Steinbeck in Vietnam, Spring 1966

Figure 1.

Tim Benintendi (right) in Vietnam, 1966

I Had the Privilege of Meeting John Steinbeck in the spring of 1966. He was 64 years old, I was 20. I'm now 58. We met in what was then the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam), during my first tour of duty with the U. S. Army, which had me functioning as a classified documents clerk / courier. I met him purely inadvertently in a mess hall of the 25^th Infantry Division at a camp in Tay Ninh Province, near the Cambodian border. This battalion-size camp was eighty-five miles northwest of Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon). On this day I had flown in by helicopter to deliver documents to the command office, then went to the mess hall, where I planned to have a late-afternoon meal.

Steinbeck was on a Defense Department tour, which many notable Americans and Hollywood celebrities were authorized to take in support of troop morale. Military commanders tightly controlled these individual tours, safety being the prevailing concern; however, stronger-willed individuals might get to go into riskier, forward areas if they pestered, and could convince command of the usefulness of it. As I would discover in my conversation with him, Steinbeck made his way to as many battalion-sized camps (usually 2000 or so personnel) as they would allow, and would push to go out to company-sized positions in the bush (usually 150 or so personnel). Extremely risky. Unlike many celebrities, he took touring seriously, and wanted to see men in the lowliest circumstances.

As I entered the battalion mess hall with two other GI's, I recognized Steinbeck immediately. Sitting in the middle of the empty room with a lieutenant, his escort, he was waiting for a chopper ride out to a forward unit. I told the other two who he was, but, unimpressed, they went right into the chow line, and eventually sat together in a corner and ate. I went up to Steinbeck, introduced myself, and told him that I had read every book he had published to that point, and was selfishly grateful for his contributions to literature. Sounds grand, but I was a bit nervous and a little intimidated because having a hefty two semesters of junior college under my belt, I couldn't imagine talking to John Steinbeck about anything. Still, I had admired the man greatly, and at least wanted to say hello.

Figure 2.

Lieutenant (JG) R. K. Martin with JS at Binh Thuy Air Base, South Vietnam, 1966

I told him I was born and raised in Palo Alto and as a kid had spent time on farms and ranches around central California, including Salinas, when the folks would visit friends in various places. I mentioned also that I had picked strawberries among the braceros in Monterey County parts of one summer during high school. The lieutenant told me to go get a plate of food, that Steinbeck was there to visit with troops, and I was a troop, and his chopper was going to be a while. So, I ate a meal, and had about an hour and a half with John Steinbeck, one-on-one.

The lieutenant left after about ten minutes to check on the chopper. After about that same ten minutes, I got very comfortable with Steinbeck. He made me feel like an equal. He spoke for most of the first fifteen or twenty minutes, asking me about my Vietnam experiences, my opinion of the Vietnam war effort, my family and upbringing, and my farm and ranch connections in California and Kansas (my father grew up on a wheat farm in central Kansas). I gave him my sketch on Vietnam from the perspective of my job, and that of several of the Australians I was billeted with in Cholon, the Chinese quarter of Saigon. He offered that he thought the Vietnam War was ill-conceived and poorly executed; that the military was fatally and unrealistically restrained, and that the...