Undaunted Valor: An Assault Helicopter Unit in Vietnam by Colonel Matt Jackson

Author:Colonel Matt Jackson
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2019-10-26T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter 22

Times with Dad

I had ninety-nine days left before I would go back to the States. Actually, it was my first day of being a double-digit midget. I hadn’t taken an R&R or leave since I’d come to Vietnam. Why should I? I had no one to meet in Hawaii, which I had been to before and hadn’t cared for. I had lived in Japan for two years of high school and knew all the tourist sites of Tokyo and Yokohama as well as some places off the tourist route. I had spent six months as a merchant sailor and had been to Singapore. I figured Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok were just the same as Singapore except not as nice, and I had been to the Philippines and saw no need to go back there. The only place I didn’t get to before joining the Army was Australia, and every other GI from Vietnam was there, so why would I want to go where everyone else was? No, I decided to save my money for when I got back to the States so I could buy my first car and set up an apartment.

My dad, a naval officer and former Navy master chief, was stationed in Saigon. He had been there for a couple of months, and the major would let me take off a couple of times to go down and stay with him. He had a very nice set of quarters with a living room, bedroom and bathroom. His bathroom even had a flush toilet and a hot shower. The first time there, another pilot, Mike George, was with me, and I found him sitting on the floor of the shower, just letting the hot water run over him. I had known Mike George since flight school although he was three classes behind me. I remembered his room well, as he had a picture of a very attractive brunette wearing a pair of shorts, sitting on a rock at the beach with her legs tucked under her. Her eyes were cast down; her blouse was totally unbuttoned with no bra, tastefully exposing her chest but not her breasts. I loved to inspect Mike’s room when I was the cadet battalion commander. He always passed inspection. He was from Sacramento and, like me, a bit older than most of the guys in flight school, having been a Sacramento firefighter before joining the Army. Clean sheets, hot and cold running water and a flush toilet made this trip heaven for Mike and me. Dad had a small grill on his balcony, and we cooked steaks that night that had soaked all day in Jack Daniels. Time to explore Saigon.

Mike and I caught a cab into the city. We weren’t used to being in crowds, especially crowds of Vietnamese. It was a bit uncomfortable at first, but we loosened up after a bit. Some rules were pointed out to us by Dad.

“Sit in the back of a bar with your backs to the wall.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.