 |
|
A very special person – Hoang Thi Phuong, (Angel). Born in Hanoi about 1947, her family moved south to Saigon in 1954. She lived in Saigon and at Vung Tau. An old friend, named Bill, who knew her in Vung Tau, 1965 - 1967 (where she worked as an interpreter for RMK-BRJ), would like to hear from her. It is not known whether she is in Vietnam or elsewhere, but it is likely she married and settled in the United States. Anybody with information please E-mail: webmaster@heritech.com.
In April of 2007, while doing a little research on RMK-BRJ, I ran across the following document on the
Internet which mentions Angel. The first mention I have found since I last saw
her so many years ago.
Graduate Journal of Asia-Pacific Studies
2:2 (2004), 44-63
The Vietnam Builders: Private Contractors, Military
Construction and the ‘Americanization’ of United
States Involvement in Vietnam
James M. CARTER
University of Houston
(Excerpted from Pages 52-53 [emphasis added])
...Articles and features dealing explicitly with the consortium’s workforce quickly became the most common feature of The Viet Nam Builders. As mentioned, writers made a considerable effort to highlight social and entertainment aspects of working for the Builders. From dances, galas, and softball tournaments to barbeques, fundraisers and picnics, the pages of The Viet Nam Builders were filled with an array of articles that conveyed the sense of unity and even family that executives regularly trumpeted in their public statements.
Articles also regularly highlighted specific workers and specific episodes for outstanding accomplishment. Nineteen year old Hoang Thi Phuong, for example, came in for high praise as the only female work shop interpreter at the Builders many jobsites. Despite her diminutive stature, the newspaper intoned, she had become an invaluable asset in the carpentry shop. Having previously worked as a translator for the US Air Force, she quickly adapted to the alien terminology of military construction and had become ‘one of the pillars of the carpentry shop,’ according to a general superintendent. She had become, wrote The Viet Nam Builders correspondent, ‘conversant with the new terminology as if she’d been born and raised in the…shop.’... 45
60 www.arts.auckland.ac.nz/gjaps
Anybody with information please E-mail: webmaster@heritech.com.
