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Michael McLeod

Another from Twain:

"When the end of the world comes, I want to be in Cincinnati. Because everything happens there ten years later."

Mark Schweickart

Hey guys, feeling sorry for yourselves? Dreading that big 7-0 looming next year?  Check out this 70 year old youngster making his third trans-Atlantic by paddling a kayak, for crying out loud!

Aleksander Doba is no stranger to long ocean crossings.

 

By Avery Thompson

Jun 8, 2017

An ocean crossing is not something to undertake lightly. Many things can go wrong while at sea, and if something does go wrong, help can be a long ways off.

But that's not stopping 70-year-old Aleksander Doba, who is about three weeks into his attempt to cross the Atlantic by kayak. Doba will spend about three months at sea, and arrive in Portugal sometime in late summer.

This is not the first time Doba has crossed the Atlantic in a kayak. He's made the journey twice before—from Senegal to Brazil in 2010, and from Portugal to Florida in 2013. But both of those crossings were from east to west, while this crossing is from west to east. If Doba is successful, he will be only the second person to ever cross west to east in a kayak.

Janie Albright (Blank)

Mark- Do you remember reading Kon-Tiki by Thor Heyerdahl in high school? This reminded me of that. I'll pass on that and your "hike". ;)

Speaking of Mark Twain and Will Rogers did any of you see the one man shows that toured for a number of years -James Whitmore doing Will Rogers and Hal Holbrook as Mark Twain? Both terrific. 

Daniel Cody

Do you remember those stupid standardized quizzes that asked such probing questions as the number of cases of pineapples were  on the KiTiki?

David Mitchell

Janie,

Funny you should mention those two one-man shows. I saw both and loved them. Those were the very shows I was referring to when I cited Mark for his play "A Night With Jessie" (Fremont's wife). It struck me that his play was a perfect fit for such a one-woman format. And I still beleive* that it's perfect for a Kathy Bates, Sissy Spacek, or Sally Fields role. 

Also, I recall my dad letting me stay up late to watch the movie "Kon-Tiki". He thought it was so important that he let me sleep in and wrote me a note for half day's absence from school the next day.

* (Nina, is it ie or ei? I can never get that word right)

Mark,

How about a class game of "fence tag" - and we can offer handicaps for canes or wheel chair participants. But maybe plan to have a medical team and first aid station beside the playground.

Ping Pong anyone?

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

Speaking of crossing the ocean. My best friend here in Bluffton (who I flew with in Vinh Long and came to work for his homebuilding company when I first came down here) has sailed 28 foot sailboat across the Atlantic from here to the Azores with one buddy. Took them 29 days including three days becalmed right of the cost here at the start. That was 20+ years ago. He has since built a 42 foot Catamaran in his back yard - both I and my son helped on the 8 year project. The launch into the cove behind his house was one of the most dramatic things I have ever witnessed. He is a self taught mechanical genius homebuilder who is now building Al Gore's $30 million house outside of little Carthage, Tenn. On my way up to last year's class reunion, I stopped to vist the site and he would not even allow me to take photos of it.

Note to Debbie (or any other Hilton Head vistors)

That same friend was the builder of the house at the end of "Surf Scoter Lane" down on the south end of the Island in Sea Pines. (off North Sea Pines Drive just north of where Greenwod Drive intersects). A bit of a legend as it was built for a guy from the Czeck Republic at a cost of $52 million and is so ugly modern that it does not comply with any of the Island's architectural guidelines. -(flat, square, cubical, glass and concrete). You can see part of it from the beach along the ocean in front of the property (the one with the totally flat roof and lots of glass). I was inside several times during construction --- mind-boggling details in that construction! 

p.s. Debbie, I can give great HHI and Bluffton house tours, and I offer a special "Watterson discount" for any "66ers". (I'm unlisted, but email me sometime when you're coming down again)

Joseph D. McCarthy

To make LIGHT​ of those deminimus incidents in TEXas, Floor-i-da, and Or-re-gon/Washin-gton; they were just percursors to the major start of disaster events in the West.  Not to be political, but I partially blame it all on one person from the SOUTH.  I left Columbus days ahead of any effects of IRMA and almost reached Ankenny Iowa, only to read that Dave said I I hadn't gone to "Tommie's".  I immediately turned around and was half way to Columbus when I realized I HAD been to Tommie's.  That set me up for being late getting back home.  By last Tuesday (Sept. 12th) I left Elko, NV and headed for the home-stretch.  As I crossed the border (legally) from Nevada into California I read the large overhead sign that said "Accident on Road, 15 miles ahead, ALL LANES CLOSED".  I thought we can take a side rode so no big deal; the sign didn't say what caused the accident.  As we approached the stopped traffic I noticed something wet falling from the sky. Play the tune, "It never rains in Northern California in the Summertime".  Then as we started down the two lane winding back country detour it hit - HAIL as big as Jawbreakers.  Thoughts immediately that the world had come to it's end.  Then I glanced in my rearview mirror and thought, that poor guy behind me on his motorcycle.  He finally pulled off under an overpass.  Now, Today, for the second day in a row the Sierra's have had a snowstorm.  What next???

But I did have a wonderful time in Columbus, especially at the Soirre/mixer at Janies.

David Mitchell

So Dan, how many cases were there? I may have gotten that question wrong.

Mark Schweickart

Dave -- thanks for the nice reference to my play about Jessie Frémont. I actuallly wrote this as a gift for my wife, who has been a struggling actor all these years, and is the perfect age for doing Jessie. She is currently trying to shorten it to a version that could be done in one of the local (L.A. or San Diego) Fringe Festivals. So we'll see how that goes.

Also, aside from the old "i before e except after c" rule, keep in mind that another exception to this "I before e" business is that with Germanic-derived names, where the "ei" vowels are pronounced as  "eye" not "eee", it also becomes "e before i" even though there is no preceding "c",  as in such famous  names as Albert Einstein or Albert Scweitzer, or in the name of that bon-vivant, man-about-town, Monsieur Schweickart. (I say "monsieur" because my ancestors were from Alsace, which was part of France at the time of their emigration, and so I like to hang onto my Franco-German identity. I wonder if my great-great-great-great (I don't know how many greats) wore a berét?

Janie & Dan -- Despite the fact that I have been a rather avid reader as an adult, in my high school days this was certainly not the case.  However, I remember Kon-Tiki was one of the few assigned-readings that I really enjoyed. It truly sparked my imagination and interest. As for the standardized test, Dan, with questions about numbers of pineapples, no, I am afraid I do not recall that at all. What was the answer? How many were there? I am sure you remember. You seem to remember everything. (Oops, it appears that while I was typing this Dave slipped in and asked the same question. Sorry for the redundancy.)

Anyone recall other favorite assigned-readings. I certainly recall a few that were a terrible slog for me to get through--Silas Marner, Ivanhoe, Death Be Not Proud, Great Expectations (although I did enjoy creepy old Miss Havisham sitting in the room with her moldy wedding cake). Of course, Huckleberry Finn was a treat, but I am blanking on what the other novels were that we read (or pretended to have read). Anyone recall other favorites, or ones maddeningly frustrating to get through?

Daniel Cody

I'm keeping you in suspense!  Mark you forgot Mr Blue. You were inspired by his noncomformity!

David Mitchell

Dan,

You beat me to it on "Mr. Blue", which I loved. I also loved "The Bridges at Toko Ri". 

(do I still remember what they were about?  uhhhhh?)

And did we read "Bartleby the Scrivener" in school? Always liked that short story. And I sure wished "Sporting News" had been assigned reading. 

Mark,

I think I picked up on the German roots of those spellings on my summer in Salzburg, Austria after junior year. I was just trying to tease Nina. But I never will get some of those spellings right.

Timothy Lavelle

Mark,

Klaatu barada nikto. Tell me where we all heard that before. Extra points for not searching electronicaly.

BOOKS: "Wuthering Heights"...need I say more. I think that, beside yourself, we have Mike McLid, and Keith Groff who know a lot about writing. Two of the three of you can actually talk! I would love to understand why we read (for "read" please see the wiki-definition for "Cliff Notes") those books, or better, where the reading list came from. Maybe you guys know about how that approved list comes into being. Or maybe Der Mouose had an epiphone. And did you know that "epiphone" was the working title until Apple decided on "Iphone".

So, the above paragraph is one of those poorly constructed goads...this time I am trying to goad Keith out of his silence. Did you know that Groff in Polish means...keeper of the dogs for the once yearly big hunt? Great job as you only worked once a year. Terrible job if the dogs did not perform up to scratch. I think in German Groff means Prince. I am likely wrong.

Personally, I think that our selection of literature in HS helped me greatly. When I went away to the Army and had time on my hands my reading just took off. The freedom to read anything just for pure enjoyment was...purely enjoyable. 

Al, I am going to take a second shot at Longmire. Fell asleep during the first attempt - might not be my cuppa.

Dave, I have a couple of dogearred Tim O'Brien books I would like to send along to you. Send me a private e-mail with your address.   

Lawrence Foster

Klaatu etc is the line from "The Day the Earth Stood Still" and was a direction/order that Michale Rennie said to tell the robot. 

Like Mark I was not a particularly avid reader in HS.  I remember freshman year at Aquinas struggling through A Tale of Two Cities.  Usually sophomore year is when non-fiction was empahsized.  I do remember Kon-Tiki and I did enjoy it.  But there was a book earlier in the year we read that actually started hooking me into reading.  It was Mutiny on the Bounty.  I imagine the fact that it had been a movie right around that time helped it too.  Trevor Howard was Capt. Bligh, Marlon Brando was Mr. Christian, and Richard Harris (later of Camelot) had a smaller part as one of the crew.

I could not get through Silas Marner.  I even trie dit a few years ago and failed.  But I found a film of it and watched it and it was enjoyable.  There was also Damien the Leper.  And did we have The Scarlet Letter or was that too risque?  

I taught HS English (9 and 10) for two years in the mid 70s.  I had a number of students who were actually unable to read.  I went to a used bookstore and bought 7 or 8 different titles of Classics Illustrated.  One was Ivanhoe.  For certain students I used those as their novels to read to try ot help them.  In later life I understood that they and I can read better if we have a more visual connection to the story.  Some of it was a literal visual scene as is found in comic books.  I have develpoed skills of visualizing scenes in books and that is what helps me now.    

David Mitchell

Okay, so the topic is books we liked, Mr. Blue, Tim, and Keith. Have I got that about right?

Thinking of "Mr Blue" reminded me of Tim's photos of himself in his living room in his resplendent blue suit. It just dawned on me yesterday that all he needed was a blue stocking cap with some eye holes cut out and he could be a perfect stand-in for the "Blue Men" - a weird threesome of drummers that were popular a few years back. If you've never seen a "Blue Man" performance, you should google them up sometime. Very clever guys!

I was just thinking about my struggle with reading comprehension and books in general. I had great books read to me several nights a week before bed by my father up to about fourth or fifth grade. Mark Twain, Sir Walter Scott, James Fennimore-Cooper, Robert Louis Stevenson, etc. For some odd reason, after struggling with reading for years, I got into enjoying good books in Vinh Long (of all places!). We had schedules that were either completely absorbed in our mission, or utterly boring periods with little else than to do than shoot some hoops on a crude basketball court near my Hooch, read mail frrom home, or take a (luke warm) shower. (It's not like we had a theater, golf course, or swim and tennis club on the airfiled - LOL)

One day on the fight line, I noticed a paperback thrown in our trash barrel with a familar tiltle from a woman author my parents and their generation had all read a great deal of - Taylor Caldwell - and the book was a group of short stories (perfect for my attention span) called "Grandmother and the Priests". I was mesmerized! And jsut about then a new pilot arrived who was a young First Lt. with a masters in English and a carton full of books. Books! Not extra music cassettes, or food? You gotta be kidding me! Books? 

He started me and my best buddy reading good books, starting with a James Michener novel called "The Fires of Spring" and it completely grabbed me by the heart. It would never be considered great literature, but it started me on the road to enjoying books for the rest of my life. I have to mention his name, his name is Phil Lange and we joke for years about the day he tried to get me killed in the air but failed. A hair raising half hour that actually ended in laughter - but you'd have had to be there. He is one of my adopted brothers for life. 

Now Tim - My older daughter (a full time mother and part time writer) has been urging me to read "The Things They Carried" for years, and Sheila (McCarthy) Gardiner has sent me a couple of books, one of which is "Going After Cacciato" - also by Obrien. I confess I am many books behind and am greatly challenged with two jobs and a growing fatigue problem. I seem to fall asleep all the time when I start to read. And I am reading one now tht is a gift from Keith himself last Chrismas. It's "Nothing Ever Dies" by Viet Thanh Nguyen. An Vietnamese American professor from Southern Cal. I find it a very hard read - extremely wordy. 

And Tim, the timing of your request is uncanny. Be patient, you will soon understand this cryptic answer. This week to be exact. (Really weird timing!!! - you'll see)

And as for Keith in this conversation, I just got off the phone with him. I have asked him several times to join the forum and he says he will. But I just don' think he has caught the "fever" for our conversation yet. Maybe he needs more Cowbells.

Bonnie Jonas (Jonas-Boggioni)

To Dan Cody:  My "favorite" quiz question was, "Is Buck a white dog with brown spots of a brown dog with white spots?"  I wanted to answer, "Is a zebra a white horse-like creature with black stripes or a black horse-like creature with white stripes?"

Mark Schweickart

Actually I remember little or nothing about Mr. Blue, but Dan is correct, I remember enjoying it for its sense of joy and non-conformity. 

I mentioned in a previous post that Ivanhoe was a particularly slog of a read for me back then. Imagine my surprise when I arrived in Edinburgh last month to see the over-the-top reverence showered on their favorite son, Sir Walter Scott. They have built him an enormous 300 foot monument that towers over a larger than life-size statue of Sir W,  not to mention over the entire neighborhood. But I have to give them credit for their sense of humor. After one climbs the hundreds of steps to the top viewing platform, you are greeted with a large framed proclamation by Charles Dickens that bemoans the oddness and failure of this monument that you have just exhausted yourself climbing. Perhaps they put this quotation before you because they are a self-deprecating sort of folk, or perhaps because they take delight in knowing that no one ever made such a monument to Mr. Dickens, and perhaps they guess that Mr. Dickens knew this would be the case as well, and so they delight in his sour grapes .

James Hamilton, M. D.

I recall most of the books in high school that you all have mentioned. I also remember that each year, besides the classics, we had at least one strictly Catholic book to read. Do you remember Brother Petroc's Return?

By the way, today is the first anniversary of our 50th Reunion! That is really what got us all using this Forum (of course, Janie deserves most of the credit!). And now we have well over 1900 posts. That is a record we should continue to break every day and hopefully, other classmates will join in!

Jim

David Mitchell

I'm going to wade in here and mention the elephant in the room  - the one some of you are wondering if Dave is going to comment on. 

Okay Mike M. and others - yes, Dave is watching the Ken Burns series on PBS. From what I know I find it pretty fair acurrate and balanced. I also know some of my friends don't agree, but that is their opinion and I don't begrudge them that. Watching footage of interviews with North Vietnamese military officials is not offfensive to me. It is reality. A bit chilling, but real.

On the plus side:

- I am glad they went back and started with the history of the century of (brutal) French colonization so viewers would recall what an absolute mess it was BEFORE we ever got into it.

- I also appreciate the depth of coverage about the Diem brothers. Aside from one burried alive by the Viet Minh, five lived, and I think four of them made a mark on the pattern of ineptitude and outright corruption of their intended opposition of the Communists. I find this an extremely dissappointing point of that period because they had the credentials and the power to have done things right - but they did not. They seemed right for the task - Nationalists, anti-Communist, Catholic -- but democratic??? They seemed all to be power crazed control freaks who could not accept the facts of their situation and were just focused on their own power. All they seem to have acomplished was to push the "car wreck" further over the cliff than it already was. And for those who may not recall, one of the brothers was the Catholic Archbishop of Hanoi who later joined the renegade Archbishop LeFebvre of France - who excommunicated the Pope for the "liberal" changes of Vatican II. Diem's brother himself was then excommunicated by Rome along with all of LeFebvre's followers (but was later reconciled - I think?)

- I also have to commend them on the candid coverage of our ineptitude and lying within the White House. This to me one of the worst parts of it all and cannot be avoided. I'll let this go at that but it's pretty bad, when you think of the young men (and women) who's lives were spent over political face-saving dishonesty and tactial incompetence - wow.

Okay, one more point - I just need to get this out. I have no respect for Robert McNamara AT ALL!  

---- thanks, I feel better now.

Negative side:

- It occurs to me that 18 hours will be pretty limited in scope. It is heavily about policy, tactics, and ground war events. I knew we would not see details such as my own experience (a tiny part with limited recorded documentaion - perhaps a total of only 800 of us flying Loaches in "hunter-killer" or "pink" teams), but I find it (so far) rather lacking in details of the entire "air war" itself - whether fighters and bombers over the "North", or helicopters in the "South". Both were a major part of the day to day activity of this war. But yes, I realize it was mostly a ground war.

* Special point from my own reading - the utterly ridiculous rules enforced by McNamara on our fighters entering North Vietnamese air space - stupidity on a colossal order - you should read the details sometime if you want to get really angry!

And also a bit about the Navy - ships supporting from off-shore as well as the "boats" up in my little Mekong neighborhood.  ("flat boat" saved my fanny one day when I actually ran out of gas in the air in Cambodia)

And the "Beach Jumpers", the LRP's ("Lurps"), and Marine Recon into Laos and Cambodia. The stuff nighmares are made of (please come out and tell 'em, Al. --- there, I "outed" you.) And the poor, brave "Hmung" people of the Central Highlands, also known as Montagnards. And the thousands of volunteer American civilian medical and missionary personel, and on, and on, and on. Sometimes the "little" unknown stories are the most noteworthy.

Looking ahead:

It will obviously be tonight when you will see the war at perhaps it's worst moment - the "TET Offensive" of 1968 - a period of 10 or 20 days when Hell came to visit the earth. Fortunately I was in "boot camp" in Fort Polk LA, trying to make sense from the newspapers of what it was and how awful it must have been at the time.

And later on, we will no doubt see "Cambodia". My Squadron was the first American aviation unit to "officially" enter Cambodia. I probably have a VERY different take on that story than your news accounts, and I will hold my comments on that until later. If you look at a map, the entire jagged border from the Gulf of Thailand, moving easterly (to your right) to the "Parrott's Beak" (point closest to Saigon before turning back northwest) is intimately familiar to me - virtually every single mile of it, and both sides. 

(now time for some cowbells)

David Mitchell

Wow! what a shock! Especially after expressing my certainty that we would never be depicted in the Ken Burns series. Tonight’s Vietnam Episode opened up with scenes of a Loach helicopter and had a brief interview with a “Scout” observer. I was stunned!  (althought they do mix in footage of some older "H-13's" - like you would see in MASH episodes - the Loach we flew is the "egg shaped" one) 

Also, tonight's brief scene with Morton Dean on a Medivac helicopter rescue mission is part of a great article he wrote in Smithsonian Air and Space magazine called "What Ever Happened to the Men of Hawk Hill?" - (December, 2015 issue). It begins with his account of that mission. Then he goes back forty years later and finds that same Medivac crew, AND THEN goes on to locate the guys they rescued that day. 

Michael McLeod

So glad to see you weighing on on this Dave.

We're all proud of you, all of you, and sorry that you were called to do such a dirty business, and hoping against hope that our country can learn from the good and the bad of it. And heal. And not create new wounds for the generations to follow.

David Mitchell

Mike,

As a "boy" of 20, I used to believe everything political was either black or white - that there were only two sides to every question - that one was right, and the other was wrong. And that politicians (and senior military officers) were basically honest and competent. And that America was always right. But that was a long, long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away.

David Mitchell

Warning: Certain classmates residing in the Great PNW should be very afraid that I spent hours on Saturday getting to the store to find the right kind of packing tape before making a late night drop at my local post office. 

Very afraid!

Deborah Alexander (Rogers)

Dave,

I, too, am glad to hear from you from your perspective on Vietnam.  Those of us who were at home during that time had no idea what you were going through.  We knew it was bad, but didn't really know how bad.  Only those of you who experienced it can know that.  It makes me really sad that the reception Vietnam vets got when they came home was not what it should have been.  You were all heroes and should have been honored as such.  So many of you were just boys!  But I, for one, am grateful to you and all your brothers who went to war for us.  Whenever I see someone in uniform, I thank them for their service.  I'd like to thank you too and all our Watterson vets who made the sacrifice while we were enjoying our college days. 

Thanks for all the information about the hurricane and the impact on your area and our friends in the Carolinas.  Hopefully we have seen the last storm for this season, and what a season it has been!

P.S. I'll look for that house on Sea Pines that you mentioned.  It's near where we stay, so I will have to take a look since it is such an anomaly on the island.

I always enjoy your input on the forum.  You and Tim keep me laughing, and I always learn something from your posts.  So keep it up!

Mark Schweickart

Dave,  given your opinion of Robert McNamara, if you have not already seen Errol Morriss' film Fog of War, I highly recommend it. It is an interview with, and overview of,  McNamara in all of his maddening complexity. You can see the full film on you tube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8ZhIi57x-4

Here's the trailer:

James Hamilton, M. D.

David Mitchell

Jim, I was going to hold off on that one. I keep thinking I want to try and keep this off the Forum but we're in this now so here goes. Sorry to those who prefer not - I get it. Just take a break. 

BTW, I think if you just google up "Loach helicopter" you get one choice with nothing but photographs. I did that once and saw two of my own photos near the top of that page - one of me and Bob Buffington from that reunion newpaper article I posted a while back, and one of Bob (again) and another of our guys. I was kinda stunned. No idea how they got there.

* But yes, if you go to You Tube and type in "Top Ten Helicopters - "OH6-A Cayuse" (the title of a History Channel series), you will pull up what I think is one of the only recorded film bits of our history. It is a kind of weak episode with some rather hollywood-ish interviews, describing our ship and our mission. Understand of all the thousands of hours of helicopter footage filmed during the war, there is almost none of us or our Loaches. It was quite difficult to have one of us using a movie camera in the cockpit while flying this low level, intense mission. We were not secret or covert, just not many such units, and even less well known. It really is an amazing little story within the bigger story if you ask me. I have acually only met three or four other Vietnam Vets who had ever heard of us. If you weren't in or near one of our units, chances are you would never have known of us.

Sadly, one of our guys reconnected with his "Observer" a few years ago and they had planned to get together. But the Observer (one John Klark) died suddenly and that never happened. Klark used to be the only guy we knew who did take a movie camera in the cockpit every day. It so happens I located Klark's sister and she said they still had boxes of his films somewhere, but after three years they cannot find them. Those would be treaures!

A few things to notice in that video - much of it appears to me to be file footage shot somewhere in Callifornia, but you will see a few seconds of us (not my specific unit, but a similar one) hovering about 8 feet off the ground with purple colored smoke on the ground - over what appear to be gravestones. I am certain those clips are the real thing. Colored smoke was what we used to mark a target before getting out of the way of our Cobra gunhsips circling over our heads at 1,500 feet - who were waiting to pounce on the target with rockets and mini-gun fire when we called (or screamed as the case might be). They must have already let the "guns" hit once in this video, otherwise they would not be hovering so close to a smoke.

Note: the official Army name was the "Cayuse" - we never called it that!  It was a "Loach" or an "OH-6". And the video refers to "the killer egg"  - never ever heard it called that - ever.

If you are careful to look again at precisely 1:53,  2:03,  and  2:23, you will see more of the same (one is a repeat I think). 

Also note: after about 2:35 it becomes more about later configuartions of the Loach as used for Mogadishu. We had no rockets, no external outrigger seating, no double mini-guns mounts (just a single on one side, made for intersting foot pedal work when firing). Interstingly, many who saw "Blackhawk Down" think that is the first use of the Loach in combat, but are surpised to learn we were their "forefathers". I think it's fair to say our mission was far higher risk than theirs.

We spent hours at a time, day after day searching and hovering, attempting to locate them through their (incredibly clever) camoflauge, then attempting to "bait" them into firing at us. Once they finally did, that gave us two things - it confirmed their position, AND gave us permission to fire on them. (remember - "undeclared" war - we cannot fire first - except in a "free fire zone") It also got us shot down - a lot. I will venture a guess that in the three companies in my squadron alone (one of several squadrons who flew this type of mission throughout the country) over my 18 months there, we may have had as many as 100 Loaches shot down. I am not making that up. Repeating myself here - In that Hilton Head Monthly magazine article I posted months ago, just five of us in the photo were shot down 14 times (me just once but what a memorable aftermath - long story). And one late comer who missed the photo would have added 5 more himself. And that was only part of just my company alone. I estimate we (my company only) had about 30 shot down. And one of out sister companies, "Apache Troop" had a much worse track record than we did. 

When the opening scene last night had the guy - an obvious Loach "Observer" talking (very animatedly) about "my job is to get shot at", he was NOT speaking figuratively, but in fact, literally.

Did the rest of our pilots in the mission ("Slicks", "Guns" and "C&C") think we were nuts?  -- Is the Pope Catholic?  And they teased us about it all the time.

This is one of several photos I have of them after being lifted back into our Maintinence yard. My shoot down was smoother than this - I did not roll my ship.

Some of the guys coined phrases like : "Thall Shalt Not Bonk"  or  "Bonking in Rice Paddy May Be Hazerdous to Your Health".