Sunday, August 28, 2005

Vietnam -- Nha Trang Air Base (AB), first -- then Binh Thuy with many medals promised!

After a couple of weeks at Clark AB's "Jungle School" in the Phillipines to learn how to survive in Vietnamese jungles which were due west of the similar Phillipine jungles, we landed in Vietnam -- Nha Trang AB by the city of the same name.

There IS a little story from jungle school about the Negritos who were sent out to find us as proof that we could not E&E (Escape & Evade) very well! Turns out the old sergeant who did not camouflage himself and slept out right in the open, cool air where any Negrito within 30 yards would have seen him, did every bit as well as I did. He slept well while I went ahead & played the game properly as instructed. I covered myself under all kinds of warm, itchy, ground cover 2/3 the way up the hill on an incline crawling with bugs, insects, and God knows what else; since the Negritos never came down that particular path to search in our 12-hour nighttime E&E game, neither of us had to give up his chit worth one pound of rice for his family's jungle subsistence. OK, but if we WERE ever shot down in Vietnam, I had practiced MY lessons and would better evade the bad guys!

At Nha Trang, I in-processed for a couple of days but, right away, I ran into my best roommate from the Air Force Academy, Charlie Scott! I hadn't seen Charlie since I had been washed out of pilot training 18 months earlier in Laredo, TX. Charlie was a few classes ahead of me and made it through pilot training but we had lost contact with each other when I went to nav school in Sacramento. We BOTH had selected one of the ballsier assignments and were assigned to AC-47 "Spooky" sidefiring gunships whose wing HQ was at Nha Trang! (This is the same aircraft known earlier as "Puff, the Magic Dragon" in John Wayne's Vietnam movie, "The Green Berets.") It is interesting how many similarities Charlie & I had that I hadn't known about -- I just knew we were VERY well suited to be roomies and friends at "the Zoo." I had other roomies there but they came from such different backgrounds & values, I guess, that it kept us from "jelling" like Charlie & I did.

After 2 days of spending open time BS'ing and catching up at the Nha Trang Officers Club, he went north to Da Nang and I went south to Binh Thuy, and we never saw each other again. Although my orders said my base was Nha Trang, most of us were farmed out to "FOL's" (Forward Operating Locations) where we were encouraged to go because we could earn lots of medals there! (I DID want to come home with a few medals more than I left with, but there is usually a good reason why military people are awarded medals! Duuh!)

More later about this and Charlie...

posted by Richard A @ 8:37 PM 0 comments

Wednesday, August 24, 2005

Flying to war in Vietnam with a sexy surprise!

Well, turns out our 3-day wait for a "Port Call" at Travis AFB near San Francisco became 5 or 6 days that I'd never get back again! By "our", I mean the 4 of us AF-types traveling together although newly met (except for Bob P. who later turned out to be a big self-centered DORK even if he WAS going to AC-47 Puff/Spooky gunships, like me)! These other 3 were so hard-up for a fourth for Bridge (playing in the airport), they said they would teach me how from scratch if only I would please play Bridge with them. I KNEW it would be a waste, but we had lot of time to waste before leaving for Vietnam!

If I hadn't been such a newbie newly-wed & gung-ho 1/LT, I might have thought to arrange for the love-of-my-life to come spend a couple days/nights with me so I could leave MY heart in San Francisco, too! We were both legal--over 21, and could have scrounged up the scratch but I don't think she could have gotten the go-ahead from South West Texas State University! After all, they still gave female undergraduates daily curfews & evening signing in/out of the dorm, too. Universities still had in loco parentis rules operating, back then. But, since the AF kept cancelling my departure flights each day, my bride & I could have finally spent our first full night together instead of waiting for Hawaii 9 months later!

Yet, crewmembers waiting for their Port Call had to report daily with bags in hand ready to board one of the commercial charter planes doing big business out of Travis during the Vietnam War. On the day we actually left, I returned to the Travis airport waiting room from a bathroom break, & walked past an absolute BABE who was playing chess with an older gentleman in the airport concourse. She looked familiar in an altogether grown-up way -- I would have sworn I knew her from Lee High School in Springfield, VIrginia. But I could NOT remember her name, dammit! If I HAD remembered, I would have interrupted -- so I tried & tried but couldn't come up with either first or last name. Of course, my card-playing fiends (not a misspelling) wondered why I was so distracted -- but even across the giant auditorium waiting area at Travis, my buddies could see this girl looked like a world-class, universal sex object. "Yeah, sure Rich, you know her... Right!" "No, guys, I really do! I'm sure she's a friend from high school but she moved away after sophomore year with her AF family." That was 8 1/2 years earlier & before her peak body-curve development phase -- her new curves & hard body were not filed among my high school mental images. Now I was 24; she must have been 24. But, I had kept my marriage a secret and I was still a little old-fashioned-shy anyway -- that probably didn't help my credibility with my card-playing fiends.

Well, that lady's crew got up & left together with no loudspeaker announcement -- I guess the older gentleman was senior-pilot age -- they were all in some sort of non-military flight uniform. THEN, wouldn't you know, I finally remembered her name! Arrggh! However, I had an inkling when OUR flight's passenger boarding was unexpectedly announced 15-20 minutes later that maybe, just maybe, the BABE and crew had left to preflight the very plane which would fly us to Hawaii on our way to war! [Oh, please God, let it be!]

And God said, "Let there occasionally be justice in the world to keep mankind hopeful." So it happened that, when I could not see a familiar flight attendant face showing us how to buckle our airborne emergency chastity belts during the cabin briefing, I asked another flight attendant if the name of the unseen one making all the announcements was "Jan P***?" "Why YES, do you know her?" "We went to high school together -- would you tell her when you get a minute?" My buddies who were all seated next to me side-by-side were incredulous, silent, & turning a nice shade of Olive Drab -- Jan had become the most tight-bodied, beautiful girl I had ever known before. Suffer, my card-playing wretch fiends, because you deserve it!

And thank you, Jesus! Jan came over and squatted down on her tight, beautiful thighs in the aisle as soon as we were airborne and she could move right next to me!

For about 25 minutes, we gave each other full, undivided attention catching up on 8 years' changes and news! She MUST have known how HOT she looked -- my buddies sure did, and they didn't say "Word One!" I got Jan's mailing address, but I still kept my secret marriage secret from all except AF Hq. I think Jan lived in Pacific Palisades, CA but, because of my loyalty to my secret spouse, I never wrote her. When she got off in Hawaii for the crew change which was to fly us on further, I saw her for the last time ever. (She knew we were all going to Vietnam -- I wonder if she later checked The Wall in DC for MY name like I did for my male military friends after The Wall was built in 1984.)

Since "my secret" was to walk out on me 20 years later with a "no-fault" divorce to get half my AF retired pay, I have occasionally looked a little again for Jan. That 20-year-old address bore silent witness to what might have been if I'd acted on it at the time. If Jan ever sees this, I hope she knows now why I didn't feel free to give her a good, warm, old-friend hug! THIS one's for YOU, girl: OOO's + an X!

posted by Richard A @ 11:47 PM