BAR

Bar, 10 x 8 inch ink and colored pencil painting by George C. Clark    National Veterans Art Museum Collection

Comment:

I saw bars like this in Saigon, but I didn't spend much time in Saigon because the few times I was there I was on my way to more interesting places, like Hong Kong, Singapore, and home.

"Sneaky Pete's," the club at the Special Forces compound in Phuoc Binh, had a pretty Vietnamese bartender, but there was no hanky-panky there because the Special Forces guys were very protective of her and she never hesitated to put down any G.I.'s rude suggestion with an insult comic-style rejoinder.

At Bravo Battery, we had an enlisted men's club and an officer's/NCO club where sodapop and open cans of beer could be had for 50 cents.  The clubs were open for a couple of hours most evenings.  Since the two fire direction crews rotated ten hour shifts around the clock (so that everyone got to work both day and night shifts), it was rare for us to be coming off duty when the club was open.  There wasn't supposed to be liquor outside the clubs, but booze was sold at the post exchange at Long Binh where our service battery was located, and where all of us visited from time to time en route to R&Rs and other business.  Once when a soldier reported a camera stolen our battery commander made a surprise inspection of everyone's footlockers.  I was on duty in the fire direction center when it happened.  He couldn't have missed the fifth of Seagram's VO I had in mine, but nothing was ever said about it.