This is the Commie “Certificate of Merit” I mentioned in CW5 Jack Cardwell’s thread about a safe conduct pass to be used by surrendering Commies in Viet Nam. When I looked at this certificate yesterday I mistakenly thought it said "Superior Shoes" or something similar. Obviously I lost my Vietnamese language skills after 50 years of not using them much and knew I was wrong. I knew “Khen” meant praise, compliment, merit, superior or something similar. My problem was confusing the word “Giày,” meaning shoes, with “Giấy,” meaning paper, certificate, award, diploma or something similar. They are not even pronounced the same.

Both words are single syllable words, just like nearly every word in Vietnamese. The capital of the South was Sài Gòn (two words), not Saigon, and the name of the country was Việt Nam (two words), not Vietnam. It’s too difficult to write using diacritical marks, so I generally don’t use them when posting here. Việt Nam simply becomes Viet Nam in my posts.

The recipient of the award was a fellow named Diệp Thê. The Certificate of Merit is not specific to a particular campaign, battle or action. It says he was a good Commie in 1967 and was awarded to him in 1968. He reluctantly gave it to me in 1969. Technically, all captured Commie documents were classified and to be turned over to Intel immediately. What? I was an 11F, that made me Intel, and I had a secret clearance. They remain classified for 25 years. In 1994 it became no longer classified -- so no harm done. When I got evacuated, my teammates cleaned out my room and sent everything to my home of record. The contents of that shipment included classified documents and explosives. I guess they didn’t look closely at what they were shipping.