FOOD FOR THOUGHT

the  roadkill posts  cudgeled this bit	from the dark and  dusty places
of my mind. 

here is some real food	for thought, about  what hungry folks  in the
USA or elsewhere  will eat, and the  risks they will take to get "food"
that most of you cannot concieve of  eating.

one of the first duties  i got stuck wiht in the RVN at base camp (aside
from shit  detail but THAT is another horror story!) was being stuck on
guard  at the GARBAGE DUMP.

THE  GARBAGE DUMP  was inside the brigade base camp perimeter, and like
all guardpost in  III CORPS   warzone  north of  SAIGON was a live ammo
shoot to kill post 24 hours a day.  

my post  was in one of two sandbagged bunkers flanking	a big  double
wire gate that opened up to the outside   world of PHOUC VINH PROVINCE. 

every day at about 1000 hours, the little  people (who had been lining
up since  about  0800 hours, wer allowd  inside the garbag dump 100 at a
time  and escorted over to the huge pit where the brigade dumped its
left over chow	daily  after  each meal.  

each native  was   body searched before  entering the  dump for
weapons/explosives, and  allowed to bring on dummy stick and two empty
buckets into the dump.

they were  allowed to fill these buckets  with left over food  from the
pit, and then to leave the GARBAGE DUMP with their  treasure. they could
come back as many times  as they wanted to fill their  buckets while the
dump was open  to them.

some folks were taking the food  left over from the messhalls home to
feed their  pigs, just like the farmers in the States did. 

but it soon became  evident to every enlisted man and NCO who pulled
dump duty, that a awful lot of	folks were taking our food garbage home
to EAT. . . .

this  was an awfull revelation for any American soldier , black, white,
brown, red, yellow, from a rich, middle class or dirt poor  family.
none of us had ever come across anyone that  desprate before.

and to make things  even worse,  the VC would try and use these poor
folks  as camouflage to carry out their own aggendas. sometimes they
succeeded, most of the time  they did not.

either way usually resulted in death or  injury  or hardship to the poor
folks coming for the  food  for themselves or their  pigs.

eventually the brasshats pulled their  heads out of their butts and
realized that there  were DESPERATELY HUNGRY  natives living in grinding
poverty nearby, and  implemented  some decent but  dangerous  civic
action food programs  for them to go with the medical programs	already
being  run.

this was an eye opening  experience, one of the first of my (then)
young  life. 

this  life  event  has always  had  me	wondering  about places and
events where  starvation stalks the land from the  angle of  soldiers,
civilians, and	guerillas.

there is  some game  scenario potential here  for those  who are into
scenarios that the players  think come	from  dope  smoking or	meds
reactions.

good guys, bad guys, gray guys, and  just  desperately hungry folks
too.

you could also run MEDCAP scenarios   too.

food riots!

find  and  eliminate  cannibals living off their  fellow man, too.

lots of thoughts.

DAWGIE