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BDx13
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..which makes that photo of them together all the more crazy.
If I fail math, there goes my chance at a good job and a happy life full of hard work.
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moron
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I wouldn't doubt that they traded shots at some point. I took that photo before we found out that he had been Viet Cong, but by that point I had a
hunch. Later my Dad said that that photo is special to him which made me feel good.
When I have more time I'll throw some more photos online and post them up here along with some stories. We mainly went to places my father wanted to
visit for different reasons. Some that make for interesting photos, some not.
One story that came out of nowhere was as we were heading to another former American base at Ben Hoa where the 1st Infantry Division was stationed.
My Dad asked the driver to stop at a particular intersection, and he got out and took some video footage. Things had changed alot in 40 years, but he
figured by looking at an old map and comparing it a new map that he had the right place. He told the guide that he had gone to the Ben Hoa base once,
and he and a few buddies snuck out one night down the road to get some beer. They got to a thatch roofed hut where an old Vietnamese guy with one leg
would serve beer to GIs. The old guy told them that he had gotten shot and had to have his leg amputated, and showed bullet holes going up his leg to
his lower back. As my Dad and a few buddies were drinking another GI walks in and points his gun in the face of one of my Dad's buddies, a medic,
demanding his morphine. The guy was apparently an addict. The medic somehow smacked the gun away and knocked the guy out, but the gun went off and
shot the old man in the neck. They tried to save his life, and the medic pinched off the artery and later the guy was flown off to an American
hospital somewhere. My Dad never knew what had happened to the guy, but felt bad about what had happened to him.
After telling this story to our guide we walked around where the old base was, which is now just homes and shops. People were fascinated by us,
probably figuring that my Dad had been there before during the war. Some old lady started talking with our guide, so my Dad asked him to ask her if
she knew the guy who had gotten shot. She had remembered him. He had come from the North a few years prior and opened his shop. She remembered that
he had gotten shot, and she said he had died.
So there we were on this dusty road with this old woman who lived through everything my Dad had been talking about and more, and she wasn't the
slightest bit angry even though she had every right to be. I wish I had taken a photo of her, but I guess I was just caught up in the moment and
didn't.
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DAK
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| Quote: | Originally posted by moron
I wouldn't doubt that they traded shots at some point. I took that photo before we found out that he had been Viet Cong, but by that point I had a
hunch. Later my Dad said that that photo is special to him which made me feel good.
When I have more time I'll throw some more photos online and post them up here along with some stories. We mainly went to places my father wanted to
visit for different reasons. Some that make for interesting photos, some not.
One story that came out of nowhere was as we were heading to another former American base at Ben Hoa where the 1st Infantry Division was stationed.
My Dad asked the driver to stop at a particular intersection, and he got out and took some video footage. Things had changed alot in 40 years, but he
figured by looking at an old map and comparing it a new map that he had the right place. He told the guide that he had gone to the Ben Hoa base once,
and he and a few buddies snuck out one night down the road to get some beer. They got to a thatch roofed hut where an old Vietnamese guy with one leg
would serve beer to GIs. The old guy told them that he had gotten shot and had to have his leg amputated, and showed bullet holes going up his leg to
his lower back. As my Dad and a few buddies were drinking another GI walks in and points his gun in the face of one of my Dad's buddies, a medic,
demanding his morphine. The guy was apparently an addict. The medic somehow smacked the gun away and knocked the guy out, but the gun went off and
shot the old man in the neck. They tried to save his life, and the medic pinched off the artery and later the guy was flown off to an American
hospital somewhere. My Dad never knew what had happened to the guy, but felt bad about what had happened to him.
After telling this story to our guide we walked around where the old base was, which is now just homes and shops. People were fascinated by us,
probably figuring that my Dad had been there before during the war. Some old lady started talking with our guide, so my Dad asked him to ask her if
she knew the guy who had gotten shot. She had remembered him. He had come from the North a few years prior and opened his shop. She remembered that
he had gotten shot, and she said he had died.
So there we were on this dusty road with this old woman who lived through everything my Dad had been talking about and more, and she wasn't the
slightest bit angry even though she had every right to be. I wish I had taken a photo of her, but I guess I was just caught up in the moment and
didn't. |
Small world.
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defstarsteve
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amazing man
looking forward to more stories and pics if you feel like sharing.
as for the old woman, generations of people have lived and died in the same villages for longer then there has been a US.
and unless they get killed off they will always be there... and don't give 2 shits about us or what we are doing...
western society is a trip compared to the rest of the world.
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thedog
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very cool pics moron.
seems like an awesome trip for you and your father.
\"thank you very little\"
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Dave
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wicked, tell us some more stories....
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BDx13
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that's amazing.
make sure you're writing these down!
If I fail math, there goes my chance at a good job and a happy life full of hard work.
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moron
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| Quote: | Originally posted by BD
that's amazing.
make sure you're writing these down! |
I kept a journal during the trip and wrote some of the stories down that my dad told. I'll have to flip through it to see if there are any I missed
and jot them down.
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moron
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A few more photos and I'm off to work.
On one of our day trips we drove through Trang Bang, the town where the little girl was hit by napalm from South Vietnamese bombs that went off
course. If you don't know what Im talking about here's the famous photo.
Our guide said that usually he just points the place out as he drives through the town, but for some reason we stopped in the town for a minute. As
my Dad and I were taking some pictures our guide was talking with some locals who pointed out a tiny store just up the road. So we walked over there
and it turns out it's a relative of the girl, Kim Phuc. She had married Kim's brother, who has since died, and runs a noodle shop just off the road.
I had happened to be reading a book about Kim Phuc, and when the communists took over her family, and the rest of the country, suffered through severe
poverty. I don't know if that noodle shop is the same one that Kim's mother had run, and I didn't think to ask, but I feel lucky that we had even
stopped and I had a chance to meet her.
Kim defected to Canada in the 90s, and the book didn't really talk about how her family fared as a consequence of the defection. Again, I didn't
think to ask.
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moron
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a few more photos if anyone's still interested.
In Cu Chi there's a memorial for everyone from Cu Chi who died in Cu Chi during the wars with the French and the Americans.
Here's the leftovers of M113, the vehicle my Dad drove in/on in Vietnam. Theyre trying to figure out what could have caused the damage to the side of
it.
A few other photos. This place was pretty neat.
Later that day we went to a temple in Cu Chi that had the names of everyone from Cu Chi who died anywhere in the country or in Cambodia. I had no
idea we were going here, but it was pretty neat. The place was huge, and has something like 40,000 names on the walls on the inside of it. The names
go something like 3 stories up. I wasn't supposed to take pictures, but I wasn't told that until after I took one of the shrine in the back of the
temple.
Not very intesting pics, but I had them in my photobucket. Figured I'd post em.
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newbreedbrian
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nice. these are great, thanks for the writeups on them too
The very existence of flamethrowers proves that sometime, somewhere, someone said to themselves, ?You know, I want to set those people over there on
fire, but I?m just not close enough to get the job done.? George Carlin
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BDx13
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nice, moron, you're lucky you didn't get kicked out of the country!
If I fail math, there goes my chance at a good job and a happy life full of hard work.
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moron
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Well, our guide didn't say anything about not taking photos. Also, you're supposed to take your shoes off before you go into a temple or a pagoda,
but our guide just walked right into this temple. The dude working there said something to him in Vietnamese so our guide rushed us out and said
"take off your shoes". When I took my photo, again, the guy working there said something to our guide and he told me "no photo". After that,
anywhere we went I was asking our guide if it was ok to take photos. Like you said, the last thing I want is to offend someone or break some law and
get thrown in jail or kicked out of the country. I was just surprised that our guide didn't know the rules!
Ive got some other interesting photos I still need to upload. We went to a few places where most tourists don't go.
One place we did go that's a tourist trap is Vung Tao. It's a town on a penninsula southeast of Saigon. It used to be the in-country R&R location
for American troops during the war, but for some reason my Dad decided not to go when he had the chance. So we hopped on a hydrofoil and took the 90
minute ride over there so my Dad can say he's been there. It looked really nice from the boat as we were docking, but since it was a weekday and the
place was dead, all of the locals who were selling stuff or made money by driving tourists around on their motor scooters were SUPER aggressive and
pretty much spoiled the day for us. We didn't see much of the place and eventually got so fed up with the harassment and went back to the dock to
wait for the boat to come back.
Supposedly the town is hopping on the weekends, and it's infamous for it's sex trade as it also caters to the off shore oil riggers. So, here's a few
photos of that place. It looked nice, was clean and probably would have been fun on a weekend, but we pretty much hated it.
The water and the "beach" were pretty dirty. Apparently there's a nice beach on the other side of the penninsula, but again... we didn't bother
checking it out.
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