My granddad, William Silas Hill, a Congressman at the time and an “Eisenhower Republican,” conversing with Richard Nixon in 1956 – 13 years before Nixon became President.

It’s 1969….50 years ago. On January 19 Richard Nixon is sworn in as President of the United States.  He promises to achieve “Peace with Honor” in Vietnam, hoping to begin to withdraw the approximately 500,000 U.S. troops who are serving there.

Andy and I are in Huntsville, Alabama, at that time, thanks to the draft (read all about it in the last Andy’s Corner).  Following Andy’s advanced ordnance training at Aberdeen Proving Grounds, MD,  we completed our “dream sheet” – where the Army allowed you to indicate your preferred areas to be stationed next;  we had naively put “no place in the South.”  Remember, it was 1968 and the South was not our idea of a happy place.  We can still picture some military person assigning Andy – with unabated glee – to Alabama.

So Andy is serving as a 2nd Lt in the Army stationed at Redstone Arsenal.  When his orders for Vietnam arrive (accompanied by lots of tears), we begin to figure out what to do next.  I will go back to my folks in Ft. Collins, Colorado, and look for a teaching job.  Raggedy, our kitty, will go with me.  After the move to Colorado, we’ll go together to San Francisco and see the sights as our last fun(?) trip before Andy departs for Qui Nhơn; I’ll wave him goodbye at the San Francisco airport.  It is all surrealistic and awful.  We’ve only been married 20 months and have already been apart 12 of those months.

Note the “Hill’s Hellions” on the truck.  They weren’t MY “Hills.”

But there’s clearly a light at the end of that tunnel.  We both survive the year – and learn a lot about ourselves and our relationship.  Raggedy thrives on our 5-acre “tract” in Fort Collins.  I find out what teaching middle school in Loveland, CO, entails.  Andy deals with more than he ever needed or wanted to. And we add our first Australian Shepherd, Marcus (named because Andy arrives home from Vietnam in March) to our family.

One of the more satisfying things to ever happen is when Andy and our adult son Travis travel to Vietnam in December of 2000.  They land in Hanoi, fly to Hue and then bicycle down the coast, ending in Saigon.  They are both surprised and delighted by the warmth that the Vietnamese extend to these Americans – 25 years after the United States had finally withdrawn from the country – in a most ugly and traumatizing manner (the Nixon-promised “peace with honor” certainly didn’t pan out).  Andy shares some lessons learned from that trip  – about lycra and noisy horns and riding in crowds – in today’s Andy’s Corner.

Vietnam – December 2000

In addition to the appeal of the country and the Vietnamese people, both Andy and Travis raved about the food.   Andy and I had already become somewhat immersed in Asian cooking prior to his 2000 bicycling trip, since we had helped our daughter with her cookbook Asian Vegetables and, in doing so, had discovered a most amazing little Vietnamese grocery in Baton Rouge, the Vinh Phat Oriental Market, which became the source of many fun and – to us – exotic ingredients.  Andy has written about it too.  It was there that we first bought Asian fish sauce (Red Boat is our present go-to; our daughter recommended Three Crabs in her cookbook) and the most-interesting daikon radish, and rice (or vermicelli) noodles.

When I need help with Vietnamese recipes I frequently turn to the website and cookbooks of Andrea Nguyen.  She is from one of those many Vietnamese families who – in 1975 – fled the country.  Her family ended up in Southern California and she now lives in the Bay Area.  On her website I found a good basic recipe for daikon and carrot pickles, which are a must for Banh Mi sandwiches (here’s a link to Nguyen’s history of the sandwich as well as her basic Banh Mi recipe) and as a side dish for so many other Vietnamese dishes  – plus yummy to munch on just by themselves. Continue reading →