In September 1966, when the 7th Radio Research Unit became the 101st Radio Research Company (RRC) and dispersed from Saigon to other spots throughout South Vietnam, the 3rd Platoon set up shop at the Plantation Compound just northwest of Long Binh Post. The Plantation was so named because it was a part of a former French rubber plantation. Long Binh was not a town, but a military base, albeit the largest US base in Vietnam, with 60,000 personnel assigned there in 1969. Headquarters of US Army Vietnam (USARV), Second Field Force, the 199th Light Infantry Brigade and 1st Logistics Command were all located here, as were other units, including two evacuation hospitals and the 90th Replacement Battalion, where many of us spent our first night in country. On Long Binh, one could find clubs, restaurants, a bowling alley, medical facilities, swimming pools, various craft shops and sports venues, a University of Maryland extension, PXs, and the USARV Installation Stockade (also called Long Binh Jail or simply ‘LBJ’). The post was located southeast of the town of Bien Hoa, which in turn is north of Saigon. At some point, the 3rd platoon left the Plantation for Long Binh Post itself. Then, in mid-1968, they relocated again to the Army side of Bien Hoa Air Base.
Headquarters Platoon of the 101st RRC also relocated from Davis Station to Long Binh in March 1970, but they returned to Davis Station a year later. In November 1971, all platoons of the 101st collocated in Bien Hoa, where they remained until the unit stood down in April 1972.
(Any member of the HQ or 3rd platoon is welcome to share necessary corrections to the previous two paragraphs via the Comments page.)
Following the war, like most parts of South Vietnam, Bien Hoa went through an extended period of economic decline. A substantial number of its inhabitants were former refugees (and descendants thereof) from the communist North and largely Roman Catholic. As such, Bien Hoa’s residents exhibited a noticeable degree of resistance following the fall of the South. This, predictably, did not go over well with the new management, and it lasted only a few months.
After the Vietnamese government instituted economic reforms in 1986, Bien Hoa’s economy recovered and expanded. The area was infused with investment capital from Japan, Switzerland, Singapore, the United States, and other countries. Bien Hoa is now a major industrial center with over a million inhabitants. The area formerly occupied by Long Binh Post is now the Long Binh ward of Bien Hoa, is known as Long Binh Techno Park and includes a large shopping complex.
Not everything in Bien Hoa is good news, though. The Bien Hoa Military Cemetery, the resting place of many fallen South Vietnamese soldiers, has been neglected by the communist government. Parts of it have been vandalized or even removed in favor of new building projects, without proper reburial of the displaced remains. Overseas Vietnamese found out about this lack of respect for their dead and raised a public outcry. The Vietnamese America Foundation started a restorative program for the cemetery called ‘The Returning Casualty.’
Bien Hoa Air Base was used, in part, for storage of the Agent Orange which was sprayed by planes flying from that location. Upon return from their spray missions, the C123s would drain what was left in their spray tanks into a ditch parallel to the runway, allowing it to sit until it seeped into the soil. Plus, in addition to the expected leakage, in the early 1970s the base had a single spill of 7,500 gallons. USAID has declared Bien Hoa to be the largest remaining hotspot for dioxin contamination from Agent Orange in Vietnam. The concentrations found in the soil are four times that in Danang, where the defoliant was also stored. It is estimated that one million Vietnamese currently living have been adversely affected by the presence of Agent Orange. Cleanup in Bien Hoa by the US Government was finally begun in 2019 and is expected to take ten years.
Although Bien Hoa is a city in its own right and the capital of Dong Nai Province, there are those who lump it together with Ho Chi Minh City (pronounced ‘Saigon’ by most), which makes difficult the task of identifying whether some sights are actually in Bien Hoa. I am fairly confident, however, that I have it correct.
The Tran Bien Temple of Literature was first built in 1715 as a site for the promotion and preservation of Confucian values. The temple was destroyed by the French Colonial administration in 1861, but was restored to its original condition in 2002. Built near many provincial schools, it serves as a place of culture and education as well as a place of worship.
Another architecturally impressive temple in Bien Hoa is the Bu’u Long Pagoda. Generally speaking, the Saigon area is relatively flat, taking on the topography of the nearby Mekong Delta. The Bu’u Long Pagoda, however, is built upon a hill, Mount Bu’u Long, with a commanding view of the area. It was built in the 17th century and renovated in 1829. This pagoda was built in the style of those in Thailand and Myanmar rather than the typical style found in East Asia.
Bu’u Long Pagoda is today surrounded by the Bu’u Long Cultural Park, an ecotourism complex. The landscape includes mountains, lakes and pagodas, as well as a small theme park for families with small children. One of the lakes, Long An, contains huge rocks which look like islets and give the lake the appearance of Ha Long Bay. Visitors can rent paddle boats built to look like swans, although I would liken them more to cranes, and propel them to these islets, which they can climb for a grand view of the area. The park includes an open-air restaurant where one can dine or just sit and sip coffee in the breeze from the river.
Bien Hoa still has its share of bars and nightclubs, even nightspots readily identified as ‘pickup’ bars. While there is much new construction in the area, including western style homes and subdivisions, there are still plenty of buildings made primarily of rusted sheets of metal. Farmers still move their produce up and down the river in dugout canoes. Women still cook over charcoal on the sidewalks, selling food to passersby. People still see just how much weight a Honda 90 can carry. Despite ‘progress’ all around them, some things just do not change.
