Twenty years after that, when I was in the jungles of Vietnam, guys would look at me and wonder how I survived so well. They used to say I acted like I was out on a picnic. “I am,” I’d say, “and I brought a jar of ants to turn loose so you’ll feel like you’re on one too.” Somehow living in that steaming jungle never seemed quite as rough as all those years as a migrant worker.
