Mike, my supervisor, gave me a tough time in my first three months on the job at Nassco for a couple of reasons:

Another young Vietnamese worked as a pipe fitter aboard the ships. From time to time, he would come to the shop floor and argue with Mike. Since we share the same last name, Mike may have thought we were related and his anger would spill on to me.

The second reason was that Mike had a lot of work experience and being a smart guy, figured out right away that I was not as skilled as I had boasted when applying for this job.

He gave me a tough assignment which did not require a lot of skill.

Our team's job was to build air ducts out of thick metal. The smallest ducts were large enough for a man to crawl into; the largest ones, were sizable enough for him to walk inside. Upon completion, sections of ducts were moved to a clear area, to be painted. Sometimes, the painters got behind their work and the ducts began to rust, especially at the welding seams. When I started my career at Nassco, most of them were rusted. Mike, pointing to the jungle of ducts, asked me to start removing rust, giving priority to those marked with a red X.

Each morning, in my dandy new uniform - protective eye glasses, plastic hard hat, steel tipped boots - I waited for the siren to begin my rust fighting endeavor.

My weapon was a needle gun. Each time you squeeze the trigger, needles dart in and out, striking the rust.

The first morning out, I studied my rusty opposition with much optimism. For a person trained in all kinds of weapons in my soldiering days, my new weapon seemed fairly simple but effective. And the enemy, well, it just lay there, waiting to be shot and re-shot if need be without much resistance. Furthermore, the battleground was far away from the shop, beyond the reach of supervisor Mike. There would be no way he could find out where I would be in that jungle of ducts.

After the first thirty minutes of fighting the rust, I found out the situation was more formidable than I originally thought. My new weapon, though very light, weighed a ton when held high above my head for just a short time. The sound of the needle hitting the metal, louder than the noise made by the equipment, reverberated throughout the area. Mike could just sit in the shop and know what I was doing, with only his ears!

The first few weeks was horrendous. I ached from head to toes from sore muscles. Some nights, I couldn't even sleep. It took me almost two months to fully "adjust" into this new life. Eventually, eight hours of fighting rust became easier. I could even sit and write poetry during my breaks.

The one thing I couldn't get used to was the heat. Baking under the Southern California sun since dawn, by noon the ducts became hot ovens. And here I was, all dressed up in thick protective gear. Some days, I had to stop every ten minutes to get out and wipe the sweat from my face.

I met Bruce, at this phase in my life of laborious toil.

One day, while I was on my back, shooting at rust, someone tugged at my feet, yelling, "Hey you! The big bosses are having a conversation!"

Nothing made me happier. I dropped my gun and took my rest. I could hear voices from a group of people near by. Though I wasn't listening initially, gradually my attention focused on what the big wigs were talking about. They were laughing and swearing, and the subject of conversation was quite raunchy. I poked my head out to look. There were no big wigs, only four other workers chatting among themselves atop a long, big duct. The short, husky guy turned to me, "Hey! Thanks for stopping all that racket!"

He was the guy who slapped my feet earlier. I wiped my face and got ready to go back to my work. He came over, introduced himself, and told me not to work too hard at it since Mike was having some meeting on the ship.

The following day, Bruce came back, entered the duct I was in and tried to entice me to teach him a few Vietnamese phrases. He bolted out after a few minutes.

"Man! It's too hot in there! You'd have to be crazy to work in this oven!"

He then took off. Later in the day, I was working in a large duct when I felt it raise up and drift away in the air. I went toward the rim to look out and saw Bruce signaling to a forklift driver to swing my duct to a different location and set it down perpendicular to the shore line. I yelled at Bruce, "What do you guys think you are doing?!"

"Just wait a moment!"

In half an hour, Bruce and the driver had all the ducts moved. I went back to work and realized the ocean breeze was flowing through the hot ducts. It was so simple. I could have avoided all those months of frying myself inside these tubes.

From then on, Bruce either asked some driver or jumped on the forklift himself to move my "worksites", improving my working condition a great deal. But that was not enough for Bruce. He made a request to be transferred to Mike's team, working at cutting and welding flanges. He also requested to have me as a co-worker, thereby ending my career as a rust fighter.

Except for the demanding job of helping Bruce carry 12 or 24 foot long steel rods (which he had a much easier time at than I did) my career as a laborer took a turn for the better.

Breaks and lunch times now became quite fun. We collected and retold jokes to make each other laugh. To entertain ourselves, sometimes we resorted to arm wrestling and non-contact karate fights.

Once in a while, Bruce asked questions about Vietnam but always changed the subject when he sensed my sadness.

When the non-contact karate gradually became full contact fights between younger, more aggressive co-workers, Bruce, always mischievous, invented a new game. We were to "attack" our opponent by pulling on the strings of our welder's apron, untying them. Bruce managed to undo mine quite a few times. Having declared the game childish, I refused to participate. Bruce persisted. I decided to use more knots than usual. Bruce told me I cheated and threatened to use scissors.

A few days later, instead of attacking my apron strings with scissors he handed me a piece of cardboard filled with his handwriting:

Declaration of War. From: Bruce, 5 millionth citizen of Israel To: General Lee, defeated soldier of Vietnam The following are reasons why you must participate in the apron war:

1. This is a challenge between a Jewish person and a Vietnamese person, meaning this is a racial challenge. Victory or defeat will be recorded in World history. Your country's honor is in your hands. It is shameful to permit yourself to be defeated by default.
2. This challenge will train you to prevent attacks from behind. You will be well prepared for survival should Nassco hire some VC by mistake.
3. This challenge will keep you alert, lessening chances of worksite accidents like when Tony crushed his hand in the press by being sleepy.
4. Only cowards refuse to participate.
5. Sheet metal work is boring, only idiots would refuse to have fun.

The fifth reason was the most convincing. I decided to attack Bruce that same day.

By being constantly on our toes, the "fight" did help us to stay alert during that period, when we were constantly working overtime. I asked everybody to warn me whenever Bruce came near. Bruce armed himself with a mirror so he could watch his back.

The harder victory was to come by, the more glorious the success. Each time I pulled one off, Bruce would clown around amid the laughter of other workers. One time he over did it so convincingly that Mike, who happened to be nearby, thought an accident had occurred. That ended our fun.

Mike called an urgent meeting about work safety rules that we must strictly adhere to. He pointed out what he thought was stupid, dangerous in the "war" Bruce and I played.

Bruce was worried.

"Mike is going to fire us. You think we should try to kiss his ass a little to appease him?"

I teased him, "I am not afraid. I already lost a country, mine, what's loosing a job to me? Go tell Mike I started the whole thing, and give him my thanks for stopping the Jewish-Vietnamese war."

A month later, we received our pink slips, only because we were among the first 150 employees laid off for lack of seniority.

Outside the gate of Nassco, we shook hands with each others. Bruce and I exchanged low key farewells.

• Chapter 3

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