The Greatest Beer Run Ever by John "Chick" Donohue

Author:John "Chick" Donohue
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: William Morrow
Published: 2020-03-12T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 23

Battle at the President’s Palace

Two young men in civilian clothes were leaving the embassy when I was, and I asked them, “Hey, do you guys by any chance have wheels?”

One said distractedly, “Yeah. Do you need a lift?”

I figured that if I couldn’t go back to Papasan’s, and I couldn’t go to the Caravelle—where the Aussie guards probably had the steel door shut like a bear trap—I might as well go to the old colonial Continental Palace Hotel. I’d seen it open and guarded on my way to the embassy. Plus, it was like a fortress and near Notre Dame Basilica, in case I felt inspired to say my prayers.

“Well, if you’re going by the Palace, I could use a ride.”

“That’s exactly where we’re going,” he said. “Jump in.”

I hopped in the back. Then the guy behind the wheel said to his mate, “Get us more sidearms.”

So, he went back into the consulate and, after a few minutes, reappeared holding three .45 handguns, belts, and ammo clips. He handed one to the driver and one to me. I took it—there was no time to explain myself, and they didn’t ask. I figured they must be CIA. We weren’t about to engage in small talk. We all put on our belts, and the driver took off as fast as hell.

He floored it all the way down the main drag, right past the old Renault—the bodies were still there. I looked up and saw a few people peeking from windows and doorways as we raced by.

He sped right past Tu Do Street, missing the turn for the hotel. When he flew around the next corner, I said, “Um, weren’t you guys going to the Palace?”

He replied, “We are.” And with that, he made another turn, and there was the palace that he meant: not the hotel but the Presidential Palace, South Vietnam’s White House. All of a sudden, boom! A rocket hit the jeep speeding ahead of us, the only other vehicle in sight. The jeep launched into the air, with people flying out of it in every direction.

In a second, my two guys jumped out of our jeep—one to the left and one to the right—and tore off running. The jeep kept rolling forward, and I bailed out with my head down. I ran behind another one of those giant palms. There was gunfire, but a soldier in an ROK uniform and as big as John Wayne ran right through it to the first jeep. He grabbed one of the wounded men from the ground, picked him up, and ran, carrying him down the block and through a door in a wall. I learned later it was the residence of the Korean ambassador. The guard left the other bodies in the street. They weren’t moving.

I looked up behind me to see where the gunfire was coming from. The Vietcong had manned a concrete-and-rebar framework of a building under construction, about five stories tall. Armed with machine guns and bazookas, they were launching rockets at the Presidential Palace guards, who were returning fire.

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