Donut Dolly: An American Red Cross Girl's War in Vietnam

Chapter 8 Rabies

201 ✚ Chapter 8 ✚ Rabies Wednesday, December 7, 1966, Bien Hoa, South Vietnam, Pearl Harbor Day The last gift I wanted for Christmas in 1966 was rabies. I arrived at Bien Hoa with the second Christmas tree that my parents had sent from their plantation. I thought the girls would be thrilled to put the tree in the recreation center. Everyone at Di An had loved the live tree. I was shocked to learn that not everybody at Bien Hoa agreed. They already had something in the center that I considered just short of sacrilegious : a plastic tree. I struggled to understand their attitude. I took my tree to the officer’s club. The manager, a lieutenant, reminded me of the sergeant at the hotel, and before him, Sergeant White at the Enlisted Men’s Club at An Khe. The lieutenant looked dignified but harassed; however, he had the right attitude. He thanked me when I offered him the tree, and gave me a broad, enthusiastic smile. He cradled the treasure in his arms and carried it straight to his office. I saw him set it next to his desk and pick up the telephone. The next day when I went to dinner, the tree greeted me in all its three feet of good wishes. The lieutenant had found the perfect place for it, at eye level. It sat on a custom-made stand on top of the halfwall in the entryway. It wished a Merry Christmas to everyone, and 202 Donut Dolly was visible from everywhere in the dining room. Diners delighted to watch officers come into the club, dragging from fatigue and hunger. They would see the tree, and then do a double take when they realized that it might be real. One after another, people reached out and took the needles between their fingers. They rubbed the needles together, then put their fingers to their nose and smelled the fragrance. They had to convince themselves that they actually saw a live Christmas tree in Vietnam. I received expressions of gratitude from the officers. “You brought this? It’s real?” “It’s great to have a live tree.” “I can’t get enough of the evergreen smell. It’s so strong. It lasts so long.” No one put decorations on the tree, but that only emphasized the tree’s most important features. It was perfection, and sealed the case for a live tree. The Bien Hoa girls, Saigon, December 1966. Top: Lori, Jan, Barb; Front: Becky, Cal, Joann. Rabies 203 December 8, Bien Hoa Air Base The Bien Hoa unit had received a request to meet several planeloads of soldiers from the States. The 9th Infantry Division had been ordered to Vietnam from Fort Lewis, Washington.1 They would arrive, one planeload per night, over the course of several days, and we would receive notice a few hours before each aircraft landed. We made tentative plans to send as many girls to each plane as we could. Late in the afternoon , the day after I arrived, word came that two planes would land at 9:00 that night. We scrambled. The mess hall took the short notice in stride, sending plenty of hot coffee in five-gallon insulated cans and lots of chocolate cake, a treat. I hadn’t remembered seeing chocolate cake in Vietnam, ever. The coffee had to be black, because we couldn’t handle cream and sugar on the runway. The cooks had cut the sheet cake into man-sized squares. They didn’t put any frosting on it, because frosting would melt in the heat. Any field trooper would wolf down both. Actually , any field trooper would wolf down anything we offered. The airstrip aviation unit provided our transportation. Our driver guided the truck without lights, on blacked-out dirt roads to the dark runway. We set up our coffee on the ground and the cake on a table outside the small transportation building, just off the runway. Nighttime usually offered a respite from the withering heat. But, that night brought a cold, piercing wind. My ears ached, rain bit my face, and my hair whipped without mercy. I blessed the darkness, I’m so glad no one can see how terrible I must look. The refreshments set up, we found a place in the terminal to sit and wait and try to overhaul our appearance. The first plane arrived pretty much on...