Rain and C-rations

“Rain, rain, rain; will it ever stop raining?” I asked no one in particular. It was the tail end of the rainy season in Vietnam. It was 1967. Some days it would rain all day and night. Some weeks it would rain all week. Some months it would rain all month. It would be raining when you went to bed, and raining when you woke up. All anyone wanted to do was find a dry place and stay in out of the rain.

However, of course, the Viet Cong loved the rain; they would be doing all of the things we were trying to keep them from doing in the dry season. That is: moving supplies, and materials to new base camps and preparing to take as much of the country as they could. In other words the rain did not stop the war or the Viet Cong, therefore we could not let it stop us.

It is difficult to describe how it feels to line up to get your food (We only had hot meals when we were in a fairly secure base camp) and before you got back to a dry place to eat it would be swimming in rainwater. I guess that is why I developed the habit of only eating can food, known in the Army as C-rations. When it finally quit raining and we were well into the dry season, I was so used to eating C-rations that I never ate hot meals again in Vietnam.

Soon after the rain stopped, Bravo Company of the 2nd Battalion of the 47th Mechanized Infantry was attached to an engineering company to guard while they rebuilt a bridge. It was boring for Bravo Company; mostly we just sat and watched the engineers work. However, at the end of the workday we would return to the engineers base camp for a hot meal. Now that was no ‘biggie’ for me, but the other guys in my company couldn’t wait to get back for the hot chow. I continued to eat my C-rations, ‘spaghetti and meatballs’ was one of my favorites. When I ate C-rations and needed to heat them up, I would set the can on a few small rocks so that there was a hollow under the can. Then I would break off a small piece of C4 plastic explosive, put it under the can and light it. C4 will only burn fast if lit with a flame, so in a small amount it was safe. An electrical charge was needed to trigger a C4 explosion. Therefore, I enjoyed my own hot meal. I even had peanut butter, jelly, and pound cake C-rations for desert.

A few days later Bravo Company was ordered to join our own unit, the 2nd Battalion of the 47th Infantry. By the time we got back to our unit, everyone in Bravo Company was sick with food poisoning, except for me. Thank God for C-rations* and for the rain. I was lucky again. Live and learn; learn and live.

*I understand today, the Army has Meals Ready To Eat (MREs).