A Minnesota PBS Initiative
Saigon Wife: A Story of Mortars, Noodle Soup and PBRs
In 1968 I was living in Manila, Philippines while my husband worked for USAID (United States Agency for International Development) in Vietnam. At that time wives of USAID employees couldn’t live in Vietnam with their husbands, but we could visit them in the weeks around American holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas. During our two year posting I went to Vietnam seven times.
The embassy referred to us as “Saigon Wives” and most of us had husbands who had desk jobs and lived and worked in Saigon. My husband, however, worked with farmers and village chiefs in the Mekong Delta south of Saigon, and lived with an army advisory team.
When I visited him, he had to find a place for me to stay, and on several visits, I stayed in a house in My Tho where USAID nurses lived. Some days I could go with my husband on his travels around the area, but other days he decided that it wasn’t safe for me to go with him, and I would stay at the house until he came back in the afternoon.
I was in the nurses’ house late one afternoon with a nurse who had just arrived in country. The other nurses were at work, and my husband was still in Cai Be, the town where he worked.
Author on a PBR in CaiBe. Photo by WJ Graham.
We were watching TV (Armed Forces Vietnam Network) in a little room off the living room which had the TV and an air conditioner.
The electricity was fluctuating and whenever it got low, the air conditioner would start to struggle and make a loud banging noise. In order to hear the TV over the banging of the air conditioner, we kept turning up the volume on the TV.
Slowly it began to penetrate my brain that in addition to the air conditioner, I was hearing some banging coming from somewhere else. Some banging, or more accurately, some booming.
By the time I turned down the TV and turned off the air conditioner in order to investigate, we were well into a full blown mortar attack. Based on my earlier experience, I knew we should be in a sandbag bunker, but I also knew from a previous night at the nurses’ house that the bunker had collapsed.
They had recently moved into that house, and the repairs hadn’t been made yet. On the earlier night when the mortars started, the nurses had taken me into a bathroom that was in the center of the house and had a double ceiling. The idea was that if a mortar hit, it would explode on the roof, and the second ceiling would give us some protection.
I stood in the bathroom, truly scared to death, with a towel over my head. I remember thinking, “This is really dumb. A towel isn’t going to give me any protection.” But logic didn’t prevail and the nurses were kind enough not to laugh at me.
Usually my husband would be there in the evenings, but some days he was unable to get back to My Tho, and this was one of those days. It was the middle of the night, and I was so scared that when the attack stopped, I asked one of the nurses if I could sleep the rest of the night in her room. So here we were, a few days later, a scared civilian and a nurse who had just arrived and was as scared as I was. I took her into the bathroom, prayed for deliverance, and managed to keep from putting a towel over my head again.
When the attack was over, I realized that there was something else we were supposed to do. There was a two-way radio in the house which was used to communicate with the local headquarters of the advisory team. We were supposed to radio them that we were okay. But I had no idea how to use the radio, so we just sat there and waited to see what would happen.
It wasn’t long before a group of soldiers, in full battle gear, burst in the front door. They were there to rescue us from whatever calamity had kept us from letting them know our status. When I explained that our only problem was ignorance of two way radios, they relaxed, and sat down to talk. Soon the other nurses came home along with the volunteer doctors, and other soldiers and a party began.
It was a good time with beer, music and dancing. One helicopter pilot, while dancing with me, announced that he could fly me up to Saigon to “get me away from the war”. I told him, thanks but no thanks, as I was waiting for my husband to come back from Cai Be, the town where he worked.
He was late getting back, and I was worried. I knew he shouldn’t be out on the road after dark. When he finally arrived, he told us that while driving between Cai Be and My Tho, he had hit a cow! He was alone and desperate to get back to My Tho because it was already dark and he was in danger from roadside snipers. He managed to pull the bent fender away from the wheel, and make his way to safety. Reparations for the cow were made at a later date.
One of the sailors did a double take when he saw me, and they immediately pulled over at the landing and came into the shop. An American girl was something that needed to be investigated. I was a face from home, and they were surprised and happy to see me. And I really was just as surprised as they were.
I arrived in Cai Be for my first visit on a helicopter gunship.
My husband had arranged for me to hitch a ride because he didn’t want me on the road from My Tho. Sometimes it was deemed safe, other times not. I was never sure why, and never questioned it, just did as I was told.
The gunship had open doors on the sides for the gunners, and I was seated facing a door. We were going very fast along the river just above the tree tops in order to minimize the risk of sniper fire.
Several times we momentarily tipped sideways so that I was facing the ground. I was belted in, but I suspected later that this was done to enhance the thrill of the ride for me. Fear or terror would be a better description than thrill, as I’d never been a fan of heights.
That day in Cai Be we stopped for lunch at a small noodle shop which sat on stilts on the side of the Mekong river. I was sitting by a window (really just an opening in the wall) when several PBRs (River Patrol Boats) came by on the river. One of the sailors did a double take when he saw me, and they immediately pulled over at the landing and came into the shop. An American girl was something that needed to be investigated.
After lunch we had a guided tour of a PBR. On that trip I began to realize how strange it seemed for the American soldiers to see me, a very young, very blonde civilian woman in the middle of the war zone. I was a face from home, and they were surprised and happy to see me. And I really was just as surprised as they were. I was 25, married less than a year and had come from a very sheltered existence in Minneapolis.
The truth is, I was scared every time I went to Vietnam, but it was a chance to be with my husband, and I never turned it down.
I look back on those visits with so many mixed emotions. I remember a naïve young woman, a beautiful country, brave young soldiers, sailors and nurses. I remember learning about fear, fear for my life and the life of my husband and all his friends both American and Vietnamese. I remember and still feel a deep sadness for the loss of so many lives on both sides. I remember learning about fear of the “other”, and deceit by officials whom we were raised to trust.
And I remember the enormous relief as we left Vietnam for the last time
Biographical Details
Submitted From: Richfield, MN
Primary Location During Vietnam: My Tho, Vietnam 
Story Subject: Civilian
This submission is part of Stories of Gratitude.
Go to the collection.
Story Themes: Coming Home, Family, Fear, First Impressions, Joan Graham, Marriage, My Tho, Relationships, Richfield