The Foreign Service Journal, April 2015

50 APRIL 2015 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL Serving in Embassy Saigon’s consular section meant dealing with the social consequences—marriages, births, adoptions—of more than three million Americans coming through a country of 26 million. BY LANGE SCHERMERHORN Lange Schermerhorn joined the Foreign Service in 1966 and retired in 2001. She spent her first tour as a rotational officer in Colombo, and then served as a vice consul in Saigon fromMarch 1969 through October 1970. She was ambassador to the Republic of Djibouti from 1998 to 2000. Other assignments included Tehran, London, Brussels (twice), the State Department’s Secretariat and other Washington, D.C., assignments. D uring the decade between 1966 and 1975, more than three million Ameri- cans, each spending anywhere from a fewmonths to several years, cycled through South Vietnam, a country of approximately 26 million people (the reunited country in 2014 has a com- bined population of an estimated 90 million). This massive influx had an enormous impact, some of it anticipated but most unforeseen. I arrived in Saigon inMarch 1969 to join the embassy’s consular section, not long after President Richard Nixon announced that the United States would begin drawing down from the high-water mark of approximately 550,000 troops flanked by a sea of civilian contractors. A huge construction projects consortium (RMKBRJ— Raymond International, Morris/Knudsen of Idaho, Brown & Root of Texas and J. A. Jones of North Carolina) was busy building major infrastructure to support military operations. The combat soldier (tooth) tomilitary support personnel (tail) Doing Social Work in Southeast Asia FOCUS ON THE FOREIGN SERVICE IN VIETNAM ratio has escalated in every successive war, reflecting the needs of increasingly sophisticated technology and expanding missions. In Vietnam a very large tail hadmore time and space for interaction with Vietnamese citizens. Embassy Saigon had already become our largest post in the world, encompassing an enormous U.S. Agency for International Development mission and a Civil Organization and Revolutionary Development Support program. The job of CORDS was to “win hearts andminds.”The programwas staffed, in part, by first- and second-tour Foreign Service officers. South Vietnamwas often referred to sardonically as the “Land of the Big PX.” U.S. government economists had determined that a large military post exchange offering every product imaginable (even fur coats and very expensive jewelry) would absorbmuch of the salaries and financial incentives paid to U.S. civilian personnel and contractors. As an incentive to join what ultimately became a coalition of more than 30 countries (the most prominent being a large contingent of South Korean combat troops, but ranging down to a small military medical ambulance unit from Iran), access to the PX was offered to all coalition members. The unintended result was a booming black market for goods alongside the one for currency. This large international presence also generated a great deal of business for the small consular section, which consisted of a consul general, a consul and three vice consuls. The embassy did not issue non-immigrant visas because Vietnamese citizens required exit permits, which were rarely granted for non-official purposes by a