Street Without Joy discussion

Street without Joy by Bernard Fall

The French conflict in Indochina.

Women- The French Army employed a “mobile field brothel.” Providing Soldiers with a controlled sexual release, cutting down on desertions, rapes, and STDs. General Patton understood the needs of his troops and was willing to experiment with the idea, but finally gave up when he was made to realize the ruckus kicked up by the outraged wives and mothers of America would cause a Congressional uproar and slow down the war by several months.
Since the whole country was a combat zone, the women would travel with the French Army units, provide emergency services as nurses. It was also “free” in that they were paid by soldiers and not the Army.
Two BMC girls almost ended up with an award. This occurred in Lai-Chau, two French battalions were encircled by the Viet-Minh for more than a year. A tall handsome “mulatto” Lieutenant combined artillery and “morale officer” for the airhead, felt the men in Tsinh-Ho richly deserved their share of earthly joys, but the outpost could only be reached by following a treacherous 30-mile jungle path which, more often than not, was ambushed by the Viet-Minh. Laurent called the girls together and explained the situation to them-and asked for two volunteers to go on the trek, with an infantry commando escort. Without hesitation, several of the girls volunteered and two of them were picked. They did indeed fall into heavy fire on the return trip, but behaved coolly under fire as the seasoned troops they were and were returned to Lai-Chau to the cheers of the garrison. Laurent wrote up two ringing citations for the girls and forwarded them to Northern HQ in Hanoi, but they were denied the medals as an “inopportune time.”