The serpentine Saigon River flowed past its namesake city into the Song Dong Nai, a wide river that snaked its way southward to join the Van Co Dong and the Rach Cac Rivers at the Cua Soirap Estuary. The Cua Soirap emptied into the South China Sea. The Song Saigon, Song Dong Nai, and Cua Soirap formed the main channel into Saigon harbor. Bach Dang (Street) ran along the riverfront. Although Saigon was far inland from the sea, it was an active deepwater port. Many ships lined the waterfront bulkheads. - Postcard aerial view of Saigon Asia-Pacific Color Productions, Ltd., photograph by James Pickerell - circa 1969

The French Quarter was Saigon's downtown business center and the waterfront. It was the section of the city that had earned Saigon the distinction of being the Paris of the Orient. The French had left their stamp on the city. Both architecture and atmosphere were unmistakably French. The most picturesque and renown streets in the French Quarter were Tu Do and Bach Dang.

US servicemen working or visiting Saigon were not permitted to carry weapons. There was no infantry stationed in the Capital Zone. Security of personnel and property was the joint responsibility of the US Army Military Police and the Vietnamese National Polices (lovingly referred to as White Mice or Rats by US troops). Because US soldiers stationed in Saigon were, essentially, unarmed non-combatants they received the nickname Saigon Warriors. This disparaging title was unearned. The two nights I spent in Saigon without my rifle at my side were amongst the scariest times I had endured in Vietnam. Gunshots sounded throughout the city. It was not a happy place, and I felt most uncomfortable there. Soldiering without guns was political lifer crap and didn't make much sense to me.

Saigon was the cultural and political capital of the Republic of Vietnam. The city was beautifully arranged with wide, paved, tree-lined streets and numerous public parks. Tu Do, the city's main street, ran from the harbor past fashionable shops and outdoor cafes to the twin-spire Notre Dame Catholic Cathedral overlooking Kennedy Square. Metropolitan Saigon, including nearby Cholon (Chinatown), covered an area of approximately 32 square miles and in 1969 had an estimated population of two million people. My initial impression of Saigon had been tantamount to Dorothy's first glimpse of Oz in the original film production of The Wizard of Oz. It's splendor had snapped my senses to unreality. Girls in mini-skirts, European style buildings and shops, dazzling gardens, outside cafes, and restaurants. This kind of stuff didn't exist in the Delta. My revelry was soon snapped back to reality when nasty, spit-shinned MPs, in a polished 1/4-ton utility truck stopped our shot-up, muddy, deuce-and-a-half inquiring what the Hell we were doing carrying weapons!  Ding Dong sanity is dead, sanity is dead…

I soon discovered that the best way to navigate Saigon's maze of streets and congestion was by taking the US Army bus. The Army actually operated a fleet of buses in Saigon to shuttle MACV troops hither and thither. Not at all like a war. More like the occupation army mentality that USARV's senior grade officers (LTC to General Officer) cut their teeth on in the aftermath of WWII and Korea. The bus ahead in this scene is decorated with Snoopy reclining on the top of his doghouse with the inscription RELAX. Right on, bro.

 A statue of legendary Vietnamese hero, Tran Hung Dao, sat in Me Lin Square and overlooked the harbor. There was an agent of Foremost Dairies, Inc., on Bach Dang. Foremost Dairies was a mid-west US agribusiness formed by retail magnate J.C. Penny to manufacture recombined milk products. They supplied the 9th Infantry Division with bulk milk packaged in cardboard sleeved plastic bags for dispenser machines, as well as quart sizes in orange paper containers . In the US Foremost divided whole milk into anhydrous fat and nonfat solids. After the water had been removed, the solids were shipped to a Foremost plant in Japan where the solids were then reconstituted into whole milk by adding specially treated water. The liquid milk was then shipped on freighters to the Port of Saigon. Foremost Diaries processed milk wasn't as tasty as non-recombined milk from cows, but their chocolate flavored milk was outstanding. - Postcard view of Song Saigon Asia-Pacific Color Productions, Ltd., photograph by Mike Roberts - circa 1969