"The Squid Cometh"

It wasn't all gloom & doom on the hill. Sometimes you had to loosen up a bit to keep going. There were some funny times too, among the long periods of stress, and you relished every one of them.

As the Hueys (helicopters), flew the dead & wounded off the hill, they also brought in replacements. One such character was Jim Thomas, our newest Navy Corpsmen (the Marine Corps doesn't have its own medics).

They'd stuck him in the worst possible position------right between us rocket team guys, and a machinegun team, which isn't good. It's the machinegun and rocket teams that usually do the most damage out in the field, and the enemy FOCUSES on taking them OUT. So to have to live right BETWEEN 3.5's and M-60's-----------"bad part of town, baby.......bad part of town." We aren't well liked and YOU have to live with us!

Our new "Doc" had been with us for a day, maybe two, when he & I had our first real "conversation", and it was pretty much one-sided. Snowder had just woke me up for my turn on watch. As I crawled out of my hole, got into my flakvest & helmet, I happened to look down the trench to the left and saw our new resident "squid" (Marine jargon for "Naval Personnel"), tossing something over the barbed wire, and it rolled down the hill a bit.

My first instinct was to duck, because nothing ever got "tossed" from 861 except hand grenades, and the "dust" was still clearing from the recent "BIG" fight. When there was no explosion, I thought it might have been a dud, so I went down there to see what he had thrown a "grenade" at.

"It wasn't a grenade" he replied.........."it was just a can of ham & eggs" (one of our many different C-Ration units), not particularly tasty, but better than nothing, if you had nothing else. But food & water wasn't always plentiful, because EVERYTHING had to be flown up to the hill by helicopter. Sometimes the fog would prevent that, and now that "LUKE" knew we were here, a helicopter would draw fire whenever it tried to zip in over the top for a re-supply run. Every commodity would be precious now.

So clearly, there was no such thing as "just a can of ham & eggs." WE all knew that, but our stateside-fresh new "squid' didn't. He would shortly.

"You're throwing FOOD away?" I hollered......."It's ham & eggs" he said............"I HATE these C-Ration ham & eggs"...............(I thought I was gonna have a stroke!)

"ARE YOU NUTS??........what do you think we HAVE up here, a SAFEWAY STORE down the trail??..............you NEVER waste food or water! NEVER!"

Rocket team leader Mike James comes darting out of his hole wanting to know what all the yelling was about, I just snapped at him a bit and said "I GIVE UP!.....I GIVE UP......THE "LUKES" ARE TRYING TO BLOW US OFF THIS HILL, AND THIS DUMB A-- SQUID IS THROWING CHOW AWAY!!"

Now......for the record, C-rations WERE pretty crappy. A few of the units weren't too bad, and when you had nothing ELSE for a year, you "made do", even mixing parts of one unit with the other to give yourself some "variety." The cans of "ham & eggs" and "ham & limabeans" WERE particularly nasty. But FOOD WAS FOOD when you're out in the "boonies.", and it'll at least sustain you!

Anyway, James told me to settle down and "go stand your watch", then HE went down there and explained to the "Doc", that if HE didn't like a particular C-Ration, at least GIVE it to somebody-------------heck, the machinegun team would eat just about anything! But don't toss it down the hill.

There was actualy a two-fold reason for that. First of all, "Luke" might find "ham & eggs" to be some kind of "delicacy", so there's no need to feed HIM..........but secondly, and maybe even more importantly, those C-Ration cans were just the right diameter to hold a grenade, and you can make a real fine "booby-trap" using one of those cans. We always flattened up the empties and either buried them or tossed them in the burn-barrel.

James came back and told me to take it easy on the "Doc". He's new......he didn't know........I was edgy, I guess. EVERYBODY was still a little jumpy. It had only been 3 days since "half of Asia" had tried to overrun the hills and kill every one of us.

James also humorously confided, that "we all know how bad the ham & eggs are..........maybe it WOULD be some kind of PAYBACK if the "Lukes" DID find some & eat 'em!"

***Doc Thomas & I are good friends today, and just a few months ago, we had a nice re-union in Oklahoma with our old buddy, fellow rocketman John Snowder. And a few years ago, Doc sent me a Christmas package he'd found at an Army-Navy surplus store-------a box of C-RATIONS--------I have it in my Marine Corps display case here at the house................................MEAL, COMBAT, INDIVIDUAL, HAM AND EGGS, CHOPPED, B-1 UNIT.............Hoboken NJ, 07030. Only Doc Thomas would do something like that!***

Back on the hill-------I was standing my watch one morning in the trench, leaning over the sandbags, peering out over the wire, when someone grabbed the collar of my flakvest. I heard a safety spoon spring away and a big lump started dropping down the inside of my flakjacket, It was a hand grenade! Not thinking, and acting PURELY on survival instinct, I quickly threw my flakvest off and started running down the trench, peeling out of my utility shirt as well, trying to get as far away and as quickly as I could.

When I finally stopped to look back, there was the grenade, laying in the trench beside my flakvest. I'm standing there about half naked, and standing beside my flak jacket was the SQUID!......laughing his butt off! Either HE, or SOMEBODY had unscrewed the head off that grenade, pulled the detonation cap, and screwed the head back in. No way it would go off NOW. He had sneaked up behind me while I'm watching the treeline, pulled the pin, then let the spring-tensioned spoon fly where I could hear it, and quickly shoved that dud grenade down the inside of my flakvest. I heard the spoon, felt the grenade and peeled OFF and OUT........

"Doc" is standing down there, busting a gut. I knew I'd been HAD.............and by the NAVY no less!

"I'LL GET YOU FOR THIS, YOU FRIGGIN' (blog-friendly cliche') SQUID!"

Wasn't long..........as we all continued to dig our sleeping holes deeper and tried to make them a little more comfortable, the "Doc" went a step further. He'd found a piece of metal pipe somewhere, and bored a hole through the roof of HIS little cave, and wedged that pipe through it. It stuck out about 4 or 5 inches above ground. This "chimney' would allow him to use his heat tabs at night and have HOT C-Rats, because he could cook well-inside his bunker without the enemy being able to see the flame from the heat tabs we had in our food kits. The "pipe-chimney" would allow the heat and smoke to vent OUT, without the enemy or anyone ELSE seeing it at night.

uh-huh.........pretty slick.

Team leader Mike James was not beyond doing a little "pranking" of his own, and the "Doc" had messed with HIM once in awhile. We both had a score or two to settle with our "resident physician"...........never anything harsh though--------because you HAVE to keep your Corpsman healthy and safe, especially when the lead is flying and somebody gets hit.

James points to Doc's "chimney" and says, "Hey Bradbury, I think we've finally GOT this guy...........come on!" He unravelled the bailing wire from a case of C-Rations, and said "Go find me something to write with." Most of us had ball point pens to write letters with. I grabbed one up and got it to him. He had by now, torn a cardboard sleeve off of the C-Ration case, and took the pen & wrote "URINAL" in big, easy-to-read letters. Then he poked a small hole on each end of the sleve, looped the length of bailing wire through it, and hung it around the top of that "chimney!"

We went down the trench a little way, and laughed for the next hour or so. Can you just imagine Doc sitting snug as a bug in his hole, about to cook up some beans & weinnies from a B-2 Unit, some grunt walks by up top, sees that Urinal sign around the chimney and starts peeing down the hole where the Doc is!................(It's still pretty funny today, when I think back about that!)

Now, the odds of Doc seeing that sign were pretty slim, as most of us used the TRENCH ITSELF to go from "Point A to Point B", and that chimey poked out through the upper portion ABOVE the trenchline where not too many people ever walked, unless they were taking a short-cut to the other side. But somehow he found out about it and removed it before it ever got "used." The Doc was a little perturbed and had his suspicions of course. James & I naturally "knew nothing." But it DID keep him on his toes from then on-------which to James & I, was just as good! The "Prankster from Oklahama" would have to keep a "3rd eye" out from now on!."

As I close this particular segment, I need to point out, that we Marines hold our Corpsmen in very high esteem. We call them "Squids" jokingly and take the "jarhead" return from them just as lightly. Being just a "branch" of the Navy has caused deep divisions and animosity for 200 years now. But our Navy Corpsmen are out there WITH us, not "back in the rear with the gear." We've always been proud to have them in our Marine Corps Leagues, re-unions, etc. To each of us, they are BROTHERS. We don't even consider them as "Navy." It's a very special relationship.