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I left a war in Vietnam in 1971. On my journey back I rediscovered my soul

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Category: FredinVietnam

30/4: The Day of Recrimination When Saigon Fell

April 30, 2022 By FredinVietnam

Forty-seven years ago, on the last day of April,1975, the Vietnam War finally ended when the North Vietnamese Army overwhelmed Saigon. It was the dayRead More

Vietnam Veterans Day: Thank You For Your Service?

March 29, 2022 By FredinVietnam

This time of year folks will say to me, and to countless thousands of other military veterans: “Thank you for your service.” I will hearRead More

My Road to Vietnam: A Very Inartful Draft Dodger

August 18, 2021 By FredinVietnam

August 18, 1969, fifty-two years ago today, I was supposed to be at the Woodstock Festival in upstate New York with my buddies. But insteadRead More

Dear Natalie: Coming Home from ‘Nam

June 4, 2021 By FredinVietnam

Sgt. Randy Sanders was trim, fair-haired, well tanned and never shut up once.  That’s how I remember my seatmate on the “Freedom Bird” flight homeRead More

The War Against The Vietnam War

May 4, 2021 By FredinVietnam

51 years ago today, on May 4, 1970, the heartlessness of the Vietnam War came home to America: four dead, eight wounded on the OhioRead More

50 Years Ago: The Tragic Saga of Fire Base Mary Ann

March 28, 2021 By FredInVietnam2018

It was finally spring in South Vietnam. On March 28, 1971, the morning’s sticky warmth, which had replaced cold monsoon rains, felt reassuring on myRead More

Vietnam’s Tet Holiday In The Year of COVID

February 19, 2021 By FredinVietnam

The Zodiac calendar says the Year Of The Ox/Buffalo has arrived. But in Vietnam, despite the Tet Lunar New Year, the page has not turnedRead More

Lam Son 719: My Trip to the Shooting War

June 17, 2020 By FredinVietnam

The spring 1971 air-mobile assault along the Laotian border was the last major offensive of the Vietnam War for US and South Vietnamese troops. Thanks toRead More

Slipping Into Darkness: A Year at Ft. Bragg

June 10, 2020 By FredinVietnam

Ft. Bragg teemed with so many Vietnam war returnees that the nearby town, Fayetteville, was known as Fayette-Nam. Some of these soldiers brought home lawlessness,Read More

The Hog Farm: Vietnam Salvation Saloon

May 15, 2020 By FredinVietnam

A handful of distinct reasons made our ad-hoc Hog Farm bar in Chu Lai unique. No one ever drank alone or paid for a drink.Read More

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VIETNAM SERVICE RIBBON

About This Site

 

Americal Division Information Office, Chu Lai, 1971

Welcome to my Vietnam memoir. Take a present-day journey with me to rediscover my past.

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  • Back FROM The World: Vietnam Redux
  • Chu Lai Maps

Recent Posts

  • 30/4: The Day of Recrimination When Saigon Fell
  • Vietnam Veterans Day: Thank You For Your Service?
  • My Road to Vietnam: A Very Inartful Draft Dodger
  • Dear Natalie: Coming Home from ‘Nam
  • The War Against The Vietnam War

Recent Comments

  • FredinVietnam on Guard Duty: Fear of the Unseen Enemy
  • Randy Steele on Guard Duty: Fear of the Unseen Enemy
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HANOI STREET FOOD PARADE

STREET CLEANING: Down and dirty gut job
SAVORY SELECTIONS: Shallots and garlics and chilies and tumerics and more
MOBILE MEAT MARKET: Beef tendon to go
SENSATIONAL SHOPPING: Touch, taste and smell
HERB MISTRESS: Inhaling the essence of Vietnamese cooking
PIG ON A STICK: BBQ pork is a quintessential street snack of Hanoi
BHUDDA’S HAND: Citrus fruit that’s part medicine, fragrance and flavoring
PICKLED TALONS: Cold and spicy chicken feet go perfect with draught beer
SANDWORM FRITTERS: Seasonal specialty of Hanoi.
BUN CHA AND NEM: Hanoi’s signature dish along with fried spring rolls.
STREET DOUGHNUTS: Fried rice flour cakes dusted with sesame reminiscent of Little Italy’s zeppole
GOOD ANYTIME: A sticky rice dumpling cooked inside a banana leaf that’s ideal for breakfast, snack or lunch

HANOI PHOTO GALLERY

MOBILE GREEN GROCER: Veggies on a who wheeler
OLD QUARTER: Street signs at the edge of town
THE WRONG SIDE OF THE TRACKS: Railroad living
RAILROAD LIVING: A train runs through it
TALL AND SLENDER: Tube architecture
RAILROAD LIVING: Keeping track
RAILROAD LIVING: Spitting distance to the tracks
RAILROAD LIVING:
VIETNAMESE CAPPUCCINO: With a cafe den nuam (hot black coffee) nearby
COFFEE TIME: Giang can really stir it up in his hometown of Hanoi
FRENCH COLONIAL: Hanoi Opera House
LAKE LANDING: B-52 Wreckage
WAR RELICS: Fire in the lake
CAFE B-52: Tables with a view
A VISIT TO UNCLE HO: The final resting place
MODERN MAUSOLEUM: The tomb of Ho Chi Minh
NIGHTLIFE: BW in Hanoi
STREET THEATER: Song and dance team inear Hoan Kiem Lake
DATE NIGHT IN HANOI: Yeah, we blend….
GIANG NGUYEN: Tour guide extraordinaire
STREETS & FEETS: Hanoi hustle
PICNIC IN THE PARK: Muong Province street food
YEAR OF THE DOG: Tet greetings in Hanoi

HONG KONG GALLERY–PRELUDE

Vegetable stir fry from Hutong Restaurant
Prawns with dried chilies from Hutong Restaurant
LOBSTER AND PORK: Old school, Cantonese style
BRAND BLITZ: High end mall crawl
IN COUNTRY R&R: Vietnam beach “resort”
HONG KONG HOLIDAY: Lunar New Year on Kowloon
HARBOR LIGHTS: Hong Kong has dueling skylines
SOUP DUMPLINGS: Mack’s Noodles’ finest
BLACK CAT AND NOODLES: I like my working class lunch with a touch of class
BW ON THE RISE: Take a ride on the midlevel escalators
CRISPY ROAST CHICKEN: Never had a hem come to a better end
CITRUSY SCALLOPS; Tender and chilled at Hutong
DUELING SKYLINES: Hong Kong in the magic mist
WAN CHAI: Hong Kong’s answer to Williamsburg, Brooklyn
STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN: The mechanical kind
MIDLEVEL ESCALATORS: Conguaering the verticality of Hong Kong
MANGO PUDDING: Sweet way to end a Cantonese meal
MALL CRAWL: Easy to get happily lost among the luxury boutiques

Photo Gallery

Were we ever this young?
Photo Credit: Mark Melnick, copyright 2013
HOME AWAY FROM HOME: Welcome to the Americal Division, 23rd Infantry.
ON A BLUFF NEARBY: From our PIO hootch, across a narrow grassy valley, we’d watch the MedEvac choppers land whenever the shit hit the fan in the field.
Somewhere in the Americal AO,
At the Van Col Orphanage, outside the Americal base at Chu Lai, 1971
VAN COI ORPANAGE: Infants, toddlers, right up to adolescents. The orphaned children of Vietnam were one of the saddest aspects of the war.
SMILING THROUGH IT: This little girl’s charm and heart could melt almost that barbed wire when I met her.
Lt. Col. James D. Shumway III, CO of 523rd Signal Battalion, Americal Division, helping deliver donated clothing to the orphanage.
CHRISTMAS PARTY: Huong helps out at the Van Col Orphanage, An Tan, Vietnam, at a celebration provided by soldiers from the Americal Division
From the Spring, 1971 issue of Americal Magazine

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