound like it. There were volume controls for both channels. Although I messed with these two little knobs constantly, trying to equalize and regulate the sound, music still often only came from one speaker. But, at least, it was music. That is more than I had before.

Sometimes on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon when I was in Saigon and had nothing better to do, I would drive over to the Tan Son Nhut library to record some music. The library had an extensive list of tapes which were available to record. The problem was, however….of me, at least….that most of the tapes was music that I didn’t want…..or had never heard of. I recorded some Beatles tapes…..some Elvis (Presley) tapes…. I really wasn’t very much into either of these artists, though.

This was back in the era when Joan Baez and Bob Dylan were hot singers….especially with the group of people whom I saw every day. Up until then, I had never been much of a Joan Baez fan. Back then….in the mid-1960’s and early 1970’s, she was primarily, if not exclusively, a folk singer…..and specialized in performing a variety of protest songs…..opposing the Vietnam was….supporting a variety social causes, including the civil rights movement. These were simply not causes or issues that I felt passionately about in those days. In fact, I was actually a committed supporter of the Vietnam War. I felt that the United States was actually in South Vietnam to wipe out communism….and free the South Vietnamese people from the threat of a communist takeover….and to insure that they would live in a free and democratic country. The fact is: I more or less regarded Joan Baez as an arrogant, misguided, publicity seeking puppet of the radical students. Let me hasten to add: Over the years, I have come to understand her much better….to understand her motives and her objectives and her commitment to freedom and equality. Today I am a major fan of hers.

As for Bob Dylan: He was….and still is……an acquired taste. In my opinion he can’t sing…..most of his lyrics are gibberish, bordering on nonsense. He sort of “narrates” his songs in a nasal monotone. I have often felt that he was high something when he wrote the lyrics……and it helps to be high on something when a person listens to them! Maybe that has been my problem. In any event, I thought back then…..and I still think to this day……that his lyrics are arrogant, self-serving and are strung together in such a manner that anybody in even a slightly altered state of mind can make them mean almost anything they want. But….. He was awarded a Nobel Prize for Literature in 2016. Go figure…..

But…. Getting back to the story….. I recorded a lot of Joan Baez music in the Air Force library….and also some Bob Dylan music. Joan Baez’s music sort of grew on me….and I ended up being one of her huge fans….even to this day.

One of our volunteer teachers who was stationed in Saigon, made a suggestion to me for which I am perpetually grateful. She suggested that I check and see if they had any music by the Mammas and Papas. I had never heard of them….and quite honestly the name didn’t sound like anything I would be remotely interested in. But…. To please her….and because I had nothing better in mind….I checked to see if they were included on the list of tapes. Actually, I didn’t expect to find them on the list! The Mammas and Papas.? Were they even real? Had anybody ever heard of them? Much to my amazement…..closer to shock…..they had a couple of their tapes! I had obviously never heard them perform, and I was blown away by their sound! I was hooked at that very moment in time. And, I still am today…… more than fifty years later.

Another artist that I “discovered” back in those days at the Air Force Library was Ray Charles. He had been around for a while…..since the mid-1950’s….but his music just didn’t hold much appeal for me…..blues, jazz, soul. Even back then, I liked a lot of different kinds of music…..just not those kinds. One of our volunteers suggested that maybe I should listen to his country/western album. Country/western album? Ray Charles has a country/Western album? “What a strange combination that must be,” I thought.

But, out of curiosity and as a courtesy to the volunteer who suggested it, I asked the librarian if he had heard of the album. “Yeah!” he replied enthusiastically. “You are going to like it.” That hardly seemed possible, but I set it up on the tape deck…..and, Wow! I did like it! It certainly was not the typical country/western album…..not by any stretch of the imagination. But…. It was good! Songs like “I Can’t Stop Loving You”, “Born to Lose”, and “You Don’t Know Me” are still among my favorite songs even today. Probably is if not been for South Vietnam, I would probably have never even given these artists a second though. Wow! What a terrible thought. One or two of these singers are on every music CD I make today…..without exception.

This is the music that we listened to at night when volunteers came to my room to hang out. They liked it; I liked it. In fact, it was the only music we had to listen to. Since I had only two chairs…..straight back chairs, at that….people would sit on the bed, on the floor….wherever there were a few square feet of vacant space. Volunteers had a habit of bringing a bottle…..of something…..to drink when they stopped by. I am talking about alcoholic beverages…..not iced tea. Since they had no other place to stash the bottles, they usually just left them in my room….saying, “We will finish it next time.” Luckily the closet in my room was fairly large….and it was lined with shelves. When I left two years later to return to the USA, there were enough half-empty bottles to start a small, well-stocked liquor store.

One of the really nice features of the building I lived in was the large, open-air patio on the second level. It was not extensively used by the volunteers when they stayed at the IVS house, maybe because many of them were not aware it was there. Except for the permanent staff, who lived on the second floor, there was really no reason for the volunteers to be wandering around the upper level…..unless they had been invited there by one of the staff members. The people who had discovered it probably all agree that it was a pleasant place to sit in the evening hours when the sun was fading in the west and was not beating down unmercifully.

There was usually a major problem, however. Mosquitoes! After the sun had begun to set, the mosquitoes woke up and took over. And, they were relentless. I swear that they are ten times more abundant and more aggressive that any mosquito I ever encountered here in Kansas. Because of their relentless attacks, we began to think that all the mosquitoes were members of the Viet Cong. Mosquito repellent helped a little, but the only sure-fire defense against them was to simply give up and go inside. Even inside the house was not a safe haven from the mosquitoes. None….as in zero….of the windows had screens on them. I always had a ready supply of mosquito spray handy. And, that is why there were mosquito nets on the beds.

The IVS house was my home, but it was not my work space. My office was downtown in a USAID office building….on Hong Tap Tu Street to be exact. (with a few diacritical markings thrown in for good measure, of course.) The large, multi-storied building was home base to a variety of USAID functions. If I recall correctly, the IVS office was on the third floor. It was a large space. In fact, it occupied a good portion of the footprint of the building. Obviously, the entire space wasn’t occupied by IVS. We only had a “staff” of 4 or 5 people at our maximum. There was I, of course. And, in addition there was my secretary. (We had two secretaries temporarily.). There was my administrative assistant/interpreter, and also my Technical Assistant for the Saigon region. She was there only when she wasn’t visiting or assisting one of the teachers in the region or teaching classes herself.

IVS shared the space with two or three or four other educational organizations who were also under contract to USAID. Teams from Ohio State University and Southern Illinois University come to mind, although I am almost certain there were one or two others. To be sure, however, IVS was the only organization that was working directly with the high schools in South Vietnam. We were the only organization who placed teachers directly in the schools…..who actually taught in the schools…..who actually came into daily contact with students and teachers. We were the only organization who actually “got our hands dirty”, so to speak. The other organizations were there in an “advisory” capacity….or were involved in “planning”. Primarily, they were working more with various divisions of the Ministry of Education…..with administration…..and not directly with students and faculty.

Let me say, just to be clear, that my job was also involved working with members of the Ministry of Education and with members of the Ministry of Youth Affairs. I also spent the major part of my time out in the provinces working and coordinating with school principals and with teachers, not to mention our volunteers. And, of course, the volunteer teachers were involved exclusively in working directly in the classrooms instructing high school students and conducting other school related educational activities…..English clubs, private or semi-private tutoring, helping faculty improve their English, etc.

Anyway, our “office”…..or office space would be a more accurate description…..was located near the elevator….off to the left just a bit. Enough to the left that people did not have to walk through our “office”, but we were certainly the first group of people they met on their way to whatever their destination was. Being that close to the elevator was never much of a problem, although probably not an hour passed without somebody stepping off the elevator, stopping….looking around….and saying, “Where is……’s office located?” In that regard, maybe it is accurate to say that we sort of functioned as the Welcoming Committee for the entire floor. This didn’t bother me very much, because I wasn’t in the direct line of fire. Neither of my secretaries minded. They literally knew everybody on that floor. The Vietnamese secretaries….and all the secretaries were Vietnamese…..all knew each other and when they were not otherwise occupied, they spent a great deal of time visiting with each other…..trading gossip, I assume. Who knows? But, they always seemed up to date on that was going on in the other offices…..and I am sure the other secretaries were kept equally informed on what I was up to.

The IVS office was the smallest “office” by far, even though we probably had more “employees” that the other combined. (Although I wouldn’t testify to this in any court.) Our employees were dispersed out into the provinces…..and not concentrated in Saigon.
Our office consisted of a collection of about five desks, with chairs, of course….a desk for each of our staff. Each desk had a typewriter, which, I think, was located in a little compartment on one of the sides of the desk. Each desk also had a telephone. We had been allotted two or three lines or extensions, so more than one person could be talking on the telephone at any one time by pressing one of the buttons on the telephone. We are talking 1960’s now…..and we were still using the dial-up telephones. There was nothing unusual or strange about that: It was the only thing we had…..the only thing we knew.

There were a couple filing cabinets….a large storage cabinet where the secretaries kept various supplies……and a copy machine which was used mostly to crank out various letters, information, lesson plans, etc. for the volunteers. This era was still a few decades before the introduction of the computer. Life was hard! It would be to today’s convenience oriented people, at least.

When we…..I, my secretaries…..anybody….typed letters, it was not possible to tap a key with “Print” written on it…..or click “Save”. We made carbon copies….multiple sheets with carbon paper in between them. If we made a mistake on the original, not only were we forced to correct the mistake on the it, but we also had to correct the mistake on all the copies, too! Believe me…. This offered a great deal of incentive to slow down, think, be accurate….and get it right the first time. Thankfully, my secretaries were extremely good typists.

So…. We used the storage cabinet and the filing cabinet as sort of “room dividers”. Even so, all of us were in very close proximity to each other.

My “staff”, such as it was…..was very talented, very hard-working…..and very loyal. The first “staff” member whom I saw each morning was my driver. He would arrive on his bicycle about twenty or thirty minutes before my normal departure time. He would make sure the Jeep had gasoline. He would clean the windows. I have no idea where he lived. But….. He was always there….five days a week, waiting by my Jeep when it was time to leave to go to the office. He was always smiling, always in a good mood, always ready to take me wherever I needed to go.

The first couple months of my new job, our conversation was very rudimentary. He had picked up some simple English, so he was able to carry on a limited conversation…..and I was still in the process of learning to speak Vietnamese. But, through sort sentences….phrases, actually….and lots of smiling and gesturing, we always managed to have a pleasant, but sometimes…..actually, usually….hectic trip through the morning Saigon traffic to my office. As my fluency in speaking Vietnamese improved, we were able to communicate better. As was the custom….or accepted practice….in dealing with most Vietnamese people….I didn’t ask him a lot of personal questions….and he didn’t ask me. Our relationship remained “professional”….although always cordial and friendly.

My Jeep did not have turn signals… Or, it did, they didn’t work. My driver and I worked as a team, however. As we weaved our way through the tangle of the morning “to work” traffic, he signaled left turns or lane changes on the driver’s side of the Jeep, and I signaled right turns or lane changes on my side….the passenger side….of the Jeep. It was sort an “every man for himself” mentality, and surprisingly, there were few accidents. There were some close calls, to be sure! Especially in relationship to bicycles, motor bikes, “cyclos”, ox carts…. I think those morning drives to work did more to strengthen my nerves and toughen up my reactions than anything I had ever done. While I sat in the passenger seat, filled with anxiety and sometimes almost ready to experience a nervous collapse, my driver calmly and serenely went about his business of delivering me safely to my office.

After safely depositing me in front of the USAID office building, I am not entirely sure what happened. I went inside the building…..and he did whatever it was that he did. While waiting, the drivers would sit on the sidewalk outside the building socializing and playing some sort of game. However, the instant I walked out of the building to go to an appointment somewhere, my driver would jump up, make the Vietnamese signal for “Wait”…..scurry off somewhere…..and shortly return with the Jeep. I never did find out where he….and I assume the other drivers…..kept the Jeep. I guess I figured that it simply was not my problem. But, in a minute or two, there he was, sitting in front of the building waiting for me, ready to take me wherever I needed to go.

One of the really useful features about my driver was that he had already worked for previous Chiefs of Education. He already knew all the places where we were likely to go. He had already been to each of them dozens…..if not hundreds….of times. He knew all the shortcuts. Many times, I would find us driving through alleys or on obscure, almost impassible little lanes. For a while, this used to alarm me. “Where is he taking me?” “Is he secretly working for the enemy?” “Is a VC going to suddenly jump out of the shadows and shoot us….or at least, shoot me?” After a few weeks….when I found myself still alive and still unharmed….it finally began to dawn on me that the guy simply had a fairly extensive knowledge of Saigon streets….both major and minor…..and he was doing his job of getting me to my destination as quickly and as expeditiously as possible. I don’t think he was ever aware of my early doubts…or fears. If he had been, I am sure he would have been highly amused….or highly insulted. Or Both.

I have no idea how much my driver was paid. Or even who paid him: IVS or USAID. It never occurred to me to ask. They probably wouldn’t have told me anyway. He was no doubt paid enough to adequately support his family…..but that is probably about all. Each month every American was issued a ration card. We were allotted a certain number of cases of beer, bottles of liquor, bottles of wine and champagne…..and of cartons of cigarettes. We were allotted six cartons of cigarettes each month.

 

I used my full allotment of all the other items. Since I did not smoke, I never used my quota of cigarettes, though. I suppose I could have given my allotment to another volunteer who did smoke. But, instead, every month, I would go to the PX and buy six cartons of cigarettes…..and give them to my driver. He was overjoyed! He happy and grateful to receive them. Not only did he smoke, but I am sure that he re-sold these cigarettes on the black-market…..and probably doubled or maybe even tripled the salary we were paying him. In fact this was what I intended for him to do when I gave them to him. Not to belabor the point….. But, I thought this was the least I could do for his loyalty and service to me. Also….. Each year at TET (the Chinese New Year), I gave him a bottle of some sort of liquor. Somehow I doubt if he sold this, however!

During my two years as Chief of Education, I had two secretaries. They could not have been more different from each other…..in almost every way. Except for one thing they both had in common: They were both excellent secretaries, and they were both unusually competent, and like my driver….almost irreplaceable.

I “inherited” my first secretary…. So Tuc (again with the inevitable diacritical markings) (and Co meaning “Miss”) She was a petite young woman…..twenty-something-ish….unmarried, although with no lack of young men who were interested in pursuing her. She had ample opportunities to meet a variety of potential boy friends…..both South Vietnamese and American. By day she was a secretary; at night she lived an entirely different life. She was a singer in one of the Saigon nightclubs…..of maybe it was a bar. In Saigon…. There was not much difference. There was a very fine line separating the two….if there was, indeed, any line at all.

Co Tuc was almost always already in the office by the time I had arrived. Co Tuc was well….. a little on the flamboyant side. Always attired in a fashionable mini-skirt, often accompanied with black boots, she possessed a very bubbling personality….always smiling, always happy, always upbeat and outgoing. Qualities that not only make a good night club singer…..but also a good secretary. Every morning when I got off the elevator, she always greeted me enthusiastically. She always made sure that my day started on a happy note.

She rather short….even for a Vietnamese girl. She had long glistening black hair that flowed down over her shoulders. She wore glasses. Not just glasses, but large horn-rimmed glasses that never failed to draw attention to her face. One might picture horn-rim glasses as being a bit unusual….if not unattractive…..on a young woman. But, this definitely was not the case with her.

When I took over the job as Associate Chief of Party for Education, I had a lot to learn. Co Tuc was one of the people that I relied most heavily on. She “knew the ropes”, so to speak. She helped me ease into the job without making very many embarrassing mistakes. She had an excellent knowledge of the English language. Of course, she studied it in high school….and possibly college. But, no doubt she perfected a lot of it simply by using it. I can only imagine that she had ample opportunity to practice speaking and increasing her vocabulary by talking to hundreds of American military personnel in her nighttime job as a night club singer. She acted as a sort of office manager…..often anticipating what needed to be done…..and then doing it….or making sure that I did it.

My other secretary, as I said, could have not been more different than Co Tuc. Her name was Co Hien…..or Miss Hien. She and Co Tuc were on opposite points on a compass. Co Hien was a seemingly demure, traditional Vietnamese young lady, who dressed and acted like a traditional Vietnamese young lady. Every morning, she arrived wearing an ao dai….pronounced sort of like “ow yi”….the traditional dress for Vietnamese women. The ao dai, for those of you who do not know….which is probably most of you….consists of long trousers, over which was a long flowing dress, split on each side at the waist with two flaps descending to the ground. Both of these styles are very appealing….one might even say they can both be rather sexy.

 

 

 

 

Co Hien was certainly more restrained….dignified, reserved, traditional, whatever the correct word is. She certainly was not the kind of young lady that I would expect to see in a night club or bar entertaining a bunch of howdy servicemen. But, as I would discover as time passed and I got to know her better, she had a highly developed sense of humor and was more “worldly” than the facade she presented to the general public.

She, too, could take charge in her own quiet and unobtrusive manner. She would normally have opened all my mail by the time I had arrived and have it sorted into different categories. A lot of the mail was simply invitations to various government events….social and official….and from both US government agencies and Vietnamese agencies. Both of these governments seemed to seize upon almost any excuse to have a ceremony or a reception or a cocktail party….or other social event.. Maybe part of this desire to entertain was that there were not a lot of things to occupy one’s time in South Vietnam other than hang out in bars and night clubs. Anyway, both of my secretaries seem to know which ones were worthwhile to attend…..maybe because they related to our work in the area of education or maybe just because there might be some important people in attendance.

Other mail usually included a constant flow of reports and studies and bulletins generated by both governments. Frequently there were requests for some sort of information relating to our work in the public schools….or reports or forms to be completed about our personnel. Whatever it was, the mail was usually in neat stacks according to categories.

Both secretaries almost always answered the telephone when it rang. For one thing, it was part of their job…..but even more important, if the call was from a Vietnamese speaking person, it just seemed more efficient and quicker and more reliable for them to take the call. It probably seemed a little more professional, too…..especially in the eyes of the status-conscious Vietnamese.

My secretaries answered a lot of the mail by themselves….after consulting me, of course……such as accepting or “regretfully” declining invitations…. Saying, “Yes…. The report (or information) will be returned shortly…. Yes, Mr. Darrah will be attending the meeting as scheduled…… Yes, Mr. Darrah will be happy to meet with you…..”

Normally, I would type first drafts of letters, etc……and then after they were proofread, my secretary would type the final draft to be signed and mailed. Yeah…. I know this seems a little bit redundant. The alternatives, however, were: a messy letter with lots or corrections or mistakes….or me writing the letter in longhand and then answering the constant question, “What does this say” (I think my handwriting is pretty good…..but many other people do not agree!)? All of my mail from IVS….either from the headquarters in Washington or from volunteers….was sent to the IVS office, and I was left to deal with most of that my myself. I had a typewriter in my room, and I answered the mail myself….or one of the secretaries in the office would type the letters for me.

In many ways, I think that Co Hien was better connected with the office…..and even within “the system” than Co Tuc was. For one thing: She was more “like them”….a little more “traditional” than Co Tuc. And, I have a feeling that her family may have been a little “better connected” within the system, also. Like I said, Co Tuc was well connected with the office, also. She spent her fair share of free time consulting, socializing or gossiping with the other Vietnamese secretaries when she wasn’t otherwise occupied. It would be impossible to choose which of them was better. They were both competent, resourceful, helpful, dedicated and loyal. And, I wouldn’t want to speculate what my life would have been like without either of them.

The other Vietnamese member of my so-called staff was Phap (high rising tone!). He was a fairly remarkable guy. I never did figure out how he pulled if all off. He was my administrative aid/interpreter; he was a medical student at Saigon University; he was a First Lieutenant in the South Vietnamese Army; and he was also married and had a young son. He, too, was an inheritance from my successor. He was a figurative dynamo…..constantly in motion…..constantly busy doing something.

He was technically a full-time employee…..but he seldom, if ever, worked a full day. This was part of his multi-tasking, something that he had apparently mastered thoroughly. Some days he would show up in the morning….already at his desk, busily engaged in translating a letter or document. Some days he would show up after lunch, eager and ready to do whatever was on the agenda. Often, he appeared nonchalantly wearing his military uniform. Sometimes he would walk in attired in the clothing he had been wearing at the hospital. In the beginning, I was rather startled at his unusual attire, but after a while, I rarely even noticed what he was wearing.

One of Phap’s main duties was to accompany me when I visited an office within the Ministry of Education. These appointments were almost scheduled in advance….and he never failed to show up on time. On these days, let me add, he was always impeccably dressed for the occasion…..most assuredly better dressed than I. When I first assumed the job as Chief of Education, Phap did almost all the speaking….in Vietnamese, that is. He had done this before, and he was an old pro at dealing with the often formality-loving, overly polite, always diplomatic South Vietnamese bureaucrats. But, keep in mind….Phap was a highly intelligent young man…..already an officer in the South Vietnamese army, studying to be a medical doctor…..and an assistant to an American USAID sponsored agency (that would be us!). He already knew their jargon. He just sort of fit in.

Back in the office, his main job was to translate the letters and documents which flowed in from various South Vietnamese ministries and agencies….whoever had sent something to the IVS Education Office. Nominally, he was also in charge of translating my letters and stuff into Vietnamese so the secretary could type it and get it mailed.

Phap was a good looking guy….very outgoing and very gregarious. He was anything but shy. He came from a “good” family, which, in general, meant that he received a very good education…..that he had never been part of the normal Vietnamese work force. I don’t think he ever had to worry….at least very much…..about money and such mundane things like that. He looked and acted like he had led a rather privileged life. And, Phap liked to have fun! Phap introduced me to some of his friends….sons of generals and government leaders. One of those people who he introduced me to was the younger brother of General Nguyen Ngoc Loan, the National Police Chief of South Vietnam…..and a close friend of the Prime Minister, Nguyen Ca Ky. This was the South Vietnamese general caught in the act of shooting a North Vietnamese prisoner in the head at close range….the photo that won a Pulitzer Prize…..and possibly was instrumental in helping to turn public opinion in the USA against the war. Anyway, the young guy….a soldier just like Phap…..seemed like a normal guy, and the subject of his brother’s notoriety never was discussed!

Phap and I rarely, if ever, hung out together. If he was not on duty at his hospital or not otherwise occupied with is military duties, he was at home with his wife and his little son. But he was always a good source of information on what was going on around Saigon. He was well “plugged in” to what was going on around town. Even Co Tuc consulted him on the Saigon nightlife scene. Of course, she was pretty much tied to the night club where she worked, but that didn’t stop her from being curious about what was going on around town. Phap always had a suggestion about some night club or bar that he thought I should visit. I rarely did…..but, I always appreciated his interest in my social welfare! He was also remarkably well informed on not only about what was happening in South Vietnam, but the entire world. I don’t know. Maybe he listened to the BBC, or maybe….probably…..he had access to Vietnamese language newspapers that I did not….or could not….read. Of course, he came into contact with a great many military and professional people each day, too. He was one of the few people…..American or South Vietnamese…..with who really seemed to know what was going on in the world.

Another valuable service he provided was as my “purchasing agent”. He told me early on in our relationship that I was being extravagantly taken advantage of every time I would buy something…..anything…..on the open Vietnamese market….the street and sidewalk vendors as well as the hundreds of stores and shops in Saigon. He suggested that when I wanted to buy something or when I needed something……just tell him, and he would buy it for….bring it to work….I could pay him….and I would be saving a lot of money. Who knows how much? Probably at least half of what they would charge me as a “rich American”. It really didn’t make much difference that I spoke Vietnamese, just the mere fact that I was an American meant that I was surely rich…surely naive….surely gullible….and surely stupid or greedy enough to pay whatever they asked. For most Americans, if they could get the vendor to lower the price even a few cents, they felt like they had scored a victory…..that they had outsmarted the Vietnamese…..that they had gotten a bargain. It can’t be to difficult to imagine why the South Vietnamese thought we were all rich, with an ample supply of money to throw around. It can’t be very difficult to imagine why the Vietnamese “liked” the Americans on the surface…..but, in general, held them in disdain in reality. And, now that I look back….. Maybe Phap was also charging me a “service fee”….. I would have never know it…..or probably have cared. But….. No, I am sure he wasn’t!
Over the intervening past five and a half decades, I have been consistently asked, “What did you do in South Vietnam for four years?” In previous blogs, I have discussed two of my jobs….Secretary to the Adjutant General, US Army Vietnam and English teacher/sometimes Library Builder….. in some detail. Let me give you a brief overview of what I did during the two years I was Associate Chief of Party for Education.

Surely there was a job description somewhere for the job. However, either I didn’t see it….or I have long forgotten what it was. I will do my best to reconstruct the highlights of the job, though. I suppose the most obviously item was that I was in charge of the education division of IVS in South Vietnam. Nominally, at least. In reality, however, I am not sure that anybody was ever in charge……or if anybody ever really knew what was going on. If somebody was in charge: It was I!

IVS never did have a flood of volunteers; it was more like a trickle. But in those cases when people applied to be a volunteer English teacher, filled out the application form, and completed the interview with somebody back in the USA, and were accepted into the organization…..and I suspect the main qualification was that they be a breathing human being…..their application form was forwarded to me for final acceptance.

The next step was placing them in a school somewhere in South Vietnam. This was never a problem. The Ministry of Education always asked for more English teachers that we could ever hope to furnish. I would consult with the Ministry to find out where….in which provinces….. they needed the teachers most. After receiving this information, I contacted the Team Leader in that province. The Team Leader would contact the high school principal and make arrangements for the teacher to work there, as well as arrange for housing for the volunteer. In many cases…..but not all…..there were already volunteers in the province, which simplified matters greatly. The new volunteer could merely move in with those volunteers. If no other volunteers were present, appropriate living arrangements would have to be made.

When the new volunteers arrived at Tan Son Nhut Airport, I was there to meet them and greet them and drive them back to the IVS headquarters where the Chief of Administration could take over and show how important she thought she was! And, believe me…. She was in her full glory at times like these!

The new volunteers spent approximately two weeks in Saigon attending orientation sessions, filling out various forms, taking additional language lessons….and just spending time becoming acclimated before going off to their individual assignments. During this two week period, most of the time was spent in additional language study, but I conducted several sessions on various topics, too. I tried to cover such topics as what to expect in a Vietnamese high school. Believe me….. Vietnamese high schools have…or had….very little in common with the high schools in the USA that they attended. I conducted some “role playing” scenarios of a typical teaching situation in a Vietnamese high school….mostly, because of logistics and overcrowded classrooms, it had to be the “repeat after me” method of teaching. Other sessions included involving students in activities such as English clubs or discussion groups, English classes for faculty members and even groups from the community who were interested in learning English. Then, there was the all-important topic of conduct within the school and the community. Almost none of the volunteers had ever been a teacher back in the good old USA. It was important that they know the kind of behavior and obligations they had to the school and to their community as teachers…..the kind of example they were expected to set and the high standards to which they would be held within the school and within the community.

After I had made arrangements with the Ministry of Education, the Regional Team Leader would usually escort the teachers to their schools, introduce them to their principal and them settled in their new home.

It was my job to “supervise” these teachers…..although this is a term that is used lightly since they were widely scattered around South Vietnam in the various province capitals. Each volunteer teacher was required to write a monthly report and submit it to me. In this report, they outlined their monthly activities, explained any problems they needed help with, made requests for teaching materials or other help they might need in their job and anything else they felt like writing about.

If a teacher needed additional teaching materials or ideas or support, I tried to supply them with whatever they needed. Sometimes I would send material with their Team Leader, if he happened to be in Saigon. Fortunately, there were courier flights going to most of the capitals on a fairly regular basis. I could always send the stuff to the USAID office, and they could pick it up there.

It didn’t happen often…..maybe only once of twice…..but, I did get unfavorable reports from school officials regarding the conduct of volunteer teachers. The ones I recall concerned a male volunteer becoming (or attempting to become) romantically….sexually….involved with a student…..and another complaint was that the volunteer consistently failed to show up for his assigned classes. In cases like this, either I would fly to his province and have a talk with the volunteer…..and whomever else was involved…..or the Team Leader would intervene. One time, I had a rather urgent complaint that one of our male volunteers had “exposed” himself to the class. This was one that I never did figure out. The guy angrily denied the claim….and the evidence was inconclusive in regards to what exactly happened. The school did not demand that he be withdrawn. So we….I, the Team Leader and the principal….. settled the matter by assigning him to a different class…..and telling him in very strong language to shape up…..and that we had better never, under any circumstance, receive such a complaint again. And, we didn’t.

I tried to make at least one trip a week…..often two trips a week….to the provinces to meet with the volunteer teachers….talk to the principal of the school….meet this the cooperating Vietnamese English teachers….and sit in on at least one class. At its peak, IVS had 72 volunteer teachers teaching in the provinces…..although the average number was lower than that, depending on end-of-tour dates compared with new recruits. Needless to say, I was able to visit each teacher a maximum of two times during my term as Chief of Education…..hopefully, once a year.

It would have been much more convenient, and it would have saved a lot of time and made my job easier, if I could have flown directly from one IVS location to the next location. It just didn’t work that way, though. I was solely dependent on the U. S. military and Air America for flights. Most of them…..almost all of them…..originated in Saigon and returned to Saigon. In some cases I was able to spend several hours before the flight returned to Saigon. In many cases, however, the flight was scheduled to return in only a few hours. Sometimes, in the smaller, less populated provinces, I had barely enough time to talk to the volunteer, meet the principal, observe a class…..and then rush back to the air base or airport for the return flight to Saigon. Who knows? In some cases, I am sure this was the way the volunteer preferred it! In the provinces with a large nearby US facility, it was much less hectic. Military or Air America aircraft were arriving and departing for Saigon on a much more regular schedule. It was possible to catch an early morning flight from Saigon…..and return on a flight in the late afternoon or early evening. In rare cases, I stayed overnight, although this was not usually the case. Usually their living quarters were rather limited in size. None of them had a real “guest room”, unfortunately. During those two years as Chief of Education, I racked up a sizable number of “frequent flier points”.

Back in Saigon, I spent a great deal of time gathering….scrounging….teaching materials of various sorts which volunteers had requested…..answering questions that volunteers asked…..making travel arrangements…..going over monthly reports and making suggestions…..filling out various requests for information from the Ministry of Education…..doing lots of “polite” public relations work….

So….. Basically, now you have the “Reader’s Digest” version of where I lived and what I did during those two years I spent in Saigon as Associate Chief of Party for Education.
As you read further in the next installment, you may begin to wonder if I am still talking about the same job. Let me assure you…… I will be. There were so many contradictions and so many exceptions and so many off the wall things that happened during those two years that sometimes even I wonder if it all really happened or whether I can really recall those those rather exciting…..but also confusing and often disillusioning….two years. But, as they say, “It is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth”…….or a reasonable facsimile thereof.

One more thing….. If you are wondering where all the pictures are….. Well, there are not very many of them. This is another little mystery. I put all 1200 pictures….slides that I had taken…..into a box….sealed it up with an over-abundance of tape…..put my mailing address in Sterling on it in a couple different places. I was assured repeatedly by the people in the IVS office that it would be mailed…. It would be taken care of….. Don’t worry about it…..

Well….. I took a two week trip through Cambodia, Thailand, down the middle of Malaysian Peninsula to Singapore….back up the eastern coastal side of Malaysia…..to Hong Kong…..to Japan to visit a friend…..and stopped in Oregon to visit another friend…..before continuing on home. I was traveling for at least three weeks. I was eagerly anticipating getting home again. Surely after three weeks the boxes that I mailed would be waiting for me.

Not only were they not waiting for me in Sterling…. They never did arrive! I never saw them again after leaving them to be mailed by the IVS office in Saigon. What happened to them? Who knows? Maybe this was my final disappointment or disillusionment of my three years in South Vietnam with IVS.

The pictures that you do see are the remnants of some slides that were on my camera when I left South Vietnam…..pictures that were developed after I returned to the USA.

For this blog….. Go ahead and use your imagination. Your mental image will no doubt turn out better than the actual picture. If so….. You are fortunate! I had to live through three years of reality!