L/Cpl R. W. Hoffman, and all of Charlie 1/13 who missed their hot turkey Christmas dinner.
As one of those tasked with bringing your hot chow to the field, I apologize for missing you. It’s a pretty good bet that we were diverted to pick up med-evacs in hot LZs or extract recon teams in contact. I putted around in a Huey covering -34s and -46s, and know that every time we were promised a holiday meal, most if not all the helicopter crews who were tasked with missions to deliver food made did as many as we could, and at the end of our day – after we’d post-flighted, serviced, and repaired our battle damaged aircraft, – we went to late chow (if the mess hall was still open) and ate cold spamwiches. Since we had a mess hall we didn’t have much access to C rats, so most of us hoarded a can or two when we did get rations for those many late nights when the mess hall closed before we could make it.
If your luck improves, maybe we’ll catch you in the next war.
Bush
67-69
4 comments
I would not eat spam for years after leaving VN. On perimeter guard the nite meal was spam sandwich, it got so bad they started switching mustard one nite the next nite mayo the next ketchup, what was so bad the bread was full on weevils. It looked like black pepper was poured in the flower before it was baked. The year was 1966
It’s been a couple of years since I wrote that story about missing our hot turkey dinner. I didn’t think anyone would have remembered it after all that time. When I was in VN I lost 25 pounds and came home at 145. Today I weigh 225. So I guess I really didn’t need that turkey dinner after all. I thank you and all the guys for your efforts. If you want to know what it was like for us in Charlie Battery 1/13 while we tried to support the 3/26 you can always read about our time over there in TO HEAR SILENCE. It’s on Amazon. I salute you Mr. Bush
I still won’t eat spam… L/CPL H. Young… RVN 65/66/69 Danang/ An Hoa
I have been back from VN for 49 years and have never eaten Spam since. The bugs in the bread were considered cooked sesame seeds.