Kids from Bien Hoa

My first few weeks in Vietnam, they had me pulling guard all night at Bien Hoa Air Force Base.  I had the days to myself.  That job was a lot better than I thought it was at the time.  I had to spend some time in the jungle hunting Vietcong soldiers for a while before I could appreciate those early weeks.  I would sleep in the morning and wander around the local town of Bien Hoa in the afternoon.  While wandering, I always seemed to run into kids along the way.

They were always well dressed, clean and healthy looking.  The war must have been treating their parents well.  They probably had good jobs working for the American military somewhere.  It would be much later in my tour when I would see kids that were not so well off.  They were in places much closer to the front lines.  Bien Hoa was far from the front lines, far from the fighting when I was there.  There was no sense of war there at all.

It always surprised me how friendly the kids were when compared with kids today.  They would readily allow me to take their picture.  They were not afraid at all of American soldiers. Now that I'm retired, I walk a lot in the early morning so I see kids waiting for the bus.   Say hello to a child today and they are likely to turn away from you or even run.  They are far from friendly.  It's not natural for a kid to act that way.  They must get it from their parents.  Parents teach them to avoid strangers because they fear for their children.  Maybe there is a good reason for it, I don't know.  I do know that when I grew up it wasn't like that.

Another thing about those kids in Bien Hoa is they didn't come across as street smart to me.  They didn't try to hustle you for something.  They were not beggars looking for food or a piece of chocolate.  They didn't have an attitude.  What stood about them was they were quiet and respectful.

You are probably wondering why I took their pictures in the first place.  One reason is they were Vietnamese and the Vietnamese were new to me.  More importantly though, I was looking for something less threatening in a strange world and found it in them.