Читать книгу Welcome Home From Vietnam, Finally - Gus Kappler MD - Страница 26

Didn’t we have a mess hall for sustenance? Sure, but the food was often suspect and of marginal quality, especially when serving MUO, i.e., meat of unknown origin. So Bob and I always had a back up plan for dining on his side of the hooch.

The best meal in the mess hall was midnight breakfast with very palatable scrambled eggs, bacon, toast, and sausages. Needless to say, we were often up at that hour caring for patients.

Mess hall garbage

Much garbage was generated in food-service activity.

The discarded material was positioned behind the mess hall in two approximate locations labeled as “Edible” and “Nonedible” garbage in English and Vietnamese. The countryside Vietnamese people were chronically malnourished and welcomed sustenance from any source.

One day, I drove in the truck to the garbage dump utilized by the 85th Evac in the Phu Bai area and was saddened and astonished to observe Vietnamese men, women, and children scouring like ants the refuse for anything to possibly ease their hunger. Forget nutritional value and food pyramids.

The locals who worked in food services however recognized a good thing when they saw it and gradually the silverware, cups, plates, and stored produce would disappear. Hiding the contraband at the bottom of liquid-filled garbage drums deterred thorough inspection by those responsible for monitoring the local’s activities.