$2.10

Yesterday, I received a very complete packet from Valor Tours, containing ticket information, visa, itinerary, luggage tags, etc.  It makes me realize how unorganized I am and how I need to pack all the important stuff.  You’d think after the previous trips I’d have this packing thing down to a science.  Wrong!

Now that I think about it, I wasn’t all that prepared during the war, particularly when I touched down in the rice paddies of Ha Tinh province.  All the things I held in high esteem like my g-suit, torso harness and survival vest became worthless when overeager villagers destroyed them by roughly cutting them away.  I tried to say “Hey, I can show you how to make that easy by using the zippers,” but the language barrier got in the way.

When I made it to Hanoi, I never saw the stuff again, but for some reason I thought about the two one-dollar bills and a dime I had buttoned into my left shirt pocket. I carried them in case my flight got diverted to Danang, so that I could get a burger and a beer at the O-club.  Later in discussions with cellmates they would tell me what they lost when they were shot down: a good luck charm, a wedding ring or in one case two weeks’ pay stuffed into a pocket on the way from the pay line to the flight line.  I always emphasized, in mock seriousness, how devastating it was to have lost that $2.10.

Flash forward to 1973.  The first release group had gone home and those of us in the second group were hanging around with hopeful expectations for release without a glitch.   The prison staff had the same attitude — biding their time until they could get rid of us.

“Ghi, some officer would like to talk with you.”  Mark, the turn-key guard approached where a group of us stood in a corner of Hoa Lo’s courtyard.  “That’s weird,” I thought, “What could this be about?”

I followed Mark across the courtyard to a building normally used for interrogation.  Inside, a man sat behind a long table, officious but not unfriendly.   He waved to the chair across the table for me to sit.  I couldn’t remember a time when “the chair” wasn’t a low stool.  On his right, a man leafed through a ledger, his pencil at the ready.  The man on his left rested his arm on a flat grey metal box.  I waited while they conversed in Vietnamese.

“Mmm-umm,” the officious one cleared his throat.  “You had some money when you were shot down?”

“Yes,” I answered, “Two dollars and ten cents.”

“Ten . . . cents.”

“Yes, ten cents.”

“Unh, what is cents?”

“Cents, pennies.”

“Ah, pennies, ten pennies.”

Another Vietnamese conversation ensued, with knowing nods and smiles. Then he turned back.  “And two dollars?”

“Yes.”

The man to his left tilted the lid of the grey box open, rummaged around a bit, pulled out a two-dollar bill and placed it on the table.  More conversation, then he counted out ten pennies on top of the bill.  The officious one nodded to me.  “Is this correct?”

So it was, when I flew out of Hanoi two days later I had 2 dollars and 10 cents in my pocket.  I got everyone on the plane to sign my new two-dollar bill.  Or was it my old two-dollar bill in a different form?  Was I the same guy or was my makeup forever altered?