Well over 2,000 color slides viewed, 800 scanned now. The last several hundred of some of best photos are next. These are the ones in circular trays that I used to show in slideshow presentations. Plan to get to all of these by the end of November. For now, a few more from the 800.
A favorite photo of a Chinook and the landscape.
DHC-4 Caribou. A workhorse delivering everything under the sun all over Vietnam. Probably most every GI in-country rode one in of these at one time or another.
Typical set up of living conditions and spaces we gathered to play cards, socializing, and awaiting mission calls.
We were fat with building materials. Worked well for barter to get anything we could not easily get our hands on. Also provided all the building materials we needed to build hooches to live in.
Pulled every nail, saved every hinge and screw and every piece of each of the the hundreds of boxes the rockets came in. No sooner helped get this hooch built and our platoon was sent south to Phanthiet.
Phanthiet living for two. Room-mate and I built this in a few days. Very comfortable. Wooden floors vs sand, dirt and dust.
One landing Chinook would soak every living nook and cranny around it in dust and sand. We quickly learned to cover our bunks and other important things with tarps every morning.
OV-1 Mohawk. Used for observation mostly and intel gathering. These airplanes and their pilots could land these on a dime and give change. Full-reverse of props just after the wheels hit the runway. The airplane would then re-appear out of a cloud of dust.
Helio courier. Best damn short take-off and landing airplane ever made. To this day. Intel gathering and back country ops.
I often looked at coastal views like this and thought what a wonderful place for a resort instead of a war.
A pair of fired rockets. Twenty-four pair per helicopter.
Last few weeks of my first tour of duty. Dak To November, 1967. The airfield was constantly being mortared from the far hillside. Short rounds, then long rounds for bracketing. On this day, at this moment, a mortar hit in the middle of the fuselage and wings of a C-130 and it burst into flames. Luckily no one was killed.
Somewhere out there, folks on that particular C-130 landing at Dak To have very good stories to tell. Would love to hear one?
We needed fuel and had no choice but chance being hit while fueling. Very high pucker factor.
All the firepower we had, including Air Force, could not eliminate the influx of the NVA. They had us triangulated with high-powered .50 caliber guns.
Attack one gun position and the other two had us as easy targets. Carpet bomb with B-52's overnight and we were again taking heavy fire from the area the next morning.
More pics and stories in the weeks ahead.
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EAST TEXAS LIVING
Her and I finally concluded if we were ever going to get the new pipe fence painted, we were going to have to do it ourselves. Promised workers never showed up. The one time they did, well, suffice it to say, if any of us ever want a job done 100%, best we do it ourselves. A truism in living me thinks.
Took small bites, an hour and a half at a time. Her on one side, me on the other and two small rollers. By the end of the whole fence painting (half seen here) we were getting very good at knocking out one section at a time quickly.
Lawn still a mess though. Hard to grow grass without rain.
DOING SHOTS WITH THE WIFE
A2 milk from the dairy farm comes with much cream on the top of the gallon container. Have shared pics here awhile ago.
Her asked if I wanted to do shots with her after breakfast and I blinked. Cannot remember the last decade I have done shots.
Welllllllllllllll, now it has come down to doing shots of cream. Like always, I said yes. Crazy I know, but damn that flavor was a bright memory of my childhood on grandparents dairy farm. As always, I wanted another shot.
One shot of cream was just fine.
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CLASSIC CARS
COLD GUNS
"THERE ARE NO WORDS....YADA YADA YADA...."
Alec is having a bad week. A gun is always loaded and always treated that way.
A good Read!
A single-action revolver. Who cocked the hammer? Who aimed the gun? Who pulled the trigger?
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East Texas cooling somewhat. No rain and many here saying "we need rain." Ponds getting very low. Little to no rain in sight for the next 10 days.
Projects here finished. Do not have to look at them daily, no contractors coming to work, garden down, her plants cleaned out and the cats are doing fine outside.
Kittens have grown large and the sisters run together everywhere.
I am not a cat fan. BUT these girls have grown on me and becoming family.
Weekend outings, wings on the marinade for the grill and relaxing on the porch with neighbors telling lies. Yea, laughing. Can you imagine laughing.
The smell of two batches of brownies just coming out of the oven. I am needed to for my taste testing skills.
Thank you for the visit.
