A Day at the Beach--Same, Same 1968 Sort of

Two days ago, I spent a great day at the beach at Half Moon Bay, California, about an hour west of San Francisco with my friends, John and Tatyana. It was 70, blue skies and lots of sun. Very weird weather for this time of the year in the San Francisco area. John said that, normally, it would be about 40, foggy and raining. Except for a couple of people who walked by, we were the only people on the beach. There were a couple of sea lions who kept popping up in the surf as the tide went out and lots of cormorants who were diving for fish. A good start, I would say, for this return to Vietnam.

Forty-three years ago, I came into San Francisco by train with a fellow EOD teammate from the unit we had been at in Utah. We had both volunteered after the great Dugway Proving Grounds nerve gas fuck up on March 13, 1968, when we accidentally dropped a ton of Sarin on a sheep ranch that turned out to be owned by the family of U.S. Senator, Orin Hatch, although he wasn’t a senator, then. Four members of our nine-man EOD team volunteered for Vietnam after that event, idiotically believing we had a better chance of protecting ourselves from the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese than we did from the nerve gas and other lethal chemical and biological agents that were tested and stored in massive quantities at Dugway.

Anyway. When I went to Vietnam, we got into San Francisco three days before reporting into the Oakland Army Base. An old high school friend, who had been a Navy SEAL in Vietnam, picked us up and we spent the next three days seriously partying and staying drunk the entire time. There are two events on those three days that still stick out in my mind. Steve—my high school bud, took us to the amusement park at Santa Cruz. At that time they had the largest wooden roller coaster in the world. It was a truly scary ride and I actually puked coming down a really steep part of the ride. On the way back to Steve’s house that night, the brakes went out on his VW Bug and we went sailing through a four-way intersection eventually ending up on the lawn of an office building. We were pretty well toasted and when the cops show up, we were sure we were on our way to jail. But the cop was cool and when he found out that Steve had just gotten back from Vietnam and that Tom and I were on our way, he let us go after the car was towed.

The next day, Steve took us to the beach. I can’t swear that it was Half Moon Bay, but I’m pretty sure it was. Whatever beach it was, what a difference forty-three years makes. Back then I was thinking about getting out alive; now I’m marveling at the fact that I did and wondering how I’ll feel this time when we touch down at what used to be Ton Son Nhut Air Force Base, the same place I landed on September 4, 1968.

I’m going to cut this post short. The reason is that I am sitting in my lovely room at the Bong Sen Hotel in Saigon. I learned, today, from our translator and guide, Song, that the three downtown districts are actually still called Saigon, while the greater metro area is what is referred to officially as Ho Chi Minh City. Song was an officer in the South Vietnam Army and spent almost three years in a re-education camp after the fall of the South Vietnamese government. His English—and his compassion for those of us on this return trip—is remarkable. My fellow travelers are a wonderful group and, as we landed in Vietnam, one of the men became very emotional as the City and surrounding area came into view as the plane began to descend into Ton Son Nhut. To be fair, it is actually now called Tan Son Nhat and I’m guessing it always has been but that we, in ever-imperious manner, misspelled and mispronounced it when we were here before.

The plane ride truly sucked and made my trips back and forth to Afghanistan pale in comparison. The ride from San Francisco to Manila was 16½ hours and we had to stop in Guam to refuel due to ungodly headwinds. Then we had a six-hour layover in Manila and landed in Saigon 3½ after that. I told the flight attendants they should be offering free ass massages. The part of the Manila airport where we were held prisoner truly sucked as bad as the flight—no restaurants, only food stands with really questionable things to eat; you couldn’t use the water in the bathrooms for reasons unexplained; and the chairs (I’m being generous calling them that) were metal and made the first plane ride ass problem worse. I’ll be seeing the hotel masseuse tomorrow.

I was not able to take pictures coming in because the chip in my camera was full, but I’m sure some of my fellow travelers will provide me with all I need. I just cleared my chip, so I’ll be clicking away starting with dinner tonight. It was weird landing at Tan Son Nhat and not seeing F-4s, F-105s and choppers of all varieties landing and taking off. It just looks like any other major airport. I want to get this up, so I’m posting now and will do more, later. It’s now Monday at 7:07AM, 4:07PM Sunday. Just woke up and getting ready for breakfast and then leaving for the War Museum. Dinner last night was incredible; traditional Vietnamese food. The hotel is great and the massage did help my shoulder a little. The masseuse did try to talk me into a "happy ending," but I demurred and I think she was pissed. Oh, well.