Managing Editor
When you sign up for military service, as I did, you learn quickly that where you wake up today may not be the same place you wake up tomorrow.
 |
| C-Rations were canned prepared meals used by military members on deployments in the late 1970s. COURTESY PHOTO |
It takes a person to all kinds of places and situations and looking back on that time of my life years later, how I adapted to constantly moving from place to place can only be attributed to my youth and being open to experiencing new things.
I can recall being with my unit on a wintertime deployment in what was then West Germany in February 1978. Our commanding officer was directed to have us establish a camp at the edge of some woods near Fulda, close to the border with East Germany, which at that time was a communist nation under the control of the Soviet Union. We pitched our tents in darkness and set up a diesel stove inside the tent for warmth.
Outside there was snow on the ground and the temperature was hovering at around 5 degrees. Our unit’s tent sat on a massive sheet of ice which never melted, despite keeping the diesel stove going throughout our entire week there.
There was no mess hall for food, so we ate what were called C-Rations, canned prepared food, much of which was left over and recycled by the military following the Vietnam War. I was informed by other unit members that some C-Ration meals were better than others. The meals were stored in drab olive cans and flimsy brown boxes.
Inside each box was a canned entrée, a small package of stale crackers, a packet of ground coffee, packages of salt and sugar, canned pound cake or bread, a chocolate bar or chewing gum, matches and a package of three cigarettes. To open the C-Ration cans, we were issued what was known as a P-38, a tiny aluminum disposable tool.
Sometimes by the time I finally got the C-Ration cans open, I would find that what was inside was rotten or moldy. Because of that, I became a bit more selective in meals that I chose when they were offered. I preferred C-Ration cans of tuna and boned turkey over beef slices with potatoes (we called these ones beef with boulders), chicken chunks and noodles, beans with hot dog chunks (known commonly as beanie weenie) or ham and lima beans.
To this day if I see a can of C-Rations for sale somewhere in an antique store, I gasp, and my stomach turns.
There is very little that compares to sleeping in your clothes for a week in a sleeping bag, waking up on a tiny wooden canvas cot and smelling burned coffee grounds on top of the diesel stove in freezing weather. There were no showers, no running water, and no amenities associated with modern life which we all take for granted such as electricity.
Later in my military career, I was a candidate for a TDY, a temporary duty assignment to another location, along with another E-5 staff sergeant who worked in our office with me. It was not disclosed where this temporary assignment would be, and up until the moment that we received our official orders, we had no idea where that location might be.
We were going to flip a coin to see who had to go, but he said he was supposed to be best man at a wedding that weekend and asked me nicely if I could go and he would then gratefully take the next TDY assignment in the future. I agreed and then was informed that my TDY was to Nellis Air Force Base in Las Vegas, Nevada.
I spent three weeks there and slept in the NCO barracks, getting up early each morning to conduct interviews, gather stories and then produce a newsletter for Air Force air crews participating in an air-to-ground military exercise. Each newsletter was finished and distributed by noon and the rest of my days and evenings were free to see the sights in Las Vegas, go to some shows and enjoy great food served in almost every casino on the Las Vegas Strip.
When it was all over and I had returned to my regular duty station, eight months passed before another TDY assignment arose. The other staff sergeant received orders to travel to a remote jungle location about 75 miles from Tegucigalpa, Honduras. When he got back from his trip, he spoke about living in the utmost primitive conditions there.
He said there wasn’t laundry service at the camp he was assigned to. All their clothing was washed in a large boiling vat, which resulted in most of his military T-shirts turning a shade of light brown. He was also receiving medical care for a mild case of malaria after being bitten by plenty of mosquitoes and hordes of other insects.
I chose not to share with him how different our TDY experiences turned out to be, but I thought to myself how fortunate I was to be sent to Las Vegas, Nevada instead of some remote jungle location in Honduras. <
