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David Mitchell
Happy Thanksgivng to all!
A thought for tomorrow: (today)
Many of you may know this, but the U.S. Armed Forces makes a big deal out of Thanksgiving dinner - no matter where. A full traditional turkey dinner, with mashed potatos and dressing with gravy. It is served hot and fairly fresh in some of the most remote and hostile locations you can imagine. I'll just leave you to ponder what a morale booster that can be. You might hold that thought in your hearts tomorrow as you say your Blessing and give thanks before you sit down to enjoy with family and loved ones.
Jim and Larry,
No flukes. Some "flakes" maybe - but no flukes. My Shigella Disentery was due to dirty dishwater in our Squadron Mess Hall - (we think?). It only hit our Squadron - no other units on our base got it, but boy did it go though our group like wildfire - starting with me.
And Larry, you'll have to do better than 145 lbs. I hit 132 and Jack claimed to reach 130 when he came home. But after three days on a fluids tube in my arm at our lovely nearby Binh Thuy Field EVAC Hospital, my disentery did "qualify" me for induction into the "Royal Order of the Silver (probing) Tube" (all 12 inches of the damn thing!)
"Now sir, If you'll just hop up on that table on all-fours, please".
Ohhhh, the humanity!!!!
We were often met with kids who waited along the various little remote airstrips we worked out during the day's mission to sell (or trade) us Bannanas, Pineapples, loaves of French Baguettes (really good - seriously!), or "re-filled" Cokes (in real Coke bottles). I can recall a few times where live chickens or fresh caught fish or eels (what kind, I have no idea) were being offered in baskets for sale by little old ladies. The kids were interested mostly in two items - cigarettes, or candy - which we often had with us. But plain chocolate was difficult to keep from melting by mid-morning heat. Sometims we offered them parts of our C-rations - most varieties of which we ourselves hated.
My "regular lunch crowd" at Moc Hoa ("muck whah") - a tiny remote village north of us on the border of Cambodia (near the famous "Parrott's Beak"). We "worked" out of the little airstrip there often, and these same kids were there waiting for me almost every time we went back. I had a photo of my favorite little kid, a tiny little guy with a "Suzuki" baseball cap who I photographed sitting in my seat in the aircraft. I've lost that photo.
For a while, we did eat some wonderful little local "lobsters" known (I think?) as "Australian Crayfish". For a short time (maybe two weeks or so) we supported this one same unit of Special Forces ("Greenie Beanies") in a remote little camp near Ha Tien - a tiny village near where the border of Cambodia meets the Gulf of Thailand (southern border of Cambodia, and then all the way left to the sea). We would take mail and suppplies to these guys that we worked with and supported for that short period of time. At the end of each day's misson they would load us up with cartons of these wonderfull fresh-caught "crayfish" - about half the size of a full-grown lobster, and with the slightest pinkish or peach cast to their almost white meat - and just a bit sweet. Mmmmm, I have never tasted a shellfish that good since !
Then one day, some high ranking Colonel from food services up in Saigon was visiting our Squadron Mess back home at Vinh Ling at lunch. He saw the crayfish, and asked what they were and where they had gotten them? This type of purchase of food off of the local economy was "outside of regulations", and he ordered it all thrown out, warned us never to do it again, and had the Chief Mess Seargent reprimanded for his actions. War is hell, but thank God for the brave leadrship of our superior officers and the concern they showed for our safety.
Many unkind wishes followed his name back to Saigon.
Our "Slicks" unloading supplies at Ha Tien (ARVN troops in foreground)
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