Re: What did you write home for?

Aw Hell, My fellow Alsatian - American,

You needed to do what an ordinary NCO like me did.

After I became a shorttimer, I became assigned to HHQ. The Officers up there
had hot showers and had some SECRET thing where they would "make sure you
shut the hot water valve off unless some of those enlisted guys catch on".
Actually they were almost able to outsmart some of us enlisted guys, because
the damned valve was way the hell before it came to the shower: Way on down
the line. Fortunately for me, I knew a friendly SP5 who showed me where to
turn it on. Naturally, in order to foil any other enterprising enlisted men,
I made sure to turn the valve back off and did not to alert any officers
that we were on to them. Almost always had hot water.

Tom Dier
Americal 1970


"Ted Gittinger" wrote in message
news:WkU3b.720$jt.128687@twister.austin.rr.com...
>
> "Tom Dier" wrote in message
> news:3f4fdd2d_3@corp.newsgroups.com...
> > Sweete William,
> >
> > I recall, up on LZ Stinson, that we had an improvised shower that
> consisted
> > of a 55 gallon drum with a shower fitting attached below. You may recall
> > some kind of Army issue Kool-Aid that was highly concentrated and
without
> > any sugar content. A small ounce pack of this stuff would make about
> 12,000
> > gallons of Kool Aid. Anyway, up on Stinson one would have to go down to
> the
> > "water buffalo" with a 5 gallon jerry can, draw some water, and hump
back
> up
> > the hill and pour it into the 55 gallon drum (I do recall it was painted
> > black to absorb the sun's rays). Since there was always some asshole
> > hollering, "Hurry up I'm next", a warm shower was never taken. More than
> > once, while showering, the water suddenly turned purple or red, because
> some
> > prick sneaked up and poured this concentrated Kool-Aid in the shower
> water.
> >
> > Tom Dier Americal Division 1970
>
> We had a similar setup, first at LZ Hammond and later at Pony. Some
> ingenious soul had fixed an adapter for a shower nozzle, which fit the
> bunghole of a 55-gallon drum. That was the most precious piece of
hardware
> in HHQ Battery.
>
> I also recall that if you wanted a shower, you had to contribute a
5-gallon
> can of water to the drum. We borrowed an immersion heater from the mess
> folks and so usually had hot water. The drum was mounted on a scaffold
> which prolly would have made the engineers blanch. Step under the drum,
wet
> down, turn off the water, lather up, rinse off.
>
> One of life's major pleasures. It sure beat the hell out of shaving out
of
> a steel pot of cold water before daybreak. I had some errand or other to
> the Divarty CO in base camp at An Khe early one morning, and while I
waited
> in his hootch to see him, one of the Divarty mess people brought in a pot
of
> hot water for the old man to use for shaving. Hot, hot water, in the
midst
> of the bone-chilling cold monsoon of the Central Highlands. Goddam bird
> colonels anyhow.
>
> ted
> >
> >
> > "FatmanE" wrote in message
> > news:20030829185916.22079.00000218@mb-m04.aol.com...
> > > Amen on the koolaid.
> > >
> > > And mostly I wrote to get a letter back. Hell, I wrote folks I hardly
> > knew
> > > just so I would have some return mail.
> > >
> > > Bill Clarke
> >
> >
> >
> >
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>




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Dry Italian salami and Sicilian Gold. Don`t know where I picked up the
taste for S.Gold but it was different and no one stole a drink more than
once..

Regards Ralph

" The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any
war, no matter how justified, shall be directly Proportional to how they
perceive the Veterans of earlier wars were treated and appreciated by their
Nation"
George Washington