This article first appeared on The War Horse, an award-winning nonprofit news organization educating the public on military service. Subscribe to their newsletter.
In April 1968, I was a 21-year-old Air Force sergeant in Vietnam, assigned to an Army base camp surrounding the village of Lai Khe, nearly 40 miles north of Saigon. As usual, it was sweltering, hot, and humid.
I was part of a forward air control team helping direct air strikes. One day, someone suggested that we could bring a bit of Western culture to the Catholic orphanage in the village in the form of Easter eggs. The Red Cross “Donut Dollies” at Lai Khe gave clothes to the kids now and then, and we wanted to do our part.
We gave a couple of local Vietnamese women some money to buy eggs, then we proceeded to hard-boil many, many eggs, and scrounged around for all sorts of coloring agents. Someone came up with shark repellent from a survival vest for a yellow color. I’m sure someone in the “world” sent us a care package with some commercial egg-coloring dyes. For a couple of days, we had some fun pretending we were back home, even though we were in a combat zone.
Midmorning on the appointed day, we drove our jeep to the village orphanage and presented our seasonal gifts to the nuns, who seemed pleased with our offering. To reciprocate, they found a few bottles of the local ba mươi ba bia (“33” Beer). As we sat on chairs drinking warm beer on empty stomachs, the nuns explained our Western custom to the 30 or so youngsters, toddlers to maybe 10-year-olds.
We could quickly tell the children were unsure of our “gift.” Standing with their backs against the wall opposite us, looking a little frightened, they stared at us, in spite of the nuns’ efforts.
The nuns told the kids about a rabbit that hopped around the yards and houses, leaving colored eggs as presents for the children to find and eat.
Watching the kids’ wary reactions, we could tell the story was not making any friends. Finally, one of the nuns explained the problem to us: There was a cultural disconnect.
Basically, the kids could not fathom why any rabbit in his (or her) right mind would have anything to do with chicken eggs, even at Easter. Plus, every Vietnamese kid knows chickens don’t lay pink and purple eggs! A colored egg could only mean the chicken was very sick.
It stood to reason then that no one in their right mind would eat such a diseased egg!
The kids pressed their backs even harder against the wall, with the smaller kids hiding behind the bigger ones. All eyes widened; they weren’t sure what was coming next.
We figured it was up to us, the few, the brave, the soon to be drunk from drinking too much warm beer, to show the kids these eggs were safe to eat. Each of us grabbed an egg and started peeling.
We showed the kids that only the peeled shells were colored, and the inside was perfectly white with a normal yellow yolk. The kids finally got the idea that these pastel-colored orbs were safe to handle and enjoy. First the big kids, then the little ones, tentatively headed for the baskets—and then the eggs were gone with a flurry of little grabbing hands.
Soon the kids were sitting on the floor in small groups, laughing, showing off their colored egg shells to each other and munching on their eggs.
By now, the four of us had consumed more than a few warm beers, plus a couple of eggs, and were trying to sober up so one of us could drive back to our area in the base camp without having an accident.
We got back safely. Few things were simple in Vietnam; there was always a hitch: trying to find free jet fuel tanks just to have hot and cold running water; trading a bottle of Drambuie for a post hole digger; getting electrocuted while saving classified documents in the partially flooded operations center during a downpour.
But the orphans—eventually—enjoyed our strangely colored Easter eggs. It was a good day.
This War Horse reflection was edited by Kim Vo, fact-checked by Jess Rohan, and copy-edited by Mitchell Hansen-Dewar. Kim Vo wrote the headline.
Editors Note: This article first appeared on The War Horse, an award-winning nonprofit news organization educating the public on military service. Subscribe to their newsletter.
