Guess Who's Coming to Dinner

We love food. And recipes. And stories about breaking bread with family and friends in unexpected places—in ways that stay with us, and change us, forever. If you've been following along, you know we asked some of our armed forces authors to share a favorite wartime recipe or meal experience as part of our month-long Memorial Day commemoration.

Earlier this week, Tony Peluso gave us his An Khe Pasta Recipe. Today Doug Bradley, author of DEROS Vietnam: Dispatches from the Air-Conditioned Jungle,shares with readers one of his most memorable Vietnam Wartime meals in Guess Who's Coming to Dinner.

Miss Mai, our petite Vietnamese receptionist, was more than just window dressing in a drab Army office in the heart of sprawling Long Binh Post. She was a ray of sunshine, hope and promise to us scared and homesick GIs. During the most difficult days of our 365-day Vietnam tour, Miss Mai believed in us and what we were doing.

Among the many happy moments my best friend George and I spent with Miss Mai in Vietnam, one stands out: being invited to have dinner at her home in Saigon just before our tour was up.

George and I got lost trying to find her family’s house on Tran Quang Dieu Street in bustling, dangerous Saigon. When we finally arrived, Mai, though a little put out, presented us with a bountiful feast of, stunningly, steak and spaghetti! To this day, I don’t know how she was able to find such good American food to serve us, but it was the best meal I ate during my year in Vietnam.

That night, as we dined by candlelight in Miss Mai’s home, her large, extended Vietnamese family relegated to huddling in the next room out of earshot, it was hard for me and George to remember that we were soldiers from a foreign country who’d been sent here to fight in a war. Even though the war was ubiquitous and all consuming, we never talked to Miss Mai about it. The war was our link, it was what had connected us and brought us together, but we’d never discuss it.

George and I departed Vietnam within days of one another in November 1971. When I visited him and his family in D. C. later that year, we reminisced about that meal at Miss Mai’s house, her infectious enthusiasm and goodwill. Not knowing what would happen a few years hence, we feared for her and her safety.

“She’ll never get out of Vietnam alive,” was our quiet consensus.

But thank God we were wrong.

If you'd like to read more from Doug Bradley, download an excerpt of DEROS Vietnam: Dispatches from the Air-Conditioned Jungle.