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If you were young and single, it was a good liberty port. Not as good as Pattaya Beach or Bangkok maybe, but it was certainly better than Singapore and Okinawa.
Olongapo.
It was wide open, similar to the way old Asia hands speak of China or Saigon before the Vietnam War.
Olongapo was a Navy town; a seamy Navy town, bawdy, ribald and bold. Compared to Angeles City outside Clark Air Base which was too populated with tight-fisted permanently based airmen and, sadly, a substantial number of retired "dirty old men," Olongapo was a one-stop shopping, beer quaffing, risque R&R for young sailors and Marines.
During the height of the Vietnam War, millions of men in white hats or tropical caps from as many as 170 ships anchored at any one time streamed past Marine and Filipino guards at the main gate of Subic Naval Station.
They would cross over the foulsmelling, polluted tidal river and into the many bars, restaurants and shops on and around Magasaysay, the entertainment strip. They, by virtue of long weeks at sea and combat pay from Vietnam, came with pockets full of personality, a powerful thirst and lust for companionship. Little has changed in the years before Vietnam or since.
The shops were full of handcrafted wood carvings, shell lamps, macrame, rattan furniture, and gaudy wooden replicas of the Marine Corps emblem. There were trinkets and baubles...