Category Archives: Viet Nam

You need a Vietnamese pedicure

Posted on March 8, 2014 | 3 comments

I never thought I’d get a pedicure, until old age and overweight made it difficult to cut my own toenails without risking injury. Not to mention my really rough heels that were destroying scores of pairs of socks.

So, at the urging of Mrs. Charm, I visited the Passion Nail Spa on Far West Boulevard, near the Rancho. I was one of the few males, but no matter. It was very relaxing, warm water, hot towels, foot and ankle massage and all.

I was surprised to discover the management and pedicurists were all recent Vietnamese immigrants. Apparently recent as none of them spoke much English. Turns out they are part of a trend these days in Vietnamese-owned nail salons. For instance, in South Florida:

“The nail industry will help stabilize the lives of so many Vietnamese from Vietnam to America,” Truong said. “But with the second generation — for example, my children and my staff’s children — they are not going to choose a career in a nail salon, because they will have a diploma and will be good in English, so they can find another good job.”

The Austin pedicurists smiled politely at my use of what Vietnamese language I could remember after 45 years—mostly hello and thank you—but they would, wouldn’t they, even if I was unintelligible. I got the $26 classic but next time (oh, yes, there will be a next time) I might get the $40 deluxe.

Now with toenails all nice and short and rough heels smooth, I’m more than satisfied. You will be, too, if you try it. And you should. Really.

UPDATE:  Or, perhaps, predate would be more accurate. Miriam was way ahead of me, way up there in Delaware back in 2011.

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Posted in Mrs. Charm, Rancho Roly Poly, Texana, The Culture, Viet Nam

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Ray Brownfield, R.I.P.

Posted on February 20, 2014 | 1 comment

Another longtime family friend passed away this week, our good bud Ray Brownfield of Quicksburg, in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley. He had struggled for several years with pancreatic cancer.

Ray was a retired Army colonel, former commander of the Ranger School, and fellow Vietnam combat veteran. He was always especially interested in Mr. Boy on our infrequent visits to Reveille Vineyard, jointly operated by Ray and Mr. B.’s godfather Richard Torovsky, the last time in 2011.

Ray, an Army brat, was born in Washington, D.C. But home was Brownfield, a town in West Texas between Lubbock and Odessa that was named for one of his ancestors. He and Richard were Citadel graduates and Ray also had graduated in 1964 from the Staunton Military Academy, a Virginia prep school which closed in 1976. My Corsicana great grandfather was a graduate of Staunton’s first military class in 1890.

Ray was a prominent Shenandoah Valley Democrat who ran unsuccessfully for public office in the largely Republican area. We argued frequently about politics in email exchanges, but it never got in the way of the friendship. As Ray often said to folks he liked, you were a great American, Mr. Brownfield.

And we and the country will miss you.

UPDATE:  Ray’s obituary appeared in the Northern Virginia Daily on Feb. 26.

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Posted in Mr. Boy, Obituaries, Texana, Troops, Viet Nam

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The “Dream Speech” set the Kennedys off

Posted on January 20, 2014 | Comments Off on The “Dream Speech” set the Kennedys off

Later it would be claimed that it was Dr. King’s opposition to the Vietnam War that got him wire-tapped, microphoned and tailed by Fart, Barf & Itch.

“’The FBI’s program to destroy Dr. King as the leader of the civil rights movement entailed efforts to discredit him with churches, universities and the press,’ the report said.”

It was the Dream Speech, in 1963, that set off the Kennedys, the Democrats in the White House and cabinet (whose party enforced segregation throughout the South) who ordered the surveillance. Their reasons have been buried under so much official and unofficial nonsense over the years that it would be impossible to sort it out.

Officially, however, they suspected Dr. King was a communist, although it wasn’t illegal to be one.

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Posted in Obsessions, Viet Nam

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Losing Fallujah

Posted on January 16, 2014 | 2 comments

You could blame B. Hussein and the Democrats for withdrawing from Iraq. You could blame Bush-the-Younger and the neocons for sending American troops there in the first place.

You certainly could blame the Iraqis for handing the town back to the Jihadis. But maybe they really like living in the 7th century CE.

The Marines who fought there, of course, are anguished. As undoubtedly are the Army soldiers who fought there, too, although to much less publicity. As were a lot of combat veterans of Vietnam when the feckless pols withdrew from there, leaving the American dead to have died for nothing.

Well, not for nothing. They died for the Marines, for the Army, for their comrades-in-arms. That might not be enough for their survivors. But, in the end, it’s about all there ever is in war.

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Posted in Blogosphere, Iraq, Obituaries, The War, Troops, Viet Nam, War Without End

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Ain’t Ready for Marines Yet?

Posted on December 21, 2013 | 7 comments

A recent post by Darkwater on the Marines birthday, he being a proud former one (former only in the sense of a former FBI agent) reminded me of my encounter with the headline of this post.

I was wearing my ARMY cap one day at HEB soon after the Iraq invasion, in solidarity with the troops, you see, and a brash young cashier looked at it and said the words. I never knew ARMY could be treated as an acronym that way.

But, then, I was always a little slow. In Basic Training at Fort Knox the summer of 1967 I kept seeing FTA graffiti. I thought how interesting that the Future Teachers of America seemed to be everywhere on post. Finally learned, to my embarrassment, that FTA stood for F*** The Army.

The HEB encounter was likewise humiliating, until I remembered why I had avoided the Marines back when I was drafted and could have joined any one of the services to avoid the Army if I had wanted to: I had no interest in coming home in a bag and the Marines were/are well known for taking high casualties.

I found out why in OCS infantry training when our sergeant instructors said that we, unlike the Jarheads, did not, “charge hi diddle diddle, straight up the middle,” but hunkered down, called in an artillery prep and then worked the edges of the enemy position, if they still existed.

And that was, indeed, the way we operated in Viet Nam. Even when the enemy didn’t sit around and wait for the shells to arrive. They did often enough. When I came home I was surprised to discover the extent to which civilians held the Marines in awe, not needing to join, probably. And I began to realize that the Marines have always had better PR and advertising campaigns than the Army. Why that is I never figured out.

Then, many years later, one day at HEB, wearing an ARMY cap soon after the Iraq invasion, a brash young cashier looked at my cap and said: “Ain’t Ready for Marines Yet?” Cute. I should have replied (we always know what we should have said) “No, but I still have all my parts in reasonably good working order.”

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Posted in Blogosphere, Infantry OCS, Troops, Viet Nam

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B-25 Mitchell bomber

Posted on December 1, 2013 | 2 comments

B-25

Proof, in case any was needed, that World War II was not fought in black-n-white by aged segregationists, homophobes and sexists masquerading as “the greatest generation,” but actually by the young and middle-aged in Kodachrome color.

The rest, unfortunately, is true, except the “greatest generation” twaddle invented by a biased television news reader who has, mercifully, retired. Not that I ever watch his former employer’s contemporary nonsense anyhow.

Via Shorpy

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Posted in Viet Nam, War Without End

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Rule 5: Barbarella

Posted on November 21, 2013 | 6 comments

Hanoi Jane in her most famous “role,” though I suspect the breasts are as plastic as they look. I had to hunt for even this level of eroticism. I remembered that the movie was stupid. It was also tamer than I thought.

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Posted in Blogosphere, Rule 5, Space, Viet Nam

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