A story that had to come out.

In 1970 I was notified by our boat squadron corpsman (HM3 Ho*) that I was going to be his back-up. (On each boat every person chose another person to act as back-up incase the selecting party took a round through the brain pan "or such lesser injury as rendered (him) incapacitated."

"You will be the one who goes with anybody off our boats or any passenger** who is taken up in a helo. Bad news is you'll have to spend three days in Saigon when that happens as we won't wait around for you. (It was an excuse for a mini vacation, but I didn't mind.)

I was flattered, not an easy job but very necessary at times. Sad part was on the last trip up river our squadron took, to pick up a bunch of pinnipeds and they unwilling guest we ran into a perfect ambush and all five boats exploded at pretty much the same second. It was, to give credit where credit is due, a work of art. We were going around a big bend in the river and most boats could only see the boat ahead and behind. The RPG came from both banks, four total for each. Very hard on our jet boats. And their crews.

How is this related to anything? Don't know, it's in my head and wants out, so I let it. Ho did show me where he stored (i.e. hid) the morphine ampules on each boat, some of our guys took their off time very seriously. Those stores got me back down to our base still alive. Longest year of my life, those ten days. Three years of physical therapy and I still couldn't play the piano.

I'll shut up now.

*Ho described himself as "half Chinese, half Japanese, half American and half Hawaiian. Evidently you didn't need math to get through Corpsman School at Great Lakes. He was also almost sumo sized, no little ho this man.

** "Any passenger" would be in cuffs and have various and sundry injuries. Two of the pinnipeds came with me on those trips. And after we turned our package to the appropriate facility in Saigon we'd all get drunk and then drink some more. Catch-up time.

 

Reminded me of part of the strange film Apocalypse Now, with the single boat "going up river" on a mission.

 

My wife wouldn't let me watch that one in a theater. She knows me.

 

Ooh, my own thread. Shucks.

Might be a good place to explain why a six pack of American beer is entombed on Mt. Etna.

 

I had to look up pinnipeds and then I wondered why on earth you’d be picking up a lot of furry sea mammals. Then I realised, d’oh.

Quick to cotton on, me.

 

Professionals work together:



Helped a People's Army Navy Captain find his father's remains. He sent me the hats when he had confirmation.

 

That's been described as "a sneaky way to get me to learn something!"

 

Nobody commenting on the place mats?

 

Well they do look rather nice.

 

Nice but don't affect an accent like Madonna does when she's over there.

 

I haven't figured out what the big round thing is.

 

I don't think a lot of people were looking at her accent.

 

The London Eye.

 

The big round thing is the
London Eye

 

Copyright issues with Mr. Ferris?

 

A few hundred people told me to go see that one. ONE person said "no". She won. I would have giggled when they air lift the boat anyway.

 

When we mated up with our boats in Charleston, S.C. the builders took us for a ride. They told us the boats only use the first inch of the river. (We didn't call them liars, we knew exactly how much water they needed. "A wet Kleenex will do in a pinch.")

 

https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205372678

The number of windows varies. They had a lovely aroma of ashtrays and more, but could have telephone books in them - several if in London.. Press button "B."



Glad you survived !

https://ww2talk.com/index.php?attac...3/&temp_hash=2c7f96e9e4cf5ce94d28c2423bfbc7ea

 

I added an explanatory footnote to the first post. Nothing urgent.

 

I never did like the “more” much.