Download PDF of this full issue: v26n1.pdf (10.4 MB)

RECOLLECTIONS: SOLATIUM PAYMENT: THE UGLY AMERICAN, EXHIBIT #1

By Jim Lynch

The single incident that probably had the biggest impact on me while I was in RVN -- and one of only two times I physically was actually scared (mostly was too busy for fright) -- had to do with making a Solatium Payment. I've thought about posting this for a long time but couldn't find the words; now that Cap'n Jack has forced my hand, I'll have to see if the right stuff can be expressed.

As I remember it, a Solatium Payment was made to the next of kin of a local when they died accidentally in an incident in which the U.S. Army was clearly involved. It was understood that the payment was not intended to convey any sense of culpability on the part of Uncle Sam, but simply a sense of regret at the family's loss and any involvement we had in it. (As you might guess, a long-haul trucking outfit like ours made a LOT of Solatium Payments.) The payment had to be made by a commissioned officer and witnessed by another commissioned officer; all of this to lay about $35 worth of piastres (as I remember it) on a family whose feelings under the circumstances are probably pretty predictable. I cannot express what an asshole this made one feel like, except to say that I drew Burial Officer once back at Ft. Lee, Va. This was worse.

We had this big "cattle car" (you know, enclosed trailer with four rows of benches running front to back) that was used to haul all of the local hooch maids, etc., back into Saigon every afternoon. In one of the weirdest accidents I'll ever witness, the driver was knocked unconscious when his west coast mirror tangled with one on the truck going the other way, and the cattle car went over an embankment, rolled and burned. Naturally, it was grossly overloaded -- there were something like 75 people inside. I can't recall all the particulars, but about 20 or so died, including the driver.

Well, just about every officer in the battalion drew at least one Solatium Payment as a result of this beauty. Mine happened to be for a 17 year old young woman who lived in Cholon. I knew her.

At this time I was briefly the CO of a 2 1/2 ton outfit that was being deactivated and basically we did bunker guard and other REMF crap. For about six weeks I had a Vietnamese (Chinese) secretary whom the Group Sgt. Major had asked me to take in for a while; apparently she'd been the designated squeeze of some M.I. Major he knew and they didn't know what to do with her when he rotated back to the world. Beautiful little 19 year old woman, mini-skirts, great sense of humor, still got the pictures and she still looks good...I NEVER laid a glove on her! Anyway, Kim volunteered to go down to Cholon and help us find this place because we didn't have a prayer.

So, we tool on down to Cholon: Kim, me, my driver and a butterbar I borrowed from the outfit next door to be the witness. We go and we go, with Kim asking directions frequently, and finally we pull over on the side of a small, very crowded street -- with NO military vehicles, White Mice or anything else reassuring in sight. I figure, let's get in and get outta here ASAP. So I ask Kim, where's the house we're looking for. She says to come with her down this alley.

So we leave a very unhappy driver clutching his M16 in the jeep and the three of us head on down this alley -- we've got two .45s and one M16 between us. No extra magazines. (Officially, we're overarmed.) Within 10 yards of entering the alley, sunlight has disappeared for good. What we got here is this winding alley between tall buildings out of the backs of which are extending lean-to like dwellings. There's a small path between all of this which is full of people, garbage, people, puddles, people, crates, people, etc. Among these people is a very high percentage of young men, much higher than you're accustomed to seeing out of uniform. Ain't nobody looking real happy to see us, although many just seem to be incredulous. If you look up, you can see the sky, but on the ground several stories below, it's twilight.

We move along with Kim asking questions once in a while. We go a long, twisting, turning way. Occasionally another, smaller alley intersects the one we're on like a tributary. There are whispers and shouts and murmurs as we pass, but I don't realize what's behind us until I turn around to see us being followed by a growing crowd; the crowd itself is very quiet, but people exclaim as we go by and another one or two people from each little hovel seem to join the group. They are mostly young (under 30, I guess) men and women; some of the guys look like Cowboys.

I notice that Kim has stopped addressing us at all, and her inquiries of Vietnamese seem to come out in a concerned tone. I start thinking that this KID (me being a 22 year old Man of the World O-3 and all), who lives in a nice modern apartment building and whose dad works for an American firm, is NOT on her own turf and is really in over her head. Now I'm getting very, very nervous. Butterbar is soaking wet and practically hyperventilating, and his eyes seem REAL big as he seeks reassurance; maintaining my Command Presence (tryin' hard, anyway), I keep telling him this is all routine. He's got the only M16 and I wonder if he is any good at all with it, then I realize that everything is so dense that even I couldn't miss with the .45. It dawns on me that we are right smack in the bowels of Cholon - legendary for belonging to no one but Charlie and local warlords.

It never crossed my mind to go back - got these orders, you know. It never crossed my mind that Kim may have brought us here on purpose.

We keep going for what seems like many miles (even today I think it must have been close to a mile -- SURREAL). Kim stops in front of one of these lean-to's -- you can see right into the living area and there's a blanket or curtain separating off what must be a small sleeping area in the back. A very uncertain man of about forty comes to the entrance and he and Kim talk. She tells me we have the right place, that this is the young woman's (forgot her name, too -- what's new?) father.

I ask her to tell him my canned speech about why we're here, but -- impetuously -- I add that I knew his daughter and am here also to pay my respects. I wonder why in the hell I am really there. The father insists that we come in and he puts his hands in front of him in a prayer gesture and bows as I enter. I don't know from left field about customs at that time, but my reflexes have me bowing back. He goes to a little Styrofoam cooler and pulls out two lukewarm bottles of what's now Classic Coke -- that's all he has, but he insists that Butterbar and I have them. He gives us the only two chairs at a little table and he pulls up a crate or something. Kim stays standing by my shoulder. There are two other women and a little girl in the hootch. We are introduced to the mother -- his wife -- and the grandmother; they stay over in the shadows, but are attentive. The mob is outside, very quiet except for an occasional murmur, just staring. The family doesn't seem to notice and I find myself forgetting about them. We talk for quite awhile. I tell him that his daughter was a hooch maid in my company and that she had a wonderful sense of humor and beautiful smile (didn't have to lie). After we talk a little more, his eyes light up and he says that I must be the handsome Dai Uy who was always speaking to the women and would joke with them when they were doing laundry, etc. He excitedly calls his wife over to tell her of the connection and seems to be introducing me all over again.

We talk some more. We finish the Coke and I realize it's time to get to business. How? First he takes us over to a dresser on one end of the hootch. I hadn't really focused on it before, but they've set up a little shrine on it. There's a couple of candles, a small framed picture of the dead girl, a couple of other mementos including a letter or card of some kind and, incongruously, a watch. The grief in that hootch had been palpable all along, now it was very strong: my feelings of sharing responsibility helped it along. Don't anyone ever lay that bullshit about "they don't care about death the way we do" on me! I don't know if others have had the same reaction, but except for Vietnam I never saw anything like that little shrine UNTIL I first went to the Wall. The Wall is covered with lots of little Vietnamese shrines; some of us have helped to create them. Ironic, ain't it? I seriously considered just getting the hell out of there without doing that stupid, insulting payment. I considered giving them some money out of my own pocket (if Kim said it'd be O.K.) and going back and saying we couldn't find the place. I wanted to do anything but offer this family a lousy $35 and ask them to sign for it (as I recall, they had to sign) while Butterbar and I signed a form and gave them a copy, basically telling them that Uncle Sam had bought 'em off. In the end, intimidated by the presence of the Butterbar and Kim (or maybe because I still believed there was a good reason for me to do this shit, even if I couldn't understand it at my level in the chain of command), I did the deed. I don't know how I felt while I was doing it -- I was numb.

As we started to leave and I realized that the crowd was still there, I just knew that we'd come this far without any grief because they wanted to know what we were up to. I honestly believed that they were going to kill us on the way back. Or maybe we'd just be captured? Naw, they'll kill us. I can remember being completely fatalistic about it. (O.K., you knew this might happen, right?) Nothing happened. As we retraced our steps, the crowd dwindled, each person peeling off when they got to their own hootch. By the time we got back to the blinding sunlight in the street, there were just a couple of people standing at the entrance to the alley. Not one person had asked for a cigarette, tried to change money or offered a blowjob - on the way in or on the way back. Hernandez, my driver, was one tense dude. He's sitting with his butt on the back of the driver's seat so as to have a clear shot - his knuckles are white from gripping the M16 so hard. About ten Cowboys are scattered about in a rough perimeter, like wolves waiting for the moose to bleed to death or let down its guard. He's happy to see us, but really pissed off.

Kim was called to another M.I. unit to perform pressing duties the next week. I never had much more contact with the Butterbar, so I don't know if he saw and felt what I did. I am sure that he tells a version of this story from time to time, but it's really not much of a war story. I still don't know exactly what I felt - or feel today - but I think about it a lot. I do know that, if I still had any doubts, this was the day I knew we didn't belong there.