An enchanting country where the war is a haunting shadow of the past

Michael Moriarty
Posted 1/22/15

Editor’s note: For 12 days in March of 2013, Michael Moriarty – who served with the U.S. Air Force in Vietnam – returned to the country with Gus Marsella to visit Michael Cull, a wartime buddy …

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An enchanting country where the war is a haunting shadow of the past

Posted

Editor’s note: For 12 days in March of 2013, Michael Moriarty – who served with the U.S. Air Force in Vietnam – returned to the country with Gus Marsella to visit Michael Cull, a wartime buddy who now lives and works there. We asked Mike to share his experiences and thoughts from the journey. This is the fourth in his series of reports.

Dalat was one place that I asked Mike to include into our trip itinerary. I had flown over Dalat many time in 1969, and always marveled how a city in Vietnam could look so enchanting from the air with a war going on all around it.

The city was laid out in a grid, and I had also wondered why that was the case. The only information I had on it in 1969 was that it had been a French resort during the time when Vietnam was known as French Indochina. Also, other than the Tet Offense of 1968, there was very little fighting in the area. There seemed to be tacit agreements in some places like Dalat and Nha Trang, and very little fighting took place in those locales during the war.

The city of Dalat is located in the lower southern part of the Central Highlands and has an elevation of about 5,000 feet. The French built grand boulevards and villas and the area has a French/Swiss Alps/Vietnam flavor. There is a lake in its center, and pine trees dot the whole area.

We had a pleasant stay in Dalat. Besides touring the central marketplace, taking some pictures and going for a morning walk down by the lake, we also toured the Bao Dai summer retreat palace. Bao Dai was the final emperor of the Nguyen Dynasty, and apparently it was he who renamed what was then Annam, a French protectorate in the central highlands, to Vietnam. The area looked like northern New England, and the cool temperatures made it more so.

Mike rented a car and driver on March 23, he took us from Dalat over to Nha Trang, a distance of about 65 air miles, but double that with the twists and turns going down the mountains to the coast. Also, the elevation in Dalat is 6,400 feet, and so down at sea level in Nha Trang the temperatures rose from about 65 degrees Fahrenheit (19C) degrees to 95 degrees Fahrenheit (35C).

It was a beautiful and fascinating ride through the mountains, with stops at a tourist water park and scenic overlooks. We arrived in Nha Trang in the mid-afternoon.

Mike operates a language school in Nha Trang, and after Gus and I registered into our hotel, the Novotel, he left to take care of some personal and business matters. He indicated that he would be back shortly and we would take a quick tour of the local area. So Gus and I, with our two carry-on bags, got into an elevator with a couple of Russian tourists, who did not respond to our “hellos” but also did not act hostile – a far cry from Gus’ earlier encounter in Saigon.

The Novotel is a four-plus star, beachfront, multi-story hotel. Our room on the sixth floor had a balcony, which overlooked Tran Phu Street, a four-lane divided avenue that ran parallel to the ocean. My first view from that balcony was that of someone a couple of hundred feet above the bay parasailing behind a cigarette-style speedboat.

My Nha Trang of 1969 had a few modest hotels, and the beach had no facilities other than local venders who sold wares and sodas from pushcarts and food cooked on makeshift grills lining the beach, mostly to us GIs. The only buildings on the beach were cinderblock shacks, and some areas had bushes and palm trees.

Across the bay was Hon Tre Island, a desolate landmass, which to my knowledge had no civilian population – and at one time was a prison – but did garrison several isolated U.S. military elements, including a U.S. Air Force radar air traffic control detachment, a U.S. Army signal unit and a training detachment from the 5th Special Forces.

Hon Tre, a dreadful place with no running water, was supplied daily by U.S. Army Landing Craft Utility (LCU) type boats. Other than the U.S. military personnel, the island was assumed to be hostile territory.

Hon Tre today has a six-star Vinpearl luxury resort, an 18-hole golf course and several fishing villages. One travels to the island by speedboat or by cable car across the bay. Vinpearl was developed by Pham Nhat Vuong, Vietnam’s first billionaire, who was born in Hanoi in 1968.

I wondered if Pham Nhat Vuong was a capitalist or a communist, as this resort was a private venture and not government owned. It appeared Vietnam was a market economy. Businesses were privately owned, and although the government was a communist system, it was operating in a capitalist manner. Apparently, the hoax was continuing, as my memories of this place were far removed from what was before my eyes and what we Americans were fighting to stop from happening in the 1960s and 1970s.

That evening, Mike returned and took us to one of the discos on the beach. While walking over across Tran Phu Street, Mike and Gus were in front of me, and I harkened back to the time I walked this same area with Ken Weber, one of my best friends and among the finest human beings to ever grace this earth.

Ken was a navigator, a graduate of the Air Force Academy who earned a master’s degree from USC. He was an intelligent, straight-laced, by-the-book military officer, and I was a pilot more than a year removed from Providence College, part-time work at the old Almacs grocery store and playing pool at the old VFW McKenna McAllister Post on Plainfield Street in Providence. Now, he and I roomed together, flew together and hung out together during our tours in Vietnam, and we certainly lived up to others calling us the odd couple.

Ken and I were both subsequently assigned to McGuire Air Force Base after completing our Vietnam tours, and we remained very close friends thereafter. He and I had spoken often of both of returning to Vietnam some day, but sadly, Ken died on Dec. 18, 2002.

While walking to the disco, I started to have an internal dialogue with Ken. I asked him what the hell our political leaders were thinking when they committed our country to save the Vietnamese from the Vietnamese. We lost so many men and women in that war, over 2.4 million people killed all told, with more than 58,000 American military lost and over 303,000 wounded. The U.S. spent over $140 billion – about $1 trillion in today’s dollars – and the war had far-reaching effects on the American and Vietnamese societies.

Yet walking across that street in Nha Trang in March 2013, it was apparent that Vietnam in the end is much better off today than when we, the U.S., left in 1975. There was a vibrant feel to the surroundings, and I was left to ponder just what it was. My answer came several days later.

That night, the discos were jammed with young Vietnamese and a whole lot of young Russians, New Zealanders and Australian tourists. The only old people were us Americans. We stayed and had a drink, and then returned to the hotel. Next: In his final installment Michael Moriarty returns to the “hostile island” and is thanked for returning to Vietnam.

Michael Moriarty, a native of Warwick, graduated from Providence College in 1967 and went into the U.S. Air Force. He completed Officers Candidate School in September 1967 and Undergraduate Pilot Training at Laughlin Air Force Base in Del Rio, Texas, in November 1968, and was assigned to EC-47s in Vietnam. During his career, he flew approximately 140 combat missions, receiving several awards including the Distinguished Flying Cross and Air Medals. He also served as an air traffic controller and air weapons director with the Air Force. He retired from the Air Force and Rhode Island Air National Guard, where he was on active-duty status, in December 1989. He has also served as the NCIC specialist for the Warwick Police Department, and as a volunteer with the Disabled American Veterans, previously as the commander of the Rhode Island chapter and presently as its treasurer.

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