Returning to the Rex, lost in a city that has changed dramatically

Michael Moriarty
Posted 1/20/15

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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Returning to the Rex, lost in a city that has changed dramatically

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 third installment in his report.

During the Vietnam War, the Rex Hotel was well known in the U.S. as the place where the American military command gave their daily briefing, then known as the “Five O’Clock Follies.” The rooftop bar was also a regular hangout for American officials and journalists during the war.

Gus and I got lost that night on the way back to our hotel, and we had to retrace our steps for what seemed like several hundred blocks before we go back to the Rex and got our bearings. Saigon is not laid out in a grid.

The next day, March 21, Mike had arranged for a car and driver, and we set out for Tay Ninh Province. We passed by the “Black Lady Mountain,” which was the scene of much fighting during the Vietnam War. The Ho Chi Minh trail ended a few miles away in Cambodia, and as such this area was vital to both sides. Now it was such a peaceful place that if one did not know the history of this area, one would never believe such hostilities happened there for so many decades. There was also heavy fighting here between the French and the Viet Minh.

Our first stop in Tay Ninh was the Great Temple of the Cao Dai. I was unaware of this religion. While touring this site, I thought that we Americans have a very limited understanding of geography, other peoples’ cultures and especially their religions and traditions.

Ironically, our leaders and TV commentators constantly speak of the global business society, and yet our schools teach so very little American history, never mind foreign history.

After touring the temple, Mike had scheduled lunch in a bistro, which turned out to be an eatery on a makeshift patio in the back of a private home. There were chickens running around the yard and a few docile dogs, which ate anything that dropped or we gave them. We were unsure what we ate, but Vietnamese food is very good and usually light, and had our fill. There are very few overweight people in Vietnam.

From there we went to the Chu Chi tunnels, also located in Tay Ninh Province. These tunnels were originally constructed in the 1940s to fight against the French and were greatly expanded in the 1960s to wage war against the Americans. They were an operations center for the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army during the Tet Offensive of 1968. The tunnels are now a tourist attraction and part of the Vietnam War memorial park. The admission costs about $3.50. Our driver was also our tour guide, and we also followed close behind one of the park guides who had worked for the U.S. Navy during the Vietnam War. He had long hair, was dressed in all-black, Western-style 1960s clothing and was very versed in American slang. Because he had worked for the Americans, he had been sent to a re-education center for a few years after the war ended. The re-education centers were extremely unpleasant.

Our driver was an ardent nationalist and did drop some cynical remarks about the U.S. involvement in Vietnam, but all in all he and the overwhelming majority of people were very friendly and open. Of course, most of the people we interacted with were in the 20s and 30s, educated, upwardly mobile and two generations removed from the war. Most surprising were people my age, as they all went out of their way to thank me for coming back to Vietnam when they heard I was there in 1969. Gus and I included our driver in our picture taken with a bust of Ho Chi Minh at the Chu Chi tunnel park. He was thrilled that we included him in the pictures.

We then headed back to Ho Chi Minh City for an evening out with Mike and his then-fiancée, now-wife Lan’s children. They wanted to eat at an Italian restaurant, and we had a relaxing and enjoyable evening. The Italian food was OK, but much below the standards we have here in Rhode Island. After saying our goodbyes, Gus and I went for ice cream and navigated easily back to the hotel.

March 22, we checked out of the hotel and headed to the airport for a plane trip to Dalat, located in the southern Central Highlands. We flew on an Airbus A-321, which is similar to the Boeing 737 flown by a number of U.S. airline companies. There, however, the similarity ends, for Vietnam Airlines plane are extremely clean and the seats are larger and passengers have more legroom. It was upsetting to experience these travel advantages that we are led to believe do not exist elsewhere in the world. The hoax just seemed to keep going on and on. Next: From the “Alps” to the heat of Nha Trang.

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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  • ConcernedResident

    That was a great read! Very interesting.

    Wednesday, January 21, 2015 Report this