VIETNAM PICS #2 - THE PERFECT PORK CHOP - SHORTAGES

Thankyou "Irish" for sharing on your blog site. 

VIETNAM 1967 & 69 blog post #2

A good door gunner pic.

Scanned over 600 color slides these past weeks of those years of my life has been a "box of chocolates" indeed. The slides I have started scanning are the ones that were set aside and have not been looked at in decades

Vietnam veterans; we are the old guard now. I am 76 and I best to doing things like this and sharing before it is too late. Dust in the wind and all of that. 

Share, if you will, these photos with any veterans you know. I think they will enjoy seeing what some of today's “old guard” were experiencing on their tours of duty some 55 years ago.

LZ Hammond on fire.

This was a sister LZ to Two Bits, Central Highlands. That LZ had a small medivac hospital but was the major fuel dump reserved for that AO (area of operation). A Viet Cong Sapper infiltrated that compound at night and threw in a Satchel charge bomb onto one of the fuel bladders. 

LZ Hammond after the sapper attack. Fuel dump and medivac facilities all destroyed. Photo was taken a few days later after the smoke had cleared.

This was us.  Areal Artillery. Armed with 48 rockets and two door gunners. Always flew in teams of two. 

Typical door gun mounted on a vertical pole. Note: side of helicopter was what prevented the gun from coming into the cockpit. Some early M60's were mounted on bungee cords supporting the weight of the gun.

The young door gunners and crew chiefs, just out of high school, who were running these guns and maintaining these helicopters, were hell on wheels. These kids were ground zero for the overall success of all the work the helicopters did during that war.

We all held these kids in the highest regard!! To this day!!

Door Gunner Shoots pilots helicopter door handle.

A close friend and his team were on a mission just outside Phan Thiet, March or so of 1967. We heard the radio come alive with "Taking fire, I am hit, etc." That sent us all to the flight line, fired up our helicopters and were quickly pulled to a hover and took off to his location. A call of taking fire on any mission was serious shit. 

The door gunner brought his gun too close to the side of the helicopter and shot the door handle and the pilot's door opened.  The M-60 was then firing on the inside of the door with rounds ricocheting off of the armor plating or exiting out through the partially opened door. The shrapnel was hitting the pilot in the leg.  Thus, "taking fire." 

At that moment in time, the pilot did not know it was from his door gunner.

Later that day, my friend returned from the doctor, leg covered in red iodine. Lots of little black specs on his leg. He spent the next few weeks with tweezers pulling  imbedded shrapnel from his leg. 

Instead of sitting down and taking it easy, he picked up a cold bottle of Coke and headed to the flight line and his door gunner. We asked him what he was doing. 

"I bet my door gunner a coke that his gun would jam on this mission. The gun did not jam so I am paying off my bet!"

He refused a Purple Heart for this mission experience. 

Another door gunner pic on one of the troop lift helicopters.

Bob Hope USO Christmas show December 1966, 1st Air Cav, An Khe. 

Some of the grandest sun sets I have ever seen in my life time were there in the Central Highlands of Vietnam.

Gunsight for the M-60 machine gun configuration on the Huey Gun Ship.

Twin guns on either side and they would slew up and down and side to side using the hand grip and sight pictured here. 

Twin 60's mounted (barrels removed for safety). See ammo inside feed belt.

Twin 60's upgrade to mini guns with rocket pods.

Early morning B-52s heading north.

Typical marking of troops on the ground location from which target location would be defined by the FO (forward observer). We would plan our gun runs from this visual and radio reports for their fire support request. 

Looks like a model ship on a pond huh? Nope, Navy ship just off the coast line.

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CHILL IN THE AIR

There is a chill in the air now in East Texas. Back to long pants and a sweatshirt in the morning. Garden has run its course. Winter crop of beets, lettuce and spinach are sprouting. Clean up chores and no more major projects this year. Her and I are enjoying the patio with new roof. Outdoor cooking station is proving to be fun and takes some of the kitchen cooking mess outside. 

Her and I went with neighbors to several estate sales/garage etc. The first one was way way out, long shitty back road to a small no-nevermind house. We were early, they were not set up as it was their first time putting on a garage sale. Stupid me!! That is all I can say.

I said that it very much appears to be nothing here. Neighbor's wife kept saying, have an open mind. And was she right! We killed it there getting some great stuff at give away prices. Ten foot ladder like new for $25. Boxes of ammo dirt cheap. And old barn finds. Water totes with wrap around metal cage - $10. Filled neighbor's pickup truck and went back later with truck and trailer and filled both of those.

 "Yep, for sale."

Finished the cooking island with Pyrex bowl set, small casserole dish like new and Texas wall art of metal just hanging on barn walls. Could have filled that truck again, but we are flat out of room here. No mas!!!

PORK CHOPS

Center cuts very affordable. Marinated from net recipe, and followed net video of searing and finishing on a cooler part of the grill. Yep, waited 5 minutes before cutting into the chop. A good pork chop is as good as a rib eye steak. Well, damn close.

I use to be able to eat two of these w/o issue. Now, one gets it done. Three days of evening dinner pork chop has run it's course. 

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Many stories of shortages. The "whys and wherefores" all explained. Worth the  home work. 

We have seen tidbits of some of this here, but nothing to where we could not drive to another market and "get it." This just not about the ships sitting idle in the ports/harbors, but the whole supply chain and lack of worker bees throughout that chain. Have you tried to get quickly checked out at a large chain store lately? Busy store with at best, two check out stands open? I have learned to use the old cranky man do not know how to do all of this dance and so far, one of the folks inside the self checkout does it for me. I am going to fight this self check out idea as long as I possibly can.

Her sister up in far northwest Texas says propane is hard to impossible to get. The propane store folks here say that, "propane today is not as available as it was this time last year." I asked about the coming winter and the gal said it can become a real problem. "Fill your tanks now" was her suggestion. I picked up two 10 gallon tanks to add to our collection. 

Other friends have commented how expensive the current propane supply is. I have responded with "it is availability, not cost."

Some rain on the way and there are more backed up chores I need to get to. 

Thanks for the visit this week. 

Tis the season!!

VIETNAM 1967 & 1969; LIFE AND TIMES #1 - 4 MINUTE TIME LAPSE OF PORCH ROOF BUILD -MIGUEL MONTALBAN GUITAR

Intro:

The short version-

Started scanning 3,000+ b/w pictures, film and color slides from my tours of duty in the Army. Never before shared.

Gonna take some time.

Plan to share photos each blog starting this weeks post.

Daily times of my life as I lived them are in these photos. Nineteen, twenty and twenty-one years old.

 

Was a combat helicopter pilot two tours, 1966-67 - A Btry, 2D Bn, 20th Arty, 3rd Plt, 1st Cav Div (Air); 1969 -C Trp 7/17th Cav

Flew both a Huey UH-1B/C and the Huey COBRA AH-1G for a combined 997 combat missions.

Had my camera with me all of the time. Have always enjoyed photography.

Loved the flying.  We flew into gunfights every day and did it for the guys on the ground. So all of us to come home safely. Nothing more, nothing less. We were  men and women doing what had to be done given the times of our lives. Like it or not.

 

Maybe a story or two along the way here.

Some photos with captions as best as I can remember. It's been awhile.

 

An Lao Valley Central Highlands 1967 - Always two helicopter missions. Typical day

Returning to base, low-level along the coast. Memorable photo in that our flight of two had just escaped flying into a B-52 strike in the same area inland that we were assigned a fire mission. We were luckily on the edge of the strike with bombs falling along side of us and exploding a few hundred feet below us. 

All hell instantly erupted around and we tucked our tails between our legs and turned for the coast. We were running as fast as those Huey's could fly.

Mission de-brief was an "oops from the Air Force." Did not share that morning B-52 strike plan with us. Pucker factor is a real thing!!

Bought this near Ft. Rucker during our final stages of flight training. Mindsets amongst some of the cadets were that we all knew we were going to Vietnam. We did not know whether we would return. So, why not? 

I remember one candidate bought a new Mustang Shelby Cobra fastback off the showroom floor. White with blue stripe. I thought him a fool because he could have had his picks of any Corvette made. What a fool I was, huh?

I left the car with my dad and mom and they cruised this up and down the Washington State coastline while I was gone during my first tour of duty. Good for them. 

Given all the heartache sending their son to Vietnam, they told me they would take care of it for. Probably would not be driving it much. Come to find out they quickly adjusted that mind set. 

EDC included a gunship strapped on my back, flack vest, survival knife my father gave me and an Army issued .45. 

My father handed me this knife while my mother was not looking the day I left from McChord AFB for Vietnam. He tucked it into my hands and while holding me whispered in my ear, "Do what ever you have to son to come back to us safe and sound." A father's permission. Mom never ever knew. My fathers eyes were red, but he never cried in front of me that day.

Weather never stopped us from flying.

Gunship outfitted with 4 M-60 machine guns, two hard-mounted either side of the helicopter. I believe this is a C-model UH1. Wider rotor blades. 

Low level flying north out of An Khe, Central Highlands.

LZ Two Bits and LZ Hammond in the distance; south of the An Lao Valley and looking east. Central Highlands.

"The Golf Course", An Khe, Central Highlands. Taking off down hill and as soon as the helicopter reached translational lift, it would rise noticeably into the air. Loved watching these fully loaded helicopters take off. 

The Chinook helicopter was one hell of a work horse and rescue helicopter of that era. I enjoyed watching them work.

I had two cameras during this first tour. Both Pentax, I think. I lost the first one on a bus while on R n R in Hong Kong. Just got up and forgot the damn camera.

When I remembered, the bus was on the other side of a most congested road and there was no way I could ever stop the bus and get it back. Broke my heart, but camera stores were one of the reasons I went there for R n R. (Nope, did not do that!) For the life of me I cannot remember the camera I replaced that first one with. 

I have not taken the time to clean these photos of the junk on the lens or mirror. I did not know of this problem till I got home. And now, it really does not matter. Those cameras were also real work horses when I look back on the environments they were in. Sitting on helicopter floors next to a pilot seat.

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4 MINUTE TIME LAPSE VIDEO OF PORCH ROOF BUILD

Testing out the new (old) GoPro and learning time-lapse photography. 
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October already. How did this happen? Will there be a "surprise" this month?

Let's end this weeks post with some music. I have shared before, but go back to this kid playing guitar quite often. Makes this look so easy. So easy!!!

Miguel Montalban. Enjoy

Yep, thanks for the visit this week.

 

SOUP MIX - COOL TATTOO - CONTAINERS - GRILLED STEAKS AND SHRIMP - FREEDOM FOR THE CATS - COVID REPORT

 

From Carmie's Kitchen. 

Found these soup mixes over a year ago. Tried the chili mix and found it quick, easy and guest worthy. Would let it simmer awhile and set a few hours before serving. The Chicken Enchilada mix has been in a box this past year and decided to give it try for lunch. Excellent.

Boiled a couple leg quarters and used the broth instead of the water the mix called for. Used the best of the meat from the boiled chicken. Followed directions.

This mix is open to your personal likes also. But the basic mix is also guest worthy. 

No kickbacks from Carmie's here. Just sharing.

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COOL TATTOO

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CONTAINERS STACKED IN LOCAL WALLY WORLD PARKING LOT

Have never seen this before. Seemed odd and out of sorts. But worker-bees told us all empty and normal. Apparently this particular store fills these for further distribution. 

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IT'S ALWAYS SOMETHING!

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$35 BUTCHER BLOCK COOKING ISLAND (garage sale)

Repaired, sanded and two coats of mineral oil.

Second season crop of green peppers.

A year and a half later, the patio has a roof, a grill and cooking island.

First test meal last night. Yep, as much fun as I had anticipated. $8 rib eyes and a few Gulf shrimp. Served both Saturday night dinner and Sunday night dinner.  
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FREE CATS

Long awaited day of freedom for the sister cats. They have grown big, full of piss and vinegar and oh so ready for their freedom. Opened the door and they were giddy with freedom. Backs arched, side jumping and checking out everything in the shop and car port. 

Sister cat is hidden behind clay pots.

Her and I worked outside most of the day projecting. The cats stayed near and were a joy to watch as they played in their new found freedom.  

Stealthy.
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JOE BIDEN

He still has approval ratings. 

Below found on Raconteur Report.

AFFIDAVIT OF LTC. THERESA LONG M.D.

 Take the time to read this for your own knowledge and understandings.

ALUGALUG CAT 

Musicians from around the world can make music like this. Cool.

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October coming this week. 

Nine months of political upheaval behind us, likely more to come.  

Times, they are a-changin!!

Heads up, knees bent and stay away from crowds. 

Thanks for the visit this week.

FIRST WORLD PROBLEMS - PHOTOS

 

Elbow grease costs little.  These are great times to get outside and apply elbow grease and a little TLC to our yards. 

Another harvesting of our 4 basil plants. Time consuming, but saving what we grow is part of the program. Sitting and snipping leaves brings with it good use of my time and satisfaction. This particular harvest of basil was rinsing, chopping and stuffing into an ice cube tray. Frozen cubes of basil zip locked and ready for soups/stews simmering on the stove. 

A quiet week. First world problems from gardening, yardwork, computer work, lunch out with visiting family and the general comings and goings. Hard to turn a blind eye to worldly chaos, but staying busy with chores and outings helps.

From American Digest.   "If I were the Devil." by Paul Harvey. 

I have heard this a few times over the years. But listening to this in today's climate is chilling. 

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Instrument panel of OH-13  Army training helicopter at Ft. Wolters Texas, 1966.

Running the tides, San Juan Islands, 1986.

Hughes 500 in confined area

 Early morning; DeHavilland DH-2 Beaver, Ketchikan, Alaska

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Short post this week. Appreciate the visit.

 

TIME RUNNING OUT - P-38 - VACCINE MANDATE - YOU HAVE THE RIGHT

Sept 10, 2021

Time is running out. At least it feels like this to me in these crazy crazy days of our lives. 

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GOVERNMENT VACCINE MANDATES are officially laid out for all Americans this week. Push has come to shove. Pushback is coming to shove. 

Stay grey if you can. Little to no time left to stock shelves. If you are not ready, shame on you. No one is coming to save any of us. No one! You have seen and heard this before.

Get to $ stores. Local stores. Chain stores. Gas tanks full. Extra gas. Have plans. Have coms. Plan with no coms available. Plus a dozen things more directly affecting you and yours. Add full blown first aid kits. Help others.

It's whats for dinner!!

Dawn of a new era.

Quite often it is the presentation.

OOPS!

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Excellent drone footage.

Weakest Link from Bustednuckles with other assorted stuff.

The number 52 from  American Digest

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Will leave you this week with fresh refrigerator bread and butter pickles and pickled (from cans) beets. 

Quiet week. Heat and humidity down and comfortable east Texas summer going into fall weather finally here.

Appreciate the visit this week.