CITY LIFE IN DA NANG, VIETNAM
Us: How can you describe some of your daily experiences down in Vietnam?
John: Normal activity was just work, normally eight to six, and then back to the camp for
dinner (and breakfast before), so they were ten-twelve hour days, generally. We had Sunday
afternoons off, when we typically would go down to China Beach or do other things. I worked
at drafting and design work, or did preparation of charts for the admiral to use, and briefing of
General Westmoreland or any of the visiting brass from Congress.
After we no longer berthed on the ship in the harbor – on the APA’s – and we were at camp
Tien Sha, we would usually just grab a bus down to the ferry landing, catch a little ferry across
the river, and then walk a couple of blocks to our office at 56 Doc Lap Street…and it was a hub
of activity. There was a local market, a theater next door, and lots of people going up and down
the street…
Being Navy guys, we were able to work out a good exchange rate where we could swap a case
of steaks for a case of booze with the army; yet in the navy, we could swap a bottle of booze
for a case of steaks. So once we did this, we always had booze and steaks. So if we wanted
to have a party in our compound in town, periodically, we’d start grilling steaks and have the
drinks. This is, again, after 6 o’clock, and with permission, when we were allowed to stay there
a little later… but…it takes the edge off.
On a few occasions, we would pick up food on the street at little places near where our office
was. And I liked to experiment. Obviously growing up in Southern California, you like food
that’s got a little spice…So I tried different things. One I didn’t know until after, was when I
tasted a little fried rice, wound up it was dog fried rice – I did not know before it…but it tasted
okay. They also have a sauce they make from decaying fish, called “nuoc mam”, and the solids I believe were called “nuoc minh” or something. But they were used to flavor food and put on
rice, and that adds something that’s a little different.
One of the things that we did while we were there was they did a track meet in Da Nang for the
different units that were around that area. I had run track in high school, so I competed for that,
and I did a high jump. I cleared the bar – must have been six feet or something like that. And
as I’m about to get up, this guy standing next to the pit says “Nice jump son.” I look up, and –
“Yes, sir!” – it was General Westmoreland. So that was an interesting experience.
Another atypical experience, I think, was one time, one of the chaplains for the Navy that was in
Da Nang asked to meet with me. We went up on the top of Monkey Mountain up above Camp
Tien Sha. This was on a Sunday…He was chatting about things, and wanted to get to know me,
because he had seen on my card that I had registered as an Episcopalian, so he wanted to find
another Episcopalian. I developed a friendship with him, and several times I’d go out and assist
him in serving communion to the troops outside of downtown Da Nang. You don’t normally
think of religious service in a war zone, but that’s a memory…it’s an important memory.
Us: How did you feel about the media portrayals of what was going on in Vietnam?
John: The Vietnam war was the first of what I’d call a “living room war”, where video images
are actually brought into your nightly news cast. It didn’t happen in Korea, it didn’t happen in
WWII, or any other military incursion because it was new technology at that time. My folks sent
me clippings in almost every letter they sent, typically from the Los Angeles Times. From my
reading of those and even sharing them with fellows in the same area with me, we could not
understand what stories they were trying to tell, because we didn’t see any semblance of reality.
It was as if they were writing stories – writing fiction – at a bar in Saigon, and were nowhere
near Da Nang, because there were things they were reporting as going on that none of us had
ever heard about, even things in the city. So we wondered, what was the portrayal of the war that was being presented through the media?
Us: How did you feel when you left Vietnam? Can you tell us about your experience then?
John: That was a very different experience. We took off from Da Nang on a stretch DC8 with no
intermediate cabins, so it was just one long plane, 6 seats wide. When we wheeled up off the
airbase in Da Nang, there was a slight cheer. When we cleared the coast, there was a slightly
louder cheer. I don’t think there was another sound until we touched down in Norton Air Force
Base in San Bernardino. That was a strange flight, having going for so many hours. I think it
was 13, 14, or 15 hours, non-stop; and then nobody saying anything…Except when we landed,
when we got off, we all debarked based on rank; I’m a petty officer so I’m one of the last ones
off the plane. One of the first things I did was just knelt down and kissed the ground – I’m glad
to be home.