STEAKS, SNAKES & PHIL

Because we worked such long and erratic hours, made even longer when Phil Phillips got kicked off the CCC compound by the idiot Special Forces Ops Officer, we seldom made it to the mess hall. We were flying before breakfast started and were back long after dinner was over. We had a case of LRRP rations in the room, but if you could stomach those things you got an Army Commendation Medal. Someone got us a case of PIR rations, which were comprised of rice, dehydrated vegetables and what was supposed to pass for dehydrated shrimp. I didn’t know what PIR stood for and I couldn’t vouch for the shrimp. All I knew was that if you put boiling water into the packet of stuff and let it steep, it was pretty good. When we staggered back to DakTo for gas, rockets and lunch (not necessarily in that order) it was a miracle if a box of C rations with canned fruit remained. Usually the Huey drivers got to the C’s first, and the fruit was long gone. My daily luncheon fare was franks and beans cooked over a pinch of C4 burning in a make-shift tin can stove. I tried to eat the peanut butter and Ritz crackers once, but decided that just because a chemist put brown food coloring in lard and laced this with essence of peanut flavoring, he had no right to call it peanut butter. Suffice it to say that I spent my time at CCC being hungry. Thank God for beer. To quote my long-dead friend Bill Reilly, “there’s a loaf in every can”.

But what really pissed me off was the Sunday Steak Cookout. The SF guys were great thieves. That’s how Phillips got our jeep. His nom de guerre really should have been “Grand Theft Auto”. Anyway, the Mess Officer, Captain Tim Dennis, managed to procure at least a convoy-load of steaks. He stole cases of them…no, mountains of them. T-Bones that were served rare with baked potatoes and butter. On Sunday afternoon the Green Beanies barbequed and I swear I could smell those steaks cooking 20 clicks into Cambodia. I asked Tim if he would set aside six steaks for the SPAF pilots and crew chiefs, and we’d cook them over at the MACV compound. He said “no”. Not a “gee, I’m sorry but the Colonel won’t allow it” no, not a good, solid reasoned no. Just a flat “kiss my ass” no. So I upped the ante and offered to pay double for them. Still “no”. This bothered me even after I left for home. Just plain unreasonable. After separating from the Army in 1972 I found myself in Burbank, California, getting my Flight Engineer Rating. Anyway, one evening while watching the news, a commercial for Midas Mufflers was played. The greater Los Angeles Midas Muffler locations were shown, along with the dealer’s photographs. And the owner of the Placentia franchise was none other than Tim Dennis. I asked myself “what would Meyers do”? And the answer was easy. Meyers would drive over to the guy’s business and inquire about the availability of steaks for purchase, and then pop him in the nose. But I was in the market for an airline job and I didn’t think felony-assault would look good on my resume. Meyers was never the voice of reason, and he still isn’t.

While I’m on the subject of dining I should touch on the “snake”. I think every compound had a guy who fancied himself a herpetologist. One of the SF sergeants had a large boa in a cage, and every week he’d feed the boa. This was a big event on the CCC compound, because it provided entertainment for those who enjoyed blood sports, as well as an opportunity for some friendly wagering. “Sergeant Snake” would purchase two chickens from a local farmer, one white and one brown. A large gaggle of Vietnamese SF’s and Montagnards would gather around the snake’s cage, Yards on one side and Viets on the other, the relationship between the two groups giving fresh proof to Kipling’s premise that these twains weren’t ever going to meet. Bets were made on who would be the first victim, amidst shouting and waving of bills. Beer was drunk and pungent hand-rolled cigarettes of questionable character were smoked. Finally, with the crowd in a Budweiser-MJ frenzy, the chickens were dropped into the snake’s pen. More yelling and more money and more beer and more tokes and then the snake finally made up its mind. Bets were settled but nobody left until the snake consumed the additional chicken.

I’ve always been curious about the existence of blood sports, or more accurately, confused by them. What attracts anyone to this sort of event? I mean Hemingway glorified the matador in The Sun Also Rises. And by doing so Hemingway validated unspeakable cruelty. As my daughter Meighan said when she was a little girl, “I can’t know”.