Site Visits

Part of my job is to travel to different team locations and participate in Det 2 site visits. This field activity was no different, and last week I headed out with my boss to visit all of the recovery teams that will be operating in this upcoming 117th Joint Field Activity. One of the more famous cities I visited last week was Dien Bien Phu, where the French were routed by General Giap in 1954. While I didn't get to visit the historical museum there this time, I did get to eat one of the more exotic foods on the Vietnamese menu.

We were invited by our host nation counterparts to dinner at a local restaurant that specialized in, among other food animals, water turtle.  Turtles in Vietnamese are differentiated with two different names.  The tortoise or land turtle is referred to as a 'con rùa',  whereas the terrapin or water turtle is referred to as a 'ba ba'.  We were invited to witness the ba ba's execution before the meal and most of the team shoved their way into the kitchen to view the large turtle that had been selected.  Many stayed to watch as he was hooked under the jaw to pull his head out of the shell, and then unceremoniously decapitated. Though I don't have an issue with eating an animal that was raised to be food, I did opt out on watching the butchering of the turtle.

From the turtle, four dishes were produced for the team from various body parts.  The preparation was different for each part and the presentation was varied as well.  The bile and blood of the creature was poured in separate bottles, mixed with locally produced rice wine (Cuốc Lùi).  There were other assorted dishes presented as side dishes, not from the turtle, to include sweet potato fries and chicken.

While I believe the intention was to bestow honor on the visiting guests, the reality of eating nearly every part of the huge terrapin was not as enjoyable.  On the list of least favorite parts of the turtle, I would rank high the testicles, seconded by the bile rice wine, and thirdly, the soup filled with the grissly part of the shell that makes up the hinging areas (I believe I referred to them as gummy worms from Hades).  The turtle was tough in general and not easy to eat at all and the fries and chicken disappeared quickly.

Though there was much to be desired in the food selection, I did enjoy the company.  I think  we become closer friends with those whom we share turtle testicles.  I only regret I wasn't able to find someone more honorable than myself to do that.

35 Day Vacation

I just returned to Hanoi last night after 35 days of vacation. It is hard to believe everything I crammed into that 35 days, and there is no way I can go into detail about each event in this one blog today, but I would like to run down the big ticket items I enjoyed while home.  

In the past month, I rented a Nissan Xterra that I drove over 4,000 miles from New Orleans to Mobile, Al, to Jacksonville, FL, back to Mobile, and then out to Austin, TX.  We took a four day cruise to the Bahamas, joined my brother and other family members beachside in Pensacola, visited my sister in Austin, visited and chatted with other old friends in the Texas area, and spent a little time in Louisiana.  To top it all off, we had a BBQ with my nephew and brother, and other family members just before returning to Hanoi.

All of that and more, but most importantly, I re-seeded my daughter in Mobile, Alabama where she will attend the University of South Alabama for - hopefully - the next four years. The amount of effort involved in getting resettled back in the U.S., just for my daughter, was not a small feat.  It gave me great insight as to what I will have to do when I finally go back. The costs that we as Americans incur on a daily basis in the form of services - communications, transportation, insurance, etc - is overwhelming to me. 

Leaving my daughter in Mobile as Diep and I headed back to Hanoi was profoundly sad. As excited as I was for her and her future, I had no idea until the day we left how much I would miss her. I felt like I had a hole in my stomach... a feeling I haven't had since Mom passed away.

I have three days at home before I have to go back to work. Things will get frantic then. This is the calm before the storm.

Happy Independence Day

So this is my first day back to work after an honest-to-God three day break.  I know that I should have spent the weekend reflecting on how great it is to be an American, but I really focused more on relaxing since I had been so focused on work for the past couple of months.

U.S. Embassy's 4th of July Celebration at the JW Marriott in Hanoi

The weekend started for me on Thursday night at a business-attire event thrown by the US Embassy.  Though it was a 4th of July celebration, the majority of guests were from the host nation and other nations' officials.  I have never been to this annual event because I am usually on vacation in the U.S. at this time; Megan's late departure for university had me in the pocket this time, though.  I must admit I enjoyed the event much more than I thought I would in part because my suit fit me. I had two suits tailor made about six or eight years ago that I quickly grew out of, but with my recent weight loss I fit in one of them fairly cofortably, resulting in a more comfortable evening. Great food, good conversation and adult beverages rounded out the feel-good event.  Regrettably, Diep couldn't come... I know she would have had a better time than I!

On Friday, I had a couple of the geographic batchelors from the office over to finish off some beer we had left over from a recent office BBQ.  I think we had a good time just sitting by the pool all day and doing nothing. Diep felt sorry for them being away from their families and made us all some spring rolls. That definitely upped the quality of the afternoon.

Saturday and Sunday were unremarkable.  I spent more time by the pool with Diep, but not much else.  Fortunately, on Sunday we got our pool time in early because shortly after we got out and went upstairs one of the kids puked in the pool. Who does that?

Anyway, I thought I would update my long-neglected blog.  That lack of real activity, as you can see, is the biggest indicator of why I haven't been updating.

Happy Birthday America!

I Love You Amazon

When living overseas, you begin to appreciate the most those people who send you care packages and gifts - those things you want the most in a material sense.  With that in mind, one of my best friends here in Vietnam is Amazon, Amazon Dot Com.  Amazon sends me stuff I want all the time, from dried fruit and nuts, to electronics and books.  As a matter of fact, I receive more from Amazon than anyone else in the U.S.  This isn't an indictment of friends and family, however, because we all know I am really the one sending these things to myself - I am sort of my Not-So-Secret Santa.  Nevertheless, of all the services I appreciate on the internet, I would rank Amazon WAY up on the list.

But even with the great service that is Amazon, we have restrictions on what we can send through post to my location.  Those restriction are related to lithium batteries and the restrictions are related directly to the way the batteries are packed.  The guidelines are lengthy and sometimes hard to understand in intent.  I am getting somewhere with this, so hang on.  So, anyway, I wanted an expensive piece of electronic equipment that I felt fell somewhere in the middle on the guidelines and decided to give it a try.  My shipment never made it to my location, and I got an email from the courier service stating the package was returned to sender.  I was disappointed but figured I would get the refund to my CC in a few days and would just wait until my next trip to the U.S. to get the item I wanted.  Anyway, time passed and the order was never refunded.  I began to fret about the hassle of tracking down the returned package and getting my money back. I imagined in my mind the phone calls and lengthy emails... the waking up early to go to work and call during stateside business hours.  Well, none of that happened.

Through the account section of Amazon, I sent a message explaining briefly the situation. In less than 24 hours I got an email stating I would be refunded in the next 2 - 3 days.  While this may sound matter-of-course to anyone in the U.S., for me it is a small miracle exercised by Jesus Christ Himself.  Nowhere in Vietnam would this ever happen.  It is a matter of course to exhaust every ounce of energy to create difficulties for the customer in returning an item and getting a full refund.  Not sure why that is, but in my time here I have learned to accept the statement, "It just is."

But this post isn't about bashing a society or business practice; rather it is about giving a big shout out to Amazon Dot Com: My best friend. Thanks!

Don't Rip Your Dong!

For Americans, and probably most people outside of Vietnam, you usually don't think twice about the condition of the currency you use in your daily transactions.  I am not sure of the specific guidelines, but I know that if you have around two-thirds of a bill the bank will change it for a new one in the U.S.  It seems that these days it helps to have an account with the bank you are trying to exchange the bill from, but in genereal, it is not something we often fret over.

In Vietnam, most currency, and all currency of any real value, is made of polymer or plastic.  The State Bank of Vietnam made the conversion about five years ago, though I don't remember the exact year.  The first problems I read about the polymer dealt with people in rural / farming areas trying to dry out their plastic currency by ironing it. Needless to say,a hot iron and plastic don't mix well together, and people learned quickly not to do that.

Something an expatriate learns quickly, that all Vietnamese people already know, is don't accept Vietnamese money - the Vietnamese Dong - that has been ripped, or torn, even if it has been taped back together.  It is nearly impossible to pass these along after you come into possession of one.  As a matter of fact, you might as well just pocket it and take it back with you to your homeland as a souvenir.

It is almost a game here.  People take every opportunity to pass these off to some other person, like a hot potato.  It seems the easiest way to get rid of one is to pass it off to a taxi driver at night when getting out of the vehicle.  But you better do it fast, because you don't want to get called back on it.  Beware, that taxi driver is playing the same game with you, trying to pass you ripped bills in change in the same manner.  The manner and method of passing on these cursed bills is endless, but one thing is for sure:  It can't be easy to get the bank to trade them in for new bills. If it was, there wouldn't be this "game" going on.

Just another example of TIV - This is Vietnam.

Looking to the Summer

I guess it is no secret that the older you get, the faster times goes by. I don't know why that is, and I know that it doesn't matter how many times it is said, a young person will never believe it. I know I didn't. Of course, I never understood how Granny and Papaw Newell got up at 3:30am when I was a kid.  The idea of getting up that early, at the time, seemed unfathomable. Now, however, I can totally see it.  I must admit that I do not get up that early at the moment, but it wouldn't be hard to do. I get up on my own at 5am, and sometimes earlier.  I start thinking about the things I need to do during the day; and I actually enjoy the me time when I get up before everyone else.

Anyway, that was way off the subject of this post, though somewhat connected.  My point is that Summer may seem to be way off right now, but it is barreling my way rapidly. This Summer is special because we will be taking Megan back to the U.S. to begin her collegiate lifestyle at the University of South Alabama.  I don't get excited about much, but I am happy for her and excited about the whole world that is opening up before her. We will be taking a little extra time this year to get her settled in and have a good vacation in the making, as well.  Though I am sad to see her leave the nest, I think this will be the high point of the rest of her life.

Diep and I will probably start taking more mini-holidays to areas in the region after we get back.  Megan has never been a third wheel, but it will be much easier to just pick up and go without worrying about someone being in school or some other conflict of who finds what interesting, or worth visiting.

In the meantime, I have a whole lot of work ahead of me.  I can't remember the last time I was so busy, though it could just be my failing memory.  Things are generally good right now and I don't see any storms on the horizon

13 Years Ago

Thirteen years ago today, a little over a year before I returned to the MIA mission, a Mi-17 crashed in the Vietnamese central province of Quang Binh killing seven Americans and nine Vietnamese passengers and crew conducting search and recovery advance work for the Joint Task Force-Full Accounting.  I personally knew two of the Americans who were onboard the helicopter and miss their friendship still.

Thirteen years is a long time, but it doesn't seem that long ago since the crash.  Everyone on that helicopter was on a noble mission to search for those missing from the Vietnam War, and though they might not have known their fate that day when they stepped onto the helicopter, I think everyone who takes a ride like that takes at least a second to ponder what lies ahead.  

Below is an article I found online describing the incident.  It was a tragedy I hope never happens again, and I take this time to extend my appreciation for the men, both American and Vietnamese, and their families for their sacrifice that day.

=========================

Saturday April 7 11:01 PM ET
16 Die in Vietnam Helicopter Crash 
By DAVID THURBER, Associated Press Writer 

HANOI, Vietnam (AP) - A helicopter carrying a team searching for Americans missing in action from the Vietnam War crashed into a mountain Saturday, killing 16 people, including seven Americans.

The Russian-made MI-17 made unusual swinging movements in the air and slammed into a hillside near Thanh Tranh village in Quang Binh province's Bo Tranh district, about 280 miles south of Hanoi, local officials said.

Vietnamese officials initially reported 20 people were on board the helicopter, but changed the figure to 16 early Sunday, in line information from U.S. officials. Pentagon (news - web sites) spokesman in Washington, Lt. Cmdr. Terry Sutherland, said seven Americans and nine Vietnamese were killed in the crash. There were no survivors.

U.S. officials said the American victims were military service people, but were withholding their names until the next of kin have been notified. The cause of the mid-afternoon crash is being investigated. The sky was hazy at the time.

Local authorities began recovering the bodies early Sunday. U.S. Embassy spokesman David Monk said that U.S. officials were on their way to the site.

Monk said the team was making a preliminary visit to a possible MIA recovery site to determine whether it was worth excavating.

The U.S. military's Pacific Command said in a statement on its website that the team was ``preparing for a recovery operation involving unaccounted for Americans lost during the Vietnam war.''

A spokesman for the command in Honolulu, Lt. Sean Kelly, said the service members killed were all on a mission for Joint Task Force-Full Accounting, a group based in Camp H.M. Smith, Hawaii that investigates Americans missing from the Vietnam War.

The task force has searched for remains from the Indochina War in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and southern China since 1992, and in recent years has expanded operations to include World War II and Korean War MIA recovery cases.

President Bush (news - web sites) expressed his condolences on Saturday and urged Americans to ``remember their sacrifice.''

``The families of the service personnel lost in today's tragic accident know better than most the contribution their loved ones made in bringing closure to scores of families across America,'' the president said in a statement issued at the White House.

``Today's loss is a terrible one for our nation,'' Bush said.

There are currently no large-scale MIA excavations under way in Vietnam, but some Americans remain in the country year-round doing advance work for future digs.

Since 1973, the remains of 591 American servicemen formerly listed as unaccounted for have been identified and returned to their families. There are 1,992 Americans still unaccounted for from the war in Southeast Asia, including 1,498 in Vietnam.

The United States spends $5 million to $6 million annually on MIA recovery operations in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.

Quang Binh province, where the accident occurred, was the southernmost province of North Vietnam during the war, just north of the former demilitarized zone. It contains many military crash sites because it was heavily bombed during the war.

The Joint Task Force-Full Accounting program was set up by then-Defense Secretary Dick Cheney (news - web sites) in 1992.

Its teams conduct preliminary investigations of crash sites to determine whether they should be excavated. Based on their findings, sites are prepared for excavation under a schedule agreed upon by the U.S. and Vietnamese governments.

Lt. Col. Franklin Childress, a spokesman for the program, said those killed were the advance team for a 95-member team that was scheduled to leave Hawaii in late April for six separate recovery sites in Vietnam. He said they were members of the military.

The program makes about 10 such deployments per year, each lasting about a month. The terrain is rugged and often littered with debris from the war.

``Every mission is a dangerous mission,'' Childress said. ``It's a very difficult area to operate in.''

No decision has been made yet if that mission will go on as scheduled, Childress said. But Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said in a statement that the overall mission to account for the MIAs and recover their remains will continue.

Childress said the helicopter was from the Vietnamese military and the pilot was Vietnamese.

``We've been flying in this type of helicopter for a number of years, and this is the first accident,'' he said.

A Series of Unfortunate Events

It has been a very long time since I ran on the road. I encountered a series of unfortunate events about eight months ago that crippled me and kept me from one of my life's passions:  Running.  It all began after coming back from home leave last year when I experienced some very excruciating plantar fasciitis in my left foot. I suspect a new pair of shoes may have brought it on, but in reality it could have been anything.  As the plantar fasciitis gradually got better over the next couple of months, tendinitus in my left ankle set in.  My left ankle was swollen for a week before Diep made me go to the doctor - who I paid a little over a hundred U.S. to tell me what I already knew:  Rest and Ibuprofen.  As the ankle got better, I took a bus ride into town around the Lunar New Year and planted my left foot right in the way of the pneumatic door that opened very quickly and separated my big toenail from the bed of my toe. That toe issue, along wtih an already tender foot and ankle kept me from any running.

So for these long months I haven't been running. It wasn't until about two weeks ago I got back on the treadmill in Hanoi and worked up a little mileage on it.  I got up to five miles at an easy pace, and I finally got down to Danang yesterday and got a run in on the real road this morning. I ran four miles without much problem, and only a little soreness in my knee.  Hopefully, I will be able to keep it up and get some road time in Hanoi when I return.  So far I haven't had any feet problems, and that makes me hopeful I can get back in the habit.

In October last year I got up to 205 pounds because I wasn't running and I had been going on investigations that kept me from doing any exercise. Once I finished my series of investigations, I was able to drop weight with a regular exercise routine that included stationary bike and elyptical trainer in conjunction with weight training.  In the past six months I lost 15 pounds and hopefully, now that I am running again, I can keep dropping weight.  Only time will tell, but I am prone to rapid weight gains if I go just a couple of days without paying attention to what I eat... or rather, paying too much attention to food. 

I have been feeling better now that I have reached a weight that allows me to exercise longer and more vigorously, and hopefully I can keep it up.  I suppose that will depend more on my work schedule than anything else. Every time I take a significant break or go on a long temporary duty assignment I gain back everything I lost.  All I can do is make sure I don't give up.  Keep going no matter what.

The Detachment House is Haunted

The Det House is haunted. That’s the word I got from Matt Wilkes this morning when I stepped into the office.  Interesting! I know the building at 48B Tran Phu is pretty old, probably built in the 1920s or there about, and that our section of Hanoi goes back to the French colonial period. I also know Matt isn't a guy prone to drama. If it had been the other guy on duty, I may have been a little more skeptical.

Matt started the conversation talking about the weird animals we have over in that building. I naturally thought he was talking about the rats over there, something he has talked about on several occasions already.  Rats are ubiquitous in Hanoi, and the subject was a little stale, to be honest. When he mentioned the screeching in the night, I knew he was talking about the owls that reside in certain corners of the city. He didn’t know the noise was coming from owls, but after considering for a moment, he saw the probability in the source of the spooky noise.  He then started talking about the other noises:  The loud lady, the slamming doors, and the whisper in his ear at night.  I immediately dismissed the lady,and initially the slamming door because of the guards on their security rounds.  But the Vietnamese woman whispering in his ear at his bedside in the middle of the night, the one he tried to chalk up as a dream, and the doors slamming in adjacent rooms when he is the only one boarding in the building did pique my interest.  Matt said he has heard some people talk about it, and others who won’t talk about it because they don’t want us at the office thinking they are nuts.

Is the house haunted? Maybe. There is no doubt that the history and events in this area could conjure ghosts, if they exist. I will keep my ears open, maybe some good stories will come from it.

A Soldier of the Legion

At times I forget how many people read my blog, and that leaves me a little surprised when I get a book recommendation based on a book I read and mentioned in my blog.  In these past few months, I have found myself fascinated with Vietnam in the days of early French interest.  I am slowly gaining knowledge of some structures I see in Hanoi and around the country and even learning some other tidbits here and there about Vietnamese character and culture.

The book recommendation was the title of this blog, A Soldier of the Legion. The book was written by George Mannington and it is available on Google Books for free as a PDF download.  It is also available on other sites from other collections that have been scanned.  Because I am in Vietnam, or some other reason I may not be aware of, I was not able to download the book from Google Books, and I downloaded it from another site. I would recommend Google Books, however, because the other site had about five pages missing at various points in the book. I went back to another PDF copy to fill in the blanks, but it was just a little more work than someone should have to go through to read the book.

To show my appreciation for the recommendation to one of my favorite life mentors, I will share a brief summary of the book and tell what I learned, as well.  The book was written by an Englishman, who on a whim, joined the French Foreign Legion in the late 1800s.  His description of the process is quite interesting and his follow-on assignment in Algiers and then Tonkin (North Vietnam at that time) is also captivating.  He arrived in Vietnam to catch some of the final days of the Yen The Uprising. A quick Google search for the "Yen The Uprising" shows that it was a failed attempt to revolt against French colonization in the general area of Bac Giang Province, north of Hanoi, lasting some 30 years from 1884 - 1913 by resistance forces led by Hoang Hoa Tham (The name should sound familiar since it is a common road name throughout major cities in Vietnam). Searching local web sites, there are some festivals that celebrate the independent spirit of the leaders of this revolt. 

George Mannington does a splendid job of describing the landscape of the areas where he was stationed in Nha Nam and Bo Ha Towns, and later at Bac Ninh and Hanoi. His description of the peoples both of the low and highlands is helpful to me in referencing my own feelings and opinions of the hill tribes and delta people.  The country of Bac Giang at the turn of the 20th century must have been beautiful with tigers and leopards, fowl and flora that no longer exists in those areas.  He described in detail the accomplishments of some of the French leaders and also chronologically maps the establishment of transportation lines in the northern part of Vietnam.

From the book, culturally, I was most impressed with his description of where the bats carved and painted on pagodas come from and why they are depicted.  This is something I never knew and, apparently, the seven bats represent the seven joys on earth. I even bookmarked the page, and will quote the passage:

"The ancients represented 'The Seven Joys' by as many bats, because, like our pleasures, these animals flit around us in eccentric curves; though it requires but a little patience and a light blow to bring them to our feet."

I did bookmark one other passage that I thought showed a lot of insight and also that people have not changed much in the hundred plus years since this book was written:

 "The French, Italian, German, Austrian, or any other European soldier is very much like our own.  He has his virtues and his vices; and the stronger his race and national character, the more likely is he to possess a superabundance of the latter."

All in all, the read was worth the short time it takes to cover his experience. It was also a great opener for the current book I am reading about an English wife to a French doctor who was sent to Vietnam to work with Alexandre Yersin at the Pasteur Institute in Nha Trang.  In her introduction, she covers very clearly the history up to her time in or around 1904 of what is now Vietnam.  She also describes the three regions then known as Tonquin, Annam and Cochin China, giving me a better understanding of the areas as they were then.  The book is titled On & Off Duty in Annam by Gabrielle M Vassal. The book is a bit longer, but so far is very interesting.

New Day, New Year, and Happy Birthday to Me!

So today is the first day back at work for me since 20 December. It's a new day, new year, and a birthday occasion for me.  I am a little tardy in making my new year's declarations, but I am sure I am forgiven by my meager audience.

The fact is, not unlike a lot of people out there, I don't have any new year's resolutions this year unless keeping up with a lot of changes I incorporated last year counts.  For example, I have all but eliminated carbonated beverages from my diet, except for beer on the weekend; I have made an effort to drink alcoholic beverages only once or twice a week, and in moderation; and I have a pretty decent work out program I have going and I have been dropping 1 - 2 pounds a week (exclusive of the two week break I took when I gained five pounds).

Due to an unforeseen hiccup with office transportation, I will also be riding my motorbike to work from now on. This is something I wanted to start after the fiscal year budget constraints we had in October, but it wasn't until this other issue that I have convinced Diep this is the way to go. I have a plan for rain days, and I think it will work.

The two weeks off I took during the Christmas and New Year break was good for me. Granted, I was a little bored in Saigon and Nha Trang, but I think I needed some idle time to re-cock for this year... it will be a big one.  I wasn't bored because Saigon and Nha Trang are boring, but rather because I have been to both of these cities quite a few times already - been there, done that.  I was happy to see that Diep's mother was healthy and happy this time back. We had dinner with her at Pizza Hut in the big city and I think everyone had a good time.

This is the year Megan goes to big kids' school in the U.S.  I will miss her immensely, but it also marks an interesting crossroads for Diep and I.  We will be able to do a lot of things that work for two, but not three. I have a feeling we will be doing shoestring budget travel in the region a lot more in the next couple of years.  Diep loves that stuff, but I will have to get used to it.  One example of cutting costs is the difference between bus travel and air travel in Vietnam.  If you have time to spare, bus travel is infinitely cheaper than air travel. Diep prefers the sleeper buses that are so ubiquitous in the south now, but I will definitely have to get used to that since the seats are great for much shorter people, but require a certain positioning to gain comfort for those people of universally average height or more.

So with this new year, at the age of 48, I still have dreams of progressing in life.  I have not reached a point where I am just happy to be where I am and hope to just sustain. I want to improve and learn in several areas, and I think I will reach some goals I have set for myself.  With the new year comes hope. It feels good!