Shock and Amazement

Alright, did my normal routine, slept in a little because I finished American Dad Season 1, went to get my new breakfast, fruit salad and found out I get a free coffee with it. For some reason every coffee I've gotten in this country has no sugar. It's super strong coffee and I need it to taste sweeter than boiled charcoal haha. I found sugar and made it drinkable. I ran out in a hurry but forgot to bring my meds with me. Speaking of which, the one thing I have to take for my guts is a special oral medicine. It's like a gel pack you open, dump it in your mouth and at first it tastes weird. you finish the pack and then you realize IT'S SUGAR!!!!!!! Yea I'm taking sugar from the doctor, it's some sort of lactose thats suppose to get groovy with my guts and make them work better. I could even pour the medical sugar in my coffee, but I'm down to one pack left so I don't want to ruin the last one. I head out the door and realize my backpack isn't on my back. It hasn't been since I had breakfast! I bolt to the restaurant and it's not under my seat and the girl that was sitting beside me is now gone! I run in the door and someone is already hoisting my ARVN pack over the counter to me haha. Thank god. When I first got here I though I might have to worry about having my bag stolen while it's under me while I eat, but that's not the case. I still have to make sure I pick it up before I go though! haha.

Matt Drouillard wanted me to pick up a set of OD jungles (plural for jungle shirt and jungle trousers) and I almost bought the pair at Dan Sinh Market that were pretty much perfect. Then I noticed the groin and ass of the pants is reinforced. This was done in the 80's and can be seen in the next pattern, the US Woodland camo pants. I told the guy I like the pants but have to check one thing before I buy them. Before I left though I hit what I consider the best surplus shop in Dan Sinh Market simply called "Chau & Thanh" and I honestly have no clue who is who. If Thanh is a girls name then she runs the best place in the market. If Chau is the guy, he has some stuff but nothing amazing. The funny thing is a few booths down is Thanh's sister's booth, and she does have some good thing too. Anyways I bought a tunnel rat gas mask and case from Thanh. Honestly the gas mask is made to go in the bag, but it's such a tight fit that if you get it in there, and not break the mask in the process, it ain't coming out haha. Of course what every good sales person here does is after you paid for the only item your interested in, the throw things in your arms and ask if you like. I did see some M67 canteen pouches for Chris, Jungle First Aid kit for Josh (which I forgot I already bought one for him, it's in Canada now) and an M60 ammo bandoleer for Sean and the M60. He already has one but this one has a short-timer's calendar on it.


Troops in the Army in Vietnam had 365 days to spend inside Vietnam doing their job, weather filing paperwork or killing Cong. They'd count down how long they have left and when they were about 30 days away they would be called a Short-Timer, as their time left in country was short. Around 30 days left they'd take a marker and make a calendar on their helmet liner, their flak jacket, whatever was big enough and each day that passed cross it out to show he's getting shorter in time. In this case the short-timer was an M60 gunner or an ammo bearer and did it on an M60 bandoleer, a cloth pocket that could hold a belt, 100 rds of 7.62mm machine gun ammo. I thought it was cool and it was $5 but I didn't pick it or anything else up. I headed back home to google and find out if Vietnam Era trousers had the reinforced seat because I honestly forgot haha. Turns out they didn't, only the 1980's and maybe late 1970's had them. I know I have a pair of 80's OD green pants and they do have the reinforced seat, missing the little internal pocket in left cargo pocket and the back pockets on the ass had two buttons, the Vietnam Era ones only had one pocket. 

I headed back to the market, but stopped at KFC for a snack. Walking through the market I saw a Helicopter pilot helmet, and it was from the booth where the guy knows the collectors price for everything and because of that rarely sells anything since it's too expensive. I asked know it wouldn't be under $100 and it was $450 haha. At the same time a massive rat ran from one table to the other. Welcome to Cho Dan Sinh haha. I've encountered my first rat there, the other day I saw radroaches, massive cockroaches the size of your hand, thank god the were dead and the place is one big shanty that I only realized when it rained, as water leaks though. Radroaches are from Fallout 3, roaches that are infected with radiation and bigger than normal. The market also reminds me of the big market in Fallout 3, Rivet City as it's a big chunk of scrap metal and an old Aircraft Carrier. Rivet City didn't have radroaches though. Oh well. It's funny and a little sad going through the market because I'm white, it's assumed I have money and when you walk past and pause at someone's booth, I get eyes looking at me like "If this guy buys something we're going out to dinner tonight!!!" or "The white guy is back, we won't go hungry tonight!!!" It honestly feels like that. Some people will even tell you "I've had a bad day, haven't sold much. If there's something your interested in I'll cut you a discount" and the sad thing is, I'm not interested in anything they have. I'm also not going to buy some crap I don't want to make this guy feel better as he could easily be lying to me. Anyways I hunted for reproduction pants as the closest pair I found had that friggen reinforced seat haha. 


Long story short, you can get custom suits and tailored clothes here, but for some reason this city, nah, this country can not make the same pair of pants half a million combat troops, and at least 1.5 million support troops, plus later 800,000 ARVN troops wore haha. Somebody has to show these guys how to do it, and if I had the funding to, I would. The Vietnamese are an industrious people and crafty. In the very same market I could get stuff custom tailored in minutes. I went to the one booth and asked about pants. The 3rd pattern ripstop cotton (looks like a grid made into the pants material) were good but had reinforced knees. Another pair were good but had the reienforced ass. Another was good but had the wrong buttons and an elastic waist and were poplin cotton. She said she could change the buttons for $1US, which I supported. I asked to see the jacket of the matching set and it was a train accident. I asked if she had any more and pointed to the ripstop cotton, which didn't match the non-ripstop pants. I found another booth and they actually had some decent stuff, I've walked past them many times. They had tiger stripes but wanted $150 for them and they were repro made. I can pay that price at Moore's Militaria and sleep at night knowing his is 100% authentic. I asked if they had any OD green copy uniforms. They did and they were good but had the reinforced seat but they were a lot better quality than the others. They wanted $80 for them and for $80 I want 100% authentic to the real ones. I could buy the real ones for $30 but if I ripped a knee I'd be killing a piece of history, that's why we go for reproduction stuff. 


I want to get the names of all the companies that had pants but all in some way screwed them up. I want to have a round table conference with these companies and in my hands would be a $30 pair of the real Vietnam Era 3rd Pattern Rip-stop cotton jungle trousers (see why I call them jungles?), an $80 Moore's Militaria reproduction version and a $30 reproduction pair of Ultra Force jungle pants. I'd ask them which is the original. I'd bring out a copy of each company's pants and tell them what is wrong with theirs weather it's the buttons, reinforced knees, ass, etc. I'd tell them how there's a market for authentic items, and how by making this one little mistake each of them is wasting so much money and time and effort into making an ill designed product. That out of these at least three copies I've found and forgotten that they should work together, come together and make one pair of correct pants. I'm shocked and amazed that it can't be done. As you can tell I have no idea what happened or what went wrong but it's bad business, it shouldn't be going on and I find it sad and pathetic. I can get a custom suit for $100US, but I can't get a pair of pants without a reinforced knee for $30? Alright, rank over, get back to work, nothing to see here :P


I bought a poncho for Josh, 1960's dated but had a small separation from the edge and snap buttons from the actual poncho so I got it for less. I also saw a WWII M1942 bandage pouch with wire hooks. The US Marines had everything with wire hooks from ammo pouches, canteens, etc and some items themselves, like ammo pouches had eyelets to attach another item with hooks on it. The smartest thing they did was when they issued their flak jacket, a jacket to protect you from flak, pieces of hot steel from mines, mortars, etc they sewed a belt to the bottom of the flak jacket allowing someone to attach all their gear to their jacket and just put on and take off the jacket. The Army on the other hand you have to wear your flak jacket over or under your suspenders. If you needed something out of your pocket you'd have to take off your webgear and then the flak jacket. The marines just had to take their jacket off :) I'm side tracked but I saw the pouch, and before I was talking to Sam and he reminded me tan kit is WWII, Green kit is Korea and this bandage pouch was tan so for now I passed on it. I also did find US Army first aid pouches and they had the wire hooks out the back, but I think this was just a customization and not something the army actually issued. Most were in bad shape anyways though. I'm learning to shop slow, take my time, make sure it's 100% what you want, check it again, if it's not you can come back. If you guy it and it's not then odds are you can't return it. 

One lady was trying to get me to buy something and she had MPC, Military Payment Certificates or what the troops called it funny money. It was money the military made so it had something it could pay it's troops, it could be converted into local money if you were going on vacation and converted to US funds when you left the country, but was next to useless giving it to hookers and the local population. There's always another way to do things though and I'm sure some people were corrupt and let the locals exchange it for US money. It was neat but I'm not really interested in military money. There was also leaflets from the 1st Infantry Division. Leaflets had messages on them and were dropped by airplanes by the thousands, just messages like the 1st Inf. Div. is going to operate in this area. All innocent people please leave the area or just telling the enemy to surrender instead of hovering in a helicopter with a mega phone haha. She asked if I was interested in maps. And that I am! It also reminded me to ask Thanh as I saw her with a crapload of maps. I checked out her stuff and found a lot of maps, but I'm only interested in ones where the 173rd served in. I found a few of Kontum which the 173rd did operate in but I have one of the Dak To area. I have to use google earth and compare to find out exactly what area the map I bought covers, as for now it's a bunch of mountains and squiggly lines haha. Luckily each one has a mini map showing what the big version covers, and then a grid of nine boxes and which box the map is on the area. If I had the other eight I could tape them together and have one mega monster map!

Also here in Vietnam you can get American cigarettes and some have the same design as the US smokes in the 1960's. I know I'm going to get at least one pack of Lucky Strikes as they don't have health warning on them. Marlboros do have Vietnamese warnings but hopefully it's just the one side. If so I'll pick up a pack for Josh. These are the bigger packs of maybe 10 or 12, not the ration packs of 4. I was bummed out but Josh reminded me that the PX, like a military general store to spend your funny moeny, sold smokes too and probably the same size as these as well. From what I've seen only Lucky Strikes, Marlboros and Camels are close to the 1960's design. Just to let you know though, I'll open them and throw out the smokes as I don't want to pay any duty shipping them back. Anyways these are for your helmet bands only and smoking is bad :P but even the Doc will pick up a pack, as when you're in the shit, there's no atheists and no non-smokers either!

I'll check out my map tonight, other then that I gotta go eat and maybe watch a movie, see how the weather looks for tomorrow and maybe do my cross city trek. Take care.