Camp Holloway Discussion Forum Archive 02 - 05/07/01 to 02/28/03

Re: Thanksgiving 1968
In Response To: Thanksgiving 1968 ()

After almost eleven months in country the one thing which I had learned quite early that Vietnam was truely the land which time had forgotten. To give names to the days in the week was mute. Each day was the same. They could only be divided into two types. The days that you flew and the days you didn't. The nights were some what more difficult. There were the nights you had off. The nights you had guard duty and the nights you had flare stand-by.

Our meals were also a carbin copy of our days. The food at the mess hall was either some type of stew or some type of meat that most of us could not determine what it was in another life. The basic diet for most of the flight crews was c-rations and other canned foods from the PX or our care packages. But now at the end of November things were different. For days we had been told of the great feast which we would enjoy on Thanksgiving. A turkey dinner fit for a king. We were about to finish our tours of RON at Dak To and most of us would be able to enjoy this one reward.

Unknown to us fate would play a part in this day before we could enjoy this feast. We had finally started to receive replacement ships for the ones which had been lost during the past two months. Our platoon received two of these ships. We had been told that we would be standing down to get them ready for mission duty. Our platoon was being sent to Lane Army airfield near the coast to support the ROK's for the next thirty to sixty days. We were looking forward to a vacation away from Dak To and our normal operational area.

Thanksgiving morning came and we were going to enjoy our day off when the word came down for us to pre-flight our ships. The 2nd Brigade of the 4th Infantry would been moved from Ban Me Thuot to the Kontum area. Today for some reason the brass had decided to deploy as many of the units as possible into different location northwest and west of the city of Kontum. Because most of the mission requirements had already been filled the 52nd Bn. was scrambling to fine enough ships to move these people. Six ships from the 119th would be used. Two from the 57th and three from the 170th would complete the group. One set of Croc guns and one set of Cougar guns from the 57th would provide cover. By 1000 hrs the group was briefed and the first of many sorties were picked up at LZ Mary Lou.

For the next five hours we would land at locations called LZ Mile High, LZ Roberts, Hill 1570 and several other locations along "Rocket Ridge". The grunts from these units had spent most of their tour in and around Ban ME Thuot so all of these locations were new and strange to them. Once we had the troops in place we had to get the needed supplies into them so that they could make defendable night locations. As the hours continued to pass the thought of getting any part of that turkey dinner was getting slimmer and slimmer. The last supplies delivered that afternoon turned out to be Thanksgivings dinner for the grunts. We had mermike cans of turkey, mashed potatoes,dressing and all the fixing. The one thing that Brigade had failed to get was enough plates and knifes and forks for the guys to use. I believe that they some how managed to over come this small problem.

Final at 1800 hrs we were releasted. We were then ordered to set down at Kontum for one last sortie. It seems that our last sortie of the day was to consume the Thanksgiving meal that the mess hall at the 57th AHC had been keeping hot for us the entire afternoon. The crews of all fifteen ships enjoyed their meal together. It was the first time since I had arrived in country that there was something special about this day. It was not just another day that I flew but it was Thanksgiving and a day that I flew.

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