In May of 1969 I had already survived nearly thirteen months with the U.S. Army in South Vietnam and was within only a few weeks of rotation back to the States and separation from the military. Only a few weeks from getting back to the real world a free man! A few weeks away from being clean, driving a car, and eating real food, especially ice cream! Sometimes the thought of sleeping between clean sheets and not under mosquito netting,just sleeping without fear, was almost overwhelming. Unfortunately, reality always managed to shake me out of dreamland. A few weeks remained and a lot could happen in that amount of time. It seemed a short while when looking at a calendar, but a very long time when trying to live through it.
As you can probably tell, at this point in my stint in Vietnam my mind was focused, very clearly focused on one thing, home. But that is not exactly what this story is about, though it does lend significance. So many of the things I had taken for granted were not available in the Highlands of Vietnam’s mountainous central region, II Corp officially. The one thing that was not missing was friends, very close friends. The truest friends a man will ever have are those who have suffered severe hardships together, as any veteran will attest.
There were nine of us stationed on a mountain top, living out of a tent and self supporting in just about every way. Our location was a little over a mile above sea level and the terrain was covered with forest, not jungle. This area of the country was unlike any of the other parts I had served in. Our military duties occupied most of our time. Since there were only nine of us, there was more than enough work to go around. I averaged 16 hours a day just working my military specialty and this did not include other duties like filling sandbags, etc. Defense preparations were necessary and part of our training but they came second to performing our assigned task. We knew from training and experiences how we must prioritize our daily lives in order to keep our lives. We were all well trained and what we were doing was nothing new except for the third segment of being a small, detached unit that was foraging or actually scrounging for rations. Finding and buying rations/food was a learn-as-you go thing. Food was a very scarce item for those visiting this lovely, but god forsaken, country with no direct support. The guys living in the big base camps and other permanent locations did not have to contend with this problem. Uncle Sam fed them daily, usually made three times a day possible, and on schedule. None of us would trade our freedoms and relaxed attitudes and our scrounging for food did end up providing us with the best meal to date of any of our hereto-short lives and at the opportune time. I was due to leave the detachment within a week and with my parting the detachment was going to be disbanded. Another sergeant and I were going home, but the other guys were going God only knew where!
Brown, a linguist familiar with European communist languages, could also speak French fluently and was a very good scrounger. His French was useful because the area we were in had been occupied by the French for many years and their influence was apparent. Brown had discovered an old and long out of business French restaurant located in Dalat City. Dalat is a place from another time, originally a French resort constructed during France’s long occupation of Indochina. Many of the buildings reflected western European influence as did the people. There were old chateaux with long unused swimming pools complemented by cobblestone drives and walkways. Outdoor restaurants, that showed their age and lack of maintenance, had been converted to open markets. Brown’s restaurant, though mostly inactive for years, was still intact, intact and complete with a French speaking Vietnamese who remembered the past and longed to prepare a meal like the culinary treats he had prepared in the “old days”!
Brown had absolutely no problem selling his underfed and undernourished comrades on the idea. With our shrunken stomachs, a bologna sandwich would have been fine. Everything was right: we had not eaten a good meal in months; we were parting company in only a few days and never expected to see one another again. This would be our “parting dinner.”
When we entered the small building, we found that even in disrepair and pockmarked on the exterior with bullet holes, the place was elegant beyond all expectations. I was surprised, more shocked than surprised, there was anything like this in war torn Vietnam. There were four or five tables surrounding one large one in the center of the dining room. This table was beautifully set, seeming so much more out of place, but maybe this time I was what was out of place. I had never seen so many eating utensils and even in this circumstance was a little afraid of embarrassing myself by not knowing the proper sequence for their use. The service was silver, the dishes fine china, and glasses were crystal. We all looked at one another in amazement. How had all this stuff survived? Brown, our host—after all he was the linguist and discoverer—was beaming a broad, white toothed smile from ear to ear. He had done very well and knew it!
The dinner was eleven courses. I didn’t know meals were served in “courses.” It seems a little ironic my first formal dining experience was in a war zone thousands of miles from anywhere. Who would ever believe it? Our chef deftly served each course, removing dishes and silverware as he went. He seemed very good at everything he was doing; in no way did he appear out of practice. He may have been but it wasn’t evident—not that any of us would have known one way or the other! The food he had prepared consisted of soups, green and fruit salads, potatoes and other vegetables, many of which I did not recognize. There were a variety of meats and noodles that were delicious but to this day I have no real idea what animals the meat was from. Dessert was a chocolate cake with liqueur as a primary ingredient. The food, especially the cake, was wonderful, but the after dinner coffee he served took the prize. It was like none I have tasted before or since. This coffee was brewed in a metal and glass apparatus that looked common enough, but the coffee dripped out only a drop at a time into a candle-heated carafe. The coffee brewed for the three hours our meal required and even with that amount of time there was only enough for one small cup apiece. My cup had a small spider floating on the surface which kind of brought me down to earth for a few seconds, but it was easily dipped out without my saying a word or allowing the others to notice.
The coffee had been the final touch to an unbelievable meal. With our cups we toasted Brown, the Vietnamese chef, each other, friendship, The United States, and damned politicians. Just as this cup of coffee had been the final touch to a glorious meal; our parting dinner had been a fitting end to a glorious adventure.

Michael I. Hobbs lives in Dexter, Missouri, and is completing a collection of essays. His essays have appeared in earlier issues of Sweetgum Notes. (See also Authors, this site.)



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