Читать книгу Welcome Home From Vietnam, Finally - Gus Kappler MD - Страница 25

When I inspected my new room, it was starkly furnished with a metal spring bed frame, worn out thin mattress, mosquito netting, and a metal upright locker.

Not to worry, I knew how to scrounge and we had Penney’s and Sear’s catalogues from which to order. PACEX stood for Pacific Exchange, and one could order essentially anything, including stereo equipment, china, flat wear, jewelry, tea services, cloths, cars, cameras, etc., at reduced prices. I sent bronze ware and a few rings to Robin and ordered a Sony reel-to-reel tape deck and a Minolta SRT 101 camera with various lenses for myself in Vietnam.

Robin was a lifesaver for she sent me an electric blanket. Really, in Vietnam? During the tropical monsoon season, every item of clothing and your bed became uncomfortably damp and emanated a musty odor. The remedy was to use the electric blanket during the cool nights, having placed one’s clothes for the next day under the heated blanket to dry them. Another trick was to hang a lighted 100-watt light bulb from the ceiling of the steel locker to combat the dampness.

One vision that sticks with me is of my freshly mama san laundered fatigues, hanging under the overhang of the hooch’s roof during the monsoons, drying at a snail’s pace. She also vigorously complained that my operating room-bloodied combat boots were “number 10” (worst on a scale of one to ten). Older Vietnamese women, mama sans, never utilized chairs and squatted on the floor when ironing, doing other chores, eating, smoking, and chewing the ever-present beetle nuts. Their appearance in wide-based conical, woven straw hats, silky knee-length tops (Ao Dai), baggy black pants and displaying a greenish black-toothed smile was universal.

As other docs rotated out of country for home on their Date of Estimated Return from Overseas (DEROS), furnishings were unloaded at reasonable prices. I invested in a large comfortable red leather chair, a lamp for reading, metal shelves, a desk and a chest of drawers. I hung decorative curtains on the windows and covered the top of the chest with a greenish towel ordered from Penney’s. The latter was my serving area. I needed cabinet space for storage of booze, snacks, texts, stereo equipment, slides, cameras, etc., so I gathered as many wooden rocket boxes, which were about three feet long and utilized for shipment of mortar rounds, as I could find.

I knew carpentry from working with my dad. Some of the boxes were broken down for lumber to panel the inside of the hooch, others were hung intact from the walls as cabinets. The hinged lid made a great door with its own hardware when hung vertically or with the hinge side down. Shelves were added. A coat of black paint brightened the cabinets. The five-finger discounted, partially filled gallon can of sea green paint covered the ceiling and interior wall below the windows. There was not enough for all the interior walls, and I was reluctant to repeat the theft from the army storage. So I added art to my bare knot-filled plywood walls by painting a disgruntled Charlie Brown with a cloud over his head declaring, “Phu Bai Sucks.”

My home

A loaded 38 holstered revolver hung at the head of my bed, hopefully never to be used. There had been occasional attempted intrusions of the compound’s perimeter by the Viet Cong (VC). It was reported to us that Vietnamese locals who had worked on the compound by day were killed at the wire at night. These sappers carried explosives hoping to slither through the encircling protective sharp-edged Concertina wire (improved barbed wire) to blow up the compound. One did not enter another’s hooch without announcing your presence for you could be shot.

Charlie Brown and my 38

Now, Bob’s side of the hooch was a thing of beauty.

The room held a small refrigerator, an electric frying pan, an AC, a fan, and a huge metal cabinet stocked with food stuffs mailed to us by our wives, relatives, and friends. Sardines, Nabisco saltines, Ritz crackers, Hickory Hill meats and cheeses, MRIs (today called MREs, i.e., meals ready to eat), canned meats, and other staples.

Bob’s side with visitors from Quang Tri

My sister, Helene, successfully sent me a birthday cake. Both baked layers were wrapped in aluminum foil, placed in a sturdy shipping box with canned chocolate icing, and shipped to Vietnam, arriving totally fresh and intact.

In the late evenings after a hearty meal and some liquid refreshment, Bob would lay on his bed with headphones listening to reel-to-reel music and usually be lulled to sleep. My responsibility became turning off the Sony tape deck and removing the headphones as gently as possible.