PAPA-SAN THE SHIT BURNER

13 x 10 inch ink and watercolor painting by George C. Clark    National Veterans Art Museum Collection

THERE WAS NO PLUMBING TO SPEAK OF IN VIETNAM, SO SANITATION DEPENDED ON MEN LIKE PAPA-SAN, WHOSE JOB WAS TO REPLACE THE RECEPTACLES UNDER THE LATRINES AND BURN THEIR CONTENTS WITH DIESEL OIL.  WE DIDN'T THINK PAPA-SAN WAS A VIET CONG, BUT YOU NEVER KNEW.  THE TWO VIETNAMESE CARPENTERS WHO HAD CONSTRUCTED OUR LATRINES WERE FOUND AMONG THE VC KILLED ATTACKING THE MACV COMPOUND IN PHUOC BINH DURING TET OF 1968.

Comment:

I first arrived in Vietnam in the middle of the night on a charter flight from California and they put us in a transit barracks to sleep until morning.  When they rousted us out I looked around and saw many plumes of black smoke on the horizon.  I thought. "Wow, burning villages!"  That was before I knew what the smoke was really from.