A Dumb question about Viet Nam?

18 July 2021 | D. Grunt

[Ron H.]

Paddy water & pills. Impossible to “boil water for 20 minutes”. A quarter sized ball of C-4 would boil water for coffee or cocoa, though.

Yup remember those days. When we could get hands on fresh hen laid eggs we could boil about a dozen or so eggs in a steel pot helmet by using a stick or slightly more of C-4 also. We used C-4 for a lot of things I'm sure the Pentagon didn't know or approve off or was designed for either. That and TnT for blowing ant hills the size of cars and Det cord for clothes lines and for cutting down trees on occasion.

[Ron H.]

But do not recall any cardboard, perhaps that had run short?

Our C-rations came in card board boxes all the time, that is when we got them.

[DUMBGRUNT]

—”that is when we got them”

We always seemed to have plenty of C’s... never enough of the LRRP rats!! A special treat!

I always thought the 11th ACR had among the best of unit insignias!
And I’m not into horses?

[Ron H.]

LRRP rats was something that we hardly ever saw. We were told they go to the grunts in the bush and there just wasn't enough to go around. If true then I had no problem with that at all. While we had it bad much of the time I always gave way to the bush humpers because at least I got to ride around in an APC while they humped the jungles.

But at least our unit usually got at least 1 hot meal a day when in base camp, albeit powdered eggs and canned potatoes but it was hot and some kind of liquid that passed for coffee. I didn't get to spend a lot of time in camp though being a FO. The 11th ACR was a kick ass unit, its reputation almost always preceded it. We were stationed in the Iron Triangle usually around Tay Ninh, Cu Chi and the Nui Bah Dinh mountain straddling the Ho Chi Minh trail for a year and a half. Col Hal Moore's AO in the movie "We Were Soldiers" fame. It never cooled down in intensity.