No embeds here. Becoming a 'Bao Chi ' came complete with a coveted MACV Card and the equivalent rank of major. Anyone with two letters from any publication could become a War Correspondent.
In the late 1960's and early 70's, anyone with two letters from any media organization could receive from the Joint U-S Public Affairs Office of the Military Assistance Command Vietnam a Press Card giving the recipient equivalent status of the rank of Major US Army.
Armed with the MACV Card you could go anywhere, anytime - so long as there was space on a plane or helicopter. Reporters took their chances. A seat on a C-130 supply plane might be available going north. A seat with the 'body bags' flew you back to Saigon.
These were the days BEFORE embedded reporters and photographers, and the carefully
arranged reporting trips awarded to journalists today covering US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Vietnamese issued their own Press ID's. The Bao Chi - news reporter - card with the
familiar yellow and red stripes of the South Vietnamese flag across the top. It however carried with it few benefits.
 The MACV card offered greater advantages. It allowed access to officers quarters for meals and to the Post Exchange or PX in Cholon with cigarettes beer, and whiskey at discount prices.
Some way to cover a war...eh?
In Saigon - the roof of the "Brink's BOQ" was a popular destination. Westmoreland (General William Westmoreland - US Commander in Vietnam 1964 - 1968), I was told, had made certain that Nha Trang lobsters were on the menu.
The site of "Brinks" is now (in 2009) occupied by the luxurious Park Hyatt Saigon Hotel.
There is a small plaque outside commemorating the 1966 attack on the compound when the "viet cong" set off 250 pounds of plastic explosives on Christmas Eve.
Years later, in another of the many ironies of that terrible war, I recall dining with Gary Porter at the Brink. Gareth Porter like many of us who went to Vietnam were admittedly "anti-war" and yet benefited from US military facilities. Porter, of course, made no secret of his anti war stance. In 1970, he was a leading activist and co-director of the Indochina Resource Center in Washington. Today he writes vigorously in opposition to American
involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan. |
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