It was sunny and warm again the next day. Erin adjusted her suit bottom and shifted in her lounge chair. “Baby,” she said, leaning over toward Luke, “will you put some more sunscreen on my shoulders?” “Is that the only place you want it?” Luke asked coyly, glancing over at his topless wife. The midday sun was hot, and the breeze felt nice, blowing in from the ocean. Luke and Erin had spent the lazy morning soaking in the...

The restaurant’s bright yellow walls looked warm and inviting in the dim lighting as Luke and Erin entered from the beach. All the windows were open to the warm evening breeze with views of the myriad of tiny fishing boats on the water, each one with a small light. The twinkling from the dozens of boat lights shimmering off the water magnified the effect and made it difficult to distinguish the starry night sky from the o...

Erin waited for Luke in a loose-fitting, lacy white sundress outside the hotel lobby under the portico. Her tan skin contrasted against the fabric. She had built a base tan before leaving home so she wouldn’t burn in the South Asian sun and for the sexy tan lines. Monica and Jenny insisted on waiting with her after checkout. They wore matching black silk ao dais this morning and were apparently unaffected by the morning h...

“Welcome to Vietnam, Ms. Erin. How was your flight?” The young woman behind the desk smiled serenely with her palms pressed together and bowed slightly as a sign of respect and greeting. Her long black hair was pulled back in a graceful ponytail kept in place by a black ribbon. She was dressed in a satin peach-colored ao dai, the traditional Vietnamese long tunic. An English name tag that read “Jenny, Hotel Saigon” was pi...

It was another turbulent day in the summer of 68. Student protests raged from the Sorbonne to Berkeley. In the US, civil rights demonstrations and anti-war rallies were turning violent. Martin Luther King was dead; Bobby Kennedy would be soon. In South Vietnam, hundreds of other Americans were being killed each month. Soldiers patrolled the streets of Saigon, Paris, and Washington while Soviet troops prepared to invade Pr...