After 46 Years...a Trip Back in Time, Part 12

by Glenn N. Holliman

I continue with photographs of 1969 and 2015, a nostalgic, emotional return to my 1st Infantry base camp in Lai Khe, Vietnam.  My daughter, Grace, and two cousins - Dr. Jim and Karen Holliman, kindly accompanied me.


From Fire Support Base Oran, elements of the First Infantry await their helicopter lift into the boonies, February 1969.

Left, Lai Khe -  damage to our barracks from a V.C. rocket attack.  Below, a Viet Cong wounded POW being carried by medics to surgery.

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Below, approximately 8 miles from the Chu Chi Tunnels, elements of the 1st Infantry move toward Fire Support Base Lorraine near Ben Cat.   This desolate landscape had been doused with Agent Orange and worked over by massive plows to clear the tree lines.  Nineteen million gallons of herbicides had been sprayed on the Vietnam countryside, defoliating 12 million acres of forests and damaging the soil of millions of acres of farms. (The Tragedy of Vietnam by Patrick J. Hearden)  

 Ironically, I took this picture the same day in July 1969 that Apollo 11 landed on the moon.
The juxtaposition of humankind's progress and degradation disturbs me to this day.

Below, June 1969, I was on guard duty around the perimeter at Lai Khe.  A Vietnamese village bordered the camp on the north.  In the middle of the night, the Viet Cong attacked with rockets.  As they traveled at less than the speed of sound, one could here them coming.  The noise was that of a locomotive drawing nearer and louder.  I slammed myself down next to the concrete culvert pictured below.  The houses, a hundred or so feet away, behind the wire were hit; five Vietnamese nationals died.  

I heard their screams.  I still hear them a half century later.     

Right, March 2015, my daughter stands with me where I point out where I was guarding that night so long ago.   Grace was born five years after that event.  
I am a most fortunate man.

Next post, more memories of an old man returning to the Vietnam-American War....

After 46 Years...a Trip Back in Time, Part 11

By Glenn N. Holliman

In 2015, I returned to Viet Nam with my daughter, Grace Holliman, and two cousins, Dr. Jim and Karen Holliman.  My reflections continue....

Two generations have been born since my year in the Vietnam-American War, January 1969 to January 1970.  My service was with the 1st Infantry Division, a storied outfit that fought during World War II in North Africa, Sicily and stormed the beaches at Normandy.  In 1943 at the beach head in Gela, Sicily, my father's destroyer lay off shore and plummeted the German armor that came close to pushing the Big Red One into the sea.

Above in Lai Khe, Vietnam, 2015, left to right - Jim and Glenn Holliman and Grace and Karen Holliman. Below, a Fire Support Base, Aachan II in May 1969 near Lai Khe. The 'fire' from the 105 artillery pieces supported companies on patrol.

Now his son, born three years after his Sicily battle, would spend time at Fire Support Base Gela, named after the earlier battle. When I arrived in 1969, the division had been in country four years, basically sticking to base camps and night defensive positions, patrolling the bush and setting ambushes at night. The Americans and the South Vietnamese owned the day; the North Vietnamese and South Vietnamese communists (Viet Cong in the vernacular of the time) controlled the night.

During the darkness, the enemy would leave their tunnels at Chu Chi, tote rocket propelled explosives outside our Lai Khe base and fire them at random. Most of the time they missed but too often they destroyed people and property. The picture shows clean up after a direct hit on a Lai Khe bunker.

Most Americans living today have little idea how traumatic the 1960s were to our country. An undigested long overdue Civil Rights movement roiled the nation. Peaceful protests demanding greater freedom for African-Americans shook the halls of Congress and led to the destruction of racial segregation.  Unfortunately rage in the inner cities resulted in riot after riot during the warmer months of those years.  

Right below summer 1966, the Rev. Ralph Abernathy, assistant to Martin Luther King, prays during a march through Mississippi at signs demanding the impeachment of Earl Warren, chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court and another criticizing King.

Ironically, black and white soldiers fought together in Southeast Asia, as the USA tried to live into a great meaning of freedom for its minority citizens.  It was a turbulent, polarizing time. Divisions in the early 21st Century in this country are tame by comparison.

Below, 1st Infantry military police in Lai Khe passing a bunker, 1969.

We are born in to a time and place in history, and my time has been that of the post World War II era, the Cold War and now a protracted conflict with Islamic extremism.  My brother- in-laws and I served in the Cold War era (of which Vietnam was a part), and my nephews in Iraq and Afghanistan. 

U.S. interventions such as Vietnam and Iraq have not been wise, both conflicts self-selected by the American government in response to perceived threats.  Certainly in the case of Vietnam in the 1960s there was an over reaction to communist ideology and not enough confidence that the capitalistic system would prevail over centrally directed economic autocracies. And not enough knowledge of the long history of an ancient culture and peoples.

Below right a 1969 ambush on Highway 13 north of Lai Khe.  We called it Thunder Road, an unpaved dirt strip in 1969.  Compare if you will the same road in 2015, lined with business parks, sidewalks and lush fields.  The highway toward Cambodia is now paved with traffic lights and development.  The killing fields I knew have blessedly turned into homes and industry.

Over 55,000 Americans died in Vietnam and an estimated 1 million North and South Vietnamese.  For those of us, the 3 million plus Americans who rotated in and out of the long running conflict - 1963 to 1975, the time in country has been seared into our consciousness.  

The veterans of that war are thinning out as Mother Nature takes her toll.  Here is more of my story, one of millions. May future governments think very hard before they send young men and women into harm's way.  Many support wars when they begin; many fewer do so when the conflicts go on and on and on.

Above, fire, destruction and American G.I.s on Thunder Road, 1969

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To know more on this conflict, one might read Patrick J. Hearden's well-named 2005 publication, The Tragedy of Vietnam.

Next post, more 1969 and 2015 photographs of one old soldier's memories....

After 46 Years...a Trip Back in Time, Part 10

by Glenn N. Holliman

In this post, I record the sites and my feelings of returning to my 1969 base camp in Lai Khe, Vietnam.  As a young man, I served for a year as a chaplain's assistant with the 3rd Brigade, 1st Infantry Division, U.S. Army.  My duties involved pulling guard, time in the field at the Division's fire support artillery bases (FSBs) and night defensive positions (NDPs) and clerk of the office. I feared returning in 2015 would be emotional.  It was.

Below left in 1969, simple dirt roads en route to Lai Khe from Saigon.  Below right in 2015, a four lane highway with attractive middle division of flowers flanked by modern construction. 


                

 Left, 1969, the body of a North Vietnamese soldier killed in night action, left along the highway a few miles south of Ben Cat, which by 2015 was a four lane highway with flanking shops and residences.   As if a war had never passed that way.

Below right, the former Michelin rubber plantation of Lai Khe from the air in 1969.  Top of the photo shows the defoliated open country side.  Highway 13, then a dirt two lane road runs through the camp.  The open space top right is the air field.

Below left, the HQ of the 3rd Brigade, 
former French rubber plantation offices, in
1969 our office and barracks. In 2015 all had
been razed and replaced by a business park.

Above left, the perimeter of Lai Khe in 1969.  From time to time enemy rocket fire would descend on the base, several times while I was on guard in the night.  Above right in red, an old man of 68 years stand in the rubber of Lai Khe and remembers being 22.      

More in the next post on the return to youth and conflict.

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.

                         

After 46 Years...a Trip Back in Time, Part 8

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 of time as a typical tourist is some beautiful parts of northern Vietnam.... 

Ha Long, March 10, 2015

Below, a map of beautiful Ha Long Bay, a World Heritage site, in northern Vietnam and an overnight cabin cruiser.  

       

Tuesday, left late morning for the maritime port where the cruise boats take overnight tourists into the Ha Long Bay.  The sea bed has collapsed leaving a bay of gum-drop shaped islands, magnificent in height and shape marching into the Gulf of Tonkin.  Ocean going vessels with cargoes, do not dock but unload into smaller vessels, coastal trawlers. Fascinating to observe the larger ships as our boat weaves and dodges among the islands and many others. 

Our cruise manager is 38 years old, a French teacher.  Her grandparents served in the French War and her parents from 1973-75 helped maintain the Ho Chi Minh Trail crawling through Laos into the South Vietnam.  Phuc was born in 1977 and remembers the austerity of the pure communist years, when food and clothing were rationed.  Had a discussion with her at length.  Her generation has no memory of the American war, only that in 1986, economic policies changed, and people could again own their own land.  Agricultural production increased quickly, and now no one is hungry.

Below Grace captures a picture of an ocean going vessel unloading and a view from the Ha Long caves of the island formations.
             
       

There are only 13 on this cruise, and a crew of fifteen.  The company, Bhyay, owns 17 boats, and the food and service are excellent.  Clean, bottled water available….My wife would enjoy the ambiance. On board are Australians, as well as two American ladies from Long Island, a German couple and a couple from Guildford, England.  Remarkable how Vietnam has become a major tourist mecca.

Below my daughter, Grace Holliman, and cousin Karen Holliman at a meal on board.  Also Grace in one of the spacious rooms.

Our first stop was a floating village where we tendered in, climbed a floating dock and then boarded boats hand paddled for 45 minutes through spectacular scenery and by floating homes, cabins without running water resting on the water!  Nets protect the children from falling from their homes into the 18 ft deep sheltered bay.  The economy is driven by fishing and tourism.  Our cameras are snapping pictures left and right.

Back on board we have a cooking demonstration, how to make spring rolls, and then we eat them!  Delightful.  Happy Hour starts at 5 pm, and I chat with two Australian couples, all born in the 1960s with no memory of the American War.  More and more, I am aware as an old man only I carry within me the ghosts of the past.

Below, Karen closest to the camera prepares spring rolls and a squid she caught during night fishing.

Another grand meal, fish and shrimp of course, and then we go squid fishing!  We stand on the bow, are given poles with plastic lures, bright lights are turned on and like children, we drop our lines and pull them up and down.  Karen catches an 8 inch squid which will be on the boat's breakfast table.

That night our boat anchored in the floating village bay with another 30 or so similar craft, three story villas on the water the highest being an open air deck.  Dining is forward with seating only for about 16.  Marvelous way to travel.

To bed early, but an observation from earlier this morning at the Saigon Ha Long Hotel.  The women are largely in western style clothes – skirts, heels and arranged stylishly.  The only heavy Vietnamese tend to be middle aged men, all dressed in western clothes of coat and tie.  English is taught in all schools, not Russian as in the 1970s and 80s.  The USA may have lost the 1965-1973 war but capitalism is winning the present. 

Economic development is proceeding with the blend of moderating socialism and capitalism.  These are a strong people who have defeated the French, Americans, the Chinese and each other in 20^th Century wars.  If they can have a century of peace, they will become more prosperous.  Education and economic investment are now needed and time to work its magic.

 

March 11, Wednesday Ha Long

Body clocks still unsteady, and Grace goes to the top deck for Asian stretching exercises – Thi Chi – with the Australians.  I do journaling and watch this lovely part of the world sail by as we move to our next event this morning.  We ‘sail’ to the Surprise Cave and climb steps to walk through a massive cave complex with a lovely view of the bay.  Bushed, I shower and they feed us again – a brunch before we dock at 10:30 am back at our harbor.  This cruise well worth the money.

A driver takes us back to the Saigon Ha Long Hotel, about a ten minute drive, and I answer emails and nap.  Karen purchases us tickets for a tour tomorrow.  Time for a nap.  Later a drink in the hotel with Grace and then dinner with Jim and Karen on the 14^th floor.  We note the Celebrity cruise ship, the Millennium, in the harbor.

March 12, Thursday, Ha Long

Up early for a tour north of Ha Long City, through the coal country, to a Buddhist Temple, one of the oldest in the nation.  We have a driver, tour guide and a guide in training.  Tweet, the 23 year old guide, a bubbly girl.  This is pilgrimage time for the Vietnamese.  They were dressed in their finest, all western garb, at the temple.  We ate lunch there – all vegetarian.  Many people took pictures of us and with us as Westerners are rare for most Vietnamese.  We felt like ‘stars’.

Below the temple and right, I chat with our tour guides, delightful young persons.

Stopped at a market, more how does one say, traditional…some of Vietnam is very modern – a suspension bridge, a museum, but in other places, modernization has not taken place.  But no doubt the country is growing prosperous, and no one is hungry.

 

Next post, we go to Ho Chi Mien City (Saigon) and memories come flooding back....