Anyone heard of this ration?
Re: Anyone heard of this ration?
Quite possibly the personnel might have had some sort of ration at the site, like this one. I just got done looking an viewing the lima85 website and there are a few ancedotes in some of the stories of the technicians that worked there. Some describe that food, potable water, and mail were a problem in the begining of project. Later teams were allowed to go back to Vientiane on scheduled runs and pick up local groceries at the Air America compound. I theorize that when the project was beginning the Air Force personnel might have had some type of ration(s) while up on the mountain but wouldn't MCI's been more plentiful back then at that time?
Re: Anyone heard of this ration?
Plausable denialability (It wasn't us, man...) might have had something to do with it, weren't they armed with foreign weapons, IE: anything that wasn't american?
Or maybe whatever was cheap... or available...
There were millions of C-rats left over from WW2.
They sure couldn't buy on the local market!
Interesting question, we may never know!
Or maybe whatever was cheap... or available...
There were millions of C-rats left over from WW2.
They sure couldn't buy on the local market!
Interesting question, we may never know!
Avid practitioner of the martial art: KLIK-PAO
Re: Anyone heard of this ration?
Dirtbag,
In the stories from some of the survivors, originally the technicians weren't armed with anything and had to rely on some CIA paid and trained Hmong tribal people and a small squad of Thai border police for security. Later in February 1968 Lt/Col Richard Secord (famous in the Iran-Contra affair) then issued M-16's, frag grenades, claymore mines, and pistols to the technicians but the Air Force didn't give them any training in the use of them. In the after action reports and subsequent stories years later the people who did get out said they could have used more firepower on the site but all their requests fell on deaf ears. All of that, to me, sounds like a receipe for disaster. Especially since the Air Force and the US Gov't deny your existence in that country. Real smart!
Your suggestion that the Air Force might have had stocks of C-rations leftover from WWII/Korea; I'll definitely buy into that. There are many stories from vets around that time that say they still were finding C-rations in unit stocks that still tasted fresh 20 years after the WWII conflict. There is one drawback on the lima85 site in that there are no pictures of daily life on the project or any leisure pictures. In that there are no pictures or stories from people sitting around playing cards, eating, socializing or hamming it up for the camera. I thought that was strange. I figured there might have been a picture in there somehwere of people at the site eating during a lunch break, or dinner.
In the stories from some of the survivors, originally the technicians weren't armed with anything and had to rely on some CIA paid and trained Hmong tribal people and a small squad of Thai border police for security. Later in February 1968 Lt/Col Richard Secord (famous in the Iran-Contra affair) then issued M-16's, frag grenades, claymore mines, and pistols to the technicians but the Air Force didn't give them any training in the use of them. In the after action reports and subsequent stories years later the people who did get out said they could have used more firepower on the site but all their requests fell on deaf ears. All of that, to me, sounds like a receipe for disaster. Especially since the Air Force and the US Gov't deny your existence in that country. Real smart!
Your suggestion that the Air Force might have had stocks of C-rations leftover from WWII/Korea; I'll definitely buy into that. There are many stories from vets around that time that say they still were finding C-rations in unit stocks that still tasted fresh 20 years after the WWII conflict. There is one drawback on the lima85 site in that there are no pictures of daily life on the project or any leisure pictures. In that there are no pictures or stories from people sitting around playing cards, eating, socializing or hamming it up for the camera. I thought that was strange. I figured there might have been a picture in there somehwere of people at the site eating during a lunch break, or dinner.