Turn the Tables
Saigon has always been a lady, and a beautiful one, but a lady with a touch of sin. There is a game you can play here, when you are tired of more mundane pastimes and hanker after a contest of wits and nerve. It is not inherently dangerous, but neither is it a game for the faint of heart. Much is at stake. For in this game the hunted becomes the hunter, and the predator turns prey.... Read More
Good Taters
The south facing balcony is my favorite feature of Apartment 608 here on “No Tattoo Street” in HCMC, Vietnam. It’s at the perfect height to observe both street life below, and such things as new year’s fireworks above. And it provides me a front row seat for the “fireworks” of the magnificent lightening and thunder shows of the rainy season, now underway. When... Read More
The King & I
SIX DEGREES Damned funny, the things that can connect people. Well, junk food has come to Vietnam. I knew it would. It started with fast food. Colonel Sanders came to town a few years ago and has become firmly rooted. And it’s a mark of higher status here to dine with the Colonel. Yes, you read that right. In a country whose annual per capita income is less than a thousand... Read More
A Dollar and a Dime
A DOLLAR AND A DIME You’ve always got to have “small money” in your pocket. In Vietnam or any other “Third World” country, any poor country, you need small money. There are too many people who simply can’t or won’t break a five. Or a six, as the case may be. Here in Vietnam, for example, we have the 50,000-dong note. A laughably big number for a sum that amounts to... Read More
All at Sea
She had one of those names that are so common in the Philippines, like Lucy or Linda. Maybe it was Dinah. I can’t remember. I met her on the Manila waterfront. True to what I had been told, she did look a bit of a tramp, and an older one at that. You might even have called her mannish for her shape. But she was a she to the core, as any good ship is, and which I found when... Read More
The Looking Glass Sea
On the light cruiser USS Oklahoma City, we were crossing the Java Sea. We were bound south for Jakarta that morning. The equatorial waters were so warm and still that we seemed to be on some quiet pond rather than the furthest reaches of the Pacific. Only our ship disturbed the glassy water. In the distance, clouds rose and formed, and metamorphosed and puffed and spread with startling... Read More
The Dragon and Me
AT SEA, TUESDAY, 20:00 HOURS: Before turning in I called the Messenger of the Watch on the bridge. “This is Petty Officer Sterling,” I said, “in compartment Bravo-37-87. I need a wake-up call at 03:30 tomorrow morning.” “Why so early?” the messenger asked. “You got some early lookout?” “Yes.”I lied. Then I called Corporal... Read More
A Feast of Sorrows: At the Fall of Saigon
“And the afflicted shall eat, and be satisfied.”–Psalm 22:26 Dawn, April 30, 1975 At the mouth of the Mekong river I stood on the fore deck and watched the sun come up on the last day of the long conflict the Vietnamese have come to call “the American War.” It was the most beautiful dawn I had ever seen before, or since. Still air hung warm and moist... Read More
Murderer’s Eggs
After leaving the paved road I had some trouble locating the arroyo. It was dusk and the features of the land were all begining to look the same. I made rapid drives up two or three openings in the terrain only to encounter rock walls. Finally, in the last of the light, I recognized a distinctive portion of the skyline of jagged hills up ahead that could lead us through the arroyo... Read More
The Perfect Punch in the Face
I have a friend named Rod. He’s a master cabinet maker. You can see his mastery in his self confidence, and that part of him that is always far away, occupied with lofty things, like his craft. You can see the mojo in him. To be admitted to his workshop, his sanctum sanctorum in Sonoma, California, is like being admitted into a matador’s dressing room before the fight. To be... Read More
