Aid to Son Duc Part 1

Their War: Experiences of a Conscript in America’s War in Vietnam

Chapter 7: Part 1

Aid to Son Duc

The month after I returned from Operation Mauri Peak, I was assigned to lead Mike Battery’s patrols to Son Duc, a small hamlet at the southern edge of a vast rice paddy. The visits were to provide a continuous, supportive presence but not be regularly scheduled so that the NVA or Viet Cong could anticipate our travel and mount ambushes. We took a Vietnamese interpreter; a Navy medical doctor, “Grant,” two Navy corpsman and a dozen marines from Mike, and medical supplies. With the help of Gunnery Sergeant James Roper, we carefully chose the marines, all volunteers, who we knew were mature and had not expressed any derogatory comments toward Vietnamese. That task was not easy: “Gooks, slant-eyes and slope-heads” were terms commonly used by marines of all ranks to refer to the Vietnamese. My daily conversations with enlisted in the gun bunkers helped me weed-out the racists. 

The terrain between Mike Battery and Son Duc was comprised of soft, white beach sand that made use of trucks or jeeps impossible, so we traveled by foot and carried medical supplies in packs or on stretchers. 

I found the farmer culture of Son Duc strikingly similar to my neighbors in the rural area I was raised in in Oklahoma. The village leaders were composed of an elderly “chief,”Mr. Tu,” who announced decisions made democratically by a council of several men. Although women were not supposed to be a formal part of the council, “Kim,” the wife of a very respected councilman, “Bao,” (probably the real leader of the group), was known to be wise. She sat silently just outside the circle of power but when the group was nearing a decision, Bao would consult with Kim and bring her opinion to the group.

We were very careful to funnel any aid, to include treats for the kids, through Mr. Tu, who was chief by respect for his age and tenure on the council. 

Our vaguely defined mission was to assist the villagers while supporting their political system. But within that understanding, there was much room for personal interaction with the families and kids of Son Duc.

The main ritual in our brief visits was to accommodate the chatting line of villagers who quickly formed for medical attention. Their diet was primarily brown rice that had a nutty flavor that I preferred to white, bland American rice. But rice alone did not supply a full range of vitamins and nutrients -- and that contributed to health problems, particularly neo-natal care. The Navy doctor, Grant, routinely gave out multi-vitamins to all families but focused much attention on expectant mothers.

A second, major malady was serious infections that followed the slightest cuts or scrapes. We discovered that the villagers would often apply their urine to skin wounds. Although urine is almost sterile at discharge, its protein is a quick host for any germs transferred from external sources, especially from the nervous hoard of flies that crawled all over the residents and their food in Son Duc. 

The ARVN had built a small school house in the village and we occasionally gathered there and held classes, or “sessions” for the villagers. We explained that germs that caused infections were invisible -- but everywhere; and they could be easily killed with alcohol. We taught them to use their rice whisky, which was about 70-90 percent alcohol, to clean cuts and scrapes. Son Duc’s folks “got it,” and the festering, lingering infections dropped markedly. 

Grant also used the schoolhouse to teach several women to be midwives. There were several cultural practices that contributed to birthing problems, and he handled them, much as the infection issue had been addressed.

With an ARVN interpreter, I enticed five farmers in the school house and gave a hands-on class in applied geometry: I taught them how to realign and survey their dikes, that were often washed away by monsoon rains. The alignment of their dikes was critical to allocate their communal plots for irrigation, tilling and planting. Using a carpenter’s square and a beer bottle filled with about a half-cup of water to make a level, I showed them how to cut 45, 60 and 90 degree angles to survey their dikes. As benchmarks, they used prominent cliffs or landmarks in the hills above the rice paddy. They all seemed to understand how to survey the angles, though several of the farmers were not quite sure how it worked. Two of them, however, clearly perceived the power of “vectors” and after much dialog, helped the others understand. I greatly appreciated that the Montessori approach to education appeared to work in all cultures.

With infections and miscarriages subsiding, we seemed to have established some trust with the adults in Son Duc and I began to interact with their kids. The children played a tough variation of “Hop Scotch” where they carefully drew a treacherous trail of circles in a cleared patch of soil at the edge of the village center. To advance, you had to grasp a small stone between the toes of one foot, toss it into the next circle, hop with the other foot into that circle, and repeat the dance as far as you could. The circles had been carefully spaced so that the maneuver was increasingly difficult. 

I observed their preparation and then asked them if I could try --  they giggled and agreed. I pulled off my combat boots and socks; then made it about half way up the dozen-or-so circles. They were delighted  and giggled politely when I miscast a stone with my toes outside a circle and had to return the back of the line to take my turn to master their game.

The older children had certain chores they were expected to perform so on one trip I accompanied several to a nearby dike where their mothers had instructed them to catch fish from the rice paddy. Whatever small fish they caught would to be used to make “Nuk mon” (nước chấm), a hot sauce they used to flavor their meals. The kids carried cone-shaped bamboo traps that they dropped down on small fish they spotted in the murky water; then they worked their hands in through the bamboo sides to capture their prey. The fish were then deposited into a small basket where they flipped helplessly. The kids rarely caught more than a pint or so of the fish and their mothers never seemed pleased with their small catch. 

When I returned to Mike, I immediately wrote my mother and asked her to mail me six, small perch hooks and 30 feet of monofilament fishing line. The tackle arrived (along with my mom’s scented letters that always started with the weather report and then ended with any nuances in the family’s health). 

A week later, I took the fishing tackle to Son Duc. When the usual medical aid was underway, I went to the eastward dike with several kids where I showed them how to tie the hooks to the thin line and to short cane poles we had cut. I then took one of the fishing poles and put a small bit of white chewing gum on the tip of the hook. I tossed the hook into the water and immediately jerked-out a fish, about two inches long, onto the bank.

The kids howled with laughter: they said I had “tricked the fish.” I then distributed the chewing gum bait and they put themselves to fishing: each began to pull fish onto the dike, laughing hysterically at each catch. The small bowl was quickly filled so one kid raced back to the village and brought back a large clothes basket that could hold about five gallons. In about half an hour, we filled the basket with fish.

Our proud gang returned to the village where the giggling kids presented their catch to their moms. The mothers were amazed and a bit baffled as to what they should do with so much fish. The rest of the village was summoned; everyone wanted to know how we had caught so many fish. The kids lead them to the dike and demonstrated how they “tricked fish.” The whole village howled at each catch. Some of the adults tried their hands at the sport. Mr. Tu, came to the dike to see what was going on. He was given a pole and invited to wet the hook. When he tricked a fish onto the bank, everyone howled with laughter. 

The economy of Son Duc was forever changed.

(to be continued in Part 2)

Bo McCarver

Reporting from Greater Wapanucha Oklahoma

For Radio-Free Oklahoma