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40 years ago today
Feb. 12th, 2005 12:43 pmMy mother was being threatened by a bunch of Marines because she wouldn't leave Saigon without seeing my father again. Dad came back and we were on the plane by the next day. He had been on temporary duty in India when the order came through that all dependents were to pack up and leave Saigon. He convinced the men that he was with that if he didn't get back, his wife would be in jail because she wouldn't leave without making certain that all their financial and legal papers were in perfect order before she left.
My sister was ten months old; I was three months short of my fourth birthday. I remember most of it. Some of it comes only in impression -- like being stuck for nearly eight hours on a runway in Honolulu. There was a measles epidemic in the city, and there were pregnant women on board. No one was allowed to get off the plane so that we wouldn't spread the epidemic back to the mainland.
It also worked out to one adult (female) to every four children. Mom was lucky she only had the two of us to worry about.
What I remember vividly is saying goodbye to my Sunday school teacher (who looked like Bewitched)and to the chauffer who had taken a group of us to Sunday school at the airport. I got permission from my parents to go over and say goodbye by myself. I remember the crowds of people and the emotions. I didn't understand, really, that my Dad wasn't coming with us until we got on the plane.
So many of my memories around this event came back to me abruptly and screamingly when I was 18. They're called night-terrors. They differ from nightmares in that they come early in the night -- usually during the first sleep cycle -- and they will wake you. In my case, the sound of my own screaming woke me.
But many of the memories that came back were good, too. Helping Tao, our cook, make pancakes (my first cooking memory, although I remember playing in a toy kitchen before my sister was born. And being afraid of Brillo pads -- I was a weird kid.) came back in the flood.
I remember trying to join the first graders because I felt that I had learned everything I needed to in nursery school. The first grade teacher had to send for the school principal, who was a very nice lady with grey hair and a grey Auzi (yes, I know that's not the right spelling, but it's the right sounds.) We talked for the rest of the morning in her office and she brought me to an agreement to go back to nursery school the next day. My mother didn't believe me when I told her about the memory -- until I described the office, the woman, and quoted part of the conversation in French. The principal didn't speak any English.
Dad confirmed that chickens were indeed kept on the median strips along the main roads. The cock crowing was the signal for the day to begin in households without clocks.
About a year ago, Mom and Dad found some old photographs. The photographs aren't of the things I remember. They're an adult's view of the world. Adults don't find chickens on the medians fascinating, but children do.
About ten years ago, when doing some other research, I came across the Newsweek magazine with the date February 12, 1965. There were pictures of children on the cover, and the story was about the dependent evacuation from Saigon. One general's wife was quoted as saying "It's a triumph for the B-girls."
She was right. Many people, my father included, put the evacuation as the beginning of the end of the classic military. More assignments without families began to come. Saigon went from being the "Paris of Asia" to a low-rent Reno catering to GIs on leave. Dad insists that he never heard an officer swear in front of "the men" before that. He also says that the moral rot was already there, but this accelerated the growth. He remembers being shocked that the Army pastor used the black market for exchanging the money in the collection plate. That happened before we left.
The months without Dad were hard. I didn't know it was coming, but every once in a while I get a flash of looking at my sister in her carry cot with her hair plastered to her face with sweat while we wait on the runway at Honolulu.
My sister was ten months old; I was three months short of my fourth birthday. I remember most of it. Some of it comes only in impression -- like being stuck for nearly eight hours on a runway in Honolulu. There was a measles epidemic in the city, and there were pregnant women on board. No one was allowed to get off the plane so that we wouldn't spread the epidemic back to the mainland.
It also worked out to one adult (female) to every four children. Mom was lucky she only had the two of us to worry about.
What I remember vividly is saying goodbye to my Sunday school teacher (who looked like Bewitched)and to the chauffer who had taken a group of us to Sunday school at the airport. I got permission from my parents to go over and say goodbye by myself. I remember the crowds of people and the emotions. I didn't understand, really, that my Dad wasn't coming with us until we got on the plane.
So many of my memories around this event came back to me abruptly and screamingly when I was 18. They're called night-terrors. They differ from nightmares in that they come early in the night -- usually during the first sleep cycle -- and they will wake you. In my case, the sound of my own screaming woke me.
But many of the memories that came back were good, too. Helping Tao, our cook, make pancakes (my first cooking memory, although I remember playing in a toy kitchen before my sister was born. And being afraid of Brillo pads -- I was a weird kid.) came back in the flood.
I remember trying to join the first graders because I felt that I had learned everything I needed to in nursery school. The first grade teacher had to send for the school principal, who was a very nice lady with grey hair and a grey Auzi (yes, I know that's not the right spelling, but it's the right sounds.) We talked for the rest of the morning in her office and she brought me to an agreement to go back to nursery school the next day. My mother didn't believe me when I told her about the memory -- until I described the office, the woman, and quoted part of the conversation in French. The principal didn't speak any English.
Dad confirmed that chickens were indeed kept on the median strips along the main roads. The cock crowing was the signal for the day to begin in households without clocks.
About a year ago, Mom and Dad found some old photographs. The photographs aren't of the things I remember. They're an adult's view of the world. Adults don't find chickens on the medians fascinating, but children do.
About ten years ago, when doing some other research, I came across the Newsweek magazine with the date February 12, 1965. There were pictures of children on the cover, and the story was about the dependent evacuation from Saigon. One general's wife was quoted as saying "It's a triumph for the B-girls."
She was right. Many people, my father included, put the evacuation as the beginning of the end of the classic military. More assignments without families began to come. Saigon went from being the "Paris of Asia" to a low-rent Reno catering to GIs on leave. Dad insists that he never heard an officer swear in front of "the men" before that. He also says that the moral rot was already there, but this accelerated the growth. He remembers being shocked that the Army pastor used the black market for exchanging the money in the collection plate. That happened before we left.
The months without Dad were hard. I didn't know it was coming, but every once in a while I get a flash of looking at my sister in her carry cot with her hair plastered to her face with sweat while we wait on the runway at Honolulu.
