I tried to remember what happened to General Minh, but like everyone else in America, after April 30, 1975, I turned off the Vietnam Show.
She asked me, “Do you want a picture of you with the tank in the background?”
“No.”
Near the front doors of the palace was a ticket booth, and in English, a sign said Foreigner: four dollar — Vietnamese: free.
Susan had an argument with the guy in the booth, and I guessed it was the principle and not the money.
I said to her, “Tell them I want a senior citizen’s discount.”
“Today is on me,” she said.
Finally, they settled on six dollars, we each got a paper ticket, and went inside.
She said, “Shut off the phone. They go nuts if a cell phone rings in one of their shrines.”
The palace wasn’t air-conditioned, but it was cooler than out in the sun. We walked into the big, ornate reception hall, and through the massive four-story palace. The place looked better inside than it did outside, and the modern architecture had an open, airy feeling. Most of the furnishings were time capsule Sixties Western modern, but there were a lot of traditional Vietnamese touches, including a collection of severed elephant feet.
There were a large number of people touring the palace, mostly Americans, if I went by the number of shorts. Each section of the palace had a Vietnamese guide, who kept telling Susan in English to stay with the group. Susan would reply in Vietnamese, and there’d be a little argument, which Susan always won.
She really pushed the envelope, and I guess this was part of her persona; she wanted to be recognized as an American, but not as a tourist. Also, she was a bit of a bitch, to be truthful. I think Bill would back me on that.
We went up to the roof of the palace where dozens of tourists stood around taking photos of the city. It was a nice view, except for the pall of smog. A female Vietnamese guide stood on a helipad next to an old American Huey helicopter, and said in English, “This is where the American puppet and number one criminal President Thieu and his family and friends get on helicopter and fly away to American warship as the victorious People’s Army approach Saigon.”
The rooftop helipad was a good place to smoke, and Susan lit up. She said, “I’ve learned a lot of history since I’ve been here. It’s interesting to be with someone who actually lived some of this.”
“Are you suggesting that I’m a relic?”
She seemed a little embarrassed for a change and said, “No, I just mean… well, you were probably very young when you were here.” She smiled. “You’re still young.”
In fact, Cynthia and Susan were about the same age, so I guess I was still in the game. It must be my immature personality that fooled women.
Susan finished her cigarette, and we went back into the palace. On the second floor, we entered the presidential receiving room. Susan gave the guard a dollar and said to me, “You can sit in the president’s chair. I’ll take a picture of you.”
I really don’t like my picture taken when I’m on assignment, and I said, “That’s all right—”
“I already paid a buck. Sit.”
So, I sat in the silly chair of the former president of South Vietnam, and Susan took a photo. This was too much fun, and I said, “Have we seen it all?”
“No, I’ve saved the best for last. Follow me.”
We went down several staircases into a dimly lit hallway off of which were many doors. Susan said, “This was the air raid shelter, and also the war rooms.”
She led me into a big room that was lit with old fluorescent fixtures. We seemed to be the only people there. The walls were cheap luan mahogany plywood, the kind of stuff Americans once used to finish basement rec rooms.
On the walls were dozens of maps of South Vietnam in various scales, maps of the individual provinces, and some closer detailed maps of towns and cities. On all the maps were colored symbols showing the locations of American, South Vietnamese, and enemy military units deployed around the country.
The maps were dated, and some of them went back to the Tet Offensive of January and February 1968, and I saw the location of my infantry battalion, marked by a pin with a flag, outside Quang Tri City, which was eerie. Some maps were dated April 1972, the time of the Easter Offensive, which I was also here for.
Susan asked me, “Does this interest you?”
“It does.”
“Show me where you were stationed.”
I showed her my little flag outside of Quang Tri City. “This was my base camp in 1968, called LZ Sharon.”
She said, “LZ is Landing Zone — another vet told me that, and all the camps were named after women.”
“Most, but not all.” I showed her another pin. “This was LZ Betty, which was actually an old French fort, also outside Quang Tri City. That was brigade Headquarters, where the colonel lived.”
“Are you going to visit these places?”
“Maybe.”
“I think you should. And where were you in ’72?”
“Bien Hoa. Right outside Saigon. You must know it.”
“Sure. But I didn’t know it was an American base.”
One map was dated April 1975. I can still read military symbols, and I recognized the positions of the South Vietnamese forces and the progression of the North Vietnamese army, represented by red arrows, as they swept over the country. It appeared that at some point, no one bothered to make any further marks, or move any more pins on the map. Whoever kept the map updated must have realized that the end had come.
You could hear the ghosts if you listened, and if you had a good imagination, you could picture the military men and politicians here each and every day and night through the month of April 1975, as it became clear that the red arrows on the map were not abstract, but were hundreds of thousands of enemy troops and tanks, coming toward Saigon — toward them.
We looked around the underground war rooms: conference rooms, a communications room with vintage radios and telephones, a nicely furnished bedroom and sitting room for the president, and so forth, all frozen in time.
We left the underground war rooms and went outside into the sunlight, behind the palace, where President Thieu’s old Mercedes-Benz still sat; another piece of frozen time that made this place eerie.
We walked through the gardens of the former presidential palace, which were quite nice.
She asked me, “Was that all right?”
“Interesting. Thank you.”
“I’m never sure what people want to see, but as a vet, I thought you’d appreciate that little piece of history. I have a few more places in the standard tour, then you get to pick.”
“You really don’t have to show me around Saigon.”
“I enjoy it. When I lived in New York, I never got to see the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building unless out-of-towners were in.”
“I have the same deal in Washington.”
“You know, I’ve never been to Washington.”
“Sometimes I wish I’d never been to Washington.”
She glanced at me, then said, “If I ever get to Washington, you owe me a tour.”
“Deal.”
We continued our walk around the grounds. The air was fragrant with blossoms, which was nice in January. We stopped at a refreshment stand, and we each bought a half-liter bottle of water.
We drank as we walked, and I asked her, “When your parents first visited, what was their reaction?”
“They were appalled. They wanted me to pick up and leave right then and there.” She laughed and added, “They couldn’t picture their coddled little girl living in a Third World city. They were really bummed out by the prostitutes, the Communists, the beggars, the food, the heat, disease, me smoking, me going to a Catholic church — you name it, they were bummed out.” She laughed again.