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USN 1962 - 1966. USS Lawrence DDG4. FTM2 on the Tarter Guided Missile System Mk118 computers. I went to the Lawrence's decommissioning ceremony in circa 1989. Lots of old salts had tears in their eyes. The ceremony was like a funeral for a ship.

There was a BIG difference in my navy and the modern navy. For example, there was a pay telephone on the crew's mess deck. The gedunk wagon came all the way down the pier and parked at the ship. In my time, it was a mile walk to the main gate to use a telephone. The gedunk wagon parked about 1/2 to 3/4 mile away. Some admiral probably realized that treating enlisted men like dirt wasn't good for the reenlistment rate.

PS: In 1966 the Lawrence was in dry dock mainly for hull maintenance. We Fire Control Technicians were mainly drinking coffee and playing cards. My grandmother died. The weapons officer did not want me to take emergency leave and attend her funeral. The SOB actually asked me how fond was I of my grandmother. He gave me a week's leave only when I informed him that my congressman was a family friend and was on the Armed Services Committee. I wouldn't have reenlisted in the navy for a promotion to admiral and a $250,000 reenlistment bonus.

You are a [bleep] 1942. The best you can do is a threat of a Demshit Congressman! Grow some balls and tell the twit you loved your grandmother.

I did, you POS. It made zero difference.

USAF 1980 - 1984, Intelligence gathering
Lackland AFB, Keesler AFB, and RAF Chicksands (now closed)

We were pretty good with the old 81mm tubes, we won the Division Championship three years in a row, retiring the Ridgway Cup trophy to the company orderly room for all time. We beat out all the other weapons platoons in the whole Division.
Most of that was due to a good FDC, and excellent FOs, we on the guns just did what we were told . After that, we got tasked for practically every firepower demo that came up on Bragg, for foreign attaches and diplomats, etc. Got my mug on the cover of the Army Times during one of the firepower demos, jeez, that was a lot time ago...........

USAF - 03/64 - 03/68
Lackland AFB- Basic Training - 03/64 - 04/64
Shepard AFB - Tech School - 04/64 - 09/64
Stead AFB - 10/64 -08/66
Nam 09/66 - 09/67
Antigo Radar Station - 10/67 - 03/68

Electrical Power Production Specialist 54385

I have to throw this in at this point of the thread...It can be a small world at times as we all know..no doubt many of us have crossed paths in war or peace time without our knowledge..my dad over the years has stumbled upon old shipmates and guys he served with in the Pacific on the Carrier "Intrepid."

Weeks ago I got a PM from "EvilTwin" and we have pretty much concluded after our conversations that we were at the same battle in vietnam in '69..he was on the ground and I was in the sky !!!

ET..hope you don't mind me talking about this but your PM shook me to the core..it was many years gone by but as you well know the memories linger on!!! Best to you my friend...FLEM

Not a problem. It is pretty wild to bump into another man who fought in that battle after 40 years.

Cheapshot.The guy served and shared a story.Does not matter what you think.

Very cool thread,Flyboy. We have a few outstanding pilots on the 24. Was Jim a crazy summabich back in '69,as well?

FAR FAR worse back then Bob. FAR worse.

US Army '78-81 heli airframe repair.

A Troop 2/17 Cav, Ft Campbell, KY

11th Armored Cavalry Regiment, Fulda, West Germany

Air Force starting in 1969; 10 years active, 13 Reserve, retired as a Lt Col.

Pilot with 300 combat missions in Vietnam/Cambodia. Instructor pilot (taught Iranians to fly jets - ought to have gotten Hazardous Duty pay.) Did the bulk of my time as a Public Affairs officer dealing with hostile reporters - ought to have gotten HD pay again!

Cannot believe I retired almost as long ago as I served. Unfreakingfathomable. Lots of memories are as fresh as if they happened yesterday.

F4 driver??

nsagam That is an impressive pix, you can actually see the marks in the water of ship being pushed side ways from the recoil
very neat. Cheers NC

Flyboy: no, a Cessna O-2. With props. Unmarked (no stars, no words, no nothing). We flew in sterile fatigues without ID and got the REAL Mission Impossible speech about being disavowed.

Oh, and my usual right-seater was a North Vietnamese officer.

Really.

FlyboyFlem Yes several crews never came back from some of
of those hair raising flights as well. I wasn't in the USAF but in another air service so am well aware of what when down.
Cheers NC

Unmarked aircraft..sterile uniforms..no ID and in and out of Cambodian airspace...ummm ....smells like Air America !!!

Not Air America either - although we were in fact working with but not for the Company as well as Special Forces through MACV(SOG). Our unit's cover story was that we were normal USAF Forward Air Controllers (FACs) controlling air strikes and doing recon. We even filed reams of fictitious paperwork every month mimicking that.

But we weren't. You couldn't even enter our itsy-bitsy little compound with getting "the mission briefing" -- and if you DID get the mission briefing, you HAD to do the mission. No backing out once you knew what we did. The whole thing was classified until 1987 or so.

Rocky, were you a Covey pilot? Did you ever fly OV-10's?