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When the 308th became the 159th, and I moved on to the 160th Combat Aviation Group, there was a general change in ambiance. Instead of tent frames, with a GP Medium stretched over them, we lived in plywood hootches with tin roofs. Instead of the makeshift theater back at the 308th, Group had a nice stage, complete with dressing rooms, a PA system, and a roof over the stage area to keep the strippers, er, performers, dry.

We also had a mini PX, with a barber shop at the rear, where a Vietnamese civilian barber cut hair, gave real, professional shaves, and was generally thought of as a fairly nice guy for a Gook. (So, sue us, we weren't exactly politically correct in those days—and neither were you.) The guy gave a good haircut, anyway, and spoke pretty good English.

Back at the 308th, our barber had been one of the enlisted men, who had gone to barber college and got his license before he was drafted. He cut hair in between his regular duties. At Group, you didn't have to work around anyone's schedule but your own when you needed a haircut.

One afternoon, I was in the PX for some reason. A couple of strangers were idly chatting with the clerk and Colonel Crozier was sitting in the barber chair, getting a haircut and shave.

After a few minutes, the colonel got out of the chair and paid the barber, then headed back to his office. (Which, in keeping with the general ambiance of the place, was a real office and not a tent.) The two strangers walked into the barber shop.

But instead of getting their hair cut, they produced guns and handcuffs, and the next thing you knew they were marching our barber out of the PX and off to wherever they kept VC prisoners.

Our barber, it seemed, was an enemy spy. If he was lucky, they threw him into a prison compound, where he could cut other prisoners' hair until we left and the bad guys beat the RVN government. You were allowed to shoot spies, after all.

But it seems the story could have had a more interesting ending. "They wanted to just go in and get him," the PX clerk said. "But I told them that might not be the best idea, considering he was shaving the colonel's neck with a straight razor at the time."