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.
2010/04/28
2010/04/24
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.
2010/04/23
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"
"'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"
2010/04/17
Odds and Ends
The big 'F' was the most prevalent expletive we used. It covered just about every circumstance with the proper adjunct phrase.
FIGMO- F*** I Got My Orders or F*** you I Got My Orders or F*** it, I Got My Orders-- The beginning of attitude deterioration, accelerating when 100 dys remain and the attitude of SHORT begins...like; I'm Short ,I give a f***?
FUBAR-- F***ed Up Beyond All Recognition-- Anything defying conventional wisdom and sense. To us most things Military.
"SHORT!" --Heard as a bellowed expression of exuberance at any time of day or night, especially under the influence of drink taken.
SHORT was celebrated by an sexually explicit drawing divided into numbered tiles which were colored in daily from 100 to 1. Several versions circulated, which was before xerox. Some admin. guy somewhere must have kept a mimeograph machine busy!!!
This was posted in ones locker and displayed on the open door when the 'lucky' owner was in residence. SHORT! was a 100 day celebration of going Back to the World. And now all these years later most of us privately celebrate this time at Ubon as the most exciting of our lives. But we saw things differently then. Life before us was longer and we had no idea of the value of our experiences. Now we really are getting 'Short' and hope to extract the sweetness from the past that we were then unaware of. A sort of distillation after the second pressing of the fruit.
A far cry from living in the past , rather a savoring of it!
SHORT was counted on a small wheel counter worn on a chain through the top shirt buttonhole. 99 days and the bag drag!!!!( leaving the country for 'the World')
Don't drink the last bit out of a bottle of beer or soda in town. This is where the insect bits and other detritus settled. I don't think their filtration standards were very high.
Don't drink the Thai Whiskey. Chunky floaters and possible blindness.
Baht bugs swarmed around the flightline lights and felt like getting hit with a tennis serve. 3to4 inches long and were eaten by the nationals. I knew of guys paying there rent in town with beer cases of the things. 1 baht= 5 cents.
A condom can be used as a floating balloon if inflated with helium from the tank in the radar shop.
FIGMO- F*** I Got My Orders or F*** you I Got My Orders or F*** it, I Got My Orders-- The beginning of attitude deterioration, accelerating when 100 dys remain and the attitude of SHORT begins...like; I'm Short ,I give a f***?
FUBAR-- F***ed Up Beyond All Recognition-- Anything defying conventional wisdom and sense. To us most things Military.
"SHORT!" --Heard as a bellowed expression of exuberance at any time of day or night, especially under the influence of drink taken.
SHORT was celebrated by an sexually explicit drawing divided into numbered tiles which were colored in daily from 100 to 1. Several versions circulated, which was before xerox. Some admin. guy somewhere must have kept a mimeograph machine busy!!!
This was posted in ones locker and displayed on the open door when the 'lucky' owner was in residence. SHORT! was a 100 day celebration of going Back to the World. And now all these years later most of us privately celebrate this time at Ubon as the most exciting of our lives. But we saw things differently then. Life before us was longer and we had no idea of the value of our experiences. Now we really are getting 'Short' and hope to extract the sweetness from the past that we were then unaware of. A sort of distillation after the second pressing of the fruit.
A far cry from living in the past , rather a savoring of it!
SHORT was counted on a small wheel counter worn on a chain through the top shirt buttonhole. 99 days and the bag drag!!!!( leaving the country for 'the World')
Don't drink the last bit out of a bottle of beer or soda in town. This is where the insect bits and other detritus settled. I don't think their filtration standards were very high.
Don't drink the Thai Whiskey. Chunky floaters and possible blindness.
Baht bugs swarmed around the flightline lights and felt like getting hit with a tennis serve. 3to4 inches long and were eaten by the nationals. I knew of guys paying there rent in town with beer cases of the things. 1 baht= 5 cents.
A condom can be used as a floating balloon if inflated with helium from the tank in the radar shop.
2010/04/04
Bombs Away!
Texas Instruments Paveway I
I and my partner were sent out to an F4 with this laser designator system attached to the cockpit sill and the GBU slung underneath on the centerline bomb rack. Though I've forgotten the details we were to do some system integration with our radar and bombing computer system it seems. It was one of those non-existent things that didn't really exist no matter how real they appeared to the untrained eye. After the short briefing we received at the aircraft before we started we were as able to not see it as any one else.
I and my partner were sent out to an F4 with this laser designator system attached to the cockpit sill and the GBU slung underneath on the centerline bomb rack. Though I've forgotten the details we were to do some system integration with our radar and bombing computer system it seems. It was one of those non-existent things that didn't really exist no matter how real they appeared to the untrained eye. After the short briefing we received at the aircraft before we started we were as able to not see it as any one else.
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