Eating Outside - John Fetto

You couldn’t light a fire. You’d eat what you packed, and taken out of the noisy wrapper so that you could slip out of your pack, into your mouth and chew no more loudly than the beat of the insects buzzing around you. But then these walks tended to kill your appetite anyway. You watched and listened, and your mind interpreted every sound a hundred different ways. If everything was working well, you communicated with your hands. It was only when things fell apart, and you were discovered, hauling ass that anyone spoke and then it was usually the radio operator asking for an extraction.

So the tough piece of meat you slipped into your mouth was good. It was good because you were still undiscovered, still safe. The sip from canteen was sweet. It meant you were where you thought you were supposed to be, and even with all the insects biting your wrist and neck, that was good too because their noisy dining might persuade any soldiers walking by there weren’t any nosy American’s lurking in the shadows. The insects after all, always dined out.