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DenisC
Seaman
Joined: 13 Aug 2004
Posts: 166
Location: Ft. Lauderdale, FL
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 Posted: Sun Aug 29, 2004 5:34 am Post subject: Remember Vung Tau, Back Beach, Florida Bar? |
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I figured some of you Swiftee's would know these. Vung Tau was a great escape for us. We even used Back Beach or Front Beach for keeping up our Jump Pay, jumping out of Hueys. We only had fun in that town. Never any problems, although I always felt we were R&R'ing with the VC who seemed to use it for a break also. I wonder what it is like now? It seems like another life time for me now, but that town was a hoot.
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DenisC
173rd Airborne, RVN '65-67' |
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BuffaloJack
Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy
Joined: 10 Aug 2004
Posts: 1637
Location: Buffalo, New York
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| Posted: Sun Aug 29, 2004 12:12 pm Post subject: |
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Although I haven't been back to VN myself, my wife goes every 4 or 5 years to visit family. Vung Tau is now all resort hotels and the typical tourist traps; and Front Beach and Back Beach have been brought back up to resort attraction status.
I don't know about now, but the Russians occupied our many of our old military facilities from soon after the fall of VN in 1975 until the Reagan administration. My wife tells me that the outskirts of Vung Tau toward Cat Lo now have a lot of Japanese investment businesses; there’s even a Nike shoe factory. |
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RGScott
Seaman Recruit
Joined: 07 Aug 2004
Posts: 28
Location: Newport News, VA
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| Posted: Tue Mar 14, 2006 1:37 pm Post subject: Re: Remember Vung Tau, Back Beach, Florida Bar? |
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| DenisC wrote: | | I Never any problems, although I always felt we were R&R'ing with the VC who seemed to use it for a break also. |
My favorite bar was one of the Off Limits bar at Back Beach. Another excerpt:
Between the R&R center and the town was a strip of beach with two or three beachfront bars that were posted "off limits" to American soldiers, so of course I had to patronize them on occasion. The owners and employees welcomed us and while at first I thought it might be because they wanted our money or they were seeking classified information, that turned out not to be the case. We spent little money as the beer was cheaper than in the "GI" bars and we never talked shop. They were just
friendly people.
We had one very educational and entertaining afternoon at one of those bars. Because of changing security conditions in the area we were at times required to carry weapons. This was one of those times.
Two of us entered the bar and immediately noticed the
subdued atmosphere. Something was very wrong. We looked around but nothing was obvious, just some Vietnamese sitting in the corner drinking beer. We sat down, leaned our rifles against the table and were served by a very nervous waitress. As our eyes adjusted to the dimness I saw that the "peasants" in the corner had AK47 rifles at their table. They were Viet Cong soldiers taking a break and like us were in an off limits bar. The situation was a bit tense until I told the waitress I wanted to buy them a round of beer.
Everyone relaxed and I asked them to join us. The newbie with me looked like he wanted to crawl into a hole somewhere but stayed cool. One of the VC was actually from Hanoi and had "volunteered" to go south and join the Viet Cong. He had taught English at the University of Hanoi but his position had been eliminated. He served as the group translator. By the end of the afternoon we were all a bit drunk but happy. They were on R&R at the nearby VC rest center.
Our conversation was typical of GIs. We talked about how we became GIs, we talked about our officers and NCOs.
We talked about women and the people we left behind. No one brought up the subject of politics or whether the war was right or wrong, just or unjust. After our good-byes they went their way and we went ours.
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Humanity i love you because when you're hard up you pawn your Intelligence to buy a drink.
ee cummings |
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