Peter A. Taylor's Home Page

Tag: travel

  • What is the Tuscarora Trail?

    One of my books is titled the “The Tuscarora Trail”. So what and where is the Tuscarora Trail? Unless you are an experienced backpacker or familiar with hiking along the East Coast, you may not be aware of this trail or its location. This trail plays a significant role in two of my books: “The →

  • The Appalachian Trail

    Throughout my books I often mention hiking the Appalachian Trail. Usually, its context in my books deals with how Colonel Tyler who had a trail name of “Hardcharger” and his hiking companion Command Sergeant Major Smalls, who went by the trail name of “River Rat” used their hiking experiences to reflect on life. Not only →

  • Learning the Vietnamese Language

    I grew up in Dayton, Ohio and entered the US Army in Richmond, Virginia. I spoke midwestern-American English. During my school years I learned a lot of Latin as an altar boy at church. In grade school they tried to introduce us to French. I got pretty good at reciting the Latin mass (Pre-Vatican II) →

  • Field Rations in Vietnam

       I spent twenty-seven years in the Army and one of the biggest changes that I saw was the changes in field rations. Like everyone else soldiers have to eat, and one of the most important aspects of supporting soldiers was making sure that they had food that was ‘transportable’. I was in an unusual →

  • Staying in Touch with Home in Vietnam

    In my “Advisor Series” I use ‘letters’ as a ‘vehicle’ to tell my stories. In some cases, the letters are from home or from Tyler’s girlfriend in Saigon. In the stories these letters allow Tyler and his family as well as his girlfriend to reflect on events that are occurring in their daily lives. In →

  • Happy 162 Birthday West Virginia

    On June 20, 1863, West Virginia became the 35th state in the Union. It is a state that was born out of the Civil War. It’s also the only state that separated itself from its parent-state, in our case the State of Virginia. West Virginia has a complicated history. Formerly, we were a part of →

  • Getting around in the Plain of Reeds

    As I’ve mentioned a couple of times in my writing the Plain of Reeds is one enormous swamp. And of course, we had basically two seasons over there it was either hot and wet or hot and dry. This was as a result of the monsoons and their effect on the weather. When I say →

  • Vietnam Advisor series; ‘Exotic foods’.

    Welcome Back! As advisors, we encountered changes in our diets. Initially housed at a large replacement depot in Saigon, I awaited my assignment at Camp Alpha, located at Tân Sơn Nhựt Airforce Base. During this time, we processed in, received uniforms, weapons, field equipment, and managed (or mismanaged) administrative and financial matters. My pay and →

  • The importance of a backstory; backpacking the Appalachian and other trails and other recurring themes throughout The Advisor series.

    Welcome back! As I promised in last week’s blog I was going to go back and talk some more about The Advisor series. One recurring theme, backpacking along a trail. In the original book, “The Advisor, Kien Bing, South Vietnam 1969 -1970” you meet Staff Sergeant Sammy Smalls. While there’s not a lot of detailed →

  • The Civil War in My Hometown

    My recent blogs have dealt with some Vietnam War stories from my first book in the Advisor series, “The Advisor; Kien Bing, South Vietnam 1969-1970”,  (available on Amazon.com). What I’ve tried to do is to expand upon what I’ve written in my novel about my time in Vietnam during my first assignment there. For someone →

  • March 29, 1973 – the last Combat Troops leave Vietnam

    At about 11:00 am, Saigon time, on March 29, 1973, the last ‘direct combat’ troops left Vietnam ending the United States involvement in the Vietnam Conflict. I happened to be one of those last guys out. It had been a harrowing ten days. I was initially scheduled to leave around March 20th, but there were →

  • The Plain of Reeds; life in the Mekong Delta

    A number of times I’ve talked about operating in the Plain of Reeds (Đồng Tháp Mười in Vietnamese). Our entire provincial area bordered with Cambodia on the north and the Vam Cô Tây River on the east. The entirety of Kien Binh district was considered to be a part of the Plain of Reeds. The →

  • The Chiêu Hồi Program

    The Chiêu Hồi (pronounced roughly as Chew Hoy) was an interesting program that I dealt with on a daily basis. In my book I talk about our “Man Friday”, Ông Hai, or Mr. Hai. He was our go-to guy as far as maintaining our Jeep, boats, trailer, generator, and almost anything else that we needed to →

  • Counterparts

    In my books I often describe some of the issues in dealing with our Vietnamese counterparts. As American Advisors we faced a philosophical and cultural difference with many of the Vietnamese that we dealt with. As westerners or Americans tend to think in concepts such as “never put off until tomorrow what should be done →

  • Where is Ap Bing???

    Good morning! Readers who bought my book “The Advisor; Kien Bing, South Vietnam 1969-1970 a Novel” won’t find the locations on a map of Vietnam. Following the invasion from the north in 1975, many locations mentioned in my book were renamed. The town previously known as Ap Bing was actually named Ap Bac. The new →