What memories does Thanksgiving bring to your mind? I was in Vietnam during several major
holidays from 1968 to 1970, you know the ones – Christmas, Thanksgiving,
Memorial Day, my birthday.
Anyway, whenever I think of my Thanksgivings in Vietnam, I
remember the fun that Konstantine George “Tiny” Varelans and I had for one of
them. Seems that this particular
holiday usually brings to mind the mouth-watering aromas of turkey, sweet potatoes
and, of course, pumpkin pie! What
would Thanksgiving be without pumpkin pie?
Tiny and I got the great idea that we, the two of us, would
make sure the 225th would have pumpkin pie for our Thanksgiving
dinner. The turkey, sweet
potatoes, cranberry sauce – they were all taken care of by the Mess Hall crew. So we asked the mess sergeant (I think
his name was SFC Tart) if we could take charge of making pie for the whole
company, all 330+ of us! We were
very surprised that he actually said “Yes!”
The details of that evening of pie making are kinda fuzzy now
some forty-three years later, but I think we must have begun preparations after
the evening meal. I’m sure that kitchen
crew oriented us to the workings of the kitchen, where things were, what we
could and could not use, that sort of thing. We had all the ingredients to make the pies. We probably had to make our piecrust
from scratch, I know we didn’t have any pre-made Pillsbury crusts!
Anyway, we got the crusts ready and now it was time to mix
the pumpkin filling. Pureed
pumpkin, brown sugar, cinnamon, eggs, condensed milk. What could be simpler?
It was whole lot of filling, let me tell you ... a big pot full (or maybe we had several
pots)!
I’m not sure what time it was when we discovered the misstep
in our preparation. But is was
late enough that there was that sense of panic you have when you have planned a
project and everybody is depending on you, and you just know that the result won’t what three hundred men would be
thankful for just because you made a dim-witted mistake.
The problem? I had
added too much milk to the pumpkin
filling mixture. Instead of the
sort of liquid that is moderately thick and not too runny, this pumpkin mixture
had the consistency of consommé!
What to do?!?
Tiny and I decided that I would use the XO’s jeep to go around to all
the mess halls on Phu Hiep Army Airfield to see if I could get anything to
thicken the soup. I don’t know how
many stops I made, but probably it was at least four or five. Everyone was glad to help with whatever
we thought would turn our broth into real pumpkin pie filling. We ultimately used more cornstarch,
flour, and anything else we thought of to thicken our mixture.
I still have a vivid memory of driving that jeep through
nearly dark company areas, going into unfamiliar mess halls and pleading for
help with our situation.
Well, the short of it was that I was able to get enough of something and
Tiny and I made the consommé thick enough to pass for pumpkin filling.
As I look back, I realize that driving around the airfield
in the dead of night probably was not the smartest thing to do because we may
have been on a yellow alert being the holiday. Kind of like going on a mission on your last day in country;
wait.... I did that too, but that’s a different story!
Well, we got the pies baked that night and we all had the
whole works for dinner at Phu Hiep on that Thanksgiving Day.
As you sit down with your family and friends this
Thanksgiving in 2012, remember all that we can thank God for. I could make a list of the blessings in
my life, but I won’t bore you with that except to say that I am so thankful for
my friends I first met so many years ago at Phabulous Phu Hiep By The Sea,
during my three years in the Army and since. May God bless you richly over this holiday season!
