Tara Wu: Safe Water

Bill Bartoswicz still recalls how the drinking water looked in his days serving in the Navy in Vietnam. “The Army would bring in these big, black bladders filled with so-called potable water,” he said. “And it was loaded with chlorine. And then the Marines would come in and they’d dump more in so it ended up that the water had a yellowish tint to it. That’s why I had Kool-Aid and things like that sent to me by my wife — just to make it look better.”

The packets of dyed, sugary flavoring could not quell his suspicion that the water was less than safe to drink. A layer of oily substrate looked suspiciously like gasoline. “It always had that film floating on top.”