A couple of days ago, while looking for something else, I ran across a couple of items from the past that I’d forgotten about. One was a curfew pass from Vietnam.
During the war there was a curfew — depending on the “state of the war” the curfew was essentially “all the time” or it varied up until about midnight.
Anyhow, I lived in an apartment in downtown in Saigon — right across the street from City Hall. Since we usually worked fairly late, I was almost always out after curfew. Most of the curfew “checkpoints” were on the outskirts of Saigon, not downtown on the main streets. There was a military and civilian curfew. Again, depending on the situation, the (American) military curfew was generally a little earlier than for the civilian population.
Since I was technically a “military” employee, I was often stopped by the American Military Police (MPs) for being out after curfew. They usually “wrote me up” for violating curfew and I didn’t think much about it until I was called into our office at the embassy.
I apparently had been written up more times than I thought — there was a “stack” of offenses against me.
After some discussion, it was agreed that I was probably going to continue to violate curfew and in order to counteract the situation, my superiors came up with a plan — they issued me a Curfew Pass. I guess they made it up in the office and it looked pretty official to me… had my picture on it and everything. The words on the pass said something like “…. the person whose photograph and signature appear below is an official of the United States Government and is authorized to travel and conduct official business during curfew.” It was printed in both English and Vietnamese with both my signature and that of the MACV Provost Marshal.
There was just one problem — it apparently didn’t work… it seems that none of the MPs had ever seen (or even heard of) a “Curfew Pass.” It also turned out that the serial number of the pass was 001. A few MPs asked how many people had curfew passes and if this was the only one (it was.)
The “offenses” against me kept piling up and after another meeting I was issued a new pass — with a different serial number, but it also had a stamp prominently displayed that read “OFFICIAL” in both English and Vietnamese. That seemed to do the trick…. I received very few, if any, violations after that. So I guess if you’re going to carry documentation, it should clearly state that it is “official.” Or…. maybe they just got tired of writing me up.
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