Thanksgiving

[Niner]

Many of us have celebrated...or at least remembered... Thanksgiving some place we didn't want to be. A friend of mine was in a hospital in 1970 recovering from wounds recieved in Vietnam. This was the menu and message. Maybe some day in the future we won't have soldiers in hospitals recovering from wounds on Thanksgiving.

[Niner]

Just an after thought. That message probably wouldn't pass the present code for statements in government institutions now days. It's somehow ok to suffer wounds for country now days...but leave God out of it. .....Hmmm... Probably right, actually. God had nothing to do with it.

[BobB1]

My memory of Thanksgiving 1968 in Viet Nam was that we stopped and spent the night next to a creek. The next day we got to wash up, the first time in a couple of weeks, and stayed there until they sent our turkey dinner out to us. Once we ate, we had to move out again, because if we stayed in the same place two nights in a row, we invariably got mortared, and especially so if we had "log birds" coming in to give our position away. I vaguely remember turkey and mashed potatoes with gravy, but being able to wash in that cold water was at least as much a treat.

[Niner]

I was better off than you Bob, in 1970, in my Vietnam Thanksgiving. I had just got to stand down at Phu Bai in the 101st big base camp. Turkey and fixings on paper plates in the rain.....rain didn't hurt anything that I noticed. Not enough room in the mess hall. I was real short though and only had a couple weeks left. I was thankful.

I did go back to the LNO section to an Ashau firebase a day later and didn't get back to the rear until two days after my actual Deros. No choppers could fly through the mountain fog to hitch a ride on. Came back at night on a truck with chains linking it to a 5 ton in front of it to keep it from getting stuck in the mud. The rainy season in the North was just getting started.