"The Rice Harvest"
By
Adrian G. Eisenlord
T-152-6 - 1968-69
Naval Advisor - Marine Corps Advisory Team 43
Rung Sat Special Zone - 1969-70
After a sixty day leave stateside, I found myself on a plane ride back to Vietnam, with all the old memories starting to flood back from my first tour with the Riverines. It was a horrific year of violent encounters that took over 70% of our squadron. Most of us were between the ages of 18 and 25, with only dumb luck for those of us that made it back stateside in one piece.
I left Travis AFB in California only 28 hours ago, finally arriving in Saigon with a severe case of jet lag. I was returning for a second tour as a Naval Advisor, stationed with Marine Corps Advisory Team 43 in the Rung Sat Special Zone. I liked the idea of visiting villages in an effort to win over the hearts and minds of the Vietnamese people for the South Vietnamese government. I would be directly involved with the Physiological Warfare group out of a place called, Nha Be, thirty miles south of Saigon.
Once my
plane arrived, I took a short taxi cab ride to the Annapolis Hotel in Saigon for
incoming Navy personnel, where I spent the night and drew my weapons the next
day. Because of overcrowding I was glad to see morning come so I could be on my
way. The Hotel had a huge amount of new, incoming replacements, with most of
them still untouched by the atmosphere of hostility all of them would soon
encounter. Most of them would stay drunk for their entire stay while waiting
for transportation to their units scattered throughout the southern part of the
country. The feeling among most of them was that they wouldn’t leave the
country alive and so they would stay drunk to hide their anxiety until departing
the next day.
I went out later that
morning with an older sailor I met there, that was also a career man on his
second tour in-country. During the war many career sailors volunteered for
combat duty, thinking it would get them a “Field Promotion” that was quite
unachievable for them any other way and never considering what may be waiting
for them down the road. My ride to my new unit wasn’t expected to arrive until
mid-afternoon, so we had enough time to see some of the sights of
Saigon and buy a few
necessities from the thriving Black Market found on any street corner. They
issued me a 38 cal. Pistol, a M-16 and a K-bar knife, so the first thing I
bought was a shoulder holster for the 38 and a Army drab green military watch
with a compass made to slide on the watch band. It was almost impossible to get
these Items through regular supply channels, but here on the streets of Saigon
it only took a few hundred MPC’s (military payment certificates) to obtain just
about anything we wanted.
Shortly after noon my
new found buddy and I returned to the hotel to find a 1st Class
Yeoman tolerantly waiting for me by the front desk. I said goodbye to my new
friend and gathered up my gear for the ride to Nha Be. PO1 Oakley was sent out
from Psyops. Headquarters at Nha Be to retrieve me from the stifling hot, bug
invested hotel for sailors. He filled me in on what to expect in the way of
quarters, responsibilities and the marines the way back. His name was Kevin and
he thought of himself as a country & western song writer of sorts and promised
to let me read some of his work once I got settled in. Only a couple of years
older than me, he made good conversation on the hour long trip back to
headquarters in Nha Be. I noticed the immaculate condition of his hands and his
freshly starched, pressed uniform and could tell he probably rarely left the
confines of his air conditioned building. He was strictly office personnel and
with only the occasional errand to Saigon, he barely broke a sweat.
Our jeep soon arrived in the outer edges of the town of
Nha Be with a small
Vietnamese Army installation at the end and a small U.S. Navy base beyond that,
reaching out into the river. The town was small in size but had the usual bars
and laundry shops to support the military men stationed at the two
installations. Kevin took me straight to the Commander in charge for
introductions and then to one of the barracks where I would be temporarily
bunking. The Naval base was small with only seven barracks, one for officers
and the other six for enlisted personnel. It had Enlisted and Officer’s clubs,
chow hall, chapel, supply buildings and some other buildings to support some of
the other activities on base. There was a pier that
stretched out into the large river that went up to
Saigon,
for tying up all the small boats. The advisors had two small fiberglass boats
they used to go to the nearby villages and to insert small ambush teams at
night. A refueling station at the pier serviced all the boats that provided
various functions in and around the Rung Sat. There was a large helicopter pad
with several helos parked to support all the other various units around the
base. The base supported lots of intelligent groups, including the SEALS,
Chinese mercenaries, and the Vietnamese Ruff Puffs supported by the Marine
Advisors I would be attached to. From the small helo that sat off to one side
of the helo pad marked Bell Telephone, the CIA must have had a couple of guys
there somewhere that worked out of the headquarters building. I soon learned
that this particular part of the Delta region, relied heavily on intelligent
groups to support the many operations constantly going on in this area.
The following day I was presented to my new boss, a marine CWO (chief warrant
officer) Johann Von Haferkamp. He was in charge of Psyops through out the
notorious area known as the Rung Sat Special Zone. Everyone called him
“Gunner”, a name given to gunnery sergeants in the Marine Corps, and I would be
no exception. There was a certain informality where the marines stayed just
outside the Navy Base gate. There was a small single story building within the
ARVN section of the compound that served as a bunk room, office and rec-room/kitchen
area, for the Marines. A Marine Major Battolato was in charge and when he
spoke, everyone jumped… there was no doubt he was a Marine’s Marine. Gunner
took me over to a ware house on the Navy base and showed me where all of our
supplies and equipment were stored. Later that afternoon, we grabbed two boxes
of leaflets and a skid-mounted speaker system and went for a helicopter ride
over the Rung Sat. We toured the entire area, buzzing all the villages. We
strapped the speaker system to the landing gear of the helo and played a
cassette of propaganda when we reached an area where suspected Viet Cong were.
I got as close to the edge of the door opening as I could and started throwing
out Chieu Hoi leaflets, saturating the ground below. The Chieu Hoi leaflets
were a dollar bill size leaflet with the configuration and colors of the South
Vietnamese Flag. Any enemy combatant that wanted to turn their selves in could
use the leaflet for safe passage for surrender. Actually I had quite a time
that first day, cruising along at 500 feet and then diving down to just above
the tree tops at 80 knots. Some of the Army helo pilots were tricksters and
loved to perform aerobatics whenever they could get away with it. There’s
nothing like speeding along tree top level at a breakneck rate, knowing that any
miscalculation on the young pilot’s part could end in total disaster for us all…
but oh what fun!
For the first few months I stayed in a barracks on the Navy Base and would make
the short walk outside the gate to the Marine’s headquarters each morning. I
timed it so I got there after the Marines had their morning muster and went over
their POD (Plan of the Day). I usually mustered with Oakley over at
headquarters on base, because it was a lot more informal, but soon Gunner wanted
me to become more of the team with them, mainly because I spent all of my time
with the Marines at their headquarters’ building during the day. I started
going up on daily helo rides over the Rung Sat by myself and taking the two
small boats we had out for a spin in the River to make sure they were kept fully
operational. The rest of the day I just hung around with the Marines, sometimes
tagging along on trips to
Saigon or flying down to one
of the villages to take supplies and mail to our guys that lived in one of the
villages called Can Tho.
There were six villages in the Rung Sat, with Can Tho being the largest that supported its self by fishing to sustain their existence. We would frequently fly supplies and mail down to our team that lived in Can Tho, the biggest of the six villages that was located out on the peninsula that reached out into the South China Sea like a large finger. The other villages mostly lived off the land, catching fish and crab, cutting dead wood for cooking and planting small crops to support their existence. The Rung Sat Special Zone was notorious in nature and had a violent historical past. In the days of tall ships or sailing vessels, all the shipping that came into the ancient city of Saigon, had to navigate the waters of the two large rivers that went around the Rung Sat and merged into one river that eventually ended up in Saigon. Once the rivers started their trek up on each side of the Rung Sat, the pirates of the time would attack the ships and steal the booty. Later when the French arrived, the area was taken over by the Viet Minh used to attack and fight the French. After the French was driven out, the area was taken over by the Viet Cong battling the government forces of South Viet Nam. Then came the Americans to back the South Vietnamese and it would be our job to drive the Viet Cong out of the Rung Sat and win over the hearts and minds of the Vietnamese that just wanted to live their lives in those villages. Most of the Vietnamese had a mistrust left over from the French or any foreigners, so our task would be daunting one for sure. Our job was to assist the Vietnamese “Rough Puffs” in the field and win over the civilians with friendly casual contact. We took dental and medical team in to treat the villagers and special projects like showing movies in Can Tho. A run into Saigon once a week, netted several motion pictures from special services at MACV (Army) Headquarters. I always tried to get westerns, because when I showed westerns the whole village would turn out. They couldn’t understand a word of English, but rooted for the good guys in white hats just like any American audience.
Within a
few months I became an old hand at the lay of the land and was a familiar sight
in most of the villages from the Medical and Dental visits on the week-ends.
From time to time I would travel to the Village of Can Tho and stay with Marines
for a few days, showing movies at night in the village square and walking the
village during the day smiling and saying hi to all I passed. I couldn’t speak
much Vietnamese, but took an interest in their social habits and customs,
stopping to inquire about the many different oddities I found throughout their
small community of huts and shops. One of my favorite treats that I could find
in any of the villages was Mhi soup, a vegetable noodle soup with some meat that
many thought was from the growing stray dog population that occupied the
interior spaces of all the villages. Can Tho was a fishing village and brought
in fresh fish and other seafood delights from the
South China Sea on a daily
basis. There customs and foods were as foreign to me as anything could be, but
after showing a willingness to participate in their daily routines by simple
gestures of good-will, I was bowed to and addressed with smiles of trust on any
of my benevolent tours.
On one of my many trips to
Saigon, I was able to
purchase a Polaroid camera from a massive PX and a carton of film packages that
I used to take pictures of children of the villages and pass them out. The kids
would come running whenever they saw me, hoping to get pictures to show their
family and friends. I soon learned to love the environment of their humble
existence and the people that showed incredible perseverance in a tough and
hostile environment.
The Rung Sat was filled with small tributaries of waterways that meander
throughout the entire area connecting one side of the Rung Sat to the other and
was used by the villagers for transportation to the larger rivers for fishing
and trading goods with other villages. After sunset a curfew was imposed to
keep the enemy from moving openly and for the safety of the civilian
population. When night fell over the land, even the stray dogs knew to stay
inside. Many of the intelligent groups went out in the deepest parts of the
jungle and set up ambush sites and killed anyone that past by those positions.
The Marines of Advisory Group 43 were no exception, going out at night several
times a month. When they went out by boat, it was part of my duty to operated
the small boat of Marines to the ambush site, somewhere deep in the interior of
the jungle where the Viet Cong would be. We relied on intel from the many
different intelligent gathering groups that operated in our area. Our boat was
a shallow hulled fiberglass boat about twelve feet long and four feet wide, with
twin Johnson outboard motors on the back and console for steering. The boat was
called a “Kenner Ski Barge” and could take five of us, deep into enemy territory
on our nocturnal raids on our adversaries.
We painted our faces with black grease and camouflaged ourselves and equipment
to blend into our surroundings, to prepare for the long night of setting
perfectly still waiting for our prey to appear. Most nights nothing showed up
and we would break ambush around four in the morning. Sometimes though… we
would make contact and all hell would break loose. Sometimes I thought of the
souls that were on the receiving end of all that fire power and wondered what
their last thoughts could have been. I had to keep telling myself that if the
Viet Cong had me in their sights, they would certainly kill me. Being exposed
to all the killing on the river just a year earlier with the Riverines, I became
callous to all the surreal fighting surrounding me on any given day. On those
occasions that we made contact with the VC, we opened up with everything we had
with there being very little left of the sampan or its contents when the
shooting stopped. We had to recover any bodies, papers or weapons for Intel and
then it was my job to start the engines and get us out of there as quickly as
possible. After most of those brief encounters I found myself grunting like the
rest of the Marines, while speeding away at 30 knots. It got so I started to
like going out on ambush and would join in on the camaraderie when we got back
to the team house. This was all in such contrast to what I did during the day
light hours, trying to create this harmonious existence between me and the
people of that area. The biggest problem was that some of the very people I
passed by during the day in those villages, were in fact Viet Cong or Viet Cong
sympathizers and would love to kill me if given the chance. The reality was
that I was a killer at night and a goodwill ambassador during the day so I could
fulfill my military mission. The stark reality of those circumstances still
haunts me to this day.
Sundays were days we used for flying in on helicopters or in some cases riding in on the boats, to provide medical and dental assistance to all who were in need. I usually worked with the Dentist acting as an assistant in handing his instruments to him. He preformed tooth extraction mostly, as there wasn’t any electricity to drill cavities. When some of the older people’s teeth were pulled, it left a large hole that could if left open could get infected. In those cases the doctor would perform something called a “Flap” and suture the opening left by the extracted tooth. I became quite good at finding the different tools that were needed by the doctor and could identify most them with no difficulty. At the end of each visit, the villager was handed a large plastic bowl filled with basic toiletries, a South Vietnam flag and other government items to win over their loyalty to the South. Afterwards we would all gather at one of the local eating places and enjoy a 33 beer (Vietnamese beer) and some of the local delicacies. The choice on most days was boiled crab, cracked open and dowsed with something called Nuoc Mam sauce. The sauce smelled to the high heaven, but tasted pretty good.
The time
went fast for me in the Rung Sat and I enjoyed most of what I was doing and
earned the respect of many villagers that were ]now calling me by name.
Eisenlord was much too hard for the average Vietnamese to say and so I became
known as "Adee" or Sergeant, even though I was a Second Class Petty Officer in
the Navy. I had completed about eight months of a twelve month tour and was
fairly confident when strolling off by myself in and around the villages. I
rarely cared my M-16 rifle, just my 38 pistol and a canteen of water. Almost
all of the villagers recognized me now and I could just about always depend on
some friendly teasing from most of the passerby’s. A lot of bowing and smiling
went along way in the daunting task of winning the trust of the people.
It was mid afternoon and I decide to go for a walk over to one of the larger
rice paddies to watch the women of the village harvest the rice. The Monsoon
season was over now and the afternoon sun made me realize why the Vietnamese
wore those large straw “Coolie” hats. Besides shedding the rains of the Monsoon
season, it shaded them from the hot tropical sun. As I approached the edge of
the village, I looked for a shady area under one of the many banana trees that
lined the outskirts of the rice paddies. There were a series of earthen dikes
separating the rows of rice plants that grew submerged in a flooded plane. It
didn’t take long for the women to notice me sitting there and start laughing and
motioned me to come in. The task of harvesting the rice looked to be labor
intensive, but like a well trained troop of soldiers they all preformed their
chore with the utmost efficiency.
I sat there watching the process of the women harvesting the rice and although
laborious, I thought it was something I would like to try and hopefully in doing
so, I would continue to win the respect of all the villagers. I couldn’t ever
remember seeing any of the men take part in such an activity, but I wasn’t
Vietnamese and as far as I knew I would be the first American to ever harvest
rice in Viet Nam.
There were about a dozen or so women that walked the rows of rice, grabbing
bunches of rice stalks with one hand and swinging a long machete like knife to
cut the stalks. After they gathered a large bundle, it was then handed off to
younger girls that carried it back to a dry spot on the edge of the paddy.
There a large round wooden block that was used to dislodge the rice by swinging
a small bundle of rice stalks down onto the block, completing the extraction
process. Several younger girls would then gather up the rice in large weaved
baskets for transporting to a storage place in the village.
The women’s teasing elevated to a point where I felt I was a distraction and was
interrupting the work that was so vital in the village’s well being. I left my
boots on wading in and that was met with resounding laughter, which was
completely expected with anticipation by me. All the Vietnamese were bare
footed with their black silky pajama bottoms rolled up above the knees. I asked
to start with cutting the stalks and they seem to be taken by surprise by the
shocked look on their faces. I didn’t think they actually expected me to
participate. After about twenty minutes of hacking at the rice stalks with my
machete, I became more proficient with every stroke. An older lady must have
seen me sweating profusely and handed me a coolie hat that helped keep the hot
sun off my head. I noticed a couple of Vietnamese soldiers now
sitting by the banana trees and they were getting quite a laugh at my
newly found skills, as they smoked their cigarettes from a squatting position.
I tried all the different tasks that were needed to complete the rice harvest
and found that the work was not as easy as it looked. I spent about a half an
hour performing each job and by the time I reached the part where the rice was
being gathered up, I was utterly exhausted. Anyone seeing the spectacle from a
distance with me and my coolie hat and my unorthodox skills, probably thought I
was a drunken Vietnamese soldier lending a hand. I worked with the women for
about two hours total and decided I interfered with this critical project long
enough. I said goodbye to all and gave the coolie hat back to Mama-san and
headed for the spot where the two soldiers were sitting. One extended his hand
and helped pull me from the paddy saying something in Vietnamese that must have
been hilarious from the laughter by the women close by. I smiled and put my
beret back on as I started to walk away with both of the soldiers patting my
back.
By the next day the story of my rice harvesting was all over the village,
including our team hut where the Marines teased me for the rest of the day. At
the conclusion of my four day visit, Gunny Leigh shook my hand and congratulated
me on a good job. This was remarkable in itself, because Gunny never recognized
anyone for doing anything, let alone crack a smile. As I took a final tour of
the village on my last day, I was invited in for tea by many elders. Being
invited in a Vietnamese hut for tea was a big honor and I was overwhelmed by
their generosity and realized the obstacles that were overcome with just showing
a willingness to work at their level. Most of the stereotypes I had heard about
the Vietnamese people were inaccurate and not worthy of acknowledgement.
Upon returning to headquarters at Nha Be, I was summoned by the major that must
have caught wind of my extracurricular activities in the rice paddies. His
demeanor was callous as expected, but as I glanced around the room I noticed
several of the marines were holding back smiles. At first the major started
chewing me out for being out of uniform and wearing a “coolie” hat, but ended
with a Vietnamese Di Wee (Captain) presenting me with the Vietnamese Psyops
medal. The major then stepped forward and congratulated me for a job well done
and presented me with a plaque from the advisory group in the Rung Sat.
The people I lived and worked with in that very short second year, were hard
working, industrious, respectful people, who were ready to accept and trust an
awkward American that learned more than I ever taught. As I look back now, I
wonder how those villages of the Rung Sat have changed and if some of the
younger people were still fishing and living out their simple lives in the Rung
Sat Special Zone.
This is
a true story by: A. G. Eisenlord