During the day, I would be assigned now and then to a dump detail. The job was to take my M-16 rifle with me and guard the truck driver who was hauling trash to the dump.
At the dump, I would always see these young Vietnamese entrepreneurs like the two kids with the bike in the snapshot. They always had something to sell. There was nothing ever bashful about them. They would be on you, like the other kid in the picture who is standing on the running board of the truck, asking for a sale as soon as you arrived.
We would pay them with the military money we all carried or with cigarettes. Military money, by the way, had the look and feel of Monopoly money. We were not allowed to carry or use American dollars in Vietnam. It had something to do with the value of American dollars on the black market. When I think about it, when I paid them with military money, what did they do with it? How did they exchange it? I have no idea. When we paid with cigarettes, it was a very good deal because we could get packs of cigarettes for free.
The kids with the bike were selling cans of Coke. If you look carefully, you can see they have a white foam cooler sitting just behind the seat. I have no idea where they got the Coke or the ice. What I can tell you is it was always freezing cold. For me anyway, it was a rare event to have an ice cold Coke in Vietnam. I wouldn't hesitate to buy a Coke from them, even though they charged a dollar a can. That was a lot of money to pay for a coke back then. Back in the States, you could buy it for a dime a can. I didn't care, It was that good!
Those two kids are probably worth a lot of money now.
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