"Saigon Kids" Book Review

From Vietnam Magazine, October 2018

My review of a very different Vietnam War book is getting social media attention.

In the decade before U.S. combat forces waded ashore at Da Nang, approximately 4,000 teenagers and pre-teens had been living in Saigon and attending the American Community School. Most of them were the sons and daughters of Americans sent to South Vietnam by the military and State Department, or were the children of contractors and civilians working for companies. Collectively, these select young people refer to themselves as “Saigon kids.”

A grown-up Saigon kid has written a new tell-all book: Saigon Kids, An American Military Brat Comes of Age in 1960’s Vietnam. At the adventuresome age of 13, Les Arbuckle arrived in-country with two younger brothers and their mother. Dad, Navy Chief Petty Officer Bryant Arbuckle, was there to launch Vietnam’s original AFRS (Armed Forces Radio Service).

Armed Forces Radio, Saigon was the backdrop for Good Morning, Vietnam, the movie in which comedian Robin Williams portrayed Air Force disc jockey Adrian Cronauer who was on the air in 1965. AFRS would evolve into a far-reaching radio and television network that was re-branded in 1967 as the American Forces Vietnam Network.

Young Arbuckle made new friends and quickly began to explore the mysteries of 1963 Saigon. Like rebellious adolescents anywhere, they managed to pull off high jinks on a regular basis, but Saigon kids also had access to the city’s dark underbelly, providing escapades that were not available to teenagers back in the States.

The boys exchanged greenback from their folks for Vietnamese piasters on the black market at a premium exchange rate. They spent their earnings on cigarettes, Beer “33,” and, yes, prostitutes. Their parents apparently were unaware of the most egregious pursuits, although there was a physical confrontation when Les came home drunk.

The teens got in trouble with “cowboys” (Vietnamese hoodlums) and “white mice” (Vietnamese police). Some of the older boys had motor scooters, but most of the kids took taxis or motorized cyclos: “The contraption looked as if a motorcycle had slammed into the middle of a love set from behind,” is how the author described the three-wheelers.

The memoir swirls through the American community: the school, the quirky friends, teachers and parties where the young dependents danced in penny loafers to music on vinyl 45 records.  

It is Arbuckle’s descriptions of the tempting city of Saigon, however, that are the most nostalgic for veterans who served there: Tu Do Street, Saigon Tea, the pungent smells of everyday life, the upper-crust Cercle Sportif (sports club), GI slang and anti-government demonstrations. Arbuckle describes the appalling aftermath of a Buddhist monk’s self-immolation.

Military Police were nearby to provide security, but real danger, or parental discipline, was always lurking for this menacing band of brats. There were fisticuffs, a student was slashed when jumped by Vietnamese cowboys and a classmate was bloodied in the terrorist bombing of the Capital Kinh-Do Theater, which killed three Americans.

The author witnessed the opening shots of the 1963 coup against President Diem, and ran home to the Arbuckle residence just two blocks from the Presidential Palace. Family members took shelter under a table and in a hallway; tank fire shook the building; the smell or cordite drifted through open windows; mother drank Scotch and soda. A brother brought home a live souvenir grenade.

As a former AFVN newsman, I wanted Arbuckle to share more stories about his father’s job in broadcasting, although I was surprised to learn that the military radio station at one time accepted advertisements. Arbuckle wrote that his father even voiced commercials for the My Canh Floating Restaurant, where the family held its farewell party. The next year, the iconic dinner barge was bombed in the war’s most ghastly terrorist incident.

Due to mounting instability, U.S. dependents were sent home in early 1965 and the American School closed. Today, Saigon kids have reunions and keep in touch like other alumni groups. As Arbuckle noted, “No Brat I knew wanted to come to Vietnam, but once they got a taste of life in Saigon, most didn’t want to leave.”

Saigon Kids is a rip-roaring historical snapshot of a capital teetering on the brink of war.

The author might say it’s “numba one” (best) for veterans and civilians to reflect on old Saigon, but perhaps there’s a secondary audience: third generation Saigon kids who will be surprised by what their grandparents did during the war.