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David Mitchell
Thanks Joe (and Mark and Mike),
Here's another quirky one.
HOOCH MATES – Not Like It Sounds
All our pilots - Officers and Warrant Officers - lived together in small plywood cottages we called “Hooches”. That was a slang word for the small thatched-roof Vietnamese homes all over the rural countryside. Our hooches were about twenty feet by forty feet with corrugated aluminum roofs and a screen door at either end of the building. They were our full-time home. We slept in divided 8-foot by 8-foot cubicles – about eight to a hooch, on bunks with real mattresses and pillows. (This, in contrast to the two-story “Enlisted” barracks with large open floor dormitory style bedding – and cots with those crummy, soft, half-mattresses).
Our cubicles had divided walls but no doors. It was sort of semi-private. We also had one larger space where they left out one of the dividing walls. We called it our “Club Room”, and we could all gather in there on a bench and two odd chairs. Each of the three platoons (Slicks, Guns, or Loaches slept together but the Guns and Slicks also shared one more extra hooch as they were mostly 12-man platoons compared to our 8-man “Scout” platoon. And finally, our CO and XO shared a separate and more spacious private hooch. This arrangement allowed our single “Scout” platoon to be a separate and much more tight-knit group.
The airfield allowed groups of local Vietnamese to come on the post during the day to perform certain menial tasks. One of the largest of those groups were dozens of “Hooch mates” – the nickname for our housekeepers. These women lived in the (next door) city of Vinh Long and came in through the security gate each day to help us keep house. They did basic chores like sweeping out the floors, polishing our boots, and dumping out some light trash. I seem to recall they also took our bedding and uniforms to a laundry somewhere on the post. The large bulk of them were older women, dressed in rags with ugly (or missing) teeth. But our Scout platoon “hooch mate” was quite a bit younger and very cute. She was also very sweet. If I recall correctly, her name was Tranh Ti Cum Hoa. (“tron tee coom whaa”) We all liked her and treated her very well. We also sort of watched over her because we were conscious of her cute looks and the number of guys who would be around during the day who were not flying. Since we usually had several of us not flying each day, it was sort of an unwritten rule that we “baby sat” Tranh while she was on the property. I think she knew this and appreciated it.
But one day, we were shocked to find her missing!
We were able to determine that she had been arrested and taken to jail by the MPs to the local civilian Police station in downtown Vinh Long. If I recall correctly, we learned this from the very guy who had her arrested. He was a (non-pilot) Captain who worked a desk job in our Admin. department at Squadron Headquarters - down at the other end of the airfield. He volunteered that it was his doing because she had stolen his Rolex watch out of his cubicle in the hooch just behind ours. He claimed one of the older hooch mates (her name was Bong – and we were not fond of her) had caught her in the act and he got the MPs to take Tranh into custody.
We were furious!
About three of us were able to get one of our two Company jeeps and drove into downtown Vinh Long. After some heated “discussion” at the police station, we were able to bail her out and bring her back on the Post. Then we went back after the guy who had her arrested and made sure he realized his life would never be so comfortable again. After that day we made every attempt to make his life miserable. (And I still think Bong took the watch herself.)
Tranh and I visiting by our Hooch back door. She is polishing some boots.
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It so happened that this Captain was a regular at poker. Pay-day poker games were quite serious, and some large sums changed hands in those games that lasted into the night. I tried to sit in twice and had to get out quickly after losing sums that embarrassed me. I learned that this same Captain was accused of cheating one night and a confrontation occurred. As he was clearing the pot from the table with his hands, a nasty argument erupted. While they yelled at one another, one of them slipped out of the cubicle and went into to his own nearby cubicle to grab his .38 caliber revolver. As the yelling continued, he walked back in and reached across the table holding the pistol right up in the guy’s face. The Captain let go of the pile of chips. I believe that was the last time anyone would allow him to sit in on their poker games.
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Forty-five years later, at a reunion I organized here at a hotel on Hilton Head, I heard another story about that same Captain. He was an “Admin” guy, with a desk job - that included typing the narrative write-ups for all awards and decorations for all three Troops in our Squadron. He was not a pilot and never flew a single combat mission, yet he apparently went home as the single most decorated officer in our squadron.
Hmmm?
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