Saigon 1971 ©
When I first went to Vietnam in 1968, I had to go through a bunch of bullshit at Oakland, California, before being sent to an in-processing station at Long Binh, Vietnam. I was assigned to a lot of menial details because I was a low-ranking enlisted man. I was now a Warrant Officer and the Army flew me directly to Tan Son Nhut Air Base in Saigon. When I arrived, I was taken to MACV Headquarters where I had to sit through some lectures about living in Vietnam, even though I had just been there a little over a year ago.
I was listening to a lecture about the current status of the Communist forces, when someone opened the door and called out my name. When I walked out with him, he told me a Major wanted to talk to me. When I got to his office, I recognized him as the former operations officer of my CID Group. He said he saw my name on a roster of new arrivals and he had a job for me. He told me I would be working with a group of CID agents working to stop the flow of narcotics, investigating black market violations, and working fraud cases. He said we would also handle any other cases as they presented themselves. I would be living in a Bachelor Officer Quarters (BOQ) which was located in a former hotel, wear civilian clothes, casual, not a suit, and pretty much work my own hours.
The Major signed my orders and told me I didn't have to attend any more lectures. He called someone at my new unit and told them to come pick me up. We then sat in his office and drank coffee until my ride arrived. When the guy came into the office, I recognized him as a classmate from CID School, named Randy.
Randy took me to the BOQ and helped me take my bags to my room. It was a typical hotel room with a bed, night stands, table lamps, easy chair, and a desk with chair. There was also a bathroom with a bath tub/shower combination. He then took me to the office to introduce me to the rest of the team. The office consisted of an outer office with several desks, where I was surprised to see some Vietnamese girls sitting at the desks, busily typing.
If that surprised me, I was really surprised to see an American woman sitting at one of the desks. She was about 35 with dirty blond hair. I couldn't tell much about her body because she was sitting behind a desk, but I could tell she had nice breasts. They were straining at her starched white blouse, that I noticed had the top two buttons undone. The back office was laid out much like the front office except for the absence of any women. Randy explained that the girls in the front answered the phones and typed all of our field reports.
I asked, "Who's the blond?"
Randy laughed and said, "That's Ms. Fields, the office supervisor, and you can forget it. We call her the 'Ice Queen'."
Our job was pretty routine. Over the next couple of months, we worked a major theft from the Regional PX at Cholon, several fraud cases where soldiers were buying more money orders than they were allowed, and some black market cases where soldiers were buying high-end items from the PX and selling them to the locals. The Major had told me we would be working drug cases, but I soon learned there was a special Drug Suppression Team that took care of that.
Every chance I got I would talk to Ms. Fields. Randy was right. She was very cold. It was hard to get a smile out of her, but I did learn her name was Mandy and she was originally from Dobbs, New Mexico. She opened up a bit when I told her I was from Tucson, Arizona, and we laughed about growing up in the desert without much to do.
One day I walked past her desk and I said, "I need a cup of coffee. Can I get you one?"
She said, "I'll go with you", so we walked over to the coffee station at the back of the office. I poured one for me and one for her. I drink my coffee black, but I asked her, "Cream and sugar?"
She said she would fix it since she was sort of picky. She poured the correct amount of cream and sugar in, stirred it several times, and then we stood there and chatted for a while. She told me she had married young, but before they had any kids, her husband had been shot and killed in a robbery. She said she was devastated, but after a while she pulled herself together and started getting her life back together. She went to the local community college where she got a degree in Business Administration, but the only jobs she could get was as a secretary. She saw a job announcement for an office supervisor with the CID, she applied, and was hired. She said she had been with the CID for five years in Virginia, and when a job opened in Saigon, she volunteered and had been in country for six months.
I was very surprised, but pleased, that I had actually gotten that much information out of her. Before we walked to our respective desks, she put a hand on my arm and whispered, "I know what the guys call me behind my back, but since I lost the love of my life so early, I'm just not interested in getting involved with another man. Most of these guys have hit on me, even though they are married, and I let them know, sometimes forcefully, that I am not interested. You seem like a nice guy, and I appreciate that you have not treated me like a piece of meat."
She patted me on the arm, and we went back to work.
A few days later, we were drinking coffee again, and I said, "Listen Mandy, I don't want to offend you, and I'm not hitting on you, but I was wondering if you would like to go to dinner. I'm tired of eating soup and noodles, and there are some really nice restaurants in Saigon. I just hate eating alone."
She looked at me, started to say something, but stopped. I thought I had pissed her off and probably ruined a nice working relationship I had really worked hard to establish. But instead of telling me to go to hell, she just asked, "Where?"
I told her I knew of several nice places, but if she had somewhere in mind, we could go there. She said she didn't have any place special in mind and then asked, "When?"
We agreed to 7:00 the next night. I picked her up at her room in the BOQ, and since it was a nice night, we walked the block and a half to a place that was supposed to have the best steaks in Saigon. The meal was really nice, and it was indeed an excellent steak. I walked her back to her room and when she opened the door she said, "I have a bottle of excellent cognac. Could I interest you in a nightcap?"
We had several glasses of wine at dinner, so I wasn't sure if she was a little buzzed because of that, but I wasn't about to pass up this opportunity. We went in her room, which was a copy of mine, and she immediately kicked her shoes off. She said, "Make yourself comfortable." She then poured us each a glass and sat on the edge of the bed. I started to sit on the easy chair, but she patted the bed next to her, so I sat next to her.
She made a toast, clinked glasses, and we drank about half of the cognac. She looked at me and said, "Thank you for the dinner, John. That was an excellent meal." She then asked, "John, why haven't you ever hit on me?"
