BETTER THAN A FLU SHOT!!!

Another take on preventative medicine! Of course in Ubon Days flu shots were in their infancy. Thousands of us were sickened at Tech School at Lowry AFB, Denver, where we trained on the F4 radar sys. when they 'tested' the stuff on us the year before we went to Thailand and other bases. This is just to funny to pass up.

 

Better than a Flu Shot!   Miss Beatrice, The church organist, Was in her eighties And had never been married. She was admired for her sweetness And kindness to all. One afternoon the pastor Came to call on her and she showed him into her quaint sitting room. She invited him to have a seat while she prepared tea. As he sat facing her old Hammond organ, The young minister noticed a   cute glass bowl sitting on top of it. The bowl was filled with water, and in the water Floated, of all things, a condom! When she returned With tea and scones, They began to chat. The pastor tried to stifle his curiosity About the bowl of water and its strange floater, but soon it got the better of him and he could no longer resist. 'Miss Beatrice', he said, 'I wonder if you would tell me about this?' Pointing to the bowl. 'Oh, yes,' she replied, 'Isn't it wonderful? I was walking through the park a few months ago and I found this little package on the ground. The directions said to place it on the organ, keep it wet and that it would prevent the spread of disease. Do you know I haven't had the flu All winter.

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Cure or Disease?

A condom serves as a very fine balloon,though a small protrusion is at the top, when filled with helium and attached to a string.  (see side bar re: sex in raincoats)  It was suggested they be worn in tandem for there proper function (military redundancy!) though the twice daily VD sick call testified to either a very high failure rate or improper usage.  The Balloons were quite amusing.

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Malaria pills were offered as a palliative against this disease. The cereal bowl full of them at the end of the chow line  we were told may me taken one per week if we desired to be assured of not contracting the disease. The diarrhea experienced by the end of the third week  was the uninformed certainty that stopped all but the most compulsive pill taker.  I decided they were there for the amusement of the experienced.
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Home again, Home again, Jiggity Jig

Thomas Wolff warns us of the impossibility of  'going home again'. Not that we shouldn't in a nostalgic way but in an idealistic and realistic way. We imagine we  will but it will never be. As we separate from our home path to the experience outside its influence and environs we are becoming something apart from it. We glance back on parting, either in place or in mind and we imagine our return. But we can't recapture our place or ourselves, at least not as it and we once were.
Col Olds' addressed this in his farewell speech, warning us. He knew.

Eats and Drinks

Coming soon to a chow hall near you!  Breaded Prawns!!! YUM O!!  Supply screw up.
Sent more than could be stored long term.   Prawns on the chowline every meal for three weeks!!! I'm 61. I still don't eat Breaded Prawns!!!!
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If it came in a rusty can...(steel can/aluminum top, the weld seam din't hold up in tropical storage and sent streamers of rust cascading through the beer as you poured it into your glass) It  must be Carling Black Label!!!   Good times with a cool one on the Patio (next to the swimming pool with no water in it.  YA. Thought you'd remember.)!!!!
First  one or two Pabst in the aluminum cans...15c?  then on to wasted on the 5c Carling Black Label!!!!!  O YA!!!!!
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Goodbye, Memock!

Memock has posted his last entry to 'Life in Rural Thailand'.  The restaurant has been sold and they have said their farewells to Seerung's  family after their extended vacation through southern Thailand. If you haven't yet, visit his blog. 
He contacted me through this blog curious about life in Ubon during the Vietnam War and what his restaurant was then, being just outside the front gate of UBON RTAFB.
His blog has been a pleasure to follow and a wonderful connection to a place I knew in far different times.  His blog has allowed me to reconnect with several guys I was stationed there with in 1969.  The photos and movies/videos sent to him by former servicemen have been an awesome experience to view.  Through his blog Thailand became less a land far, far away and long, long ago for me.
Thank you, Andrew.

MORE UBON from 'Life in Rural Thailand'

More Ubon photos from 67-68
Check out the prices he writes about!  But then I knew of some guys collecting these on the flight line under the lights and paying their rent with them!!!  The Baht Bug!!!
YUM!!!!

You Gotta See This!! from blog ' Life in rural Thailand'

Old Ubon Ratchathani video and photos. « Life in rural Thailand: 

Taking the King's Shilling

   In the fall of '68 LBJ suspended the college deferments to appease the hue and cry that the wealthy elite sons weren't subject to the draft and possible death by virtue of their college deferments. I wasn't elite nor wealthy but I was in college and draft deferred. Carrying too many hours as an engineering student burned me out and I wasn't able to stay enrolled. Fortunately I was a few months ahead of the curve and was able to possibly escape being drafted as the first letter of my last name was due to be in the draft selection that March. It was Jan. or Early Feb. by then and checking with the draft board confirmed the approaching gamble of fate. Discretion being the better part of valor I hied me off to the Air Force Recruiter whom I had signed up with the spring before but changed my mind and took up scholarship instead. I had, I hoped, my bases covered.
  

Above the Screw

This is  a typical maintenance dispatch board  set up. Only in our shop we had a single board. The shift duty Sgt sat at it and  sent the radar tech crews out to the various planes and locations.

Col. Robin Olds' Farewell

 I recently came across this on Bob Wheatley's  Viet-REMF. That was the first I'd every experienced it. It should have been printed on a hand bill and given to every departing GI in SEA! It may have given us pause to consider what we were about to experience. We were so high for going home we couldn't imagine what we were to face 72 hrs. after departing SEA.  I hope after reading this blog some of you do.

 "'Now, I won't say good-bye to you. You know we have had some time over here together and I am not going to say good-bye because I know I will see you again. But I just want you to think of something. You have changed! You are not the same young guy that walked onto this base. Things have happened to you inside and you will never be the same for the rest of your life. It's going to take you a while to realize this and it's going to be awfully tough on you when you get home because that little wife that waved good-bye to you is not going to recognize you when you walk back through that front door. She is going to sense immediately that you have changed. And she is going to want to know how you have changed because she wants to know where she stands with this stranger that just walked into the house. So I guarantee you, within the first ten days home, you are going to have a fight. Then you are probably going to go to a party or two in your home town, where they are going to sort of half-ass welcome you back and your best friend from high school or college is going to walk up and tell you what a dumb shit you are for having been there fighting that stupid war. Then you are going to fly off the handle at him. Or you are going to want to tell him or someone what it was all about, and you are going to realize that nobody gives a goddamn.'

Colonel Robin Olds, Commander, 8th Tactical Fighter Wing
In His 1967 Farewell Address to 'The Wolf Pack', Ubon, Thailand"