Hi Julie. Thanks for reaching out. Julio and I are fine, keeping a pretty low profile and trying hard to stay safe.
The Covid situation in Spain like in many places in Europe worsened in October as the weather got cooler and people started to be more relaxed in maintaining the basic rules about getting together in limited groups. This was usually worse over a series of long weekends with partying and socializing. As a result here in our region of Catalunya there are now stricter limitations in place about being out after 10pm (which is dinner time for many here), all bars and restaurants are closed for at least this month, gatherings are restricted to less than 6 people and it is prohibited to leave town on the weekends without a valid reason. Mask wearing has been mandatory for several months and it is reassuring to see that almost everyone wears one. All of this is helping to bring the numbers down considerably in Catalunya in recent weeks. Having friends and family members on both sides of the Atlantic who have gone through the Covid process we feel that it is a small price to pay to keep ourselves and others safe.
I follow the US news very closely and find it frightening to see how the virus cases continue to increase so rapidly in so many places. Stay safe, everyone. Health is top priority.
Veterans are being saluted today. There are all kinds of Veterans. there are Veterans who served 30 years behind a desk, and Veterans who slogged across the hedgerows of France, Pacific Islands, the "Delta" rice paddys, the mountians of Aghanistan, and the desert heat of Iraq. Most of us think of "Veterans" as being male with weapons, but there are "others" who served.
I would like to honor my Dad's "baby sister", my Aunt Adelaide, (married at Immaculate Conception church) for her service in WW2.
She was an Army nurse who was landed with her group of nurses (I don't know how many) on one of the five beaches in Normandy just 24 hours after the initial invasion.
Once they were hoisted up the cliffs by ropes they began working in their crude "surgery tents". I imagine a rough and rather unclean working envirenment. Aunt Adelaide quickly contracted some sort of blood disease and nearly died. She had to be brought back to England where she spent 6 months in a hospital recovering. It left her with a lifetime condition in her spine causing her to have to sit or lie absolutely straight or erect. She had to use a straight firm "kitchen" chair alll the time - no soft couch or easy chair. And she slept with a thin pad on the hardwood wood floor next to her bed (where her husband slept). And she bore 3 children.
She was a quiet, modest (and brilliant) woman who never complained of anything.
So thanks for the remidner Mary Margaaret - as the song says;
Your aunt's case presents a medical mystery and a challenge!
Bloodborne pathogen that infected the spine - most likely staphylococcal osteomyelitis of one or more vertebral bodies, probably spread from a skin wound, abrasion or abcess. Another, but much more rare possibility, would be Potts's Disease (spinal tuberculosis). Regardless, this happened in the early days of antibiotics and either would have been very difficult to treat. She was obviously a tough lady and is lucky she survived without any paralysis.
Talk about lightening striking a family more than once. My Dad's oldest brother (Doctor John Mitchell - of St. Agatha's parish - also an allergist for most of his medical carreer*) suffered a small puncture throughh his surgical glove in a surgery class at OSU Medical School as a studnet sometime in the late '20's. His instructor accidentaly nicked him with his scalpel. The wound became infected and then gangreen set in. He lost his dominate (right) arm above the elbow. But he went on to graduate and learnd to work left handed. He practiced medicine for over 40 years until a hert attack ended his life about 1969.
p.s.
* He quit his practice for one year at age 60 to study for his "boards" in Psychiatry. He and Dad had realized so much of allergy (and asthma) was partly psycho sematic (spelling?) and required a great deal of counselling, that he wanted to offer a practice in Allergy, or Psychiatry, or sometimes both.
I have a graet photo of him and my aunt having a close up private conversation with Pope John XXIII in the Vatican.
your spelling sucks but that's a great story. (I know it's one word. I tried to spell it myself from memory but couldn't, and I'm not gonna cheat and use the interweb)
Sorry to run so long - but this is their day and I didnt want to leave them out.
I was going to hold off on this to avoid too much of my Vinh Long stuff, but I want these guys to be honored on this (or almost "this" day). I used this photo a year ago and spoke only of the guys on the left side. Tonight I will share about about three guys on the right.
If you see the bald guy to the right of me (your viewing right) in dark sweater and riding cart, that is Joe Byrd, the dumbest Texan I have ever met. And I love him like a brother!
Joe came in the "Scout " platoon to fly the "Loach" with us. That was by the way, a volunteer position and supposed to be for just 6 months. Most of us stayed in this platoon for a year (3 of the guys stayed in "Scouts" for 18 months). But Joe was shot down twice in fairly short order and left us for another assignment in the same Troop (Company). He became a co-pilot for the C&C ship (Command and Control) - that was the Huey that flew up at 500 feet, commanding and directing the mission. He was the co-pilot with Don Ericksen (farthest on your left, with a cane). Those two were the pilot and co-pilot who came in to get me when I was shot down. I often joke tht they were the snobbiest New Yorker, and the dumbest Texan that I have ever known. And also that I have the priviledge of thanking God for snobby New Yorkers and dumb Texans - every single day that I live!
(Joe contracted a rare disease some years later while serving as a Major in Korea. He took a bunch of vacinnations all at once and it brough on something weird. I forget the disease. His legs ar useless)
(Remidner about Bob in wheelchair to the left [shot down 3 times in Vietnam] who took a bullet from a fellow police officer while arresting him and his "gang" for drug dealing - huge story from 30 years ago in Atlanta's Police Dept.)
Further right in back with red golf shirt is my good friend (for life), Bill Pond. Bill was a young 1st Lt. - eventually a new Captain (we teasingly called them "boy Captains"). He was from Rhode Island or Connecticut and had atttended Notre Dame. I always thought he dropped out of N.D. to join, but years later he corrected me. "I received a letter inviting me NOT to return for academic reasons."
Bill is a puppy dog a a nice guy but flew his "Loach" into so many crazy nasty situations you might think he was deaf, dumb, and blind. Or at least had ice running through his veins. He was shot down either 3 or 4 times and one time was really bad. He and his observer plunked down into an open area that placed them exactly between two full companies of North Vietnamese "Regulars" ("NVA"). That's not a good thing. (full comanies of NVA was not all that common for us) They were within a few hundred yards - on both sides - of 180 to 200 men (per side) with AK's and at least one .50 caliber machine gun (which could puncture our "chicken plates" (chest protection bibs) and the little bit of armor inside the cockpit itself.
We usually were able to pick up our downed Loach crews quickly (I will explain in another post), but this time the number of NVA troops and their close proximity made it difficult to get in and pick them up. I was not flying that day but heard description of the chaos that ensued. They had to call a sister Company not far away and not seriously occupied, to come over and help with extra Cobra gunships. While this was going on, they could see Bill and his Observer (a Sgt. John Klark - young, handsome and the best Obvserver we had) crawling back and forth in the grass, first one way, then realizing they were going toward the source of fire, and then the other way, but then also directly into fire.
We usually were able to extract our downed pilots within minutes, but the guys who were "up" that day told us it was more like 40 hair-raizing minutes getting them out. And Klark was seriously wounded all the while. When they got home that evening, some of us had alredy gone down to the flight line to wait for them to get back (we had already heard from the radio room that there had been serious trouble out in the "A.O" or "Area of Operations").
As the aircraft maintainence schedule had dictated, Bill's regular ship was in maintainence, and mine was availble (as I was not scheduled to fly that day), so he flew mine. I went over to have a look at my ship - such as it was - a mess. It had already been recovered and slung back to our airfield. I counted 28 bullet holes in the floor or in the the "bubble" (front plastic windshield) alone - with a couple more in the body and tail boom. I saw Bill sitting on a revetment (concrete dividing wall between each aircraft) smoking a cigarette. Bill was always smoking a cigarette. As I walked over to him I could see he was shaking. All I could think of to say was to sarcastically chew him out. "
"Dammit Bill, Look what you did to my airplane! I let you fly it for one day and look what you did to it."
It worked. Bill reared his head back and burst out with laughter.
The last guy on the right is Phil Lange, a 1st Lt .who also became a "boy Captain". Nice guy - good friend - arrived with a Masters in English, and got me started reading good books again. One of my better friends over there. He did not fly with us in Scouts (Loaches) and had no seriouss encounters that I recall, but we shared one hair-raizing day that I still tease that he was trying ot get me killed. I'll save it for another time.
Just wanted to honor these other guys that I left out last year. There are a couple more but maybe next year.
Such a great loss to modern medicine that you didn't. Put us decades behind. But that's another great story so thanks. Thanks at multiple levels, if you know what I mean and I think that you do.
Sorry to belabor this, but it occurs to me to bring some clarification to a few terms I use in these stories - terms that I understand clearly, but forget that you may not.
I have used the term getting "shot down". What does that really mean, and then what happens after?
In our operation, the Scout pilots (or Loach pilots - I use the terms interchangeably) were the ones who regularly got shot down. I know it may seem awfully repetitive, and I may even make it sound routune, but in fact it was. We got shot at about evey few days on average and I can recall almost every one of the ten or so times time I myself took hits in my ship. But having one of our guys actually get "shot down" happened about once every two weeks in our company and likewize for our two sister companies (more often for "Apache Troop" for reasons I could not explain if I tried). In my 18 months in Vinh Long I think my Scout platoon - a group of 8 guys at a time, on a ongoing rotation over time ("old" guys leaving and new guys coming in) that spanned maybe 14 guys - I can recall about 24 or 26 "shoot-downs". One good buddy 5 times!
That's not counting our two "sister" companies - one of whom had a similar track record, and the third - "Apache", a much worse total. And we each flew the same 10 or 12 different search regions on a rotating basis. Why Apache Troop had so many more problems - God only knows? Those two other Companies expereinced several fatalities from enemy fire. In my 18 months we had none! I consider that a miracle.
You would too if you had witnessed some of the bizarre situations we got ourselves into. And speaking of that, some of the things we did to cover or assist another's ship in trouble bordered on the ridculous!
(Note: as I have said before, we did have about 10 or 12 fatalities by horrible acccidents or mechanical failure - but not from "enemy fire", while in the air, and while flying the mission)
Getting shot down happened becuse we were very low and close to them, often flying at very slow speeds, or even coming to a "dead hover" an ingenious (read: idiotic) tactic that we used to get a better look - and often paid a price for it. (I plead gulty, or arrogant, or stupid - you choose). We did this in order to get them to fire first. We were rarely permitted (special "free fire" zones excluded) to fire first. Not making that up.
I have shown you all photos of a Loach that simply crashed into the rice paddy and rolled itself into a broken pretzel. It so happens it was one of the safest cockpit structures to crash in. But hitting the ground from such low altitudes - 8 to 10 feet - sometimes 3 or 4 feet - and at relatively slow speeds, was the main reason more guys didn't get killed or even serioulsy injured from the impact.
Here's a reminder I have shown before - more below.
Now you may ask, What then?
You may recall there was a Huey (the "C&C" - Command and Control) flown by the Air Mission Commander ("AMC") at about 500 feet - well below the two Cobra Gunships cirlcing over head at 1,500 feet. When a Loach went down, the C&C would circle down - with close support from the two Cobras flying low and laying down lots of cover fire power, then hover close to the downed Loach, while the two Loach crewmen would simply run over and dive into the back floor of the Huey. The Huey would climb out and take the two men back to the staging area to get another team to come bck out and continue the mission. Or, if there were wounded, the C&C would suspend the mission while they flew the wounded man back to a large field EVAC hospital - often a fair distance from the current area of activity.
It was often quick and clean but the tricky part was getting so close to the origianl source of fire as the pickup was made. And as I described yesterday, sometimes it was a chaotic hot mess.
I have personally been on both sides of this "transaction" and I can assure you it's easier to be shot down (you had no choice) than to have to force yourself go down and get the guys who were just shot down.
----------------------
* I have held off playing this video on here, but I think you will get a better idea from something visual. This is a You Tube episode from the History Channel about the "OH6a - Cayuse" (WE NEVER EVER referred to it by the name Cayuse). Some of the only film in existence of "Loaches" in this strange mission.Notice how low they are.
I will add a note or two; Most of the video is file footage from near the Hughes assembly plant in California, but you will see 4 very brief scenes of live action in Vietnam. You have to look fast - at the opening seconds, then at 1:53, then 2:03, and finally 2:23 on the video timer. You will see purple smoke in these 4 scenes (colored marker grenades we carried to be thrown out the door by our Observer while we screamed "receiving fire" - so we could direct the gunships to the source of fire). The really nerve wracking part followed as we weould have to go back in after and "assess" the damage. The Cobras almost never got them all in the first pass, so you can imagine the tension as we went back in again (and again, and sometimes - again).
And fianlly, the video drifts off into later conffigurations and uses (like Mogadishu) as it get past two and half nminutes. We did not have mounted rocket pods and out-rigger seating (as in "Balckhawk Down")
Having just reviewed this for the first time in a while - I forgot how overly melodramatic the commentators are. Scusi !
I have read about interferons, autoantibodies and X chromosomes being areas of investigation primarily surrounding "why do two patients, seemingly very similar take totally different paths and outcomes" especially in younger men who have covid. It was good pretty science I think but not my field obviously.
Maybe you could inject...a few words. Is there a way of replacing, bolstering or some other way of helping these embattled interferons? And, are interferons like little heroes whose superpower is to interupt internal squabbles in the human body? You know, like after they interfere, they al go back to NYC and just be nasty and insulting to each other for awhile? Asking for a friend.
Take your time. Report isn't due till tomorrow morning at coffeetime. Tim
Dave – It is amazing that you were one of those death-defying Loach pilots, and crazier still that you and your other team members were shot down so often without being killed or captured. What a story! And although I cannot applaud the missions you were assigned to perform, I am so glad you came through it unscathed, at least physically (we all know you are as crazy as a bedbug).
Speaking of crazy bedbugs, our loser-in-chief who is refusing to concede, has generated a new "gate" scandal – according to Jimmy Kimmel we are now looking at "Squattergate." ( Sorry, I love a good pun.)
Despite this attempt at jocularity, I am actually feeling rather blue today. It is my Mother's birthday, and as with all of us at our age, we can't help mourn our parents' passing on day's like this. I know I have probably worn out my welcome posting my songs on this site, but I feel compelled to add another one today. I wrote this when she died back in 2004. She was always fond of poetry, even wrote quite a bit herself, much of which we only discovered after she died. I thought she would appreciate this rhyming remembrance, and sang it at her funeral. You will no doubt notice that I borrowed the melody from Billy Joel’s Piano Man. What can I say, that’s just the way it came out back then. I hope he doesn't mind.
Frank I have just one important question, and a minor related one, to ask of you.
What do you call the Golf Course hazard when you have to play through over 200 Canada Geese like I see every day walking (the geese, not me) on the 12th fairway behind my house?
Minor follow up; Do you have to take into account the Geese when you tally up your score?
I suspect you have been reading a report on a couple of articles that were recently published in the journal, Science, about why some people have different outcomes to COVID-19 than do others.
As I have posted on this Forum in the past SARS-COV-2 is a much different virus from others that have occurred in prior times. It has taught the world of microbiology, medicine and immunology so very much in a short period and has much more to reveal.
Interferons (IFN) are the first inflammatory cytokines to be deployed when a pathogen, often a virus, invades the body. They are the signaling proteins that activate other cytokines, antibodies and cellular immunity agents to attack and destroy the foreign invaders. IFNs can be the good guys, the bad guys and even the therapy guys. Some IFNs are now available as drugs to treat diseases such as certain leukemias, lymphomas and Hepatitis B. One has also been used for COVID-19 itself; more on that later.
Autoantibodies are well known in the pathogenesis of several diseases including Rheumatoid Arthritis, Lupus, other rheumatologic illnesses and Type 1 Diabetes. Research has found that some individuals , predominantly men, have a genetic defect that allows them to produce antibodies - autoantibodies - to their own IFNs. That can impede the ability of IFN to trigger a bold immune response to the virus and lead to a worse, even fatal outcome. The gene that codes these autoantibodies resides on the X chromosome. Men have one X and women have two so why would women not outnumber men in death rates from this problem? Good question! No one knows but some theorize that the second X chromosome may have genes that protect or counteract the defective gene.
IFNs can also overreact to the invading pathogen and initiate the "cytokine storm" which can cause abnormal inflammatory damage to normal body tissues. That is frequently fatal. Interferon-Beta 1a is a useful medicine that is resistant to autoantibodies and which if given at the right time to a COVID-19 patient, often by inhalation, can help these people. However, if administered at the wrong time in the course of the disease, can worsen it by inducing a cytokine storm.
Bottom line, these studies have added new information to our understanding of the immune system, the pathogenesis of COVID-19 and its disparity in individual victims. Perhaps there will be faster and better ways to screen patients early in the course of their disease for autoantibodies to IFNs and have a treatment that is already available. All of these therapeutic measures that are being tried will, hopefully, contine to decrease the mortality of this viral pandemic.
Since it appears to be a silent weekend on the forum I thought what better time to talk about future return trips that I would like to take.
Among my favorite trips were those to two "Gardens". First is the Bouchard Gardens on Victoria Island, British Columbia. Located just off the coast of Seattle, Washington and Vancouver, British Columbia. Bouchard Gardens were constructed in a used (no longer viable) quarry on Victoria Island. As part of the trip we visited old Victoria, te capital of the Islad. Next Garden is the Longwood Garden, over a thousand acres previously owned by the Duponts. My wife and I took many trips during different seasons. Christnas time was very picturesque as was the Fourth of July.
We also took many day trips to Northern, NJ to a place called Northpoint (I think) from atop the higheast poin in New Jersey you could seethe Delaware River and three states - New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania.
Another of the trips we took, took us to Northern New York to the Saint Lawrence River. Here we first took a little guided tour boat trip around some of the Thousnd Islands area. Many of the islands are small and contain one home/family. A house on one island in particular the guide informed us had SEVEN kitchens. Mr. and Mrs. Kitchen, their four children, and the kitchen for cooking. After departing we traveled across the River on I believe the Friendship Bridge into Canada. Drove to Ottawa, Ontario for the night. Next day we drove up the highway North (two lanes) to North Bay were we stopped for the night. The next day being Sunday, and Father's Day, we decided to take the paddlewheel boat trip around the small lake. It is about twenty miles North to South and approximately seventy miles East to West. Since it was Father's day my ticket was free, and due to the exchage rate my wifes was about $5.00. A great cruise for a little over two hours. The next day we drove to Cobalt, Ontario which starting in the earlt 1900's was a silver mining area. They still do a little mining today, but through their heyday they mined more silver than anyplace else on the earth.
I hate to tell you this, but somebody has found another bucket of oysters. And the team of experts who were called in to break the "crustacean code" haven't even finished decifering all the shells in the first bucket.
Mind you, one of the questions on the minds of the officials seems to be whether the oysters must be eaten before the shells can be turned over to the Beaufort County Oyster Shell code breakers.
Bluffton town officials are also trying to sort out whether to allow the later bucket to be placed in the hands of the code breakers anyway, or declare them illegal. Local oyster scholars are scambling to explain what constitutes a "legal oyster". There are "Early Oysters", "Mail-In Oysters" "Absentee Oysters", and "Fresh Caught Oysters".
Demonstrators insist that the only bucket that is legally allowed to be decifered is the bucket that was found before the date of the town's annual Oyster Festival, and they are threatening to go to court over their claim. One local town councilman, Mr. Billy Bob Farquad, was overheard saying that he feared for the town's future.
......he was seen wearing a M.A.F.A. cap (Make America Fish Again)
You have an ability to make uncommon knowledge pretty approachable. Thanks for breezing thru the humor and telling us the inside info. It is again sad that women hog all the X's!
I spoke with my aging sister back in big C a few days ago and she made the remark "hardly anyone is dying from it now" referring to Covid. She had been told to quit worrying by someone close. That thought process, and others like it may be technically right, but I fear the outcome of that type of thinking. She was so surprised to hear that over 1000 people a day are losing their future to this crap. The percentage of deaths may be down but 1% of one million -about ten days worth of new results- still equals the loss of 10,000 of our people who didn't need to die.
On a lighter side, did you hear that historians are beginning to refer to it as the "dondemic"?
