The Wrong Vietnam Rice Paddy

It’s not unusual to be asked, “Where do your book ideas come from?” My books are primarily adventures and mysteries for readers 8 and up. That makes answering this question easy. My life has been filled with adventures. Many of these come from real life experiences on film and video productions in America and around the world. 

One such experience took place in Vietnam right in the middle of the conflict. 

I had been drafted and took my basic training at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, home of the 101st Airborne Division. We often looked up in the sky to see hundreds of paratroopers dropping out of airplanes. Helicopters flew, like dragonflies, everywhere. 

Even though preparing for fighting in Vietnam - most of my instructors had served there for one or more tours - my path of service took me to Germany instead where I was assigned to an armor battalion. 

That’s right. I rode around in a big tank, firing the main gun and two machine guns. At the end of my time there, I returned to the US and began working again on the productions of dramatic films and documentaries. That’s what I had been doing before getting drafted.

The very first project, after returning to work, was following a Venture For Victory basketball team through Asia. Our schedule took us to Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, and…can you believe it…Vietnam. That was an extremely traumatic experience for someone like me, just recently released from active duty in the Army.

Looking out of the plane window, as we approached Saigon, the ground looked almost like the surface of the moon from all the shelling and bombs.

One of the filming locations happened to be the second least secure province. I won’t relate some of what I saw and heard, but the war was fully going on there. At night we heard artillery shelling going off, and could smell the smoke.

Next day, two helicopters were dispatched to take the crew and three of the basketball players to another location. And for some unknown reason I wound up, all by myself with a heavy motion picture camera and bulky, wooden tripod, in the second chopper.

The flight was interesting since both doors remained open. A machine gunner kept an eagle eye out for any danger from the ground. 

Suddenly our ship descended and touched down in the middle of several rice paddies. Someone yelled over the sound of the jet engine, “This is the place.” So…I scrambled out with the heavy equipment, moved away from the helicopter, covered my eyes, and it quickly disappeared into the distance.

Looking around, I soon noticed the second chopper was nowhere in sight. So there I stood, all six-feet-four inches of me, on the footpath of a rice paddy. But it was the wrong rice paddy. Several Vietnamese farmers, dressed in black and wearing pointed, straw hats, had stopped their work and now stared directly at me. 

What to do now?

In the distance I could see traffic on a road, but it was a long way off and I usually didn’t carry that much equipment, over a long distance, by myself. In addition to the camera and tripod, I had two heavy battery belts, light meters, and a few other things. But all I could do was slowly make my way toward that road in the hot sun and humidity. As soon as I reached the road, an army troop truck, in a small convoy, stopped. 

“What are you doing way out here,” a gruff voice demanded from the cab. 

“They left me off in the wrong place,” I answered.

“Get in the back.”

The truck thundered off down a dusty road until it came to a stop near the next village. When it stopped, that same voice said, “This is it. Get out.”

I was never more relieved to find the rest of my group standing near the road. When I reached them, the director asked, “Where have you been?”

“That’s a long story,” I answered. “They let me out at the wrong rice paddy."

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