Excerpts from Letters to Mom in italics.
Letters from Vietnam required no postage; just writing the word "free" on the upper right corner in lieu of the stamp.
AG2 Stephen Fehr
Co. "L" MarSupBn
APO San Francisco 96308
20 December 1966
I got here in Vietnam on the 17th and just now have gotten settled enough to write. I was living out of a seabag because no bunks or lockers were available. The base is rather secure with lots of marines and artillery surrounding us. Life in our compound (prison camp) is surprisingly good.
Knowing he was to depart San Miguel near midnight for Vietnam, that 16th of December 1966, AG2 Fehr decided to hit the "Crossroads" before climbing aboard a bus to the Naval Air Station at Cubi Point. He had no idea how long it would be till he saw beer, broads and civilization again. Uncharacteristically, he danced quite a bit abetted by a bunch of brews.
The girls at the Crossroads bars delighted in screaming out the easy English phrases to popular tunes, but it wasn't easy overcoming the jukebox volume jacked up to the limit. The decibels were careening off the alcohol molecules floating above the darkened dance floor. Dusty Springfield crooned "You don't have to say you love me, just be close at hand," and the girls with beaming smiles, chorused, "BELIEVE ME, BELIEVE ME!" Los Bravos' hit Black is Black energized the Filipino bar girls to naughtily retort "I want my baby WHITE!" Yes, just like Mary's little lamb, discrimination was sure to follow the extension and projection of USAmerican mores.
Back in the barracks after lights out, the mellowed one struggled to quietly change into Marine Corps fatigues and empty gear into the seabag. Impaired and in the dark, he would later discover he had omitted a few sundries. Towels, socks and extra skivvies, etc - the odds and ends not readily available in Phu Bai! The flight arrived at MAF Da Nang at 1130 hours on 17 December 1966. It was a short hop north over the mountains in a small, C-123 military cargo plane to Phu Bai.
Disembarking out the rear, AG2 Fehr found himself down a hot, humid, dusty runway and very alone. Looking about somewhat confused, he thought it best to hike over to an open hanger and at least get in the shade. Sweating San Miguel profusely, he realized, unlike everybody in sight, he was only armed with a seabag. It felt like he was back in time about one century in Dodge City. Everybody was heavily armed but him. He couldn't suppress the thought about what he might do if hostile action started?
Trying not to appear lost or nervous in the service, Fehr spied a field phone hanging on a wall stud inside the huge hangar door. Memory has it that a few unit names where scrawled on a piece of cardboard on the adjacent wall. Steve had never used a field phone and cautiously cranked the wind up. He guessed correctly. Somebody from Company "L" mercifully or miraculously answered and sent a "deuce and a half," a 2 ½ ton truck, over to haul his sorry ass back to the 8th Radio Research Field Station. He threw his seabag into the bed and followed it in for the short ride across the dusty, national north south Highway 1, over the railroad tracks, passed the MP guards and into the barbed wire surrounded compound.
I spent six days in San Miguel, P.I., and most of my nites on the town. The P.I. is even poorer than Taiwan but resembles the states pretty much in its customs. I meant to write a lot about the PI but I feel more like getting a beer. It seemed just as hot in the PI as here. They tell me we are in the monsoon season and it really ought to be cool and rainy. However, it's hot and I've been sleeping with only a sheet [underneath mosquito netting].
This probably won't get home for Xmas so I'll wish you a Happy New Year. I'll try and write more, soon.
21 December 1966
When I was in the PI, I spent most of my time about ¼ mile out the gate at a place called the "Crossroads." It consisted of about a dozen bars. Most of the girls lived about another ¼ mile down the road in shacks at a town called San Antonio.
I also visited a rip-roaring town at the Navy port of Subic Bay. This town has a street about 1 mile long. It's nothing but bars, two stories, interspersed with hotels. It's really wild. Nothing to see a girl stripping while she's dancing or another dropping her drawers for a table of sailors. Sure wish I was back there now. If I remember I'll enclose a picture of me and some buddies in Olongapo (town).
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There are 3 other AG's here. AG1 Brown whom I knew at Suitland and AG2 Wyatt whom I've known from many places. Both good men. There is a 3rd class Kotowski who is a newcomer to the group [Naval Security Group].
During the daytime, Vietnamese work on the base. There are girls to look at in the club, chow hall and trinket shop. [Owned by Indians, the kind that have dots in the middle of the forehead and eat curry.] Some of the guys speak the [Vietnamese] language and will try to teach me some phrases. It seems weird that we're here to help the ZIPS (Vietnamese) yet when they come aboard to cut grass, or any other work detail, we place an armed guard with them for escort. It's for security but it doesn't look good. [The U.S. Army MPs searched all Vietnamese, men and women, before they entered or exited the compound. Explosive charges were discovered under the Army trailers soon after Fehr arrived. Another Vietnamese had concealed drawings of a portion of the compound with paced off distances inscribed on the inside of an empty soft drink carton being carted off post. Steve always had a funny feeling sitting in the barber chair getting a shave with a Vietnamese wielding a razor against his exposed neck.]
The base here is about 4x10 football fields. It has a minefield and barbed wire fences ringing it. There are numerous blockhouses and bunkers on the perimeter and we have a hell of a lot of firepower. Many machine guns and claymore mines man the trenches inside the perimeter. Plus air power is 7 minutes away at Danang and the surrounding area is thick with marines and army. By the way, this is an Army post and is predominantly Army. Guess it's about time to hang up.