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Chapter 7. Transition
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Chapter 7 Transition JUNE 1967-BIEN HOA HIGHWAY Lieutenant Colonel Harry Holeman, theJ-2 MACV science advisor, wants to discuss a project involving long-range patrolling with several members of G-2 and G-3 at II Field Force headquarters in Long Binh.l Harry's clearance precludes in-country trips outside of American-held territory, but his fighter pilot spirit influences him to go anyway. Except for an official trip to Tokyo, he hasn't been out of Saigon/Cholon, and is looking forward to this trip. I draw a pair of pistols and pick him up in the office jeep. The rotund little man looks incongruous in his Air Force khaki tropical worsted and blue frame cap, with a .45 automatic strapped around his waist, but I guess that Air Force scientists don't bring field uniforms to Vietnam. On the Bien Hoa highway a tragi-comic act with a Lambretta unfolds. A Lambretta is a motorbike with one wheel in front and two wheels on an axle in the rear. Built over this triangular frame is an enclosure which houses the driver in front and his cargo in the rear. A Lambretta can carry four Americans or a dozen Vietnamese. Thousands of Lambrettas serve as taxies, buses, and cargo trucks in the Saigon-Cholon-Bien Hoa area. This Lambretta's cargo is a full load of freshly 189 190. The Bridges of Vietnam Lieutenant Colonel Harry H. Holeman Cholon, 1967 charcoaled logs, each about six inches in diameter and five feet long. One of these logs has flared up, and smoke is pouring out of the back of the Lambretta. The Vietnamese driver is on the verge of a giant sized cook-out! The poor little bastard is pulling out logs as fast as he can and throwing them all over the highway, trying to find the one that is burning ! He is black with soot, and the whole scene would be a comedy, except that the Lambretta and its load probably represent his total capital. No Vietnamese stops to help him, and it is not wise for us to stop. A worse tragedy involving a Honda takes place farther down the highway . A Honda is a motorbike with only two standard wheels. The Honda is to the Vietnamese in the Saigon area what the Ford was to the Americans in the thirties. I have actually seen a Vietnamese family of six on one Honda. Many Vietnamese are injured and killed daily on their Hondas, often by hitting another Honda and being thrown head first over the handle bars. Just last week I saw a Vietnamese man do this and fly right over the [34.236.152.203] Project MUSE (2024-03-19 07:26 GMT) Transition -191 front of his bike. He hit head-first, blood spurted from both ears, and he was dead before his trunk and legs reached the pavement. Today on the Bien Hoa highway we see a flatbed truck with a load of steel girders destined for new American construction in Long Binh. The truck's tires are a good five feet high. The driver had been turning off the highway, and apparently failed to see a young Vietnamese couple who were riding on their Honda beside a pair of those tires. By the time he stopped his truck, the Honda and the Vietnamese were directly underneath one of the tires. There just isn't much left. There is so little that the two National Police at the scene haven't even bothered to have the truck driver move his vehicle while they write up their report. The sole consolation from dying by violence is that the person who dies never has to see how bad he looks after his final performance. The Vietnamese , like most Asians, seem to place little value on life. I remember seeing a dead Vietnamese man stretched out on the dirt in a park across the street from the MACV III compound. He had blood on his stomach and appeared to have been stabbed. During the two hours he was there, Vietnamese passersby and their children crowded around the body in the same way as they used to gather around the public execution wall during the days ofNgo Dinh Diem. Eventually the body was taken away. When Harry and I finish our business at II FF, we return to the shock ofSaigon. I have never gotten used to seeing mothers and grandmothers and children who must live...