The Green Door

Photo: Butch, Dave, Brad

It was a hot and dusty morning but Butch and I had managed to escape off base for few hours. We had heard the “Green Door” was open again at a new location and our quest was to locate this mobile house of pleasure.

As we rode along in the cyclo I mused about the first time I visited the Green Door. It must have been around the first of November 1967. I had just arrived in Vinh Long. The newest FNG in the whole stinking town. Being a friendly kind of guy I quickly made the acquaintance of Dave Nitzer a true wild man from Alamogordo, NM. I am pretty sure it was the fallout from the frequent bomb tests he experienced as a child that made him the way he was.

Dave quickly diced out that we were kindred souls from the same Karass and took me under his wing, “to protect me from evil influences that could corrupt my pure heart” Oh yeah!

Nitzer was due to rotate back to “The World” soon and he was taking me on a tour of downtown Vinh Long. He wanted to introduce me to his favorite establishments. After an evening of socializing, donating to the local economy and improving U.S. / Vietnamese relations with numerous bar girls, we were in a cyclo heading back to the Villa.

Dave turns to me and says “Trooper, are you interested in pussy?” Well, I explained that bears still poop in the woods so Dave taps our driver on the shoulder and tells him “Papasan take us to the Green Door.”

In a few minutes we stopped in front of an ordinary looking house with a short fence out front. The gate to the fence was painted an inviting green. At the front door we were greeted by two tiny Vietnamese women that could have been anyone you would have met on the street. I was a little disappointed in appearances but decided to make the best of it. One of the women approached Nitzer hugging and kissing him like she had known him all her life. Obviously Nitzer was on their preferred customer list.

He introduced me as the new kid on the block and told them he expected exceptional treatment for me, his newest friend. One of the women brought out two bottles of beer. Watching her remove the caps with her teeth was pretty entertaining.

As soon as I finished my beer steel-teeth grabbed me by the hand and the crotch, not in that order, and led me toward one of four beds in a corner of the next room. The room was divided in fourths by curtains on a wire. Being a business woman she insisted that I must “pay up first GI, three dollah”. I counted out the bills and she began to remove her clothing. I quickly followed suit and climbed onto the bed.

She was a no nonsense kind of girl and explained that I had paid for “screwing only” and to get on with it. I felt very distracted listening to Nitzer and another girl in the next “bedroom” but I was challenged to rise to the task and I did.

The real surprise to the whole ordeal was when she clasped my face to one of her breasts. I obliged her by taking the nipple between my lips but I just about freaked when the super sweet taste of Mother’s milk gushed into my mouth. She had a good laugh as I spit the liquid onto the floor. In the immoral words of Forrest Gump … “You just never knew what you were gonna get at the Green Door.”

I was jerked back to the present as the cyclo slowed to a stop. We had arrived at our destination. A young boy was applying a coat of green paint to the front door of a small Vietnamese house; a testimony to their recent relocation. Our driver smiled a mostly toothless smile and confirmed our arrival by announcing, “Green Door”.

We dismounted from the cyclo, settled with the Papasan and told him to return in one hour. He nodded his head in agreement to our request but as usual, I found myself doubting if he truly understood. As we approached the house the boy smiled as he quickly opened the newly painted door.

Entering the shady building, Butch and I were greeted like long lost relatives by two of the three girls sitting in the front room. We chatted for a minute as we looked over their new surroundings. They had obviously just moved into the house. Things were so new they only had one bed in operation. We flipped for first turn and Butch went off whistling with his pick of the three girls.

For the next 15 minutes I slowly drank a warm “33” beer over ice with a splash of cognac while I chatted with the girls. We all acted like we didn’t her the grunts coming from the next room. I told them I had heard that if GI’s were found at their house the MP’s would shut their house down. The words had barely escaped my lips when I looked up to see an MP jeep stopping in front of the house.

I jumped to my feet and raced into the bedroom yelling, “Butch, get up it’s the MP’s.” We had just been warned two days before by the same MP’s that we had better not get caught at one of these places again, or we would be doing time in the stockade.

The naked girl squealed as Butch leaped out of the bed grabbing his pants, underwear and boots, I grabbed his shirt and beret off the bedpost and ran for the back door. I could hear his large bare feet slapping the tile floor in close pursuit. As I leaped through the rear doorway I stubbed the toe of my jungle boot hard on something very firm causing me to go stumbling into the backyard. I looked back to see what I had tripped over and was surprised (but not really) to see a large sow pig struggling to her feet. She had been napping in front of the doorway.

Unfortunately for Butch, he was looking over his shoulder as he exited the doorway. The result was a sudden and abrupt halt as he hit the pig full force with knees, slinging pants and boots and himself in all directions. It wasn’t a pretty sight!  I might have given him an 8.0 on his forward somersault if his landing hadn’t been so awkward. He smashed face first into the powdery dirt raising a tremendous cloud of dust. The pig squealed loudly grunting it’s disapproval at being disturbed.

I jerked a naked, dazed Butch to his feet reclaiming his boots and pants. He was covered from head to toe with powdery off-white dust except for the red from the bloody nose he had acquired. Near the back door sat four old men playing cards. They were enjoying a good laugh from the entertaining Americans. I signaled to them to please not tell on us as we took refuge in a nearby outbuilding.

Seconds later the MP’s burst through the back door and began questioning the old men if they had seen GI’s? All four of the laughing men looked at them and then emphatically pointed in four different directions while rattling off rapid fire Vietnamese. The MP’s didn’t seem to have our appreciation for Vietnamese humor as they stalked off in disgust.

Fini