Chicken And Rice

The coldest I have ever been
Was during a Nam monsoon
For weeks it rained without end
With winds that cut straight through

When the rain first starts
You don’t think it will last
Never having been through it
Days later, you believe it will never end

But there we are in the bush
A bunch of Grunts and I
Humping through the country side
No roof, no walls, no dry ground

This downpour doesn’t stop
It is constant
A steady driving pummel
That stings your face and saps your strength

Day and night it’s relentless
A dry pair of socks your only relief
But only this at first
For nothing stays dry out here

Your feet and hands go first
Legs grow weary from the mud
Your body wears out
Then your mind

We stopped one night
Set up shelters in the mud
Two ponchos strung together
Flimsy at best

No campfires here
To warm ourselves
To dry our clothes
To take away our misery

I remember this night
As if it was happening now
For days we had been humping
And not fired a single shot

Yet two days before we had lost a Marine
A red haired kid
Stepped on some kind of ‘booby trap’
That ripped him open up the middle

I did not know the boy
But he was a good man, I know,
These were all good men,
The best our Country had

I had not been able to eat since
And now my hunger was savage
So I remember this night
It was the night of the best meal I have ever had

I traded some C-Rats for a hatful of gook rice
With my ‘John Wayne’ and a heat tab
I cooked the rice with C-Rat chicken
And heated it again with another tab

My hands were shaking
From the cold or my hunger
Or both
As I scooped out the meal into my mouth

It damned near overwhelmed me
The hot food warming my mouth, my cheeks, my face  
It’s warmth sliding down my throat
I could actually feel my stomach getting warm

And the taste was exquisite!
Never in my life had anything tasted this good
I ate it slowly as if it was to be my last meal
And delighted in every grain

What made this meal so special?
Was it my hunger, its’ warmth?
Or because unlike the red haired boy,
I was still alive?

I cannot tell you why
But finishing this feast with peaches and hot coffee
I felt born again, hell, let it rain
Let it wash this whole damn country away

In the dark I curled up into a tight ball
My back to the wind
And laying in the mud and an inch of water
I slept



Michael Tank
USMC
Scout/Snipers
’69-72

01/15/03


"Copyright 2004. Michael E. Tank All rights reserved. No part of this document may be copied, faxed, electronically transmitted, or in any other manner duplicated without express written permission of the author."