pedestrians and vendors. We stopped at the curb. I put my bundle on the ground. I kissed the baby and gathered the three of us into a big long embrace, not caring that strangers were looking. I hugged them until the knot in my throat was about to undo me completely.
We looked at each other and sighed. She smiled, squeezing my forearm. I hailed a taxi. Anh hung on to the door and wouldn’t let go. I pried her fingers loose. I looked through the rear window. She kept waving until the taxi turned the corner.
Q UANG Trung was a training camp for noncommissioned officers, half an hour from Saigon, sitting on a thousand acres of bush land suitable for staging counter-guerilla training. Near the front gate, they had fenced off a large barren area from the rest of the camp. Within the enclosure, there was a handful of wooden structures and military tents housing several hundred men. This was the staging ground for draftees.
Dozens of young men arrived at the same time as I did—some by taxis, others by motorbikes, most attended by family and friends. It was a somber gathering, women sobbing, their men trying to put up brave faces. I took a deep breath and went directly to the gate. The bored guard waved me through without glancing at my ID card.
At the administration cabin, a hundred new draftees milled about the dirt yard in various states of dejection. It took three hours for the two typists to peck out our names and personal information while chatting, smoking, and taking breaks every half hour. Three soldiers lounged about, reading newspapers, trading jokes while waiting for the typists. They shuffled us from one line to another for no apparent reason, and finally assigned us bunks in tents housing twenty men each.
We went to the kitchen tent for lunch. A handful of men sat at the tables staring morosely into their tins. The moment I saw the scraps the cook ladled into my plate, I knew why. Hungry, I tried a spoonful of rice and spat it out. It was foul, mildewed rice. I picked out a couple of rice worms and laid them on the table. The salty soup had a faint smell of chicken and lumps of fat, but neither vegetables nor meat. We looked at each other and shook our heads in dismay. Our reactions didn’t surprise the cook. He pointed us to a diner in the middle of the compound.
It was a big, flimsy wooden house with a tin roof and packed-dirt floor. A canvas awning extended the dining area around the house, sheltering a knickknack collection of chairs, benches, and tables. The structure was open on all sides, except for the back where the kitchen and storerooms were located. Service girls took orders from behind a long glass case counter displaying stationery, snacks, beverages, toiletries, and other sundries. They had four rice plates, grilled pork, beef, fish, and fried eggs, all served with white rice and boiled vegetables. I would come to learn that besides food, the three most popular items were beer to numb a draftee’s mind, cigarettes to soothe his anxiety, and lottery tickets to give him hope. I became a chain-smoker in the staging camp.
Per diem cost for feeding each draftee was predetermined by the army, so the cheaper the food the camp commander fed us, the more money he skimmed from the budget. And the longer we were kept at the staging camp, the bigger the profit he pocketed. As if that wasn’t enough, he permitted the diner to overcharge for meals and sundries, at three times market price, for more than seven hundred men daily, year round. Naturally, he reaped a healthy kickback percentage from the operator.
The diner became the center of our existence in the staging camp. Every single draftee spent money there. In my three weeks at the staging camp, I would end up spending the equivalent of my wife’s grocery budget for three months. Day after day, there was nothing to do except wait for our names to be called for a physical exam or for transfer to training camps. When the sun was
We looked at each other and sighed. She smiled, squeezing my forearm. I hailed a taxi. Anh hung on to the door and wouldn’t let go. I pried her fingers loose. I looked through the rear window. She kept waving until the taxi turned the corner.
Q UANG Trung was a training camp for noncommissioned officers, half an hour from Saigon, sitting on a thousand acres of bush land suitable for staging counter-guerilla training. Near the front gate, they had fenced off a large barren area from the rest of the camp. Within the enclosure, there was a handful of wooden structures and military tents housing several hundred men. This was the staging ground for draftees.
Dozens of young men arrived at the same time as I did—some by taxis, others by motorbikes, most attended by family and friends. It was a somber gathering, women sobbing, their men trying to put up brave faces. I took a deep breath and went directly to the gate. The bored guard waved me through without glancing at my ID card.
At the administration cabin, a hundred new draftees milled about the dirt yard in various states of dejection. It took three hours for the two typists to peck out our names and personal information while chatting, smoking, and taking breaks every half hour. Three soldiers lounged about, reading newspapers, trading jokes while waiting for the typists. They shuffled us from one line to another for no apparent reason, and finally assigned us bunks in tents housing twenty men each.
We went to the kitchen tent for lunch. A handful of men sat at the tables staring morosely into their tins. The moment I saw the scraps the cook ladled into my plate, I knew why. Hungry, I tried a spoonful of rice and spat it out. It was foul, mildewed rice. I picked out a couple of rice worms and laid them on the table. The salty soup had a faint smell of chicken and lumps of fat, but neither vegetables nor meat. We looked at each other and shook our heads in dismay. Our reactions didn’t surprise the cook. He pointed us to a diner in the middle of the compound.
It was a big, flimsy wooden house with a tin roof and packed-dirt floor. A canvas awning extended the dining area around the house, sheltering a knickknack collection of chairs, benches, and tables. The structure was open on all sides, except for the back where the kitchen and storerooms were located. Service girls took orders from behind a long glass case counter displaying stationery, snacks, beverages, toiletries, and other sundries. They had four rice plates, grilled pork, beef, fish, and fried eggs, all served with white rice and boiled vegetables. I would come to learn that besides food, the three most popular items were beer to numb a draftee’s mind, cigarettes to soothe his anxiety, and lottery tickets to give him hope. I became a chain-smoker in the staging camp.
Per diem cost for feeding each draftee was predetermined by the army, so the cheaper the food the camp commander fed us, the more money he skimmed from the budget. And the longer we were kept at the staging camp, the bigger the profit he pocketed. As if that wasn’t enough, he permitted the diner to overcharge for meals and sundries, at three times market price, for more than seven hundred men daily, year round. Naturally, he reaped a healthy kickback percentage from the operator.
The diner became the center of our existence in the staging camp. Every single draftee spent money there. In my three weeks at the staging camp, I would end up spending the equivalent of my wife’s grocery budget for three months. Day after day, there was nothing to do except wait for our names to be called for a physical exam or for transfer to training camps. When the sun was
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