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["Don Bowen" <don.bowen AT earthlink.net>]

> No, I was still a kid when Vietnam ended.  I did find this site about what
> people like you were doing in thast city back then.  See if anything is
> familiar.  I didn't see an "east Inn" ....bobford
> 
> http://www.filipinawives.com/memorial.html

Who ever wrote that was there long after I was.  We were not allowed to wear
civies at the time and did not use the local currency.  The pictures look
the same though.  I was there several times in 1967 and 1968 as part of the
air group on the USS Kearsage CVS-33.  I was a electronics tech for the
dipping SONAR on helicopters.  I was at the EM club on Grande Island when
word came that the Pueblo was captured.

The East Inn was at the east end of town right at the limits of where you
could go.  Most of the town was off limits.  The East Inn was a large second
floor bar.  A bar stretched along one wall and tables in the center.  The
other three walls had little curtained booths where for a price you and one
of the girls could have a little privacy or pull back the curtain and give a
show.  Girls danced all over the place and were eager to get you and your
money into one of the booths.  A very raunchy place with a very bad
reputation.  You never went there alone and you always made sure all of your
party left together.  Long ago and far away.

One of the things that always stuck with me.  My compartment was aft and one
route took me past sick bay.  As we left Pearl and the flesh pots of Hotel
street there would be a few sailors lined up outside for the necessary
shots.  The line would be about the same as we pulled out of Yokuska Japan
and Sasabo Japan.  But when we pulled out of the PI the passageway was
packed and I had to take an alternate route.  Hong Kong was even worse.

Don Bowen  KI6DIU
http://www.braingarage.com/Dons/Travels/journal/Journal.html