Cross Culture

Roscar Siminski, Gil Wall, and Hoot Headrick meet the local rice farmers. This photo was taken just a few yards from the concertina wire boundary which separated us from Vietnam....

According to Jim Lovins, we who served in SSDP could be sorted into two groups--the Townies (most of whom drank), and the Heads (few of whom went into town with any regularity). There's some truth to the claim, though it oversimplifies what was actually a rather complicated social arrangement. And Gil Wall wouldn't fit into such a breakdown; unlike most of us, he avoided everything mind-altering.

FWIW, Jim was a Townie; I was a Head. Mostly, though, we were just two guys running teletypes in a hostile environment. Now we're older guys with heart problems who occasionally trade emails.

Even we Heads sometimes had native encounters. This was one. It's one of my favorite Vietnam pix.

Pleiku, Republic of Vietnam, 1971.