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Timothy Lavelle

Mary Margaret, Thank you for your kindness. I don't know about the other guys, but I didn't know about this event. It's kind of you to post this and my thoughts are for you and both of the Jims in your life. Those caissons keep rolling along. Tim

David Mitchell

I second that Tim. Thank you Mary Margaret.

I only learned about this date a few years ago by accident, when I was asked to be a guest speaker at a local event here in Bluffton. I had to follow several more important people on the program, and I was a nervous wreck. But it turned out to be very cathartic. The audience - about 350 - was mostly Vietnam Vets, and I had no idea my few tidbits of experience, followed by strong words of gratitude for their loyalty, would draw such an emotional reaction. It's nice to be acknowledged. I think some of them had waited half a lifetime to hear it.

I remeber wondering back then if I had somehow contracted leprosy on my last plane ride home to the states. Now I love to give a different "greeting" to soldiers when I pass though airports. Remember, they are not the policy makers, they are the servants. 

And to all of you 30 or 40 odd guys in this class, who served - You did the best you could for the country you love, and nobody can take that away from you. 

Lawrence Foster

Mary Margaret, thank you for posting this.  While I never went to Viet Nam I saw a lot of soldiers in the outpatient psychiatric clinic I worked in who were going or had come back.  Also saw a number of them when I was the liaison to the post stockade.  So many needed this type of acknowledgement and/or recognition.  My thanks to all of you who served there and all of you who still support them.  

James Hamilton, M. D.

Joseph Gentilini

Thanks for posting this.  I never had to serve in the military or Vietnam.  At the time, I had physical impairments that would not get me into the Army, Air Force, or the Navy.  I also had a high draft number.  When I went to DC for a vacation years ago, I went to the Vietnam Wall.  It was sobering, to say the least.  Very moving and profound.  May God give every men and women in that war eternal peace.  Joe

Michael McLeod

I'd snap off a salute if I still remembered how. Been a long time.

Deborah Alexander (Rogers)

Mary Margaret,

Thank you so much for bringing this to our attention.  I would like to add my voice in thanking all of our classmates who served in Vietnam. I can't imagine all they went through, and at such a young age, while we here at home led our sheltered lives.  They are true heroes, and it is wonderful that they are now being appreciated with this day, though it is long overdue. 

I was at OSU during the late 60's, and there were protests happening on the Oval, as many of you probably remember.  In fact, we had the National Guard on campus during my last quarter there because of the Kent State shootings.  I remember soldiers at the building entrances, fully armed, and they were also at the June 1970 graduation.  Who ever thought we'd have armed troops on an American campus?  It never occurred to me at the time that our returning vets would be treated so badly.  I still don't understand it.  Hard to imagine that happening now.  So gratitude and appreciation goes out to all of our Vietnam vets in the class of '66. Thank you for your service!

John Maxwell

David Mitchell

I need to correct a mistake for the record. In my post #950 above, I stated that "I just learned about this date" (3/29) a few years ago at a local event. But I just now realized this is a totally new national date declared just recently by the new president. The event I was asked to attend was our own local declaration "Bluffton Vietnam Veteran's Memorial Day", which was declared to be March 14, (I think) 2015, and each year thereafter.

I know this is no big deal, but I just didn't want to create any confusion because of my oversight. 

Janie Albright (Blank)

Graduating from high school during the Vietnam war our class is truly blessed not to have lost anyone in this conflict. As Joe mentioned, seeing the Wall in Washington is an incredibly moving experience and I thank God I did not have to trace the name of someone I knew. 

Several of you have mentioned or told stories about being there.  But it would be interesting to know who all was there. If you haven't told us already maybe a quick shout out here.  We thank you all for your service in Vietnam or not.

Mark Schweickart

I almost joinrd the Marines upon graduating from high school, but at the last minute decided not to. Later I was one who  was lucky enough to get a high lottery number. I wrote about my first infatuation with the idea of joining the Marines in the memoir that most of you know about. Here is an excerpt about this--a sad salute to one of my former Big Bear co-workers.

On one particularly busy Saturday, in the midst of carts flying this way and that, there suddenly appeared a young Marine, in his full dress uniform who stepped smartly through the carts as if he were used to their sporadic disarray. Someone yelled out,”Oh my God, it’s Bill,” and all eyes turned to greet the handsome young man with a small V-shaped scar on his left cheek that only added to his rugged good looks. It was Bill Finkle, who had been a fellow employee at the store until he left to join the Marines a few months earlier. He was now back from boot camp, and on a short leave before he had to ship out to Viet-Nam. Everyone crowded around, saying hello, and wishing him well. In the distance, one of the cashiers turned from his station and shouted, “Give ’em hell, Bill! Those goddam gooks won’t know what hit ‘em, once you get there!” Upon hearing this, the twinkle that had been present in Bill’s eyes as he had been basking in the good wishes of his former co-workers suddenly faded to a dark solemnity that suggested that he knew it was going to be far more complicated than that. What he did not know, nor would any of his friends standing there that day know, was that at this time next year, he would be lying face down, dead in a rice paddy.

But for the moment it was all good cheer. Mark did not know Bill all that well. They went to different high schools, and Bill was a year older. But in addition to knowing him as a co-worker they also played basketball together. Several of the Big Bear employees formed a team, Mark and Bill among them, to play in an independent league once a week during basketball season. What he knew of Bill was that he was soft-spoken, and for such a good-looking guy, he had a quiet disposition that did not embrace the kind of rowdy egotism that such looks often encourage. Even now, while surrounded by well-wishers and being the absolute center of attention, he had a Robert Kennedy kind of sheepish smile that was all self-effacement rather than macho posturing.

Mark could not get over how sharp Bill looked in his dress blues--the gleam of his highly polished black shoes, the light blue pants with the red stripe running vertically down the outside of each leg, the darker blue jacket with the wide white belt, all topped off with the white hat with the dark brim. He looked very impressive. Mark too had been thinking of joining the military after high school. Maybe he should see if he could cut it as a Marine. Was he tough enough to survive Marine boot camp, an ordeal that was reputed to break many a recruit and send them home? But if truth be told, it was not really about proving himself, or aspiring to a sense of Marine-style manhood, but rather it all came down to the simple conclusion that he had reached--that he did not really care if he got killed in combat. For over two years, he had been plagued by waxing and waning bouts of depression, or as he labeled it, his “sadness,” that often involved suicidal thoughts. So he figured if a certain amount of soldiers had to die over there, he might as well be one of them. Perhaps offering himself up would save some other poor deluded schmo who thought he had something to live for. It turned out that that “certain amount” became a huge number of soldiers who would die  there--over 58,000. Mark, however, was not to be one of them. Years later Mark was in Washington D.C searching for Bill’s name on the Viet-Nam War Memorial wall. He had his 14 year-old son along, and for whom all these marbleized names must have seemed as distant as names from Gettysburg or Valley Forge. But finally there it was. As he stared at it, all he could see was Bill in his dress uniform making his way through the shopping carts.

Timothy Lavelle

Dear Rain,

I am truly sorry, but I just can't keep up this relationship. It's not you, really.

It's me.

I know you will think back to the Fall when I referred to you kindly, and with summertime's warmth in my heart. Certainly I smiled and enjoyed how much you helped your Mother, Mrs. Nature, in greening up the world. Or as we would laugh and say "Could it get any greener?" like we were bit players on "Friends".

And really, there is no weather, and I will stand up for this in front of anyone Rain, and I will say it with pride in my heart, "No one, absolutely no one, makes mud like Rain does. "

But today I am letting the world know that I am in a committed relationship with Sunshine. I sure hope I am not being toyed with but there are reports that it will be sunny ALL FLIPPIN' DAY today. I will play with the lawn mowers and do some other things outside that....wait a minute....wait a minute....are those dark clouds???

Hey Rain, just wondering, you know, ummmm, thinking things over....this is probably some "weird sh!t" but I was wondering if you have a date to the Spring Fling?

David Mitchell

Tim, 

Speaking of your tatoo and "where you sit". Living here in a town a bit larger than Mossyrock, we recently had a serious robbery. All of the new toilet seats at the new police station were taken before the grand opening could even be held. Officers on the case say they have nothing to go on. 

Mossyrock ???     Bet you have some bitchin' times down at the Pantry. 

David Mitchell

Janie,

I have been thinking about your request (958 & 959) since before you asked it, and it's been tempting to get into it for some time - partly do to some recent events in my life, and partly do to something really sweet that happend to me at the reunion. But it just brings out so much pain in most of us - both participants as well as friends and loved ones. However, although I have lived with that pain for over 45 years, I have recently come to a more free and balanced feeling about it. Part of this is due to a reunion I organized about 2 years ago here at a hotel out on Hilton Head (near Bluffton). It was only a small portion of my unit, but it was some key members of a (once) very close bunch of guys who hadn't seen one another for 45 years - and had lived through one of the most extraordinarily odd missions in Vietnam - and survived. The reunion turned out to be a beautiful, cathartic, love-in. Better by far than any of us had expected.

Also, lately, I have come to a new grasp of my faith that has allowed me to live in a sort of "freedom" and self acceptane that has been missing through two marriages and the lives of three wonderful kids - who had done absolutely nothting to deserve the harsh reactionary fathering that I gave them years ago.

One of the things we realized at the reunion (only 10 guys and 5 wives) was that we had all gone through 45 years of almost total silence - and that that was not working very well for any of us. On our weekend, we opened up to one another in ways that no one had ever allowed us to (least of all ourselves) - and the tears and laughter and hugs flowed like wine for four days at our beachfront hotel. And did I mention laughter? And this almost sacred sense of respect and appreciation that we could offer one another - Wow!  Like therapy and absolution all rolled into one.

We also realized that we were not alone, as we had all convinced ourselves for 45 years. "I must be the only guy on earth who suffers from this. There's no help for this. Nobody understands me. I'll just be a tough guy and keep this all inside myself, and I'll get by somehow."  WRONG!  

I am not suggesting that guys go off, constantly beating people over the head with their "stuff" as I have seen some guys do - hogging all the oxygen in the room - (what comedian Brian Regan calls "me monsters"). But it is almost certainly better to find a friend or family member and ask if you can share a little bit at a time. Or even to journal it - something I've tried to do inconsistently for years. Trying to "hide out" from it is debilitating.

But although we hear so many stories of the crude savage side of war,- (yup, I saw plenty) I prefer to recall some of the less painfull, quirky, "reality" sides of it - and they are many. To that end, I would like to share a story that should not offend anyone (even those who hate this topic), nor scare anyone, nor even gross any of you out. It is from the wacky, funny, human side of life that could have happened at the Doctors office or the school picnick, but in this case, happened in my first three days in the cockpit. I am NOT attempting to minimize the grotesque experiences that some of you have in your families, but only to let you share something a lot lighter - however real.

If you don't mind, I'll let up on the pedal for a few minutes and re-compose on the next page.

David Mitchell

I had graduated Flight School - "Army Warrant Officer Rotary Wing Training" (say that real fast) - the only branch that a college flunk-out like me could get to fly, in Savannah (at Hunter Army Airfield) in early December 1968. I had to satisfy a lifelong passion from about age 4. After two weeks at home with my parents, I was shipped to my assignment in Vietnam. Then, after all the many connections I finally arrived at my final location, Vinh Long Airfield, on one of the northern forks of the Mekong River down in the far southern "Delta". The day of my arrival, as I stood ready to knock on the screen door of my company office ("Troop" - as we called it in the Cavalry), there was a familiar sound in the air. Overhead about 2,000 feet above the airfield, in a wide slow circle was an air force bird dog "spotter" plane, with his propaganda speaker mounted out of his side door playing Christmas carols. It was a hot, muggy December 24th, and the song playing was Bing Crosby's "White Christmas". After almost a week long journey, I was finally "home". 

And almost another week's wait with nothing to do (first, for the weekly malaria pill to kick in, and then the weekly anti-diareha pill that the malaria pill caused, to kick in) I was anxious to show these guys how much I knew about flying helicopters - sure Don!  Finally, my platoon leader, Captain Garry Joiner, (a really nice guy who was nearing the end of his tour) came up to me one afternoon and said, "Okay Mitchell, you're up with me tomorrow." My wait was over! I had volunteered to fly in one of the most bizarre missions and was about to get my first taste. Oh boy!

The next morning Captain Joiner and I were the "Lead" ship of the first team out. We flew the tiny, but legendary "Loach" helicopter as "Scouts" in the Air Cav search operation (sometimes known as "Hunter Killer Teams" or "Pink Teams".) This was normaly only one pilot (because of the risk) in the right seat, and one enlisted man as the "observer" in the left seat. But when a new pilot joins the team, he rides as the "Observer" in the left seat for one week to learn the mission. He would then do a second week doing the flying in the right seat, but with another expereinced pilot in his left seat, further "coaching" him in the learning process. After that, you're a pilot with your own observer, flying some other guy's wing. 

In this strange mission, the pair of "Loaches' follows one another at an altitude of anywhere beween 6 to 10 feet, at rather slow speeds to search as carefully as possible for the signs of VC or NVA (North Vietnamese "Regulars"). As we were (usually)  not permitted to fire first (honestly), we had to first locate them, and then sort of "bait" them into shooting at us. The search was often slow and required patience and an acquired skill for seeing what might not be so obvious - camoflauge (often incredibly clever), tracks going the wrong direction along the rice paddy dike line, rice bundles thrown in an odd pile, loose cover under some fresh cut Nippa-Palm leaves, an empty "sampan" rocking in a canal with muddy tracks leading to the nearby bank, etc. And the technique called for some almost acrobatic flying. Slow then fast, then hover backward - sideways, then kick pedal and twirl away quicly in the reverse direction etc. - and all just above the level of the terrain we were over.  Fun, huh? 

We were directed by a Huey at 500 feet above us, flown by the Air MIssion Commander (AMC), usually our CO, XO, or S3 officer. And then above us all at 1,500 hundred feet was a pair of Huey Cobra gunships, flying in a wide circle watching and listening, waiting for us to call "receiving fire", and they would dive on the area we had marked with colored smoke with their rockets and mini-guns. (the really nervous part was having to go back in after this to "check out" the damage - and they were often not done, and most inhospitable as we flew back over them again)

(You get the general idea, but I need to leave out so much detail here and move on)

So here's Dave, your Watterson Wonder Boy (who fainted as an altar boy over 20 times at OLP) with a problem. There is a lot going on here, and you're sort of on sensory overload. You have three or four different radios sqwauking in your ear but you can't understand them very well (yet). Plus Capt. Joiner talking just to you over the intercom. Then you have this rather high pitch transmissison sound whirrring right behind your head - annoying - great way to get a giant headache. You have a C.A.R.15 in your hands and you're supposed to be searching the ground for bad guys, but all you see is the ground flying by under you at a constantly varying speed. And most importantly, you are being flown around like an acrabatic circus, but YOU are not in control - like riding down a winding road in the front seat - but you're not driving.

So we are out for the next rotation after lunch and this reallly strange feeling starts to come over me. I realized I am about to get sick, and the feeling of embarrassment is kiling me. Finally I leaned out the (open) door and tossed my lunch out the side of the ship. I felt awful!  So we finish the day and we are back on the flight line getting into the truck with all the rest of the pilots to ride back to our quarters. They had all heard my news and were all patting me on the back with sympathetic words - "you'll be okay man", "it's okay buddy", etc. I was so weak I actually needed help climbing up into the "duece and a half". 

Next day, Capt. Joiner and I are at it again - (there was to be 6 or 7 days of this).  And after lunch it starts to happen again, and I lean out and lose it all again. Yikes!  Now the pats on the back while boarding the truck are more like "Are you going to be okay?"  (Lord spare me the embarrassment! And by all means, don't anybody try to help me up into this G.D. truck!)

Day three and here it comes again. I started to pray - seriously. "Lord, don't make me go through this again!" I know God answers every prayer but sometimes His answer is "No" - for Pete's sake!  I could not hold it anymore and finally blew everything I had out the door for the third day in a row. I was so weak I could hardly sit up had I not had my harness on. And I really wished I could just disappear. 

But now a new wrinkle. We start to come under fire from the trees right beneath us. I could hear a couple of Ak's cracking right under us and some tracer rounds slicing by, but could not see the source of fire. I'm not feelin' real good right about now. Captain Joiner tells the "guns" we'll take this ourselves. So he kicks pedal, rotates on a dime, dips our nose, and comes back the other way and tries to open fire with our side-mounted "mini-gun" - (reduced rate of "only"  2,000 rounds a minute and fires with a deafening solid buzz). The gun (mounted right outside my door and back about a foot) would not fire. Our "wing" ship made a pass over it and he fired his mini-gun. We came around again, and once again, our mini- gun would not fire. I had decided to glance out my door and had to explain to Capt. Joiner that my vomit had lodged in the ammo belt feed of the gun and had dried in the wind and caked in there, blocking the whole ammunition feed mechanism. Joiner yells at me over the intercom, "Dammit Mitchell, I'm sick of this crap!  I want you out of my cockpit today!  I'll move you over to the right seat tomorrow and you can make somebody else sick for a while."  

So I managed to get "promoted" over to the right seat in only three days instead of six or seven. Pretty clever, huh?

------------

just added: this recollection (and several others) has brought a smile and a chuckle to my face many times over the years - truth IS stranger than fiction.  Life is crazy - but it's also sweet.

David Mitchell

Note: for those of y'all (you) who don't speak "low country", I should like to point out that the word "whirrring" (as in "transmission sound whirrring right behind your head") is a local word for a type of noise - as in a sort of humming. I could have left out one "r" but that would have been no fun at all. Or I could have left out two "r"s and replaced the "i" with an "o" and that would have been a lot more fun.

And would all you "i before e" people stop clenching your fist at me? Really!

Janie Albright (Blank)

Mark, Tim, Dave great reading!! You are such talented writers each with your own style. I know many are enjoying this as much as I am this morning. Thanks! 

Mark Schweickart

Dave,

Wow, what a story, and what great story telling. You certainly know how to put the ram in the ram-a-lam-a-ding- dong. Too bad you also knew how to unload your glop into the bop-shoo-bop-shoo-bop of your helicopter.

Michael McLeod

ha that's great. i used to belong to a club whose sole requirement for membership was to tell a worthy story involving vomiting. you, sir, would probably be elected president.. 

David Mitchell

Mike, I had all the tools to be a great pilot: 20/10 vison, great depth perception, and a complete lack of common sense, but a really "iffy" stomach. Oh well, three outta' four aint bad. 

----------------

Mark, "who was that man, I'd like to shake his hand, he made my baby fall in love with me".

(and I'm still enjoying the sales stamps photo)

James Hamilton, M. D.

Tim, As always, you have that "uniquely LaVelle" way of writing about a rather mundane topic - rain! Loved it! Here in Colorado Springs where they tout 300 days of sunshine per year and have had a drought-like winter, we cherish the rain and snow. The day you submitted your rain post it was overcast, gray and actually did rain and today the snow is falling. There is even a faint hint of green to my brown grass which the snow has not yet covered with its blanket of white.

Green is not a color that is as prevalent here as it is in the Pacific Northwest. We don't have towns with names like Mossyrock. Castle Rock, Cripple Creek, Golden and Durango fit us better.

Paul Simon recorded a song called "Kodachrome" many years ago and it included a line saying that type of film "gives us those nice bright colors, gives us those greens of summer".  Simon must have been photographing in your state, not mine. What green we will get is usually short lived in the spring and limited to areas around creeks and mountain meadows where the snow has melted. But don't get me wrong, Colorado is full of beauty, green is just not often a dominant part of the palette.

Last spring I captured this image at Hayden Run Creek which proves that Ohio also is the home to at least one mossy rock :

So, enjoy your green!

(Oh, and by the way, when I used to shoot film, I found Ektachrome to be superior to Kodachrome in capturing "the greens of summer".)

Timothy Lavelle

Doc, that album by Paul Simon is maybe the one with the African influence?? It's a favorite...I got diamonds in the soles of my shoes??...I used to love seeing him on SNL. Part of me thinks it is pathetic, how much I enjoy kindly comments about my humor. Still a sophomore, still making goofy jokes for the thrill of someone's surprised laughter. Lastly, we here in the PNW steal all your water-weather before it can get to you, yes, but Doc, you live in the world's most beautiful state for a bike rider. I've literally pulled to the side of the road, gotten off the bike, had brief conversations  with whoever of the twelve internal personalities is currently tending bar and just said "Ahhhh, sh!!!!!!!tttt" at some of your topography. You already know how much I prize your photography.

Doc mentions a Colorado town named Cripple Creek, where I don't have to speak, she defends me...Anybody like "The Band"? "Music from Big Pink" etc?? Don't ever, EVER, drive/ride "Up on Cripple Creek". I was sort of hoping for a Hippie Heaven, maybe some OG Kush and instead, got Las Vegas with Barn Wood. But Pikes Peak, Garden of the Gods!!?? Kiss. My. Ass! Fabulous.

Dave: my oldest bro is 87 now. Marine. Flew Phantoms out of Da Nang. DFC. Forbid me to join the marines back then. I have begged him to write down his memories because his boys (sons) don't know anything about the trials of the air war you guys lived through. But he won't. Good for you for putting us in the pilot seat while you struggled not to puke in your or our laps. Our young attempts to live up to our new found heroes...I hope you write down the really gnarly sh!t and put it in a binder for your kids to read someday. They deserve to know, I think. And, it might be therapeutic.

Hey, I sure wish we could hear from some other story tellers. Dave Dunn, cut loose again buddy.

It's raining. I am so effing surprised....but Freddie, I've got supplies.....

James Hamilton, M. D.

Tim,

Cripple Creek, which is a short drive up the Ute Pass from Colorado Springs, sits at about 10,000 feet above sea level and was once the "greatest gold (mining) camp in the world". At one time it was also the capital of Colorado. Today it is known for casinos, so people still go there to "strike it rich". A gold mining operation six miles away in Victor, CO, the boyhood home of Lowell Thomas, is still active. Gold aspen trees keeps the aspen tree peepers busy in the fall. Due to some very deep (1000 ft +) old air shafts in the hills surrounding the town, one must be cautious in wandering around outside of the city itself. Since we have lived in Colorado there have been several deaths from falls into these shafts. In its heyday Cripple Creek had a population of about 50,000 residents, many saloons, brothels, gunfights and one very busy undertaker.

I took the above picture in January of this year from an overlook above the town. The Continental Divide is seen in the background which is about 50 miles away. By the way, the hippies are still alive and well in Manitou Springs, contiguous and west of Colorado Springs and Pearl Street in Boulder.

John Maxwell

Donna Kelley (Velazquez)

Many thanks to all who served to protect our country in one capacity or another.  Jack, thank you for sharing what you wrote about Phil S. I had no idea and I imagine that many others didn't realize either how his military experience ended with his life. No one really wins a war. Most people lose someone or something very precious.  Many lose both.