Veterans Day

VFW's also...........DAV was different.

I've spent the day with Sarah..............

US Army, Mar 65-Apr 85

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4 Inf. 68' 69' Pleiku, Bong Son and a ton of LZ's, Mary Lou and many more..... Funny, I was in the 4th for 68- 69 and then moved to Colorado in 1980 only to find them again 50 miles south. You know when a slick flies over the house, a sound you never forget, it is still comforting. Welcome home brother.
 
4 Inf. 68' 69' Pleiku, Bong Son and a ton of LZ's, Mary Lou and many more..... Funny, I was in the 4th for 68- 69 and then moved to Colorado in 1980 only to find them again 50 miles south. You know when a slick flies over the house, a sound you never forget, it is still comforting. Welcome home brother.

I ran the convoy escorts from Pleiku to Kontum up to DakTo in those V-100 armoured cars. Before that, light weapon instructor at the 4th ID Recondo School. WOP WOP WOP!!!! Memories....damn good ones if they were coming for your extraction. ;) Enari is gone, they wiped the place clean but there still is a small piece of base concrete where the front gate checkpoint was. I can still smell the shite burning.
Ft Carson was always their home base.
 
if you have not seen this it is well worth the time

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGoSWn1tHeo

A tribute to the Helo pilots of Vietnam, These guys saved my bacon many a time!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_gJTsRSd38

ALSO WELL WORTH THE TIME
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yP9jpPA51c


"If we never forget they will always be with us"

Chopper pilots and nurses....I still worship the ground they walk on. ;)

I was with the 229th Attack Helicopter Bn 101st Airborne when I retired and almost all our pilots were Nam experienced, whenever I felt a need for a rush of adrenaline, I'd jump on board for a treetop trip!!!!
 
More ...

"The man in the doorway" was always there!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fq0vFuIcOac

Jan 1968 to Feb 1969 ...

The First Cav had space for over 400 choppers at Camp Radcliff at Ankhe.

The lots of missions in and out 24/7.

Alot of 12.7 mm, 7.62mm and shrapnel holes in the air frames.

There was a regulation that said holes in the Aircraft had to be repaired when they reached a certain number. You could hear the really shot up Hueys and Cobras with so many holes that that they made a weird whistling noise at 100 Knots.

Equipment down for repair meant that somebody was not going to get any help until the repair was completed!

The "man in the doorway" would be a "No Show"!

The maintenance crews came up with the idea to cover all none critical holes with "Army Green Duct Tape" to get around the regulation and allow the A/C to continue missions.

Patches were applied the following night.
 
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This thread just flunked inspection by the One Star General. :D
I noticed that also, Tom. I just absorbed it with my eyes, digested it and then took a One Star General dump and I'm ready now to tackle the day after watching him flow round and round and disappear into darkness. ;)
 

50 years........seems like yesterday.......... I might add for all who do not know, some 12,000 Canucks unofficially served in Nam wearing our uniform because Canada stayed neutral, 26 Irish born citizens unofficially joined and wore our uniform and died, how many who actually served is unknown. Many others came from other countries also.
 
It means more than you can imagine to tell a Vet simply 'Thank You'. Thank goodness we do that today especially for the Vets that were/are coming home from SW Asia. Two good friends cycling home from Vietnam, both Army combat veterans they had been thru it all, coming home thru San Francisco in '69 and '70, both were booed, hissed, and spit on by Hippies and other low lifes at S.F. International Airport. They were snubbed by the local American Legions back here when they returned. Pathetic. Thankfully that mind set has changed today............

Jeff it also means a lot to hear it from folks. I never went overseas but supported many who did during my tenure with the Air Force in the early 70s. I saw some airmen rotate from CONUS (I was at Shaw AFB SC, a/c were mostly RF4Cs & B66s) to SEA several times, and remember a few who didn't make it back. It's humbling to accept the thanks we get nowadays from so many people. And I know what it was like going thru the airports back in those days, even as one who did not deploy, the a**holes who ridiculed servicemembers didn't differentiate. We had to wear our uniforms and were targeted by protesters in Detroit too. Taunted, insulted, spit on. . . yup, been there.
 
Coming through LAX in 72 I was called a "baby killer" by a woman twice my age. That was the worst for me. I was a clerk stateside. Never killed anyone.
 
We (Model A Ford Club of Colorado) had the honor of meeting Norm Affleck, a man who flew a B-29 Escort for the Enola Gay, at the Denver Veterans Day Parade. The man who drove him in the parade was a P-51 Pilot in the 8th Air Force. What an honor to meet these two great men!
 

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