Ham and Eggs Fredrick Hudgin   © Copyright 2025 by Fredrick Hudgin

Photo by by jeffreyw at Wikimedia Commons.

When I deployed to Vietnam in 1970, I had two MOSs (Military Occupational Skill). One was as a fuel and electrical repairman. The other was a truck driver. So, I was given a choice of which one would be used to place me into a unit. I wanted to see the country and what the fuss was all about, so I chose to be a truck driver. They assigned me to the 359^th Transportation Company, located outside of Quy Nhon. Quy Nhon was about halfway between Saigon and the DMZ on the coast. After I signed in, the First Sergeant assigned me to a platoon of long-distance fuel haulers. My truck was the military version of a Mack 5-ton, six-wheel drive tractor—loud, hard riding, no air conditioning or even vents. The windshields were just flat glass that you could push open on hinges to let the wind in. The doors were covered with quarter-inch-thick armor plating with 6-inch-by-6-inch holes cut into each side so I could see the review mirrors outside the cab.

I’d been in-country for about two weeks being trained on the truck I would drive once I satisfied my platoon sergeant that I could handle the rig. I drove in the convoys without a trailer to get the feel of the truck and being in a convoy. Finally, I must have satisfied the powers that be because I was given a real assignment—pull a 5,000-gallon trailer full of diesel fuel to Pleiku to resupply the 4th Infantry Division. The drive to Pleiku took about eight hours, depending on the weather, the VC, and the convoy commander.

We left the convoy departure point a little after 9 AM, heading west toward the An Khe Pass, our first big climb on the way to Pleiku in the Central Highlands. The convoy commander always put the fuel tankers at the front of the convoy so if we got ambushed, most or all of us would already be through the attack point before the VC began the ambush, and our loads wouldn’t send burning fuel all over the rest of the convoy. Another benefit to being in the front was the dusty roads of Vietnam. The first truck in a convoy sends dust into the air. Each subsequent truck adds to the cloud. The poor bastard at the back doesn’t stand a chance. By the end of the day, you could peel the accumulated dirt off all exposed skin like a three-day-old bandage.

Progress up the An Khe pass slowed to about three miles per hour as those worn-out trucks struggled to climb it in first gear, pulling 36,000 pounds of fuel. But the higher we got, the cooler it became, and the view was magnificent. The road leveled out at the top of the pass, and we started rolling again. The terrain around An Khe was hilly. The Army had built bridges across many of the streams and ravines that we had to pass over on our way to Pleiku. Each bridge was manned by soldiers in sand-bagged guard stations who waved at us as we passed.

The second big climb was the Mang Yang Pass, about halfway between Anh Khe and Pleiku. The road up the pass was two miles long and full of switchbacks. My truck crawled up that windy road from Hell while I studied the grassy slopes that filled the hillsides ascending from the road. Many of the VC’s worst ambushes of my company’s convoys happened on this pass. The grass was at least six feet high. You could hide a battalion in that grass and never know they were there—until they opened fire. Luckily, in 1970, everyone knew the war was slowly ending, and no one attacked us that day. Or maybe it was the Cobra gunships that flew over us, protecting the convoy while it was on the hill.

We arrived at the rally point outside of Pleiku in the late afternoon. This was where the convoy stopped to let all the stragglers catch up. Then we drove together, close behind each other, through the town of Pleiku to the Army base on the other side where the 4th Division and its support people were. They did this to keep any VC from inserting themselves into the convoy, trying to ambush one or more trucks as we passed through the town.

I got out to stretch my legs. I noticed the other drivers lifting the hoods of their trucks and wandered over to see why. The driver of the truck in front of mine put the entrée can from his C-ration box on the exhaust manifold of his truck.

“Why are you doing that?” I asked him.

“Because cold C-rations make me wanna puke,” he replied, laughing a little. “I’ve got a built-in C-ration heater right there.” He pointed at the exhaust manifold. “By the time we get the off-load point, whatever I put on there is toasty.”

The light went on. There aren’t words to describe the yuck of opening a cold can of beefsteak C-rations. You have to chip through the quarter inch of solidified fat before you get to anything like beef.

Without another word, I turned on my heel and returned to my truck. Inside was the box of C-rations my motor sergeant had issued me as I left the motor pool that morning. It said “ham and eggs” on the outside of the box. Cool. I hadn’t eaten since breakfast. My stomach announced that it would much prefer warm ham and eggs to cold! Onto the manifold the can went. The hood came back down. I latched it in place and climbed into my cab, smiling at the warm meal that awaited me after I off-loaded the fuel in my trailer.

The convoy commander led us through the town and onto the base while I finished the fruit cocktail and chocolate bars from the C-ration box. Once we were within the walls of the camp, I followed the tanker in front of me to the fuel off-load point. As I pulled into the spot the traffic director pointed out for me, I heard a pop and a clang. Seconds later, steam and smoke started billowing out of my engine compartment. And the smell! The smell was beyond terrible.

While the fuel in my trailer was being drained into the bladders nearby, I opened my truck’s hood to see what had happened. The entire inside of the engine compartment was covered with chunks of ham and eggs, dripping from the hood, running down the wheel wells, and all over the engine. But the part that caught my attention first was the remains of the can on my exhaust manifold and the ham and eggs on the manifold and turbocharger that were quickly turning into charcoal. The can had morphed into a ham-and-egg bomb and exploded. There are no words to describe the smell that is forever “burned” into my memory.

The guy from the truck in front walked back to me, and together we stared at the mess. “You’re supposed to put a hole in the can before you put it on the manifold, troop,” he told me, trying not to laugh.

Luckily, I was able to eat at a 4th Division mess hall that night after I had spent a couple of hours scrubbing my engine compartment. It took years before I could smell ham and eggs cooking and not gag.