A HOLIDAY FROM HELL

over a decade ago RNR meant a 5-day escape from the mountains in the cold in the Chinese of Korea and over a decade ago that escape RNR went in one direction to Japan now RNR is an escape from here Vietnam but it goes in many directions an RNR flight from South Vietnam can take you to Tokyo or Hawaii or Thailand or you could end up in uh Taipei or Malaysia however the RNR trip doesn't really start here at tonsen the busiest Airfield in the world but rather at a rather Dusty and dismal place called Camp [Music] Alpha Camp Alpa is the staging area outside Saigon where thousands of weary GIS from every combat zone in Vietnam wash off the mud and the sweat put on fresh uniforms and process out for 5 days leave in official jargon RNR means rest and Recreation but to these men it is a holiday from hell after each man has spent at least 3 months in the swamp and jungle warfare of Vietnam the RNR processing is routine even boring there are forms to fill out US military script must be changed into US dollarars ID and there's the ubiquitous medic with his blunt needle all right you go out the door if you have to see the medic if you get the wrong shot as this Captain did you write it off as service above and beyond the Call of Duty the call of RNR is more important right now and everyone at camp Alpha is full of plans some have big plans and talk about them with a Cockiness or a caution bread of War what do you plan on doing in taipe on RNR oh I don't know he mostly eating sleeping I guess it's goofing off you're going to spend a lot of money no I got about $300 I probably won't spend that much I don't know for sure probably so though what do you plan on doing on RNR I'll see the city spend a little bit of money get drunk anything else well I'll take a lot of pictures and try to call my parents um on RR I plan to visit all the bars and see all the goodl looking Growers and ta and uh inter the city and see the great things that the uh Chinese have got there and U spend maybe $300 or $400 have a pretty good time I figure anyway what do you plan on doing on RNR uh just having a good time a bit of a break away from this can you be more specific uh well I could be specific one iide over there yeah uh oh yeah just bit of a rest you know it what are you plan on doing I'm planning on resting that's for sure what else I make a hug of myself get drunk with SP keep up the Australian image abroad what do you plan on doing don't know yet not there but it'll be good whatever it is after processing it's a short ride from Camp Alpha to heavily guarded tonsen Airbase where the RNR planes are waiting each GI has a free choice of cities on the RNR circuit he lists them by preference and if he's lucky The Saigon military headquarters sends him where he wants to go these GIS did not choose Hong Kong or Tokyo or Bangkok or any of the better known watering holes of Asia they chose Taipei on the island of Taiwan and most of them think they chose Taipei for very good reasons the plane waiting for them is a commercial airliner but it's one no civilian can ride on this one is part of a fleet of planes put together by Pan-American Airways under a special RNR contract with a pentagon it is probably the world's largest commercial airline operation that is deliberately nonprofit good afternoon ladies and gentlemen welcome on board our flight 64s on our flight between saon to would you kindly pass your seat bels and no smoking a in a matter of hours when this plane does land in Taipei that all to brief respit from War called RNR will begin I'll be back with that part of our story in a moment [Music] this is Taipei Taiwan the capital of nationalist China it is off the beaten path for most American tourists but in the past few months taipe has become a favorite RNR Center for US troops it was only in January that nationalist China agreed to let American soldiers come here by the thousands and now PanAm RNR shuttles are fing in several plane loads a week at taipe airport I asked PanAm vice president Tom Flanigan how the airline got involved in the first place well about a year ago uh the military invited all the airlines to out to scotfield to bid on this operation our company was uh very deeply involved in the Vietnam operation we have something like 14 aircraft doing nothing but flying supplies from the West Coast out to Vietnam company thought that in return for business they were doing in that respect they would like to contribute something of their own so we bid on the contract you think the company is sorry now oh no I think they're very happy with it it's worked out very well for everybody now you are in charge of the RNR operation are you not yes sir how big an operation is it well it's hard to uh there various ways you can describe it I mean the geographical area that we cover uh uh would make it as large as any transcontinental airline in the United States we have 13 DC 6s and 2 707s assigned full-time to it how many so-called RNR centers are there there are 10 in the Southeast area region then we have Honolulu which one is the largest one as far as the number of people used well right now it's Honolulu is there any special reason for Honolulu well I think the reason it's so popular right now is because the 25th division which is based in h Vietnam came from Honolulu originally and a lot of those boys are going back to see their families and wives Mr Flanigan considering the considerable size of the RNR program today you think it's reached its Optimum size or will continue to grow well no it'll continue to grow as the troop strength in uh Vietnam goes up it uh started out when we took it over in March we carried 5,000 approximately in March to our in our sites by the end of uh 66 we had carried a little over 100,000 and uh first three months of this year we'll be carrying about 90,000 I think the projection for next year be in a vicinity of 400,000 that means that every man serving at Vietnam apparently is going to fly on a PanAm plane on RNR they're all entitled to yes after they're in the country three months uh every man in Vietnam is entitled to an RNR well considering all the money that PanAm must be making on RNR it is a success well on that money bit uh we're not making any money the first four months we did it for a total sum of $4 and we refunded to the government well over a million dollars which we got under the contract after the first four months uh we bid it on a no profit basis so there's no profit for PanAm in at all is there any intention to change that no now you've mentioned 10 RNR centers now in use are there any plans for expansion well they're always looking look for new uh areas as the uh requirements go up and they are currently looking for other spots in Southeast Asia and probably in the South Pacific can you be specific about their locations or not uh yes we fight a Tokyo Taipei Hong Kong Bangkok and three places uh South that uh just so not mention compared to Hong Kong and Bangkok taipe may not seem glamorous to the tourist but like all teaming Asian cities it has everything a weary veter the Vietnamese jungles could ask for and some things he won't ask for and everything it has to offer will be ready and waiting after dark when the latest plane load of GIS arrives there's a minimum of formality as the gis arrive just an abbreviated immigration procedure then the troops are HED aboard a bus for for a non-nonsense briefing by a Marine Corps Sergeant who has seen everything happen too many times gent for your information my name is gun Sant Carlton US Marine Corps I'm one of your six service Representatives handling this RNR station you have any problems you run into any difficulties while you're here I want you to stop down the RNR Center we'll try to help you out first off security where you come from and what you've been doing is your own business keep it to yourself it's nobody's business but your your own incidents if you get involved any incidents out here any incidents at all while you're here in taipe on on the island of Taiwan you notify us at the RNR Center or the provos Marshall's office we are equipped to handle it and get it out of the way quite quickly and quite efficiently if you try to take care of it yourself it's going to make a little bit more difficult when we can out to help you your general conduct I'm not going to go into detail on that gentlemen you're all old enough to know how to conduct yourselves also J we got two types of girls here on the island we got the good ones the bad ones those that wear white socks and those that don't wear any white socks at all the first girl I'm going to tell you about where is a little triangular shaped pen on her lapel so you're going to meet her tonight out in the bars and she's what we call a Hostess a gentleman this girl is that's all she is the hostess she'll sit in the bar and she'll sit there and talk with you all night to the tune of one drink every 15 minutes to four drinks an hour and it's going to cost you a bucket drink every time they drop one of those little tulips on her PL now I'm going to tell you right now that she's going to probably drink more than one drink every 15 minutes so you keep track of them and if you don't want her to have them you make sure that you tell the guy that's delivering this drink to her that you'll be the one that orders it to her when you get ready to order another thing use a system out here pay as you go don't let them build up a tab because if you do you're going to knock down anywhere from 50 on up to 100 bucks in that bar tonight and before you know it you're not going to know exactly where it went to so system pay as you go you'll have no problem the other little girl we got out here wears a little circular pin on her lapel she's what we call a Thor and she's got funny practice she's been in operation since January and with a Chinese she's been in operation a little bit longer in that now this girl you'll find her out in the bar and remember she wears a little circular pen on her lapel this girl can be hired out of the bar in order to hire you must sign a contract for it just like buying a car r a suit or anything else that you might want to take out these bars that we're telling you about are not off limits and they are available to you but if you go into them I want you to watch yourself we've had Personnel spend considerably amount of money there in one evening and to give you a little sum around 375 for two people these are the bars that I suggest you watch your money very closely the okay bar the Casablanca bar the New York Bar the fox bar and specifically the Hong Kong bar and the Playboy bar now if you go to these places and you find out that they're Char while the sergeant talks most of the gis are taking careful note of every place they should not go and everything they should not do as any sensible GI would they tumble out of the bus at the American RNR Center in downtown Taipei have their baggage checked by customs and then receive chips for the hotels they will stay outside the RNR Center representatives of the hotels wait with what can only be described as eagerness stes [Music] miamii a scene that will repeat itself in every RNR City in Asia tonight Asian hotels are noted for their service on this their first night on RNR it will be catch as catch can and if the hotel Representatives aren't as fast on their feet as the eager GI the troops can be trusted to find their own way off [Music] limits [Music] we found many of the gis exactly where we expected them to be in one of the bars the marine sergeant had warned them away from the setting may seem a little unreal like a hot house but after months in the stinking Jungle of War a little old-fashioned American overindulgence helps even if the whiskey is watered and the music is too loud and after some boyish awkwardness a little conversation can do as much good as whiskey give her a kiss give her a kiss ni I'll give you a kiss I don't know him I don't know you who knows me nobody I just got here [Music] today hello how are you what's your name Marvin and yours mar mar yeah glad to meet you I'm glad to meet [Music] you [Music] how long you been here oh I got your tu tu here Saturday Saturday [Music] satday did I it yeah I've been here this the second time been here second time yeah I came in um May [Music] 1966 and uh I like it very [Music] much some of these GIS will spend their whole RNR in bars one end of taipe to the other until the taste of War has been completely drowned it is in the back of almost every throat even among the fuzzy cheek kids who've just had their first taste of combat and their first taste of RNR but others will find more to do than drink and talk here in Tai across the RNR circuit and I'll be back in a moment with a look at some of the other sides of [Music] RNR on any afternoon in any RNR City in Asia you will find a GI ing from a bar usually with a girl on his arm and a smile on his face not surprisingly many of them have fallen in love of one sort or another and it will last or it won't last at the same moment in time you will find other GIS prowling the streets hunting for presents for a parent or a wife or a child back home something exotic from a place that produces both exotic Trinkets and exotic Wars in taipe as in other cities east meets west in a peculiar Fashion on movie mares or on billboard adding to a strangeness that becomes more familiar every [Music] [Music] day the delicacy serve from fam containers along the streets of Taipei may not be so familiar to the pallet or to appetizing until you discover why they've been cooked that way for thousands of [Music] years for the squeamish or the wandering GI with a Japanese camera bought at the PX there's that ancient Chinese culture Breathing heavily in the crowded streets smoking fragrantly in its carved Temple or hanging in delicate silk Scrolls within the new National Palace Museum the largest collection of Chinese art on [Music] Earth some of the gis will find PTO a lush suburb of Taipei and a colorful hangover from the Decades of Japanese rule before World War II here in what is now China are some of the most popular Japanese ins in the Far East even highly paid Japanese businessmen fly to Taiwan to sink into the gisha houses of beato for some tea some conversation over rice wine some sultry Japanese folk songs or a bath in mineral water provided energetically by businesslike girls as the big pair of brogans at the door to an inn suggest American GIS do find their way here [Music] [Music] too [Music] and it is just as relaxing and just as businesslike despite the giggles in the Geisha myth as it would be for a middle-aged industrialist from Hokkaido but for many of the gis on RNR neither the hectic pleasures of the city nor the artificial relaxation of Betto offers enough peace after months of Guerilla Warfare in Vietnam in search of complete Solitude and complete quiet some of them travel South away from Taipei into the countryside and the mountains of Taiwan they are not disappointed for this is one of the most beautiful islands on Earth [Music] the [Music] as plain tourists or as men running away from war for a mere 5 days there is the almost infinite Solitude and peace of Sun Moon Lake where the silk scroll paintings of classical China take tangible form in every sunrise in every San moving like a water bug across the dawn [Music] [Music] Lake [Music] whether they go alone or Not Alone the Placid resorts in taiwan's mountains provide the gis with the closest thing to a holiday from hell that they're likely to [Music] find [Music] but that hell and reminders of it are never far away this is Asia and in the omnipresent Patty fields of Taiwan in the grunting water buffalo toiling through the patties even in the Ageless turning of a water wheel there are reflections of the peaceful Countryside of Vietnam before nightfalls in the black clad Viet Kong come out of hiding before the 5 days of RNR really begin thereover and when RNR ends the war begins again out of the bars of every RNR City out of the soft Hotel Beds from Tokyo to koala lumur out of the peaceful Mountains and the lakes that make War and Peace so much of a stark contrast in Asia the gis will file back aboard waiting aircraft to make their way wearily back to war the jungles and the swamps and the patties of Vietnam some of the gis will be going home in a few months others will not come