Fascinating Color Pictures of Life in My Tho, Vietnam Taken By a GI in 1969

“My number had come up with the draft before my Jan 1968 graduation from Fresno State College,” writes Lance Nix, “so I worked a part time job until I was finally inducted into the U.S. Army early June of 1968. By the end of October 1968 I was en-route to the Vietnam War. I was assigned to MACV Team 66 in the Mekong Delta as a member of the PHOENIX Program. October 1969 I returned from Vietnam and was assigned to a training unit with the 5th Infantry Division at Fort Carson, Colorado Springs, Colorado. I finished my service there and finally got my honorable discharge early June of 1970.

“This is a pictorial record of the people and places encountered during the “vacation” part of my tour in paradise with MACV Team 66 and the Phoenix/Phung Hoang Program in Dinh Tuong Province in and around the city of My Tho.

“I try to remember Vietnam as being a working vacation. A few pictures from the “Working Part” of my “Big Adventure” in Vietnam from November 1968 to October 1969. It was a war, we were in constant danger, we were seeing, doing and experiencing things civilized men should not have to endure, but most of us survived and now it is over and time to move on.”

My Tho contrasts

My Tho’s downtown market

My Tho’s downtown market

My Tho’s market

Busy with mid-day shoppers at the My Tho market

My Tho’s market

Marigolds for Tet

Decorative vegies for Tet

ARVN soldier and his wife gleening the last fish from the drying rain ponds by the Binh Duc air strip west of My Tho

Cuu Long Restaurant

South Vietnamese war boat on the south shore of the Coconut Monks island

Stern view of water taxi approaching Kien Hoa Province from Coconut Monk’s island

The entrance to the Coconut Monk’s complex and “floating” refuge

Coconut Monk devotees holding services on the “floating” platform

Vietnam’s Coconut Monk in his tower at the east end of his “floating” platform refuge

Young visitor to Coconut Monk

Shopping district in eastern My Tho

In My Tho’s eastside commercial district

3 My Tho produce vendors

A reminent from the French colonial days, the long loaves of french bread were plentiful in My Tho

Noodle gobbler

Local men take a mid-day break for a little card game

Street brats

Intel staff from Saigon

The public park fronting on the Mekong River at the southeast corner of My Tho

At the southeast corner of My Tho where it fronts on the Mekong River

River front kids

At the southeast corner of My Tho where it fronts on the Mekong River

In southeast My Tho by the Mekong River

In My Tho on the Mekong River

In My Tho on the Mekong River