March 2024
M T W T F S S
« Aug    
 123
45678910
11121314151617
18192021222324
25262728293031

Archives

Categories

SAIGON KID WRITING MEMOIR: AN AMERICAN CHILD IN VIETNAM

By Margaret Childs Westmoreland (ACS)

An American Child In Vietnam

I am the youngest child of Gen. William Childs Westmoreland, who was in charge of all armed forces in South Vietnam from 1963 to 1968. In 1964, we flew to Saigon to spend a year with him. I was just 9 years old.

The Westmoreland family. Margaret Westmoreland is second from right. Circa 1968.

The Westmoreland family. Margaret Westmoreland is second from right. Circa 1968. Credit Associated Press

My father had been sent to South Vietnam to assume control of the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam, from Gen. Paul Harkins. MACV was a sprawling joint command made up of officers from the Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps. Once he had settled in, he sent for us.

We landed at Tan Son Nhut Air Base, near Saigon, on a hot, humid day in February. Stepping outside the air-conditioned Pan American passenger jet into the brilliant sun, I felt as if I had been hit with a raging fever. It was a penetrating, suffocating heat we weren’t familiar with in America — especially in New York, where my father had been superintendent at West Point before taking over in South Vietnam. In my disorientation, I looked to my mother for guidance.

Our father was there to greet us, and my mother literally fell into his arms with joy. But she was a veteran Army wife, and he was the dictionary definition of an Army officer. Within seconds of their embrace, they became stalwart soldiers marching toward the group of American and South Vietnamese dignitaries there to greet us. They had smiles on their faces and were extending their hands. I followed suit, reluctantly leaving behind America and the Pan Am jet.

Behind his soldierly calm, Dad was apprehensive. The day before we arrived, terrorists had killed a Marine captain at the Capital Kinh Do theater, where Americans and Vietnamese were watching a Sunday afternoon movie. The officer, Donald Koelper, had seen the bomb, jumped onto the stage and warned everybody to get down; then it exploded. Fifty others, many of them women and children, were wounded. Dad, still relatively new to South Vietnam himself, was scared to death over what he had brought his family into.

There was no fear at the airport, though. Rip, my older brother, stared in awe at the Vietnamese women as they put garlands of flowers around our necks. The women had the most delicate features and the most perfect figures, which were wrapped in the traditional Vietnamese women’s attire, the ao dai, the strangest outfit I had ever seen — long silk dresses that were split on each side, displaying baggy pants that looked like long bloomers. Yet the slim women wore them with such grace and elegance that the dresses reminded me of flowers.

The Vietnamese who greeted us were kind and gentle, and I felt instinctively that we were wanted. I looked at their sweet smiles and wondered, as children do, why people were smiling at me. I wanted to make a good impression because I knew we were here for an important reason, and I shyly smiled back at these young women who were assigned to greet General Westmoreland’s family. I was a little girl who wanted to do right, but I couldn’t wait to escape the situation I found myself in.

I longed for Hawaii, where we had been living right before coming to Vietnam, with its comforting winds and exotic sweet smells. This place was no paradise, I realized as our motorcade drove through the city. Being an Army dependent, I knew it was just another station, but this one seemed too different. It was the first time I had ever left my beloved home, America. My parents were in another car and I wished for some explanation.

I was looking out the car window at the most chaotic scene I had ever witnessed. Bicycles, motorcycles, pedestrians and small cars were everywhere. I was afraid we were going to run over somebody, or something. Then I was overtaken by a smell that tickled my nostrils. What was it? I would soon get to know it well: nuoc mam, or fish sauce. It is ubiquitous in Vietnamese cuisine, and its pungent, unmistakable aroma, especially from its production, seemed to hang over the entire city.

Later, I would recognize another smell I first encountered in Vietnam: the heady blend of burning wood and dung, the only two sources of fire fuel in a poor country.

We drove past a graveyard filled with seemingly endless rows of white crosses. Had that many American soldiers already died? I thought to myself. “Whose graves are those?” I asked meekly, terrified of the answer. They were the French soldiers’, I was told. I was puzzled. Why were there so many French soldiers buried in South Vietnam? I had no idea of the history of the war we were about to fight.

We drove past the burial ground to the French-built section of the city, where the houses were shaded by large trees and the grounds were well manicured. The stucco buildings comforted me, and I was glad when a gate closed behind us and we headed quickly toward an pink mansion complete with guesthouse. We were finally locked inside a little America.

The American ambassador to South Vietnam, Henry Cabot Lodge, greeted us along with his wife, Emily — a naturally elegant woman who seemed almost English in her bearing and grace. But she was American — a “blue blood,” as I later learned to call it. There was a certain air in her voice that sounded almost like a whine. I had heard the same tone before from several of my parents’ friends, and Mom often picked it up after being with them.

Nevertheless, I found Emily Lodge’s voice comforting; I could tell my mother and she would get along well, and I knew we would have friends in South Vietnam. I didn’t realize then, but I shouldn’t have worried: Between the large American military and diplomatic presence, and the general Western influence in Saigon, there was a ready-made network of people for us to join, and that would embrace us.

During our first month we stayed in the guest quarters of Ambassador and Mrs. Lodge. The guesthouse was pink, like the mansion, with a kitchen and living room as well as two bedrooms. Rip and I shared a bedroom and would jump from one twin bed to another. We were restless and confused and we took it out on that small dark bedroom, which we upended daily.

I could not sleep at night because of the chill of the air-conditioner. I was only 9 years old and was just beginning to understand the dark fear that lurked behind images and shadows. There was a crack in the wall at which I would stare for hours, imagining Frankenstein’s monster would emerge from it.

I knew I was safe, but I soon learned the flip side of that safety: There was no escape or freedom while we lived in South Vietnam. Little did I know that there was a world beyond the secure gates of the Lodges’ compound where our men were fighting an enemy who looked like our friends, the South Vietnamese. The jungle and terrain I never saw, except from an airplane. My mind wandered.

Things were not always what they seemed to be. My family was in the eye of the storm now, but I was protected and insulated from the horrors of war. Only because of the gentle guidance of my mother did I never consciously know the reality of that world, but there were many unconscious thoughts and feelings filling my soul.

Article courtesy of New York Times Nov. 14, 2017 (Vietnam ’67 Newsletter). Margaret Childs Westmoreland is writing a memoir about growing up in a military family. Article sourced by Saigon Kid Bruce Thomas.

6 comments to SAIGON KID WRITING MEMOIR: AN AMERICAN CHILD IN VIETNAM

  • I’m glad Margaret’s doing a memoir. It should be done, and she can proud of William Westmorland as she knew him as HER loving father, and independent of all other opinions. He did the best he could, that was that, History teaches, and we learn. Now many do better. That’s life, and my best wishes to Margaret, who is doing better. I doubt it’s always been easy, with endless crack monsters in the walls, but now, from this old Viet vet Special Forces officer: Good luck, and Go Margaret Childs Westmoreland, Go!
    Chalmers Benedict Wood II
    Special Forces Association Chapter XI WDC

  • Margaret,
    While you write your book, you might want to take a look at my “Vietnam Military Brat” memoir. It has been out since October of 2017 and is available in paperback and Kindle, with an Audiobook version due out any day now.

    There is a lot of overlap in our time-frame as kids in Vietnam. You lived next door to one of my best friends (I’ll let you figure out his real name) and probably listened to the radio station my father started in 1962, Armed Forces Radio Saigon. It’s possible we crossed paths at one time or another. You might have even have known one of my brothers, Lynn or Lowell.
    If you’d like to discuss the trials and tribulations of the publishing biz, especially as it pertains to memoir, please feel free to give me a call. My phone number is available on my other website, saxoasis.com
    Les Arbuckle
    Author, “Saigon Kids, A Military Brat Comes of Age in 1960’s Vietnam”

  • Laurie Methven

    Interesting :-). I did not know Margaret but did know her sister “Stevie” as she was called. I don’t know if Margaret will read these replies or not since this piece was not posted by her. Stevie and I were friends during the time the Westmorelands were in Saigon.
    My father who was in Vietnam from 1962-1966 flew Air America as a CIA covert ops officer and of course knew Gen. Westmoreland & his wife.

    Laurie Methven

  • frank

    I think that many of us who came back to the “States”, whether it be as a teenager or a war veteran, had difficulty adjusting and fitting in. I would think that the Westmoreland family may have unduly had it the hardest.

  • Michael Dunn

    Very interesting, and I hope to be able to read the book, as well as the Arbuckle work. My Dad, Maj Gen Edward C. Dunn, was a classmate of William Childs Westmoreland, in the Class of 1936, at the United States Military Academy, at West Point, NY. That class also included Creighton Abrams and Bruce Palmer, among others upon whom stars fell. Westmoreland’s mission was not unlike MacArthur’s in Korea. Committing land forces to the continent of Asia is the first mistake your political leaders have made for you. Telling the Army not to call up the reserves, another political decision in the MacNamara era, the second mistake. Restricting the Allies to inside the borders war-fighting, the third mistake, another political decision. How do you win a war? – by destroying the enemy, or his will to fight. When you are not permitted to do that, you will continue to have Korea and Vietnam-like conflicts over and over. Witness Afghanistan and Iraq. Before that, the Revolutionary War was our longest one. My Dad and I have undying respect for “Westy”. If there were a Patton or Grant around at the time, he surely didn’t show up, and probably would have had his hands tied behind his back, as well.

  • Don Hallenbeck

    I just read Margaret Westmoreland account. While our arrival in Vietnam was a little less ceremonial, the sights, sounds and smells were the same. My family was in Saigon from 10/30/1963 until June when the folks decided to send my mother and sister and I back to the States. I fondly remember movie nights at the Westmoreland residence and hanging out.

Leave a Reply

You can use these HTML tags

<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>

  

  

  

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.