From the S&S archives: In Vietnam, time out for Thanksgiving dinner

SAIGON — Most of the half-million American troops in Vietnam enjoyed a traditional. Thanksgiving Day turkey feast Thursday. But the band of weary soldiers who captured the summit of Hill 875 mostly gave thanks just to be alive.

The men who took the hill Thursday in the central highlands also had a turkey dinner. It was airlifted in by helicopters and eaten in the abandoned ruins of a North Vietnamese command post.

It was their first hot meal in 12 days.

Col. James Johnson, commander of the 4th Bn., 503rd Airborne, 173rd Airborne Brigade, made a Thanksgiving Day promise that his men would be able to eat their dinner on the hilltop, for which they had fought five days.

As soon as they took the hill, Johnson gave orders to carry out. his promise. Helicopters lifted turkey and trimmings from base camp field kitchens to the tired troops holding the hilltop. For many, it was the first hot meal since Nov. 12.

The menu for Johnson's men, and most of the 500,000 troops in Vietnam, included: shrimp cocktail, chilled fruit salad, roast turkey, turkey dressing, giblet gravy, buttered peas, chilled cranberry sauce, baked Virginia ham with Hawaiian sauce, snowflake potatoes, candied yams, Parker House rolls, tossed salad, cole slaw, relish tray, fresh fruit, assorted nuts, candies, pumpkin pie, mince-meat pie, apple pie, fresh fruit and ice cream.

The Army goes all out for the Thanksgiving feast. This year, it shipped to Vietnam 57,000 turkeys, 225 tons of boneless turkey meat, 28 tons of cranberry sauce, 15 tons of mixed nuts, eight tons of candy, 11 tons of olives and 33 torts of fruit cake.

And the Army — and all the services — make every effort to give every man a hot turkey dinner on Thanksgiving. Inevitably, there are those men who are so inaccessible it's impossible. For them, there is C-ration turkey loaf or boned turkey, and, with a little imagination, the C-ration raspberry jam tastes almost like cranberry sauce.

Like every other day in Vietnam, Thanksgiving is a day of contrasts. The paratroopers on Hill 875 ate their meal out of paper plates and tin mess trays amid the rubble and bomb craters, burned bamboo and jungle hardwoods, empty shell casings and the already decaying bodies of friends and foe.

Air Force pilots at Da Nang flew their short but dangerous missions over North Vietnam and returned to base and ate dinner under soft lights and music at the Officers' Club.

At Pleiku in the central highlands, UPI's Tom Cheatham, reporting from a rear area support base, said "There's no festive air here. It's business as usual." Their business has been supporting the troops battling for Hill 875.

The big consolidated mess hall was decorated with orange crepe and crepe balls strung from the rafters.

One soldier, Sgt. 1.C. Henry Dickason of Oklahoma City, who had spent Christmas of 1944 fighting in the Battle of the Bulge, said:

"Every holiday now, I remember that and hope to heck these guys in the field are getting hot chow. I feel guilty if I'm eating Thanksgiving turkey while these guys out in the boondocks are not."