REMAINS OF CAMP ENARI

Outline of old Military Police post at Camp Enari entrance

We’re south of Pleiku, driving to an old US military base. Suddenly, my Vietnamese guide asks me, “would you like to see the MP (Military Police) Gate?” I say yes, and our SUV immediately stops. We get out, I look around, and see only brush and small trees about. I wonder, where is the gate? I don’t know it, but we’ve just driven over it.

Outlined in the middle of the pavement, there's a diamond shaped line of cement. This was the foundation that surrounded the guard shack at the base's entrance. The foundation itself was finally chopped down to road level two years ago, since motorcyclists kept having accidents from running into it at night. Given the amount of drunks driving around on motorbikes in Vietnam, that’s not surprising.

Looking around, I see no control tower, no old barracks, no fencing, nothing. There are now farming fields, and cattle grazing nearby. There are no other  visible remnants of the old base in sight. It’s hard to believe that this was once Camp Enari, former base of the US Army's 4th Infantry Division.

Camp Enari in 1969 (Archive photo)

In 1970 as the US was reducing troop numbers, the 4th Infantry departed, and the base was turned over to the ARVN. After they abandoned the base later, nearly everything left here was looted, dismantled or destroyed. There is another old US base in Pleiku, Camp Holloway. But I can’t visit there; it’s now occupied by the Vietnamese Army! Camp Enari on the other hand, has ceased to exist.

We hop back into the SUV and drive onto the former base, arriving at the former Hensel Army Airfield. Getting out again, I see serrated metal visible in the reddish dirt before me. Laid down by military engineers, this steel matting used to make up a layer of the runway. These old runway remnants are the only thing left. Everything else is gone. In the late 1960’s there were more than 10,000 American troops based on this patch of land. Now there are few traces left to show that they were ever here at all. 

Serrated lines in the dirt are the remains of the Hensel Air Field runway

Looking to one end of the runway, it’s now covered by a building that processes coffee. Other parts of the installation have become a cement factory, but even with these small businesses, there are few other buildings. Most of the old base is now open country. There is farmland, thick with plots of coffee and cassava. The rest is open field, with the occasional herd of cattle passing through to graze.

From here we get a view of Dragon Mountain which used to have a small US Army lookout post on top. It’s been replaced by two towers, a TV tower and mobile phone tower, on each end of the flat topped mountain. Technology is slowly coming to the highlands.

My guide tells me that a couple days ago, she brought a former USAF soldier named Kim here, who had served a tour of duty on Camp Enari. When she brought him back to the former base where he had spent a year of his life, he was stunned.

“He cannot believe how much it change,” she said. “He walk around for 1 1/2 hour, looking for things to remember.” 

Dragon Mountain today, topped with cell phone towers

She gestures and says, “There is Artillery Hill.” I turn to see a sloping hill across the road in the distance. Kim told her about how he had gone up Artillery Hill, and sprayed dioxin there to kill the brush. At the time, they didn’t know how poisonous it was, so they took few safety precautions. As a result, he now has serious respiratory problems, and has difficulty breathing normally. 

It’s not just the local Vietnamese who have suffered the ill effects of Agent Orange. Thousands of American soldiers became ill from their exposure to it as well. It seems that when it comes to Agent Orange exposure, the land may be recovering faster than people do. 

Old map of Camp Enari during the war

HIGHLAND FOOD AND MYSTERY MEAT

'Pho', a traditional Vietnamese noodle soup. But what kind of meat is within?

As the sky darkens in Vietnam’s highlands, dinner time beckons. With few choices for varied cuisine in Pleiku, I head into a local restaurant. As I’m walking in, I immediately notice that everyone is staring at me. The wait staff and patrons have stopped whatever they were doing, and just gaze at me in wide eyed amazement. It’s as if I’m a rock star, a celebrity. The staring continues as I take a table.

Perhaps celebrity is the wrong analogy here. Maybe I’m more of an oddity, an object of curiosity in these parts. They don’t get many outsiders here, especially a white westerner. I’m discovering that for most Vietnamese, there is nothing rude about staring at strangers. Westerners will look away in embarrassment when you stare back at them, but not here. When I match their gaze, many of the Vietnamese just keep right on staring at me, as though I’m some kind of circus sideshow freak. Oh well, on to dinner.

With my stomach about to growl, I look at the menu, and find it's only in Vietnamese text. So I do what foreign travelers often do in this situation. When the waitress arrives, I simply point to a dish that looks good at the next table. I've opted for a bowl of pho, a popular Vietnamese noodle soup. It comes with raw greens that you mix into the soup yourself. Also mixed in are spices, soy,  and chunks of what looks like beef.

Uh oh.

At least, I think it’s beef. I hope it’s beef. But is it really beef?? You can’t be sure out here in the highlands. I recall a conversation I had about food with other Vietnamese. I asked: “What food do you hate?” Rather than expressing dislike for broccoli or beets, their responses were unexpected.

“I hate snake,” one woman said.

“I hate dog,” said another. Eeesh I'd heard that some Vietnamese eat dog, but I couldn't imagine eating it voluntarily. My only hate at the moment, is not knowing what kind of meat this is.

Later, I hop onto a crowded Pleiku mini-bus, and I’m surprised when an older local woman seated near me starts speaking to me in English.

“I worked for ‘MACV’,” she tells me, “I cook. I work for American G.I. for seven years.” MACV was an acronym I wasn’t expecting to hear in the Highlands. It stood for ‘Military Assistance Command Vietnam’, and this woman worked on one of the US bases here in Pleiku.

“I worked for American, then VC come,” she continues. With the arrival of the communists in Pleiku, this lady cook was out of a job. But she still had plenty to keep her busy, since she had nine children.

I asked if she’s from one of the minority groups that live here in the Highlands, and she looks surprised. “I’m Vietnamese!” she says incredulously.

With her years of experience cooking for GI’s, she knows how to cook American food well. My mouth waters as she tells me, “I cook potatoes, dumpling, American eggs.” She’s retired now, but I wish she owned a restaurant in Pleiku. Vietnamese cuisine is tasty, healthy and cheap, but I haven’t had western food in a long time. I would have preferred her cooking, than that mystery meat that I had eaten earlier.

HIGHLAND TOWN OF PLEIKU

Arriving at Pleiku Airport in the Central Highlands

I’m airborne again, only this time I’m not flying on a big comfy jet. Today I’m only in a two engine propeller plane, just a puddle jumper really. This trip will be much different then my earlier destinations. On Vietnam’s coast I had plenty of tourists to keep me company, but there are few westerners where I’m headed. I’m about to enter a more remote region of Vietnam. The seatbelt sign comes on, and we start our descent near the southern end of the Truong Song Mountains. I'm arriving in Pleiku, in the central highlands.
 
Looking out the window, it's not what I expected. I thought I’d be surrounded by rugged mountains, but there are only a few mountains off in the distance. The altitude here may be higher, but topography around Pleiku is mostly low rolling hills. It’s not as green as I was expecting either. The trees around the airport are all young, since this area was so defoliated with Agent Orange during the war.
 
Touching down, I look across the empty tarmac. There are no other planes or jets in sight. This was once the military airport known as Pleiku Air Base, run by US and Vietnamese Air Forces. The largest and busiest airport in the highlands, it was once loaded with planes and helicopters. Now there’s only one vacant government helicopter sitting off to the edge of the airfield. There is so little traffic, that one whole section of tarmac is no longer maintained, and has grass and weeds growing up through the cracks. Pleiku is in a poor province, so there are few flights to the highlands these days. In the new terminal, I spot a tall older westerner with a faded US flag on his cap. Approaching him, I can make out three tattoos on his aging forearm shaped like military medals. I introduce myself, and meet Larry, a friendly American war veteran from North Carolina.

“I came back to have a look with my girlfriend,” Larry tells me. He was an Army soldier here in 1969, and he’s glad he came back. He had been visiting some of his old haunts further south. He was surprised at what he found, so many old buildings had been torn down, removed for new construction and businesses, “Like Bien Hoa,” he said, mentioning another large, former air base. “Today it’s an industrial area. Everything is changed, it’s hard to find some of the places where we were before.”

Pleiku today is more developed than during the war years

I’m relieved to meet two other Americans here, but they soon hop into a taxi and depart. Pleiku doesn’t get many foreign visitors. I grab a late taxi, load up, and head out. Leaving the airport, we drive by barracks now occupied by the Vietnamese Army. It’s a sleepy looking facility, and all the soldiers I see walking about are unarmed. The only activity I see is a platoon of enlisted men doing calisthenics. With their dark green pants and white t-shirts, they look like a recruiting film. 

The taxi drops me at my hotel, after checking in, I head back out the doors to get to know this highland town. Pleiku was once a group of humble villages of the Jarai minority tribe. Then French colonists arrived, and it grew to be the provincial capital. The French referred to the Jarai and the rest of the hill tribe minorities as ‘Montagnards’, meaning ‘mountain people’, and the name stuck.

Walking through Pleiku now, I see few hill tribe folk. People I encounter are ethnic Vietnamese, who have moved to Pleiku in droves. The villages are long gone and the downtown is modern, by Vietnamese standards. Compared to crowded and polluted Ho Chi Minh City, it’s much more orderly, clean and pleasant. There are few old homes, most of buildings around me are relatively new. In this highland town where most homes had only one story, there are now countless apartment buildings. These changes weren’t just due to urban planning, it was also due to the war's destruction.

Can she really drive in traffic?

When the communists began advancing across the highlands in 1975, there was a chaotic, emergency migration eastward towards Vietnam's coast. Soon after the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) began to rocket and shell Pleiku, the South Vietnamese Army (ARVN) retreated from the city. When the civilians realized what was happening, the population of Pleiku fled with them in fear. To deny the communists use of Pleiku, departing ARVN torched many buildings, further adding to the destruction. As packed columns of military and civilian vehicles headed for the coast, they were attacked by the NVA, killing not only at the retreating ARVN, but also fleeing civilians. The panicked evacuation was horrendous, and thousands died in the chaotic exodus. It was the most tragic and costly retreat of the war.

In the 1980’s much of Pleiku was rebuilt, partly with Soviet aid, and today the population is triple what it was during the war years. This is mainly due to the influx of so many Vietnamese who moved here from the northern provinces, since the conquering government of the north encouraged them to move here.

Kpa Klong, who fought the Americans

It was a long road back, but Pleiku has been rebuilt. As part of the government’s changes in the south, Pleiku is now referred to as ‘Gia Lai’ on many official maps.

Looking around the commercial district I see few cars, and as I saw in HCMC, many locals use motorbikes as if they are pickup trucks. Outside the market, I watch one woman pack her small motorbike with a load of nine foot long stalks of sugar cane. I wonder how she’s going to make it through traffic with such a wide, oversized load. The police seem to have less visibility here than in other parts of Vietnam. That doesn’t mean that they aren’t around, since there are plenty of plainclothes police. Perhaps they keep a low profile to please the minorities. 

As I check out Pleiku, I notice that most traces of the former American military  presence are gone. Even most American made buildings have vanished. I do spot one bit of historical evidence, when I stop at a local hardware store. Piles of gear are stacked outside on the sidewalk, and among a pile of chains and springs, are old US Army ammunition cases. They may be discolored and rusty, but they’re still waterproof.

Walking through a town square, I come to a statue dedicated to Kpa Klong, a Montagnard fighter who died in 1975. Wearing a loin cloth and carrying a carbine, he’s about to throw what looks like a pipe bomb. From one of the local hill tribes, he used to fight the Americans. Friezes on the statue’s pedestal show him gunning down American soldiers, and attacking an American tank using only a hand grenade.

 

A dog guarding a tank? Really??!

Kpa Klong and his village may have joined with the communists, but the reality is that most hill tribes sided with the Americans during the war. The highland minorities have suffered discrimination from the majority Vietnamese for centuries, and the US ideas of equal rights and democracy appealed to them. They desired to continue practicing their own religions and languages, so they had no love for communists, and still don't. The Americans also provided arms to the Montagnard militias, giving them their own means for self-defense. It’s sad, but true that many Vietnamese refer to the highland minority peoples as savages, even today. Not surprisingly, occasional unrest and uprisings in the highlands against the Vietnamese government have continued.

I stop at the Gia Lai Museum, to find the doors locked and the lights off. After finding a staffer, she opens the front door to show me why it’s so quiet. Artifacts and boxes are piled up everywhere, the museum is closed for renovations. Before I leave I walk behind

The remains of a US made Huey helicopter, and a spotter plane

the building, and I’m startled by a furry yellow dog barking at me from behind a chain link fence. Strangely, the dog is tied to an M-41 tank, with a .30 caliber machine gun mounted on top. A dog protecting a tank! Piled in among other wreckage around it are an old howitzer, and the remains of various American made aircraft, including an A-6, two Huey helicopters, and two spotter planes.

As I check out all the wreckage, the dog never stops barking at me. He’s the junkyard dog, for a military junkyard. Since the museum is closed, I imagine that his barking at me now, is probably the most excitement that this dog has had all week. 

I head back to my Pleiku hotel. Time for Vietnamese cuisine.  Next stop, a local restaurant.