Diary Entry 48: Saigon, Sunday Night, 22 August 1965

                                                                            Saigon
                                                                            Sunday Night, 22 August 1965


Been busy working since 8 a.m. today and though I’m a little tired now, this is pretty early for me to be through so some progress must be being made.  Had my whole shop in to work today as the office is quieter on Sunday than it is on most days.  So we got a good bit of work done.

In order to get more work done in my branch, am starting a series of staggered duty hours whereby half of my people come to work at 7 and work until 7 p.m. and the other half comes in at 12 noon and works until 11:30 p.m.  This way I think we can get more productivity. Eventually, when we get some more office space, we will go to a 24 hour-a-day operation and will set up a movements operations center.

Major Dughi may be getting himself in some deep trouble over here.  He appears to have gotten quite indiscreet in his relationship with his “friend.”  He is being seen much too frequently at the BOQ mess halls, on the streets, and she calls him too much at the office. Think Colonel Plate is getting irritated about it.  He [Dughi] also seems to spend a lot of time away from work and on the weekends, Colonel Plate can’t seem to find him when something important comes up.

I sure don’t understand the situation.  He writes to and receives mail from his family nearly every day, so I reckon he and Mrs. Dughi are still married.  He also has lots of pictures of their house and his family on his desk so he must think something of them.  And he has pictures of his children in his wallet as he has shown them to me.  However, he really chases after this Vietnamese girl quite openly.  So I don’t know what the story is.  One of these days I am going to sit down with him eyeball to eyeball and ask him point blank what the story is. While it is none of my business, the situation seems so crazy that I want to get to the bottom of it.