Veterans

[CheckSix]

I'm really enjoying this thread on you guys! Getting a peek into your past service to our Country, is awesome! A hearty thank you!! to all of you! Much respect!

Please keep the photos and stories coming!

Here's my father in uniform during WWII, in Washington DC. He served in the USN Bureau of Ordnance during the war. He was an engineering student in college, when the war interrupted his education. He worked on new weapons designs.

[FRJ]

Great photo and post, Dave.

[Captain O]

Aviation Machinist's Mate, Jet. Sworn in 7/19/1973 in Portland Oregon. Worked on J52-P-408 Pratt and Whitney engines on EA6B "Prowlers" (Grumman) Electronic Warfare A6 airframes, (3 electronic warfare Officers and the Pilot). USNAS Whidbey Island, Ault Field.

That takes me back.

[CheckSix]

Aviation Machinist's Mate, Jet. Sworn in 7/19/1973 in Portland Oregon. Worked on J52-P-408 Pratt and Whitney engines on EA6B "Prowlers" (Grumman) Electronic Warfare A6 airframes, (3 electronic warfare Officers and the Pilot). USNAS Whidbey Island, Ault Field.

That takes me back.

Awesome! Always loved the mission accomplishments of both the A-6 Intruder and the EA6B Prowler. Bad A$$!!

On a sidenote of J52's.... I also always admired the A-4 Skyhawk, especially with the J52-P-408A engine. You have to see it to believe it... but at 250kts indicated, it has a roll rate of 720º/sec!!!! I saw the Blue Angels demonstrate it about 38 yrs ago.

[Captain O]

Aviation Machinist's Mate, Jet. Sworn in 7/19/1973 in Portland Oregon. Worked on J52-P-408 Pratt and Whitney engines on EA6B "Prowlers" (Grumman) Electronic Warfare A6 airframes, (3 electronic warfare Officers and the Pilot). USNAS Whidbey Island, Ault Field.

That takes me back.

Awesome! Always loved the mission accomplishments of both the A-6 Intruder and the EA6B Prowler. Bad A$$!!

On a sidenote of J52's.... I also always admired the A-4 Skyhawk, especially with the J52-P-408A engine. You have to see it to believe it... but at 250kts indicated, it has a roll rate of 720º/sec!!!! I saw the Blue Angels demonstrate it about 38 yrs ago.

The old "flying guppy" (as we called it) were darned near indestructible. When the A6 flew a mission in Vietnam, the NVA and VC would quake in their boots. Why? The A6 generally carried heavy payloads of either HE or napalm. Believe me, were coming and hell came with us!

[Quick Steel]

Speaking of aircraft, I have a fondness for the F-100 Super Saber. It was the first jet to break the sound barrier in level flight. Anyway the Airforce flew them out of PhanRang and I worked with them several times through very skillful and very brave FACs. One time a coupe of F-100s took me by surprise. I had called for an air strike and the FAC delivered them very promptly. The first thing that surprised me is that they were coming in considerably lower than normal. The ordinace they dropped was new to my experience: napam cannisters. These provided the fastest conclusion to a fight I ever witnessed. The F100s were retired not many months later.

[Black Lion]

In December of 1968 my company was in FSB Junction City located in the north western corner of the Iron Triangle and I was on radio guard on our squads perimeter bunker just as dawn was about to break. There may have been an ambush patrol that spotted the movement but I don't recall what initiated the action that morning. Whatever it was it broke the boredom of just sitting there and answering Sitreps (situation reports) every ten minutes.

Someone/unit reported movement of a large number of NVA about 2 clicks (kilometers) northeast of our position and headed toward Junction City. A standto was called so I got the others awake then returned to the radio. Artillery was called and soon there was a nice barrage to observe. It was kind of nice to have the artillery working that far from our position for a change and everyone sat down to watch the action. After a few minutes the artillery let up but we continued to watch off in the distance and wait for follow up reports over the horn. It was just plain silent as can be and the smoke from the barrage slowly drifted and dissipated in the distant overgrowth when, and I swear, a T-Rex snuck up behind me and let out a bellow louder than all getout! The T-Rex turned out to be a very low flying jet that had opened up with it's gattling gun just as it got over the FSB and continued firing as it passed by. Then came the roar of the jet and he was soon followed by a second one on the same line. They both made a couple of passes then a Light Fire Team (LOH spotter and Cobra gunship) came in and worked over the area.

Whatever it was evidently got discouraged from continuing in our direction and our morning and day was peaceful after that. I'm not sure of it was the same two pilots but during the next couple of weeks we were "buzzed" twice by a pair of them in a very rude manner. They'd come down low through the Song Saigon valley then come screaming up the valley edge and over Junction City that was on the ridge top along LTL 14. Just as they got over the FSB they'd set on their tails and hit the afterburner then vanish in the cloud of dust, paper, ponchos and poncho liners.

Lesson learned? If you're the target you don't hear the jet until it's had its way with you!

[bighomer]

I don't know how it was later in war but in '66 the fly boys would aways put a little show on after a run. I always enjoyed that. They dropped some napalm outside our perimeter we must have been1/2 a mile away and you could feel the heat from that stuff. You talking about bringing some pee that suff would do it.

[CheckSix]

Lesson learned? If you're the target, you don't hear the jet until it's had its way with you!

My only experience with this was back around 1983, when I was invited to a Pratt & Whitney anniversary event in Palm Beach County Florida. It was for employees and family.... and I had a lot of friends that worked there at the time and they got me in. This is the P&W location that designs and builds the military engines and RL10 liquid fuel rocket. Since they had their own airfield on the property, they had a lot of military airshow aircraft there that day. They had the Harrier AV-8B (new back then), the LTV A7 Corsair II (near it's end) and a GD F-16 Fighting Falcon, plus others.

The F-16 demo was great, the pilot was patched into the PA system and was talking to us. The one thing he did that really impressed me, was when went off in the distance at tree top level and we lost sight of him. He let us know he was inbound at about Mach 0.98. What he did was came in from the west, lined up on their main runway which we couldn't see, he used the canal that was just out in front of us and he told us, he was below tree top level now. I couldn't believe it when he came into view! Came past us in the blink of an eye, about 100yds out in front of where we were, about 25' off the deck... Then when just past our viewing area, he pulled it straight up and he was about 5000' above us when the sound finally got to us. It was so impressive! When he came by us initially, there was no sound. Later he told us, that he had to get clearance from ATC, to punch that hole straight up to 25,000' in full burner.... that's why it took a while for him to come back around at near Mach 1. I'll never forget what 700mph looks like going past you, silently.

[Black Lion]

I don't know how it was later in war but in '66 the fly boys would aways put a little show on after a run. I always enjoyed that. They dropped some napalm outside our perimeter we must have been1/2 a mile away and you could feel the heat from that stuff. You talking about bringing some pee that suff would do it.

I'm sure we all saw some amazing stuff during our tours there; stuff a person wouldn't ordinarily experience or even imagine. By '68 they weren't using napalm any longer but, instead, they had a plastic foam type substitute that gave similar results but less burn time. When we were at a small NDP on the outskirts of Ben Chua (south of Dau Tieng) a "napalm" run went bad and one of the canisters didn't fully release on first pass. When making a second pass in hopes of it dropping on target the cansister released just before the jet passed over the NDP. I wasn't there to see it but was told that the canister missed the observation tower by just a few feet as it passed over and then struck an abandoned hooch several meters outside our perimeter. The first photo is the end result...photo taken by Dave Brown of NJ.

The third pic is probably the hooch before it was hit. Photo by Bert Kennish my platoon leader at the time. There was just the one unoccupied hooch in the vicinity of the NDP and pretty sure this had to have been it.


Second pic is from the Newsweek article they wrote about our company but the date is wrong. I think it was December of 1969 or maybe January of 1970 that the company returned to and rebuilt NDP Julie which was just south of the Cambodian border in the fish hook area. The pic shows a B-52 strike in progress and, though I didn't see this particular one, I saw many others and they were all awesome to observe. I recall one where chunks of trees and dirt actually landed in the NDP where we were at and the smoke clouds loomed high in the air.

Mad minutes, B-52 strikes, gunships and spotters....stuff that made you go "Wow!".

[Captain O]

The $hit was/is nasty, isn't it? By God, we won the conflict (Congress was great at f**king up everything, weren't they)? We promised the nation "tank for tank, bullet for bullet" then Congress defunded it. @$$#oles!

[RobesonsRme.com]

Speaking of Light Fire Teams, a Loach spotter followed by a loaded for bear Cobra gunship, when I was out on my second op, we were crossing some paddies, walking on the berm and had just past a copse of trees when a Loach came around the trees from our rear, flying just above our heads.

I didn't even know what a Light Fire Team was, but SFC Smyth did and he yelled out for me to take off my head gear, drop my weapon and wave both arms and show my face.

In direct violation of everything, the first five Montagnards in our recon platoon, which always walked point, wore NVA uniforms, pith helmets and carried AK's. That was to give them a moment's head start in the shooting if they ever encountered an actual NVA unit.

Anyway, not far behind the Loach came the Cobra, but we did, with our height, our white faces and empty armed frantic waving succeed in waving him off.

They were in our AO, where they were not supposed to be operating. Don't know if they had just wandered out of their territory or were just lone wolfing around looking for something to kill.

Charlie Noyes

[bighomer]

Man I missed a anniversary the thrirty first of Jan. Probably one of the best days of my life.50 years ago I caught that freedom bird home from Nam.

[RobesonsRme.com]

And we're glad you did.
Charlie

[jerryd6818]

Man I missed a anniversary the thrirty first of Jan. Probably one of the best days of my life.50 years ago I caught that freedom bird home from Nam.

Joe, do you remember anything about the plane (airline, color, etc)? Did you escape out of Da Nang?

I hit the 50 year mark Aug 22nd of last year. It was a baby-s... yellow Braniff Airlines 707 out of Da Nang.
My memory sucks but there are some things I just don't forget (so far).

[bighomer]

Thanks Charlie, I'm glad for all my aapk buddies that made it back, and am heartsick for the forever young that didn't. Jerry I left out of Ben Hoa, caught a Pan- Am DC-9 stretched ,flew to Okinawa, to Hawaii then to Oakland Cal. Flew Braniff air lines from San Fran to Dallas and I believe Eastern to Nashville . I always thought Braniff had the prettiest stewardesses, may have been those colorful uniforms they wore. Sad none of those airlines are in business today.

[fergusontd]

My last time for leaving the gunline was in Feb. '71. We then went to Subic to join other ships headed back to the states. Before we left we had some airdales stationed at Cubi Point NAS. They had never been on a ship and thought it would be great to ride back on a tincan. They didn't make it out of the breakwater before getting seasick. It took them a couple of days to recover, during that time they wished that had caught that freedom bird home. Welcome home to all the vets from all services who served in that part of the world. ftd

[jerryd6818]

I don't get sick on big boats. My first time on big water was Operation Steel Pike in the fall of '64 (Rota Spain). We were up quite late the night before we left, drinking . I know. Hard to believe isn't it? Then they rolled us out of the rack about 0300 and marched us to chow. We were supposed to embark sometime before noon but ended up laying around on the dock all day. Waiting. (Oh? More disbelief?) By the time we boarded the ship (the USNS General R.M. Blatchford, an old WWII MSTS) it was getting dark. I racked out as soon as I could and we were out to sea when they woke me up early for mess duty. Working on the serving line I started to get a little erpy when a salty old squid noticed and advised me to eat soda crackers. He was right. Put an instant halt to it and I was fine the rest of the trip. Even when we went through a major storm on the way back I wasn't sick and slept like a baby. Now small boats on big water is a completely different story.

[fergusontd]

Keeping something on your stomach is a good piece of advise, but until you can handle a Tincan in a storm a ride on a troop ship is just your thing. ftd

[orvet]

There were no stewardesses on my flight home.
I was on an Air Force 141 medevac flight.
We left Clark Air Force Base, stopped on the Wake Island, Guam & Midway Island before we landed in Hawaii the day before we left.
We were sure happy to see the Red Cross ladies in Hawaii since there was no food on the medevac flight. We were out of cigarettes by the time we hit Midway Island. The ground crew said their supply ship was late but there were some Alpine cigarettes in the vending machine in the terminal. They said it was the only cigarette vending machine on the island. None of us were desperate enough to smoke Alpine cigarettes so we went without until we got to Hawaii.
The ladies from the Red Cross had sandwiches, coffee, doughnuts, cigarettes and most important of all they had round eyes!

[jerryd6818]

Keeping something on your stomach is a good piece of advise, but until you can handle a Tincan in a storm a ride on a troop ship is just your thing. ftd

That storm was pretty nasty. We were restricted to below decks but Mr. Pay No Attention To The Rules, me, went up and cracked a hatch so I could see what was going on out there. Waves were breaking over the bow, so quick like a bunny I latched her back down and got back to where I belonged. That was the last time I was aboard a ship until we took a cruise back about 15 years ago. The Caribbean is a cake walk compared to the Atlantic.

[jerryd6818]

It's been over 3½ years since anyone has posted in this thread and we have a lot of new members during that standdown.

Hey new guys and fairly new guys and anyone else who was in the military and hasn't posted their bonafides here, git' 'er done.

[zzyzzogeton]

I joined AAPK 4 months after the last post, so I never saw this thread...

I was USNR in ROTC from September 1973 to August 1977, when I was commissioned an Ensign.

USS DENVER (LPD-9) homeported in San Diego CA - 2 WEST-PAC deployments (Sept 77 to Feb 79) with SWOS at Coronado Amphib Base (Feb 78 to May 78) sandwiched in

USS CONSTELLATION (CV-64) for 2 WEST-PAC/IO deployments (Feb 79 to May 82) also homeported in San Diego, augmenting from USNR to USN while aboard

USS BLUE RIDGE (LCC-19) homeported in Yokosuka Japan (June 82 to Feb 84)

Shore duty at JEWC on Kelly AFB in San Antonio TX (Feb 84 to Mar 86)

Department Head School at Newport Naval Staion, Newport RI (Apr 86 to October 86)

USS MERRIMACK (AO-179) homeported in Norfolk VA, 1 MED deployment (Oct 86 to Jan 88)

released from active duty back to USNR Jan 88

then served USNR Reserve Duty at FT Sam Houston in San Antonio from Jan 88 to September 95 with -

COMNAVSURFGRU WESTPAC and COMNAVLOG WESTPAC spending 1 month per year in Subic Bay and 2 to 3 weeks per year in South Korea

folllowed by

assignment to VTU in Austin TX for September 1995 to September 1977, which is when I retired

High lights of each assignment::

USS DENVER (LPD-9) - made an Honorary Marine for saving an LVTP-7 and a dozen Marines from a watery grave off San Clemente, with a commensurate chewing out by my CO for doing it.

USS CONSTELLATION (CV-64) - earned quals as a Surface Warfare Officer, took some of the paint off a Soviet AGI, was sitting on a crapper 30 feet from where a tanker smashed into the Connie while we were taking on fuel at night in a sand storm in the IO.

USS BLUE RIDGE (LCC-19) - notified Guam that a typhoon had changed course before they were aware of it

JEWC - I'd have to shoot you first,

USS MERRIMACK (AO-179) - Served as Department Head for 3 departments - Ship's Navigator, Admin Officer AND First Lieutenant simultaneously (means all at the same time for you Marines )

VTU - served as medic for the Marine Reserve unit at Austin Reserve Center when they drilled at Camp Swift near Bastrop Texas - I was a Texas EMT-B on the civilian side and had radio communications in my POV with all the local fire/police/EMS agencies - got to go play in the woods.

[Railsplitter]

U.S. Army. Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

64 Charlie (Motor Transport Operator)

1st Corp Support Command. 126th Transportation Company.

1979-1982.

[jerryd6818]

I joined AAPK 4 months after the last post, so I never saw this thread...

simultaneously (means all at the same time for you Marines )

Keep that shirt up and you may never see this thread again, nor anything else.
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Rick did you spend your entire enlistment at Ft. Bragg?