After 46 Years...a Trip Back in Time, Part 9

by Glenn N. Holliman

This memoir of a return to Vietnam after forty-six years had passed since a young soldier served with the 1st Infantry Division, US Army, continues with photos and thoughts of southern Viet Nam then and today....

  March 13, 2015, Friday, Saigon

Up early for a 6 am shuttle, three and half hours to Ha Noi airport.  Stop half way at a gift shop/café and have coffee strong enough to walk.  To modern airport and a snack.  Then emails and at 1:15 pm board Vietnamese Air to Saigon or Ho Chi Minh City.  Again a modern Viet Nam Airlines Airbus 320.  Two hours later we arrive, met by our Northfolk Hotel driver.  The Norfolk, a la 1991, an Australian owned hotel, only three blocks from the ornate Belle Epoch period, the Cathedral, 1880, dedicated to Mary, Mother of Jesus by the French colonialists.

I saw Saigon from the air before landing at Than San Nhah.  Incredible…it was Manhattan, Singapore, whatever –high rises, skyscrapers and apartment complexes.  Even a golf course.  This city is a combination of Paris and Miami.  Capitalism is every where – garish flashing neon signs, bank building, communication hubs, etc. and a nod or two to the liberation of 1975.  I am feeling very old.

Only when we checked in and looked at a map, and I asked the location of the former American embassy did the desk clerk ask me if I had been there in the war.  Yes, I said, a long time ago. 

Check in and cousins Karen, Jim and I walk around the Cathedral Square, taking our aim at an Asian open air restaurant.  I have again rice and prawns and half a bottle of French wine.  Back to my large, air conditioned room.  Caution in the bathroom – do not drink the tap water.  Ho Chi Minh City, not yet there.

Saigon Cathedral in 1969 and in 2015 with my daughter Grace and high rise buildings.

It was called Saigon in 1969, the mid point in America's ill-fated over reach to stem 'the tide of international communism'.  During my 365 day tour of what was then the Republic of South Viet Nam, over 500,000 troops from a USA population of perhaps 225,000,000 poured resources into what was a civil war among an ancient culture and nation.

Although stationed 40 miles or so north of Saigon in a rubber plantation called Lai Khe (just north of Ben Cat), as part of my duties, I visited the capitol city three or four times.  Below are some views of Saigon then and today.

Right, Saigon street scene in 1969; left crowded  streets and motor bikes in 2015.

  

The National Assembly building in 2015 and 1969.  Below, South Vietnam soldier guarding Saigon bridge in 1969, a city one year removed from the devastating Tet Offensive that soured America on the conflict. 

                    

With cousin Karen and daughter Grace, 2015 and a warm March evening in Ho Chi Minh City.  Below right, passing a movie theatre in 1969.

     
Below, street scenes from 1969 including a young lady in blue in her ao dai, the Vietnamese formal and office wear for women.

 



 

En Route from Saigon to Long Binh, through Ben Cat and back to Lai Khe, one passed this haunting South Vietnamese military cemetery and statue in 1969.  The tragic war ended in 1975 with the collapse of the government once supported by the United States.  Over 55,000 Americans and an estimated one million Vietnamese died between 1962-1975.

                                         

Next post on this Viet Nam memory tour is the return to my Army base, 3rd Brigade, 1st Infantry, US Army, Lai Khe, SVN.