[MontanaKid]

We had Cs and the LRRPs freeze-dried rations in 1969. We had no contact with the culture, so ate no native Vietnamese food. Ironically, I've acquired a taste for Vietnamese food, but I've never eaten any in Vietnam.

The Ham and muthas came in rations dated 1966 and before. I had a few of these, but most of ours were 1967 units and, near the end of my field time, 1968. I liked the bean and muthas. I grew up on a lot of ham and navy bean soup and the beans and muthas reminded me of home. I put a lot of pepper on them.

The beef and potatoes slices were ok if you had a little time to mess with them. It needed to be chopped up some to get it to cook smoothly in a can. No one, including me, liked the ham and eggs, water added. But our Platoon RTO loved it and you could count on a trade with him if you drew the dreaded "H&E".

Beans and franks came along in the 68 rations and those were a favorite of mine and almost everyone else's. The sweet and moist pound cake was a sought after item. The dry and hard cinnamon roll and fruit cake were not. We said we only packed them in case we ran out of frags.

Any of the fruit was good peaches were the favorite, but I liked the fruit cocktail too.

My favorite among LRRPs was the spaghetti. The chicken stew and beef stew were all right, but it was hard for a canteen cup of heat-tab-heated water to get the rice or beans soft in the chicken and rice, beef and rice and chili. Scalloped potatoes were good too.

We usually got a meal of Hot As shipped out to us when we got resupplied every three or four days. so three to four days rations is usually what we packed. Meals were rushed in the morning and evenings. We usually moved not long after light, leaving little time for breakfast, and we usually moved into our night laagers not long before dark. Less time for the dinks to detect our presence and set up to hit us.

Lunch could be more leisurely, depending on circumstancres, but we did often lay up for a while around mid day after setting up day patrol bases and could spend a little more time eating the mid-day meal. Obviously, because of light discipline, you wanted to not have heat taps burning before dawn or after dark. We learned to cup our cigarettes at night, holding them between thumb and palm with the lit end hidden inside our hand. It turned the inside of our palm brown from tobacco stains.

Once we worked with a CIDG Mike team. Tough little buggers and they liked to swap rations with us. I don't know that theirs were any better, but it was a change.