Rest & Recreation
A couple of days after we returned to LZ Hawk, Lt. Dito asked me if I would like to go on R&R in the Philippines. The person who was originally slotted for it was unable to go (I’d medivac’d him), so why not just fill the position with me. It gave the Lt. a chance to get rid of me — at least for a short time.
I’m not sure if anyone had a preference for where they wanted to go. I certainly didn’t, but there were some very exotic options: Bangkok, Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur, Manila, Tokyo, and even Australia. Hawaii was reserved for the married personnel. I guess they thought that if any unmarried enlisted got that close to the mainland, it might be a bit difficult to get back us to the shithole.
I almost couldn’t believe what he was offering me. Wait, what did you say?? Of course, what time does my helicopter get here? How does one do this? Wow, beer!! A bed!! Real food!! A real shower, not just rainfall!! No bad guys shooting at you? No jungle rot?? Oh my!!!!! I’m not dressed for this. I will need a new ensemble. All I have are my jungle boots.
The next morning, I was on the resupply helicopter. After a quick stop at Khe San, I was off to the battalion rear headquarters in Quang Tri where I checked in with the Company Office. There they cut my orders for this whole new adventure. I was also taken to the Disbursing Office to collect money for what I imagined to be my posh new (five-day) lifestyle.
You see, while you’re in the bush, you don’t draw a paycheck since there’s no place to cash it. Depending on where you were at the time, the Company 1st Sergeant would come out and pay you in Military Script. There was a limit to how much you could draw. ATM’s didn’t exist at the time — and certainly not in the jungle. Between gambling, black market goods, and drugs, the government did their best to curb illegal activity by ensuring you didn’t have much to play with. Most of the time this stuff happened at the bases, supply depots, and other areas not subject to combat or basic survival on a daily basis. There was only so much thievery you could do out in the bush (none). In any case, the priority out there was to stay alive.
I usually took about $10 in Military Payment Certificates (MP) for cigarettes, or whatever else I needed to survive beyond what we were given. I don’t remember getting paid after we went up north to the Khe Sanh area, so all of our pay due was left on the “Books” until we showed up in person to withdraw it. Unless of course we died, in which case the money was supposed to be sent to our families.
Well, there I was, still a young kid with no one advising me on practical or responsible life decisions, so I decided to take $500 for the five-day adventure (equivalent to roughly $3,300 today).
If anything was left over, so be it. I’d just bring it back, right? I obtained a Marine Corps summer khaki uniform with the medical rank/insignia on it, and a pair of military issue shoes, along with a shaving kit and toothbrush, and then I was off.
I took a crowded C-131 south to Danang airfield and then a four-engine US Air Force propeller plane (with real seats) to Manila, the capital of the Philippines. Everyone on the flight was from a different branch of the military: Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force. As soon as we landed, we were bused to the R&R Center for our briefing on how to behave and the consequences of not behaving.
I think I stayed awake for most of the briefing, but thoughts of beer and real food were coursing through my brain, not to mention thoughts of young women. My first trip abroad and away from adult supervision, faced with all the joys and sins in front of me, I was not exactly listening to the lecture at that moment. Kid. Candy Store. You get it. Right? We were given a list of authorized hotels that catered to the R&R crowd and would tolerate a certain amount of trouble, and would call the Military Police (MP) before the local authorities. As far as the local authorities went, if we hurt (slap or slug) any local person or damaged any establishment, we were expected to pay for any damages plus a little above that to soothe any sore feelings. Today it may be considered a bribe, but back then we called it the price of freedom.
We were also told to not end up in jail. It was expensive to get out, and it would land us on the first plane back to the shithole. If anyone were to press charges, you wouldn’t be allowed to leave the country. Usually the US Government would pay off the offended party and take it out of your paycheck. Basically, as long as you didn’t kill anyone or beat up anyone badly you could pretty much get away with anything.
We were also warned not to pick up a girl from the street. They were on the street because they couldn’t get a health card, which meant they either had a sexually transmitted disease, or were on drugs, or weren’t really girls but looked like one. In any case, street girls were a big no-no. Trust me when I say not many people took that advice to heart like I did and at no time during this orientation were any kind of prophylactics distributed, so it all came down to a game of chance. And if luck wasn’t on your side, you were told to head immediately to the R&R Center where they’d fix you up with a shot.
Somehow I teamed up with an Army engineer, who came down with the clap by the fourth day, and a Marine from the 7th Marines. We agreed to split the services of a driver/tour guide for our stay. These guides were all blessed by the R&R center by virtue of the fact no one complained of being ripped off by them. Don’t remember the cost, as I didn’t care about the price of anything. In my mind, with $500 — more than I’d ever had in my short lifetime — I was rich! We, and what little we had with us were loaded into the car and off to the Hotel Filipinas we went.
I checked in at the front desk and requested a deposit box to place four one hundred dollar bills for safekeeping. I was planning to pace myself so I took a $100 dollar bill a day. I exchanged the first $100 bill into local currency (pesos) since we had to pay for our rooms for the full five days up front, which was fine with me as it was one less item to have to think about. This trip was not for thinking or worrying. I stopped by the hotel’s shop to buy a shirt and slacks to compliment my black military issue shoes.
The room was more than adequate considering my standards weren’t very high to begin with. A full-sized bed, a shower, toilet. (Christ, the things you forget about when you’re in the bush — otherwise you’d become depressed). I took the longest shower with hot water streaming from a showerhead. There was shampoo, soap, soft towels, ooh. It had been so long I couldn’t remember the last time I showered like that.
Damn that bed looks good. Wait a minute . . . . A knock on the door? Who could that be?I didn’t order anything. O.K., don’t be an ugly American, open the door. Hmm, a really good-looking girl is standing there. By the looks of her dress she was a hotel employee. “Hi, I am here to give you a complimentary massage. The hotel just wishes you a nice stay.” Okey Dokey, my 19-year-old brain says. And off on Mr. Toad’s wild ride I went. My trip to the non-adolescent version of Disneyland has begun!
One more shower and down to the hotel’s restaurant I ventured. I ordered a rare T-bone steak with French fries and a beer. What beer? Hmm, not sure I really cared, but I thought I’d give the local beer called San Miguel a try. My very first one, and I was hooked. I loved the flavor, the balance, and the bouquet. To this day, it is my go to beer — in its Filipino form, not the Spanish version, which isn’t the same. After this repast, my two newfound buddies joined me, and we were picked up by our driver to test the waters of Manila’s nightlife. These restaurants, bars, and clubs weren’t in the nicest part of town. Flashing neon signs promising everything we could possibly want lined the streets. And if you weren’t interested in any of that, you could lose your money at the many cockfights around the city.
We stopped at a quiet place where the driver gave us all the information we needed for the X-rated portion of our time there. “DON’T FALL IN LOVE,” he cautioned us. “Everyone wants your money and will separate you from it in so many ways. This is a business for them and you are the target. Just point out the girl you want and let them negotiate. The girls will be lined up along the wall and as long as you stay inside the bar, it only costs you a drink for their company and dancing, but if you wish to take her out of the bar there is a bar fine to be paid. Anything beyond that is between you and the girl.”
At Bill Bailey’s and several other places that I don’t remember the names of, I fell in love at each one, dancing and drinking the night away. With the witching hour rapidly approaching, I was told that if I wished to sleep alone tonight so be it, but if I wanted company for the night and into the morning I needed to “make a selection”. Mary Lou said to me, “Sure, I think you’re cute”. I responded, “Sure, I think you’re cute also.” Sober, the following morning, neither one of us was as cute to each other as we were at two in the morning. I paid up, and she was off to where ever she went during the day. And I slept like a baby for a couple of hours.
Day two, we all met down in the restaurant for a quick breakfast of eggs, toast, and San Miguel and then met up with the driver. We let him decide what touristy thing we were going to do since none of us could choose. Whatever it was, would only be a prelude to the night’s festivities anyway. So we visited a Cathedral or two as well as some old Spanish-style haciendas. All the while I drank all the San Miguel I could get my hands on. We bought ourselves Barongs, the traditional Filipino shirts, along with the Barong Tagalog, the formal attire for the very hot and humid climate. Then it was back to the hotel for a shower and nap before heading off to the City lights once again.
This nightlife was all new to me. Even though I’d been to New York and Chicago, something about this bustling Asian capital and all its foreignness filled with familiar black, brown, and white faces felt easy. I just went with the flow, not letting the big head do any of the thinking. I didn’t think about where these girls came from or why they were there. I wasn’t considering the colonial history of the country or the poverty that drove many of them to sell their bodies night after night. That realization would come later when I was stationed at Subic Bay.
The sum total of my thinking was done by the dumbest part of the human male. All of the basest needs were being met. I ate pretty much whatever was put in front of me, I drank an abundance of San Miguel, and I danced with pretty girls made up and dressed up to look like movie stars or the girl next-door — any fantasy a 19 year-old dumb ass who just fell off the turnip truck could imagine. I paid for this fantastic ride, and I didn’t care a whit about the price.
You need a new dress? How much you need? Here take whatever you need, just come back happy to see me in the new dress. She probably went home, changed into another dress, and pocketed it all.
Soon my young ass would be hauled back to the shithole I had come from, and I didn’t think that my luck would hold out forever. If I was going to die, I would die with this adventure as my legacy to myself. This was not something that I wrote home about.
Day three we all decided to see the Island of Corregidor, famous for the World War II siege by the Japanese. That was an incredible moment. After having been through what I had been through, seeing this made me really appreciate what the men and women who served there experienced. The skeletons of the bombed out buildings, the tunnels, the gun positions, the ghosts that still walked that island in the mouth of the harbor. I really felt small and insignificant there. Those people were real heroes. My Uncle Jim fought in the Philippines during McArthur’s infamous comeback. He was a machine gunner in the Army and was wounded, but came back alive.
Afterwards, we headed back to the city. There was more San Miguel to be had and another night of dancing, eating, and other hedonistic reverie. This went on until the end of time; or to be more precise, time to go back to the shithole from whence I came.
