Antidote to Burnout

Battle of An Lộc, Việt Nam, April 1972

I am celebrating Reunification Day with my Vietnamese friends in Ho Chi Minh City this 30th of April. This event left me in sorrow that day 35 years ago -- not that I felt we had lost Việt Nam, but... Read more →

Then and Now 2

Back in 1972, I shot this photograph of an Islamic mosque under construction along the main street between downtown Saigon and the airport. This street was called Cong Ly in those days. I was enamored with the delicacy of the... Read more →

For old nostalgic U.S. Navy C.E.C. officers only:

My blog service, Typepad, gives me information daily on how many page hits the blog receives the previous day. In addition, I can also see what kinds of Google searches people have done to find the blog. However, I cannot... Read more →

Design Touches 7

While I am thrilled about the modernist and experimental directions of Vietnamese house architecture, I am aware that Việt Nam has a long history of modernist architecture that has a distinctive Vietnamese flavor. Việt Nam's explorations in modernist art and... Read more →

Street Advertising in HCMC

Productive work has intruded on my blogging for the past week, but I have now snapped out of it. After all, this blog is about the antidote to burnout. Meanwhile, both noodlepie and The final Word in Saigon posted stories... Read more →

Getting civilian military construction done -- RMK-BRJ [Part 1]

KBR (formerly the M.W. Kellogg Company and Brown & Root, Inc.) is the 4th largest American construction firm today (listed by Engineering News Record) and is a subsidiary firm of Halliburton, well known for its former CEO, now U.S. Vice... Read more →

RMK-BRJ Construction Industry Legacy in Việt Nam [Part 2]

All of the photographs below were taken in 1972 -- click on any of them to enlarge it. The huge American construction consortium RMK-BRJ was ubiquitous thoughout southern Việt Nam is the 60s and early 70s with its thousands of... Read more →

RMK-BRJ Construction Legacy in Việt Nam Today [Part 3]

Between 1965 and 1972, the consortium of the four largest American construction companies, RMK-BRJ, built much of the infrastructure of the lines of communications now serving southern Việt Nam today. All of the photographs below were taken in 1972 --... Read more →

I am living over an old project of mine...

While in Saigon to manage construction contracts to Vietnamese construction contractors in 1972, I worked with a company called VIHICO to build a large storm drainage tunnel two or three kilometers long. The project was called Vo Thanh Drain, which... Read more →

The La Nga River Bridge

In 1970, the U.S. Navy Officer in Charge of Construction RVN awarded a construction contract to a French construction contractor, Eiffel-Asie, to construct a bridge across the La Nga River on national highway QL-20 running north of Sai Gon to... Read more →

Happy Birthday to Hiền

Happy Birthday to my wife Hiền today. Here she is 34 years ago at the Saigon Zoo: We had a party on our roof deck last Sunday night, inviting Hiền's cousins that live in Ho Chi Minh City. We brought... Read more →

Then and now....

I will try to end my Vietnam 1972 nostalgia phase with this short series of "then and now" pictures. In downtown Saigon, here was the Grand Hotel in 1972 at the foot of what was then Tu Do Street and... Read more →

What is an AROICC?

From October 1971 to October 1972, I served as a Assistant Resident Officer in Charge of Construction (AROICC) for Vietnamese contractors in Vietnam under the Officer in Charge of Construction - Republic of Vietnam (OICC-RVN). Another young ensign managed Vietnamese... Read more →

Vietnamese Construction People in 1972

Construction Inspectors.jpg Originally uploaded by layered. Please click on the photo for access to 12 other photos of Vietnamese construction people in this set. I had the very good fortune to be assigned to administer construction contracts to Vietnamese construction... Read more →

How did I wind up in Vietnam in 1971-1972?

After graduating from Montana State University in 1970 with a Bachelor of Architecture degree, I faced the draft into the Army directly (I had a low draft lottery number) by enlisting in the Navy as a naval officer instead. While... Read more →

Why Relocate to Vietnam?

The prime reason for this blog is to inform friends and family about our decision to relocate to Vietnam for a couple of years and to show them the wonderful cultural experiences we know we will have there. How do... Read more →