Vietnam 72 - 73 Radio Archive

RE: GUNFIRE SUPPORT MISSIONS ON RADIO - RECORDED
I just went back and looked and listened again myself. Been a few years since I listened.
Had one of those "flashback" episodes from the severe deprivation we had onboard USS O'Callahan in the Tonkin Gulf. www.ussocallahan.org .

I recall a Marine telling me about his time in the 'nam and how he had such bad food and how bad the heat was. It just reinforced my severe bad experience with the Navy and the 'nam. War is, as General Sherman said, "heck".

Once, for SEV-er-al hours we lost our air conditioning (can a Marine imagine this kind of heat?) and there was a time when the crew's mess ran out of lobster for week, the crew having to subsist on only steak (no lobster and steak). As an officer who weighed about 130 pounds, I often made it my duty to sample the crew's mess to "be sure" the food prepared for the crew was up to "Navy standards". (The wardroom usually had something like tuna on toast because we officers were too cheap to allot all our food allowance to the officer's mess). For crying out loud! Some of the JO's had expensive car payments on sports cars that sat in a garage back home!

I recall that week when the crew did not have it's usual surf and turf to be a terrible disappointment to me - the psychological effects staying with me to this day. And the cooling system gong down like that! A Marine just would not understand! I know the Marines had it bad, but they just don't realize what it is like to have such great food and then lose it for a several very long days!
(above is reply to Rob Gagnon - below)
Vic Campbell http://www.eggzono.tv http://www.buzzcreek.com
From: Robert J. Gagnon (Marine) To: Vic Campbell Subject: Emailing:
yes, puts you right there!