When Thanksgiving was just another day

The year: 1968. The date: November 24th. The place: Vietnam. The occasion: Thanksgiving, and Turkey dinners appeared on printed menus.

The meals were prepared on-premises or flown in by helicopter for those in field basecamps.

But it was just another day at the office for all the Special Ops and Special Forces groups.

The only difference with the team was we stopped calling the enemy the Viet Cong or mother-fs and switched to naming them turkeys.

“Let’s get some turkeys for dinner,” is how one of the guys put it,” or “How many turkeys do you think we’ll find today?”

We used turkey to define the enemy for another couple of days, then switched back to our previous nicknames.

When we returned to base almost three days after the holiday, the cook said, “You missed Thanksgiving, bro, but I’ll fix something special for you and the guys.”

He prepared fried chicken but had all the fixings, even cranberry sauce, but we were suffering from the runs and didn’t eat much.

But within the same week of our return, we were out again.

It was the way it was for all of us.

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