Now that is cool. I came back from GW1 wearing camis into Pensacola airport, and a couple of people waved and said Hi, but not a standing ovation. You weren't even wearing your X-rated outfit.

 

Tell ya what Rex - I want one of those patches!!!!
Hell yes I do.....

Some people don't make a big thing of it, and some people would rather forget.
But if the young people today can see and understand what a real hero is because THEY SAW A REAL ONE -

I think that right there beats ten hoodies sayin' YO!

It's an in-your-face way of saying: "What you got that TOPS this?"​

 

lol, much better than ten hoodies and a YoYo. It's big, 12" in diameter, here's their site:
http://www.leatherjackets.com/Patch-Support-Our-Troops_p_362.html

 

I think I need to go by the local base uni-shop and see what patches they have. Used to be a platter sized one that said US NAVY

Perfect for the back of a jacket

 

Feel like taking a vacation and a blast from the past? Hitch a MAC flight over to S. Korea or the Philippines to "patch heaven". You remember the food is good, the bars are good, many bennies. The money saved on airfare and a bag full of patches, or coats. Free flying on cargo/tanker flights, or $18-$35 flying on a commercial carrier like Patriot Express for overseas.

Downsides: the flight is already full, cancelled flights, overnight sleeping in the terminal, bologna sandwiches from a friendly airman manning the counter. Remember sitting in the cargo nets on a 10-hour flight? Hog Heaven.

MAC is called MATS now. The "SpaceA.net" site is as good/better than what MATS lists. Flights are out of the bases at Knoxville and Memphis to St. Louis or Travis enroute WestPac

 

Sori, reverse that MATS became MAC, now Air Mobility Command (i saw after looking at the routes.)

more to add: "SpaceA.net is an unofficial site for members of the Uniformed Services/Military. The information provided has been compiled since 2001 from online forums, individual contributions, websites, personal knowledge and regulations. Verify everything with current regulations and policy before you plan travel. This site is free thanks to advertisements. Please support this site by donating "Information" to [email protected] If you have QUESTIONS then see SpaceA.net FAQs or post on the SpaceA.net FB Page"

The site is easier to read and route for me. The flights have to be confirmed at the AMC.

Take a break from bucking trees

 

It'll have to wait a few years. I swore I would have no more dogs, but I have Woola - and where I go, she goes.

Aside from customs and immunizations, bringing a dog to the Phillipines would be like bringing Chorizo to Tiajuana...

 

Can't think of a thing I left in the P.I. and Subic got buried under a pile of ash. I always said that cotton picking volcano was too close!
And, while there may be a couple of pairs of soiled drawers that I may or may not have left in Thailand or China after a couple of particular missions...they can keep 'em! Iran and Pakistan sucked buttermilk, so I guess I'll just stay at home and go fishing and hunting.

 

At least when you go fishing around here - you won't see a very puzzled looking cat floating past on a turd

It wasn't really THAT bad, but I remember waking up one morning and seeing a "Hostess" I spent the night with squatting over her kitchen sink taking a poop. When I looked through the drain hole, twenty feet below was one of the ditches that ran down to the river through Magsaysay...

It was a "Plumbing Optional" town, or a "Practical Plumbing by Necessity" sort of a place

~And you can tell people about things like that all day and night - but they think it's just a story!

Even on the ship it isn't so great - but it's part of what we do

Rex? Am I wrong? It's just the way that it was, and only that.

They had rain cisterns on the roofs of most buildings, and you waited to take a shower until you got back on the base so you didn't have rust in your hair

UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES drink any water not from a sealed bottle

On the ship - Officers had their own rooms, shared with only one other person. I have nightmares to this day of having to find a restroom, and all the floors are running with a hideous mess. It was better than that in AIMD quarters. We had higher standards I guess. We used to have to chase squadron people back to their own berthing spaces and heads, telling them "TAKE IT UP WITH YOUR COOP CLEANERS!"

~And this is why the troops were called "Happy Campers"

It was because it was like being on an extended camping trip with 5,000 people you didn't really know

And even though the standards were above average - you still wound up with some people that were totally nasty, ignorant, self serving, and disgusting


Modern kids are stupid

 

S*&t River right outside the main gate, didn't really look as bad as everyone. Seemed like they were always telling how off limits it was and that we were never to stick a finger in it. But, when I was there, a couple of guys that got drunk and fell in the river were immediately scooped up and put in the hospital for 2 weeks of observation.

Did we "fall off the wagon" and stray from the West Pac thread?????????????????????????

 

NO... It's still about being thanked, and why. But what we went through is a thing no home bound middle class (or even underprivileged class) can ever imagine.

If you tell them about it, they have to think that it just cannot possibly be REAL!
Because it is completely outside of their experience, isn't it?

It's a door they never went through, and hopefully will never have to


From time to time I look around and wonder what it is these people think they are thanking me for - and I know that they only see the honor, the glory, the uniform, the strange foreign places, and sometimes pure adrenaline and excitement. Stuff from movies....

But it isn't all about Waikiki, or Yokosuka, Pataya Beach, and long days at sea, coming home to waiting families. MY GOD! In my case - what a joke....


Sometimes it was the job
Sometimes it was the pride
A lot of times it was PURE STUBBORNESS on my part...
And a lot of times it was a pure and simple competition - I had to prove I was GOOD at what I did.
But I always knew I was part of something that mattered
And a lot of it frankly SUKKED thank yez very much! But oh well...
Because other times were the best times of my life

I knew I had crossed a line, and not many ever would - they COULDN'T!!!!


But I did, and that is what they thank me for, whether they know it or not
Because somebody has to.
*He says, quietly*

* and to this day I can't swim worth a damn

 

Speaking of thanks, I ran into a fellow in Costco last week. We were both wearing Navy hats and I had my wings on my hat. He thanked me for my service and I thanked him for his. Then he asked what type of Aircraft? Turns out he had just retired from from being a major airlines Pilot, but he had been a TACCO on P3's in the Navy. We missed each other by a couple of months. He had transferred into VP-6 Blue Sharks a month after I had transferred to Naval Weapons Testing, Pacific Missile Test Center. His crew fired one of the Harpoons we had transported to Barking Sands for an operational squadron fleet test. We had quite a visit!

 

~There ya go!

The man who talked me into taking the risk told me that IF you go there - you will have joined the biggest fraternal and sororal club on the planet.

I find that to be true constantly

 

He kept apologizing to the Warden for keeping me so long, but he explained it wasn't everyday in a big world that you ran across someone who had not only been aircrew, but been in the same squadron as well. She explained she was very used to it and seemed to be more interested than anyone else.
She says that when I'm talking to other vets, especially ones that had done some of the same things I had done, she learns more than I have ever been willing to volunteer to her, she learns a little something new almost every time and it helps her understand some of the daredevil things I've been know to do on occasion? You'd think that after 38 going on 39 years of marriage, she would have pretty much so seen all of the first run movies and been well into the reruns.

 

Yeah but you always remember something else when it gets sparked by another one who was there
~It's a "Jason Bourne" kind of a thing, and why I treasure Rex so much

happens all the time



~Ciao for the night