In 1968-1969, the US military bought shiploads of sheep meat from Australia and took it to the mess halls in Vietnam. Ugly stuff, when they were cooking it you could smell that chit from 2 miles out on final approach.

There were times in Vietnam when we were damn glad to get a C ration.

Had one pilot, a Major, who was a horrible alcoholic, he would stagger out to the airplane in the early morning, climb up in the right seat and leave the flying to whichever other pilot showed up. Soon as we got gear up and on heading, he would get into his helmet bag and open up a can of "Ham and Eggs Chopped" (ghastly concoction), down the hatch and he would be bright eyed and bushy tailed for the rest of the day.

Those days were somewhat like now, lots of racial and ethnic strife in the US and of course it carried over into the military. McNamera decreed that the mess halls would have "ethnic days" in which they would serve food favored by this group or another. We had Mexican food, Chinese food, etc, one day it got down to chitlins, never heard of them but tried them anyway, absolutely could not swallow a bite, first and last time for that dish.

Last edited by jnyork; 05/28/21.
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