This is my office in the shipyard in Saigon. Her name was Luong Anh (last name first). She was so sweet, with her 50/50 coffee mix and Carnation evaporated milk. I understood that she was either the daughter of, or the wife of, a prominent Vietnamese officer. And the shipyard was, after all, one of the safest places in all of Viet-Nam. I hope she (they) made it to safety after the fall of Saigon.
She and our two interpreters helped me translate my reports. Every week I would go around to the shops in the shipyard and gather figures on the number of workers and the projects they worked on. I compiled that data so we knew how many manhours were spent on each ship by shop. All of the forms were in Vietnamese and I couldn't read them without help. On the standard forms we developed templates with the center cut out. That way I could place it over them the top to read them. It was an interesting job considering I was just a Seaman.
