The 637th Clearing Company Medical Separate Platoon 2 - Herman is on the bottom left, colorized.
Waiting in the Army is a way of life. To pass the time We did many mundane things. Pyra- midal tents were pitched as sleeping quarters. Six of us slept in each tent on cots draped with mosquito nets. It was a tent city complete with electric lights. Large tents were set up as hospi- tal wards, consisting of 20 cots to a ward. Our surgical center was set up nearby. Tremendous effort was app lied to protect ourselves from malaria and dengue, two kill- er tropical diseases. Flies caused dengue and mosquitoes caused malaria. Besides requir- ing every soldier to take Atabrine tablets daily to ameliorate the symptoms of malaria. We walked around the surrounding jungle squirt- ing oil on any pool of water remaining after a rain. We all worked mosquito duty. Mosqui- toes could not breed in oil-covered water, just the way the Army liked it. A lister bag was set up for drinking water. Soldiers are trained to never drink untreated water. A lister bag is made of canvas and rests on a tripod. We filled it with water from the stream and then dropped chlorine tablets in and waited a couple of hours. The water was safe to drink but tasted awful.
Our unit had its own cooks. These guys were trained to make food in large quantities. To keep the place sanitary, one of the first things we did was dig a garbage pit. The garbage pit was always surrounded by local people scavenging our leavings. They would tie a string to a can and dip it down into the garbage hoping to get a morsel of food. All of us carried a mess kit. After chow, we would scrape the left-over food into the garbage and dip our mess kit into a 50-gallon oil drum filled with boiling water. Then we would rinse them into another 50-gallon drum of boiling water. It takes time to get used to the natives. They always asked us for work. We would give them our clothing to wash. Every month each soldier got two cartons of cigarettes and a case of beer; this is what we used to pay them. Stationed near the coast, we went swim- ming in the ocean; it was paradise. Once, while doing a patrol, somebody yelled wild boar! Comically, everybody with- in earshot tried to climb the nearest tree. We were spit and polish trained soldiers scared of a wild boar. It’s true that they are crazy animals,
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