I had stayed 'way too long at Tiger Switch, the main board at MACV HQ, because a couple of my buddies worked there and I knew when I left that I had to go across town to Cholon and then to the Rice Mill. I hated the Rice Mill more than any other of my many stops. In the summer of '66, anything south of the Saigon Zoo and west of Cholon was definitely "Injun" country...so guess where the Rice Mill was. My route included several irregular customers so I didn't usually get to the Rice Mill more than two or three times a month...but sometimes I would have to go out there two or three times in a week. Courier-on-Demand. I don't know why I was so scared of that area. I had had more excitement on the northern route, around the Bien Hoa/Di An/ Long Binh area. But out in the gooey ground southwest of the city there wasn't as much military traffic and that by itself was scary.

I had been having a little lower-tract distress on that day; I should have never triey out a new restaurant on a work night. But then, when you work seven days a week, what choice is there? I don't remember the main street that connected Cholon to Saigon...Trung Hung Dao, maybe...anyway, to get to it from Tiger I had to go through the middle of the city.

I gotta tell you a little about driving in Saigon. The French taught the Vietnamese to drive...that should explain it. Like any city, Saigon had its rush hours, even when all the war-related activity was going on. In the morning when the traffic started to build, some impatient soul would move over and start a new in-bound lane in the out-bound side. On some mornings I saw six or seven lanes heading into town and anyone heading out was driving on the sidewalk...true story. In the middle of all that, there are traffic circles at the busiest intersections. The Vietnamese don't do traffic circles well. They would jam up the circle, jockeying for a posititon until it got grid-locked. Sometimes the White Mice (what we called the Saigon police...white uniforms...little people) would try to direct traffic but no one paid the least amount of attention to them.

It was into this rush-mode mess that I tooled merged at the circle, creeping and cussing, as was the custom, trying to get through to the other side. I managed to get into the middle of things with no real hope of getting out, fretting about getting out of the Rice Mill before dark, hoping that the Cholon Switch wouldn't keep me long (at every stop I had to inventory any classified materials and sign for them...could take a little time sometimes) when the first spasm hit me low in the belly...I actually thought I might have been shot. But the second spasm made me wonder if getting shot might not have been better. In any case, I knew that I had to get out of that traffic snarl and into a latrine fast or the rest of the trip would be most unpleasant.

There was an American-run hotel across the circle...it was an officer billeting hotel. There was an MP on guard at the door. I started honking and waving and making super-distressed faces. I must have been convincing because he seemed to understand my problem. He came out in front of the hotel and started blowing his whistle and waving his .45 around and magically, the seas parted and I had a straight shot to the hotel entrance. The MP waved me right up to the door (a basic no-no) and when I jumped out he asked if I had any classified material. I tossed him my pouch and ran indoors (handing off all that classified without proper procedure could have landed me in LBJ (Long Binh Jail) for a good while.

I dashed inside and found the downstairs latrine and ripped inside, stripping off my gear as I went. I got into the stall and...the toilet was full up to an inch from the top with nasty, crappy water and stuff. It was the only stall and I was committed, no way I had time to put myself together and find another toilet. So...I climbed up on the seat and squatted, barely making it in time for the flood to begin. After several moments as a human water cannon, feeling like I was going to faint, and saying a sincere, heartfelt apology to the little person who would have to clean up that mess, I jumped clear of the "puddle" and put all my gear back on.

I got back out front and collected my pouch. I thanked the MP profusely. He laughed and told me I wouldn't believe how many times that happened in a week. I thanked him again and headed back down the road. I made it to Cholon Switch and naturally, no one there was in as much of a hurry as I was. But by pushing the speed limit and skillful weaving around oxcarts and three-wheeled trucks, I got to Rice Mill and out again before dark...not much before, but I got back to the City before pitch black. By the time I pulled into my unit in Gia Dinh, a "suburb" of Saigon, it was near curfew.

I settled in for the night thanking my lucky stars that I had had a good MP on my side that day; there were a lot of them out there who would have watched me lose control out in front of the whole world just for the amusement. I remembered a conversation I had had with a buddy in an infantry unit who made his living beating the bush looking for Charlie. When they are on patrol they don't stop for potty breaks. He told me that one time he had been suffering from diarrhea before they went out and his sergeant took his bayonet and slit the back seam of his jungle fatigue pants (most of the grunts didn't wear underwear in the bush...humidity and chafing and all...where did you think the term "going commando" came from?) so if he got cramped up, he could just pull the seam apart and let fly. He said that on some patrols five or six guys would be so equipped. I guess that no matter how bad things get, there is someone who has it worse. Great comfort that is...