Finding Pete: Rediscovering the Brother I Lost in Vietnam

by Jill Hunting

  Shortly before Pete left the United States, South Vietnamese troops had killed nine Buddhist demonstrators in the university city of Hue who were protesting the Diem regime. What were called the “Buddhist incidents” had been reported in American newspapers, and Margo Bradley, whom Pete had dated and would correspond with for the duration of his time in Vietnam, had evidently asked about them in a letter. The incidents had been terrible, he told her, but newspapers in the States exaggerated the situation. Few Americans, or at least few reporters, went that far north, he said, because there were not enough air-conditioned bars and swimming pools for them.1

  As the IVSers were preparing to head out to the provinces, new Vietnamese friends gave a party for them. Dancing with torches, the men dramatized Vietnam’s long history of wars for independence, and the women performed a line dance depicting the planting and harvesting of rice. A group of women gave Pete a lacquered cigarette box as a going-away gift. “I can never understand how I am always getting involved — innocently, yet — with so many girls,” he wondered in his journal.

  The team members spent several days in Saigon, staying at the IVS house. The “IVS Handbook” warned newcomers not to let cab drivers take advantage of them. “Most of the drivers will try to overcharge you,” it stated. An inexperienced volunteer could easily pay double the going rate. “If the driver thinks you are fresh in the country he may ask for 150 [piasters] instead of 15 coming in from the airport. Be careful!”2

  Young men could also be taken in by Saigon’s working women. Pete went barhopping with teammate Bill Laakonen two nights in a row. “Those bar girls have been waiting for just the right guy to come along,” he wrote. “[They] look into your eyes with true love. You’re number one all over town.” The women flirted, rubbing the hair on Pete’s arms and asking him to sleep with them. “The thing is, [talking with bar girls] is an excellent opportunity to practice your Vietnamese,” he told Sue. That was why he went to bars. For the language practice.

  In mid-August Pete flew to the coastal resort of Nha Trang, the closest city to Phan Rang with an airport, and met the U.S. Operations Mission man for the province where he would be working. When he wasn’t required to follow the chief-of-party, Don Luce, around “at the drop of the hat,” Pete went to the beach — a long, white-sand crescent he described as “South Pacific all over again. The fishing sailboats are anchored twenty-five yards offshore with their painted eyes pointing to sea, warding off the sea monsters.” He discovered a little French place named François’ that made one think one was in Marseilles. The place was legendary for its local lobster and for entertaining both American and South Vietnamese clientele, including, late at night, Vietcong.3

  The “ag” teammate with whom Pete would share a house was Chuck Fields, a Tennessee native whose specialties were chickens and pigs, and their attendant parasites. Chuck joined Pete and Don Luce in Nha Trang. The three of them tried to get through to a hamlet but were stopped by military police, who were out in force and blocking the roads. A Buddhist nun had immolated herself the day before, and Pete and his companions witnessed the police spraying orderly demonstrators with water and tear gas. The three IVSers left by a side road and headed south for Phan Rang.

  It was his first view of rugged Ninh Thuan Province, which would be home for the next two years. “Beautiful country,” he wrote. “Flat, but with mountains on the plain. Barren almost. Ocean close. Old temples.” It reminded him of photographs he had seen of the Oklahoma Badlands. Ancient temples of the Cham people who had settled here hundreds of years ago were perched atop steep, rocky mountains. On the plain, hamlets baked in the sun, and charcoal farmers, whose grubby livelihood consisted of burning wood to produce cooking fuel, squatted outside their thatched huts. Pete liked it better here than down in the delta, where “everything [was] water, rice, people, and banana trees.”

  The next day they visited John Witmer and Larry Laverentz in Qui Nhon. They went on a picnic with seventeen children, all crammed into a single vehicle. Larry told a story about another IVS volunteer, Bob Dubyne, who was living in a province where conditions were such that he had to padlock his outhouse to keep the neighbors from using it.

  With the others, Pete sorted corn for pigs and visited a leper colony.4 Another day they drove to Dalat, which Pete described as “the Allegheny wonderland of Vietnam.” The road up into the mountains was paved but only three or four yards wide, and “curvy and twisty, with rock on one side and space on the other. . . . Exciting driving, since you’re always in suspense, not knowing when some madman of a bus driver will come plummeting down at you.” Children standing in front of grass huts called out, “Ong my!” — “Mr. American!” — as they passed.

  Pete was starting to think about McDonald’s hamburgers. Before leaving home, he thought he knew the difference between comfort and “the fundamentals of living, but man — when you get here, you really get a subjective feeling for the extent of luxury as you knew it in the U.S.” And yet he wasn’t uncomfortable

  in Vietnam. If people back home assumed living conditions were primitive or dangerous, they were neither, he said. In fact, he was enjoying himself,

  riding along in the jeep perched atop the spare tire mounted on the tailgate. I like to ride back there for the breeze. . . . Well, I was sitting there, bounding along, singing a song to myself and thinking how rich a tremolo one could put into one’s song while riding a jeep over these bumpy roads.

  If he sounded a bit like Edward Bear in Winnie-the-Pooh, it was because the book was one of Pete’s favorites. His other two favorite books, as he stated on his IVS application, were India: The Most Dangerous Decade, by Selig S. Harrison, and Syntactic Structures, by the linguist Noam Chomsky.

  After two months in country, Pete was settling in at Phan Rang. IVS required all volunteers to submit reports about their projects. The write-ups formed the basis of newsletters mailed to supporters and family members. Although Pete wrote mostly private letters, volunteers were given the option of writing a newsletter that the IVS headquarters, in Washington, would send to a list of relatives and friends. The newsletters kept people back home informed and probably helped stave off homesickness. Larry Laverentz recalled two pieces of advice given to new volunteers about writing their newsletters: keep them short, and don’t write about diarrhea.

  Pete wrote his first newsletter on September 3, 1963:

  For the last couple of weeks I’ve been tooling around the country on various business; now the body finds itself deposited on home base, at least for a couple of days. My stationmate and I went up to observe some pigs . . . (pause for dramatic effect) . . . that have been brought to the country, compliments of your taxes — an improved variety.

  Chuck’s a very competent animal husbandry technician, and is about to start a pig project in our region. Not being anything of an authority on pigs, I didn’t know what to look for, but noticed some differences in pigment and that’s about all. Nevertheless, I must admit catching a whiff of enthusiasm for the organization’s work in the field, even while trying to maintain a detached air. . . .

  As some might already know, I’m assigned to the Strategic Hamlet education program. There are seven of us boys scattered around Vietnam, having just completed a month of intensive language training. In addition to the seven of us, there is the regular corps of USAID Rural Affairs men; we’re an on-the-spot supplement, so to speak.

  As our job is described on paper, we go into the hamlets, discuss teaching methods with the hamlet teachers who have the equivalent of a normal-school training. We provide films and other materials needed by the teachers, through IVS contact with the United States Operations mission (USOM). USOM is the field organization of USAID. We assist in hamlet self-help programs by providing materials and pointers if needed, if possible. Most important, we make friends and try to gain the confidence of these people in order to better assist them in approaching their problems in a more scientific manner. It has been said that one might think “organizati
onal ability” was a trait of Americans. In this respect, we’re trying to work ourselves out of our jobs, and succeed. There are already a number of former IVS agricultural stations which are now completely operated by Vietnamese technicians.

  . . . One notices that in some areas the Vietnamese have put their low-watt street lights high up in the air, thinking this will provide light to a greater area. However, one dimly recalls some theory of physics learned in the 12th grade that says light waves decrease in strength equal to the distance squared. As we’ve always known, the light directly under a street lamp is always stronger, and as you walk away, the light becomes increasingly dim. The light 10 feet away from a bulb is only ¼ as strong as the light 5 feet away; and there’s a point when the light is no help at all, although there is light, technically speaking. Well, in some places they’ll put the light so high off the ground that the only illuminated spot is a circle of light 10 feet in diameter directly under the bulb — all else will be shadow, with the next lamppost 40 feet down the street.

  In such a case, one would point out such and such was the theory, and demonstrate its truth, which is sometimes rather difficult even with simple theories. In the case of street lamps, though (1) probably the government couldn’t afford to change its posts to a shorter variety, and (2) one wouldn’t have time to either gain the confidence of the administrator in charge, or demonstrate the truth of the theory. And over here, confidence and friendship are as important in the process of persuasion as technical know-how. In summary, we’ll be doing everything from that which is described on paper to drilling wells, to pouring cement, to planting coconut trees, to distributing roosters.

  . . . The only drawback is your exuberance — you have to learn to slow down and do things at their pace. Consequently, one is liable to have a lot of spare time between projects.

  Right now, while I’m waiting for the formalities of my assignment to get sorted out, I use my spare time for reading some books I never got a chance to read in school. . . .

  I’ve also drawn a plan for a homemade air-cooler. The kind with the vented box and water dripping down. I’m going to freeze up my bedroom when we move into the new station house next week.

  After the air cooler, I’m going to build a light plane — note air of confidence — if the Chief of Province lets me. I’ll fly over this lovely terrain and buzz fishing boats. . . . I will have left my mark on Vietnam, although I’m hoping for bigger things. I can hardly wait to finish it. I built a few model airplanes and know a little about aerodynamics; enough to get myself killed, you’ll say . . . ha. I can do it if all these skeptics don’t embarrass me to death first. . . .

  Speaking of these skeptical people in this vein, you should have been with me the other day: I went down to the local Vietnamese lumberyard, my interpreter close behind. I’d filled him in on number one project, i.e., the plane, and he was well indoctrinated. He’s a good bit older than myself, but didn’t say anything, being a fatalistic chap, I think. Well, we got there, and the owner became a little mystified and irked when I started looking at this one particular piece of wood. (I was thinking of whittling a propeller . . . you laugh, perhaps.) He was wondering about my being so critical of this one cotton-picking board, and envisioning one whole day being taken up, bickering with some recently weaned youth of America over the quality of his boards; but he didn’t say anything — just watched.

  “What’s he going to build?” he asked interpreter Kim, in Vietnamese, with much consternation. “An airplane,” explained Kim, without so much as a flutter of eyelid, dead serious. Because Kim is quite a bit older than myself, and therefore expected to know and judge things with great wisdom a la Confucius, the owner would have been relieved had Kim communicated some fatherly indulgence, or perhaps scorn. But no, he gave it to him straight; deadpan; poker face; with great gravity, as though some lad of a youth could be expected to accomplish such a thing. . . .

  P.S. You all are probably wondering about what the security’s like and all the other exciting things you read in papers, stateside. Well, I haven’t been shot, yet. In this province, the Province Chief has everything well under control — it’s the most secure province in the country. And whenever we do any traveling, we ask the local U.S. Military Advisers, and they clear their throats and say, “Yes, we have everything well under control — it’s the most secure province in the country, you know.”

  The other day we were coming back from Dalat, myself driving, when a man appeared from the side of the road and motioned us to stop. I downshifted, but was ready for anything, not knowing the guy. As we pulled even with him, a second chap leaps from behind the bush with a submachine gun in his hands. I applied my foot to the top of the carburetor, sank down behind the dashboard out of sight, and took evasive action. . . . Something inside the body was searing, white hot — now I know where my fear gland is located. We found out later that the two chaps were only civil guardsmen out on patrol. No sweat.

  Pete was eager to get to work — too eager. Four days after he arrived in Phan Rang, he introduced himself to the top education official in Ninh Thuan Province. They hit it off immediately, but things didn’t go as well the next day when he met the chief of the province. The Vietnamese authorities had not been alerted to Pete’s arrival. The province chief was angry. He claimed he “did not know what kind of agents were in his province,” Pete said.

  To make matters worse, the Military Assistance Advisory Group adviser, one Major Cook, had not received a letter of introduction either. He delivered a withering lecture that Pete described in a letter to John Sommer:

  The Prov. Chief and MAAG’s Major Cook were in an uproar, balls-wise. Flame and smoke all that day! I left for Saigon two days later in an angry sweat, for the purpose of getting my protocol straight.

  It seems that a major figure in Vietnamese education channels, connected with our work, was arrested; and on top of that, USOM fucked up by not sending out letters. Consequently I am shifting my ass from chair to chair, alternating study of Vietnamese with Steinbeck and perhaps masturbation. Thap Cham doesn’t have much else to offer. Next week we move into Phan Rang proper. . . . Every once in a while I go into the MAAG compound for excitement, to get my ass scorched by some new, novel, and imaginatively conceived method. . . .

  The latest angle the major has thought up is that I will be duplicating everything “they” have done. I was impudent enough to ask (1) whether “they” meant the Army or perhaps the Special Forces, and (2) what this work was that I’d be duplicating. He fumed that I’d be duplicating the work that HE, as a private citizen and major of the U.S. Army (thumping of chest) had been doing for the last eight months; as though he had a monopoly on good deeds, Boy Scout behavior patterns, and dollhouse activity. . . .

  You dared get associated with Buddhist monks? Christ! You know, that’s what’s feeding this CIA neurosis they’ve contracted of late. Besides needing a scapegoat. . . .

  Aside from the occasional bouts with officialdom and sitting around, I also accompanied my stationmate, Chuck Fields, up to Qui Nhon, and sat on my ass there, too. We went up to observe pigs. I think perhaps there ought to be a better word for this sort of thing, given the fact that English is supposed to be such a richly descriptive language. . . . Particularly interesting was the way they inoculated pigs, which I’d never seen before: they pick up the beast by the hind legs, exposing its sensitive parts. Then they take a lethal-looking hypodermic and ram it in about 2½ inches away from the pig’s ass hole. Needless to say, the pig will have a very self-conscious look about him after undergoing treatment.

  The relationship with Chuck, his stationmate, wasn’t going well either. Chuck criticized Pete’s Vietnamese pronunciation. Proud of his grasp of tones, Pete defended himself until one day the discussion deteriorated into an argument. The sore feelings hung in the air for days. Pete also sensed that Chuck disapproved of his eating so much, and smoking. In return, he didn’t like Chuck needling their maid. A week later, however, Pete wrote tha
t the relationship had improved “one hell of a lot.”

  They moved into a new house. Pete named it God’s Half Acre, after the name of a novel about a writer who moves into a convalescent home to gather local color for his book. (Pete may have been wrong about the title and meant, instead, God’s Little Acre, a story of Georgia sharecroppers.) The yard was strewn with old furniture and parts for a water pump. Inside, Pete’s room was furnished with a desk and a packing crate for a chair. The dining room consisted of a table and one left-behind book, described by Pete as a “lusty account of the Roman games,” called Those About to Die.

  Because telephone service was spotty and IVS members usually had to place calls from a post office, the IVS team kept in touch by writing letters and visiting each other’s stations. In September, ag teammate Bob Dubyne came down to Phan Rang from his station in Ban Me Thuot. A farmer was having trouble with wild pigs eating his corn and had asked for help.

  Pete and Bob borrowed two guns from the civil militia. They bought Cokes and french fries in town, loaded mattresses and mosquito nets into a jeep, and made camp in the dusty road to wait for the pigs. It was a moonless night so dark they couldn’t see the end of their rifles. Two hours later, the Vietnamese men waiting with them heard the sound of munching. They lit torches and tried to drive the pigs in the direction of Pete and Bob, but the pigs got away. Later, Pete guessed that Major Cook would soil his pants if he knew what they had done.

  He and Bob lit cigarettes and imagined Vietcong “sighting on them and shooting their heads off.” They ate their french fries, “chewed the wad with the civil guardsmen,” counted their bullets, and listened to the night sounds. Someone had brought a radio, and they tuned in Voice of America and a Bartok violin concerto. To make it easier to see in the dark, Pete squashed a lightning bug onto the back of his rifle’s forward sight. Finally they called it a night, resolving to try again when they had better guns and a spotlight.