Vietnam Service 50 years later: Getting Oriented "in Country"

 

In Vietnam, we couldn't use US Dollars so we were issued Military Payment Certificates (MPC) instead.  We used these for our purchases while "In Country".  We also had a ration card for drinkable alcohol products.  I think it allowed each individual something like 3 cases of beer, 3 to 6 bottles of wine or liquor monthly.  I never drank close to that much.  The ration card, however, didn't apply to individual drink purchases at the officer's club (A plywood hut in Phu Bai for my first 4 months in Vietnam).  Somehow, I didn't save a ration card, but someone reading this will have one to post in the comments.

I had to get a haircut shortly after arrival and noted that all the barbers were Vietnamese locals.  We paid them with the MPC pictured above.  We never had military barbers.  When I was a cadet at West Point, we had local civilians to cut our hair, too.  The Vietnamese barbers used a straight razor to trip the side and back edges.  They also jerked the neck around in a quick surprise maneuver that left me with a painful neck for a week after my first haircut.  I guess that was supposed to loosen something, but it backfired for me.  I didn't let anyone else jerk my neck around when I got haircuts after that.

Somehow, I was assigned to a hooch which had a pilot roommate for 2 or 3 weeks until he went home.  He helped with my orientation to how everything worked.  We had a hooch-maid who did our laundry, cleaned off our boots (we were issued jungle boots in Vietnam)  and cleaned the hooch.  We paid a few dollars weekly in MPC for the service.  

The latrine was across the street, about 5 seats as I recall.  This was important (multiple seats) since the weekly Chloroquine pill that we all took to prevent malaria, caused loose bowels or diarrhea in many of us.  Under each seat was half of a 55 gallon barrel, the contents of which was burned daily, generating black smoke that billowed toward the heavens.  We pilots always knew not to fly through the black smoke, by the way.  The enlisted personnel who burned the human waste daily did not have an enviable job.  I assume that it was rotated, like KP duty, so someone didn't have it as their main job in the war.

There was a urine tube just out the back door of our hooch for faster access and a bunker between our hooch and the next one, in case we needed protection from mortars or rockets.  I was only in the Phu Bai bunker once, which I'll mention in a later post.

We flew support missions six days a week, except during the monsoon season.  Night life consisted of writing letters; reading Stars and Stripes, the military newspaper, letters from home and books; and going to "the (oficers) Club".  At the Club,  we played cards- mostly poker (Bruce Q, Clarkson M, Curt S. -some others whom I don't remember -and I played bridge) and drank a bit.