Left – Joe, Right – Mike DiRocco

1969 was the magic year for my brother Joe and me. I was six months into serving my third and final combat tour in Special Forces where I had found a home thirteen and a half years earlier. Imagine how excited I was to learn that my older brother would soon arrive in Vietnam.

Joe was a civilian working for Department of Defense as section chief for AFFEES (the PX system) and now designated as chief of all the PX’s  in Vietnam—in realty, the largest department store in the world.

Joe lived in a hotel in Saigon with other PX personnel protected by a contingent of South Vietnamese army security guards.  Part of his job was to intervene and put in place policies to reduce the huge amount of well-known corruption, thief and pilferage. That’s another story.

I was in Ben Hoa (approximately fifteen miles north of Saigon) running support operations for our ad hoc army of mercenaries. Joe connected with me several days later by land line telephone and came to Ben Hoa with his Vietnamese driver and bodyguard. It was a happy day knowing he was safe.

After being brought up to date with family news. We picked a safe spot to lie down next to, but not real close to, a 105 emplacement. During the night, the Vietnamese 105 crew received a fire mission. When the big gun fired, it shook the ground.

Joe leaped from a sound sleep at least a foot into the night air, a memorable moment in our reunion. At every family reunion, that story was repeated with increasing embellishments until a red-faced Joe would say, “OK that’s enough”.

Returning to Saigon the next morning, Joe had to look for another room. The Viet Cong had blown up his hotel, injuring a few Americans. Joe’s room was no longer there. The security guards were Viet Cong in disguise, and looked the other way as explosives were planted, then detonated.

Great luck in us being together the night before. It could have been the other way around.

My Brother’s Keeper in Vietnam
By Mike DiRocco