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Army, Oct 67 - May 69.
Basic at Ft Lewis, AIT at Ft Sill where they trained me to be a surveyor. Got to RVN March 68 and the French had already surveyed it, so I became a radio teletype operator, then a courier, then an Aerial Observer, then briefly (May 69)a Forward Observer with the Special Forces and Montagnard mercenaries out of Pleiku and I came home after a total of 19 months active duty and got discharged at Ft Lewis.
Whirlwind tour. Made E5 in 14 months. The reason I only served 19 months active duty was because I was drafted for two years and they decided if you had less than 150 days active duty left when you got back to the States, you'd get an early out. I extended my RVN tour 53 days, so I had 149 days left to go and I got discharged early.
They didn't feel it was worth it to train us for something new considering what little time we had left to serve.

Bulletbutt, I was a radio teletype operator at QuiNhon from Oct. 1968 till July 1969. We may have talked. miles

Miles I flew out of PhuCat in 69 ..we weren't very many miles apart !!!!....FLEM

Bob Hope was there Christmas of 1968 but I did not get to go. If you were in the air I probably saw one of your rigs. miles

In '68 wouldn't have been me...was still training at Eglin.

USAF 88-96 satcom tech
USAFRes 96-98 cargo specialist
Georgia Air Guard 98-07 satcom tech
Georgia Air Guard 07-present comm officer

Bagram, Afghanistan 04

USN 1971 to 1977.

Jim

I was still there until July 1969. miles

USMC Feb 1960 - Feb 1964

3rd Mar Div Camp Hague in Okinawa 3rd 155 How Battery attached to 12th Marines

Fuji McNair in Japan

29 Palms Ca - Auto Mech but was TAD to 3rd LAAM for the Cuban Invasion which thankfully never happened .

Had two page 13's and a Summary courts-martial and still made E4 a year before I got out .

A possibility

U.S.Navy,July 65-Dec.68
Boot in Great Lakes,NATTC in Millington,Tenn.AME-A school.
Recon Attack Squadron Twelve based in Sanford,Fl.
Med cruise in 1966 on board Saratoga
Yankee Station in 67 on board the Connie
Med cruise in 68 on board the Forrestal,1st cruise after the big fire.
Proud too have served,I salute all past and present.

Ron

RockyRaab Does that also apply to RCAF types on interceptors
under NORAD. In as F/C out as Captain 54-63 enjoyed 3 days in &
with A/C during Cuba. Scrambling in a snow storm so bad that you couldn't see run way lights and no place to land on the way back
and end up going to SAC base at Bangor ME and being greeted by 6-8 trucks with 50BMGs an either side of runway does that count?
Cheers NC

Johnnie Walker @ $2.35/qt and I lived in a tent Nov70--Nov71 in the Central Highlands. QL 20. 815th Engineers Camp Dillard. Ran Convoys in and out of Highlands. Web

Like the cut down M-1 Carbine, had the sear filed too didn't it?

Yep T-- Cost me $40 for that and 300 rounds-- I had an unlimited supply of hand flares that I would give to our Montagnard friends. They in turn gave me crossbows and Ammo for that carbine. My LT told me that It was an unauthorized weapon. -- Standard answer-- What will they do if they catch me? Send me to Nam? I gave it to a newbe when I left. Web PS T the Sear was not filed -- It had a selector switch. M-2 Carbine

USAF Security Police K-9 91'-96'
2yrs Goodfellow AFB working almost completely with US Customs/Border Patrol
3yrs Howard AB Panama (not the white sand beach in Florida either)
All initial training at Lackland, then Ft Dix for infantry training.
Was crosstraining into PR/CC with a line for Ssgt and decided enough was enough.

Not regular active duty, but was a Test Engineer on DoD, NRC and NASA projects from '80 to '87. Worked mostly nuclear projects from '80-'83, almost exclusively NASA '84-'87. Worked NASA/DoD missions, as well as others. Was in Payload Ops Control Center at Marshall Space Flight Center when the Challenger blew up. Lost four friends in that accident. Really sucked majorly.

Moved over to Army Missile Command '87-93. Sr. Test Engineer on FOG-M system, SDI (Star Wars), MLRS MFOM, among others. Spent time at White Sands Missile Range, Ft. Bliss, Eglin AFB, and other "interesting places" (like El Salvador).

Worked with and met many terrific folks in all branches of service. Most of the time, the service men and women I worked with made it a pleasure to do my job. I had a blast (sometimes literally).


PS: Hey Rocky, one of the guys I worked with used to fly a Helio Courier, late '60s early '70's timeframe. The word was that he was a helluva pilot. He always wanted to own one. I believe he flew in some of the same airspace you used to fly in.

Close, and very possible. Counting on my fingers here, I quit the job of RTO in July 68 and was a courier between An Khe and QuiNhon for roughly the month of August, then I went flying as an AO for 8 months, and was an FO just before I came home (crazy!).
There was a USO show/group that came to AnKhe and sang and danced for a couple nights, then they went to Pleiku to join up with the Bob Hope show. I got to sit and talk and socialize a little with one of the young ladies---she was from New South Wales, Australia---who was a real knockout... I remember her family had a 2,500 acre sheep ranch in New South Wales, and I remember I was practically tongue-tied, she was so good looking. If I remember correctly her name was Robin Aitken.
I sat with her at the An Khe airport when she flew out to Pleiku and it was pretty funny---the guys walking by and about falling over when they saw her sitting there with me. I wanted to follow her to Pleiku but I was told I would be AWOL, so I never saw her again.
Ah, the memories...

QuiNhon was a beautiful place and so were the mountains that separated the coastal plain from the central highland plateau where An Khe was---up An Khe Pass. Red Beach was best viewed along with the coastline from a Birddog airplane, and we used to fly down there just to look at the ocean and the old fancy buildings. I never got tired of flying over that country.

USMC 86 - 90

MAG-70, most of the time with MWSS-374

Mostly at MCAS El Toro but got to go all over the place. Did spend a lot of time in P.I.

Medical out after a very hard landing in a CH46 messed up my knees. Was planning on retiring but that wasn't in the cards.