OFF BASE

Wagon Train: Like a shot out of time, one often saw things that were barely into the Iron Age mixed in with (then) modern elements.  Here two wagons, pulled by what we called “water buffalo”, make their way down The edge of a highway.  Were it me, I would have brought a good book.  They were  s l o w.

I had thought the Tet blast at the Long Binh ammo dump to be horrific. Thanks to Michael Dixon for permission to post these shots of a worse one in 1967. The explosions went on for 12 hours in that one. See the shot below for some scale provided by the silhouette of a water tower in the foreground.

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Thanks to Michael Dixon for permission to post this shot of the 1967 blast.  The explosions went on for 12 hours, and it was likely the largest blast of the war, anywhere.  Note the silhouette of the water tower (likely about 75 feet high) just left of center to get an idea of the scale of the explosion.  This was before my tour but I just had to add them to this blog.  Thanks as well to Ken Jackson for putting me in touch with Michael.

The Vietnamese had their own version of the New Orleans “jazz funeral”.  Here a group walks down a street in Saigon.

The stark contrast between the Vietnam countryside and home was a mind twister.  Many Vietnamese got along with subsistence rice farming and fishing.  Sometimes that involved dual purposes:  Tilapia were introduced into rice paddies where they ate mosquito larvae, reducing the mosquito population.  Vietnamese farmers could be seen both picking rice and netting Tilapia for dinner.  Note the Catholic church in the distance (white, center).

“Widows Village” (Khu Gia Vien), was located across from the Long Binh base.  During the Tet offensive, communist troops went through the village, killing women and their children.  The widows of south Vietnamese troops received a tiny pension, and living like this was all they had.

A Catholic priest rides past the base on a moped, the individual conveyance of choice.

Just one of many crazy aspects of the war, the U.S. had to pay the French (mostly Michelin tires) for every rubber tree they damaged.  One can imagine trying to fight a battle in this kind of cover.

The ubiquitous buffalos, which are quite large, posed a hazard, especially to smaller vehicles like jeeps.  Here a jeep stops to let one cross the road.

 

Shown is the Vietnamese equivalent of our Unknown Soldier monument, near Saigon.

Minimalist gas station and mini-mart.  Most Vietnamese transportation consisted of mopeds, pedicabs and other small conveyances so there were plenty off fill-ups available at this “gas station”, along with soft drinks.

 

 

Another wagon train passes along the road between Bien Hoa and Long Binh, staying carefully off of the pavement.  If you’ve ever seen a cow ambling out to pasture, you’ll have an idea of just how slow this means of transportation was.

This is a somewhat old community well that had become hopelessly polluted over time.  The military had trailer-mounted water processing equipment, called Urdulators.  They could pull up to a pool such as this, suck up the muck, and put out safe, clear water.