Operation Rinso

Some concepts transcend all barriers of language and culture -like a mail-order offer of free matching rowels in tasteful contemporary colors... Burt Boudinot, a now-retired lieutenant colonel, wore the black beret as an advisor assigned to MACV’s J-3 office in Saigon. Like any American fmt exposed to the Vietnamese culture, he couldn’t get over how utterly different Vietnam was. And the lack of a common language didn’t make it any easier.

He remembers his billet in the Massachusetts Hotel, just outside Tan-son-nhut Air Base, which had been commandeered to house U. S. officers. A Vietnamese chambermaid was assigned to care for seved rooms on each floor.

“I came back to the mom one day at noon, and there was mama-san working on the room. She was between 40 and 60 years old, but it was hard to tell. She started chattering and waving her arms, and I figured out she wanted my dirty clothes. The sergeant at the front desk said to leave a certain amount on my bed every Friday, and over time, I would also leave her an apple, an orange, or some cookies I’d brought back from the mess hall. “One day, when I was changing uniforms, mama-san Came to the door and started giggling and chattering. I went out to the hall and asked if anyone knew what she was talking about. A teenaged Vietnamese girl told me that mama-san wanted to touch the hair on my chest. I said OK, and when she did, she cried out a vord. I looked at the girl. The tef rager explained, ”She say, ‘Barbarian! Barbarian!’”

“Let me ask you something else,” I said, “Why does she always hand me the empty Rinso box?” By that time, over the months, he’d bought her eight or ten boxes of the detergent to do his clothes, and after each was empty, she would bring it to him. She held up the box, pointing to the back panel, which described the company’s free towel offer -send in six box tops and get a set of matching towels. “She want you to send for this,” the supervisor said. He agreed, and the next day, there were 36 box tops on his bed. Boudinot took the boxtops, filled out the,coupon, and sent it all off to the soap company, somewhat doubtful that the free offer was even good in a war zone. But about two months later, there was a call from the mailroom, and sure enough, there was a big box from the States. It was from the soap company.

Boudinot alerted the floor supervisor that the towels had arrived, and within a few minutes, she was in the room with the maid - and all the other maids in the hotel. They gathered around as mama-san opened the large box. “She let out a cry like a banshee and kissed both of my hands.” The noise level in the mom s das the other maids clucked and chattered their approval. The arrival of the towels from the States had taken on a legendary, manna-from-heaven aura that must certainly rank as a high-point in U. S.-Vietnamese relations. “Of course, that’s not the end of the story,” Boudinot said. “You can probably figure out what happened next... The next evening, there were almost a hundred box tops on my bed, probably every Rinso boxtop in Saigon. Word traveled fast.

“I sent them all away, but pretty soon, I was gone, too. I always wondered if the second shipment ever arrived....”