PRESERVING A MILITARY LEGACY FOR FUTURE GENERATIONS
The following Reflection represents SP4 Tom Hirst’s legacy of their military service from 1969 to 1971. If you are a Veteran, consider preserving a record of your own military service, including your memories and photographs, on Togetherweserved.com (TWS), the leading archive of living military history. The Service Reflections is an easy-to-complete self-interview, located on your TWS Military Service Page, which enables you to remember key people and events from your military service and the impact they made on your life.
What was the biggest personal challenge that you encountered during your military service? How did you approach and overcome this?:
FOOD!!!
I know this will sound crazy, but when I got drafted in 1969, I was 20 years old and a VEGETARIAN! I didn’t smoke, drink or eat meat.
Meat was something that had never been prepared at my home, and I was pretty sure that “à la carte” wasn’t on the menu!
I was sent to Ft. Sam Houston for Basic Training & AIT, and I survived by picking my way through the mess hall offerings. I hope that my next duty station will work out the same way.
Ironically, I was given my orders for Vietnam while standing in line at the mess hall! There aren’t going to be any mess halls where I ended up “Humpin’ The Boonies” with the 1st Cavalry Division.
My only choice was “C Rations & LRP Rations,” whatever they were.
Surveying the case of C rations, I didn’t see too many things that looked that appetizing. That seemed to be the consensus in the platoon as well. I did discover the “peaches and pound cake,” peanut butter and jelly, fruit cocktail, cheese spread, and crackers. I saved those items.
“What are LRP’s” I asked?
“They’re freeze-dried meals that aren’t too bad. All you have to do is boil some water and let them soak for 20 minutes,” was the reply. You boil the water in your canteen cup by using C4. It gets really hot, really fast! Just be careful!”
With my education about the use of C4 Plastic explosives completed, I surveyed the “possibilities” in the case of LRPs that we had just opened. Not too bad, but I still didn’t like all the choices. However, when the members of my platoon realized I was their “New Medic,” they were “more than agreeable” to let me take first pick!
I WAS GETTING HUNGRY!
It didn’t take long for me to figure out how to make this new “diet” workout. I WASN’T THRILLED, JUST HUNGRY! I JUST HAD TO GET OVER IT! Using the cheese spread, hot sauce, and spices that most of my fellow Troopers seemed to carry in their rucksacks, I was able to “concoct” LRP meals that were almost “gourmet”!
“Care Packages” from home were my next food source along with Mom’s 12 dozen chocolate chip cookies, which seemed to show up EVERY LOG DAY, made for great “barter material”. Each chocolate chip cookie was individually wrapped in a white cupcake wrapper that saved the cookies from being a “box of crumbs.” [see photo; the ground is covered with the wrappers]
“Doc’s got another Care Package!” was a familiar sound on log day.
Re-reading the letters that I wrote to my parents, I realized that I must have sounded pretty desperate!
I WAS STILL HUNGRY! [And 30 pounds lighter!]
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