Reminicing the Vietnam War

 

I arrived in a C-130 out of Clark AFB in July 1972 and left in May 1974. I was the lone human passenger and an E-3. I came from Malmstrom AFB and was a tool issue supply clerk with supply point experience in Minuteman Missiles (SAC). It was so cold in that plane I liked to have froze solid in my 1505 short-sleeved tropical uniform and the crew chief neglected me. 

 

1505 tropical uniform

To this day I would like to kick his arse.  Especially when by the time we actually landed, it was about a hundred degrees inside the cargo compartment of the plane.

Tent city was still going strong and I elected to move into a hootch from the open bay barrack that I stayed in the 1st week. That was awful with no fan and lizards all over the walls and ceilings combined with the National Geographic/Vietnam War in full swing with aircraft blasting the skies on afterburner. We had F-4 Phantom jets and when they took off in pairs it was so loud my ears would ring and all conversation would stop until it was over.

The point is I came when the base reopened and it was wild and woolly in the extreme. 19 bars opened up on the strip and a good number that were off limits. My buddy and roommate Tim Wheeler told me that in all the years he was in the AF, he remembers this time as the best.

There is a tale to be told in the middle and we all have them, but I was also there when most of the G.I’s and working girls left and many of the bars and stores closed and it was a quiet and very sad time. Takhli AFB and Bahn Takhli will always be a major part of my coming of age experience and like many, I cherish the memory and forget how many long hours I worked.

Just like when I arrived, I caught the freedom jet and I was the lone passenger leaving Takhli. I think this is one of the reasons so many airmen didn’t experience the “spitting” and derogatory remarks of protestors. Many of us came back one at a time and we made very small imprints on agitators. I have always claimed and believe I would have knocked the teeth out of anyone who spit on me because I was in uniform.

I would be interested in your initial response when you arrived. I remember the jungle humid mildew smell when the door opened on that C-130 and the thought that I would have to spend a year in this jungle hell-hole. So my initial thought was very sad and very negative. it changed very shortly when the world class adventure began.

Freedom bird back to the States (not mine)

The Culture, Trash, and Crime Connection

I was talking to a retired Indian couple at the gym the other day before spin class started. They are totally pleasant and both have cool Indian names.  His name is Krishna and hers is Geeta. I was explaining to them that I listen to Desi music, which they explained "desi" meant home boy music.  More specifically, Desi is a loose term for the people, cultures, and products of the Indian subcontinent or South Asia and their diaspora, derived from the Ancient Sanskrit meaning Land or Country.

Anything labeled as Desi, basically means you are Indian. I told them my bride finds it peculiar that I listen to this type of music and I've satisfied her curiosity by explaining that I heard it very often during the 2 years I lives in Southeast Asia. To me it is a mystical series of melodies that takes my brain on a magic carpet ride. Krishna is a retired chemist from Bayer and I forget what Geeta did, but their eyes sparkle with intelligence. Over the years I've heard southern Americas declare that the Indian/British accent is confusing, but not so for me. With a few exceptions and those being the British words, I have no trouble.

The two are gentle, cordial, and very humble and on this day, we began to talk about crime here and in the many countries they have visited. On a second note, they declared how clean all these countries have become. I was very surprised at this because my experience 40 years ago was it was almost hopelessly filthy and debris ruled. Trash and litter was a way of life, but not so today. Massive educational campaigns and strict laws have nearly obliterated litter in many countries.

The more we talked, the more I realized that as Americans, some of us just don't get it. Geeta and then Krishna pointed out that crime was almost non-existent in major cities in India and Japan because punishment was so severe. I knew that Singapore was this way and quite surprised. He said you could walk down the darkest alley in India without fear. The United States is almost a criminal's playground in comparison. Our laws and freedoms have all but tied our hands when it comes to criminals taking advantage of us.

For instance, in Singapore, smoking in public, chewing gum, spitting in public, littering, jaywalking have hefty penalties. Its a crime to even sell gum there. Annoying someone with a musical instrument, flying a kite that interferes with public traffic, singing obscene songs in public, selling porn, connecting to someone else's wi-fi without permission, forgetting to flush a public toilet, and feeding pigeons will get you a fine or jail time. Singapore may just be the cleanest and most law-abiding country on earth.

This discussion makes me wonder if there isn't a connection between culture, crime, and litter. Are people who litter criminally minded? Maybe not, but it is certainly a crime to litter and some folks do it daily. They have a culturally anti-social attitude about it too. For most of us reasoning humans, the act of unrolling a car window and throwing trash out is about as likely to happen as winning the Powerball. Is it possible that in 2018 some person doesn't litter intentionally? I don't think so. They may throw that beer can out alongside the road to keep from having an open container in their car or truck, but that just makes them a double criminal. They don't care that society likes a clean appearance over piles of garbage strewn everywhere.

As a unpaid litter abatement specialist, I subject myself to the same punishment as those who are serving community service when I pick up someone else's litter. Believe me when I say I do this almost every day and I am just one of many who carry a trash bag when I walk. A trip into the grocery store from the parking lot allows me to drop in what I pick up after leaving my vehicle. How is it Third World countries can educate their masses to make their country crime and litter free and yet we are almost losing the battle here?

We have educational material available and everyone must attend school of some sort, so how is it some just do not get right from wrong. For instance, take the college basketball players in China who stole. One of them said he just didn't think about it until they were caught. Ten to one the man litters also. Maybe its a stretch on that, but if you can't see that stealing is wrong, what else did you miss?

The American Privilege Issue

There is hardly a day that goes by that I don’t remember living in Southeast Asia for almost 2 years. According to my DD-214 (Certificate of Release or Discharge from Active Military Duty) it was exactly 651 days. What sparks this reoccurring memory is usually the fact that I have clean sheets, air conditioning, security, or potable water coming out of my faucet.

The old proverb that you never know what you have until it’s gone is very true, but in my case, it was and still is just the opposite. After experiencing the culture shock of leaving modern American life and being dropped into Third World country conditions, I got an instant education into American privilege. Notice I didn’t say white privilege? What I experienced affected all of us military folks who have lived this.

“People say you don't know what you've got until it’s gone. Truth is, you knew what you had; you just never thought you'd lose it, or frankly, took it for granted.”

I remember carrying a half dozen canteens over to the Security Police Squadron to fill them from a hanging canvas bag, G.I.’s referred to as a water buffalo. If I wanted potable water, this is where I had to go. My hootch room had one hanging light bulb, for which I was thankful and eventually I procured not one, but 2 oscillating fans to keep the room temperature bearable. Being in Base Supply had its perks, as hardly anyone had more than one fan.

Being stationed in the dreaded Cobra Triangle of Central Thailand, walking to the communal shower at night meant that it was a “Do I rinse off before I try to sleep, or just lay sweating?” conundrum. One way or the other, I was going to begin sweating within 15 minutes anyway, even with the fans. This meant that all night or day, depending on my schedule, I was going to toss and turn rotisserie style in my sleep, or cook on the bottom side.

“Appreciate what you have before it becomes what you had.”

My hootch had wooden slats that were screened and kept most critters out and those first months were fraught with anxiety, but we humans can learn to adapt to almost any condition – if we are forced to that is. Roaches the size of a pack of gum would sometimes crawl over me when I slept, or a large lizard would find its way in my small room. Occasionally other crawling things would come in goodly numbers and at first it really shook me. One time I sprayed one of these hug roaches with official C-130 aircraft insecticide, which was supposed to kill any bug trying to get back to the States on a free ride.

After 30 minutes, I squashed it with my jungle boot and this was after it jumped, flew, and crawled all over the room, flicking its wings. It was an impressive display and one that was quite educational and I’ll be honest and say I never took my eyes off it.  Months into my double deployment, I would squash a crawling bug in my half sleep, toss it on the floor and rolling over, go back to sleep.

“Don't take things for granted because they might not be there tomorrow.”

I remember coming back to the States and marveling at how rich of a country we had. The year was 1974 and everywhere I looked were new cars and signs of prosperity. People owned a lot of stuff and guess what? None of that has changed. In fact, we own 2 and 3 times more now than then. Every car has air conditioning and automatic transmissions. People have so much food, they could literally live on half what they eat. Every person here is privileged, make no mistake about it and don’t let some rich athlete or entertainer try to convince you otherwise. They need to hop on a jet airplane and be dropped off in a stinking jungle like we were and have the same options we did and by golly, they will change their tune right quick.

Belly aching and whining is for wimpy over-paid elitists looking for a cause that most of us don’t want to hear about. They live the life of luxury and can afford to lose endorsements while they get by on their 19 or 30 million dollar salaries. They can’t be content to take their kids crabbing, or spend the night in a tent after sitting around a campfire in one of our beautiful State parks. They have to act up and regardless of their constitutional right; they appear to be what they are – overpaid elitists, using their status to draw attention to something they can’t really relate to.

They’ve lost sight of what they have and live in a fantasy world where they think they represent those of us who still appreciate the small conveniences and blessings. They don’t represent me. If they really want to make a difference, there are better ways than acting in such a manner as to divide this great country. Anyone can become a rock in a shoe, but it takes someone special to have the vision of an ambassador and act on it.

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The Ghosts of Christmas Past

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A modern day Air Force TI

I remember my first Christmas away from home.  I was 18 years old and the year was 1970.   I spent the Christmas holidays sequestered in an Air Force Basic Training barracks at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio shining my boots.

With me were 57 other airman.  We were no longer considered new troops, as we had been in training about a month.  At the time and it may be this way still, new recruits were called Rainbows.

“Rainbow, Rainbow, don’t be blue
Your TI was a Rainbow too!”

I made the terrible decision to join the Air Force at the end of November, which meant I would be in Basic Training over the Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years’ holidays effectively extending my time there by two full weeks.  My “Flight” had been in training long enough that our TI’s (Chief Military Training Instructors) left us to enjoy Christmas with their families and we spent the four day holiday cleaning our equipment, the barracks, and shining our boots.  I thought it was a rough deal and a lonely time and like the other recruits there, we passed the holidays in near silence.

One year later and one short visit home, I was stationed at Malmstrom Air Force Base in the Strategic Air Command way up in icy cold central Montana.  It is a Minuteman Missile base and when Christmas rolled around, I drew the short straw and couldn’t fly home for the holidays.  Airfare, flying military stand-by, was a whopping $65 one way and who could afford that on Airman’s pay anyway?

Due to the holidays, the base was being manned by a skeleton crew, except for the missile launch crews and seeing that I worked at a Forward Supply Point in the Missile hanger, I was deemed essential.  I remember walking in the snow to the Chow Hall on Christmas day 1971.  It was so cold and dark that I felt like the world had abandoned me.  I was 19 years old and by the standards of those days, a man and my dad taught me to “suck it up”, but that didn’t stop me from feeling alone up in the Big Sky country that day.

Stepping into the Chow Hall, I was surprised to have a server place a pair of stuffed pork chops on my plate.  They were two inches thick and cooked to perfection.  I had never seen such and to this day, remember that meal; far from home that only a few of us special people were served.  A few months passed and I was told I had received orders and I reported to Base Operations to get them and seeing I had this specialty training in Supply, I was told I needed to process out immediately to go to APO 96337.  I had no idea what these numbers meant and was told to cross reference them on a chart, which I did.
 
Back at the barracks, I approached a veteran sergeant who I trusted.  “Where is Danang AFB?” He laughed knowingly and told me it was “Rocket City, Vietnam.”  I wanted to cry and finally did when I called home that night when talking to my mother.

It was early 1972 and the war was “deescalating” but almost 2400 of our military perished in Vietnam in 1971 and this was nothing to take lightly.  I listened to my peers as they talked about running truck convoys from depot to base armed to the teeth and rockets landing at random in the warehouses and if I said I felt brave, I would be lying.  My orders meant I was going into harm's way.

Providence stepped in and once again, my specialty prevailed.  Instead of going to package up the departing 366th Gunfighters squadron, I was sent ahead to Central Thailand to help set up the Forward Supply Point there.  I spent 21 and a half months there, working 12-hour shifts in the jungle heat.  I remember both Christmas’ and accepted the fact that being a G.I. meant you could not be with your family at special times like this.

Segue to the December 2013 holidays and here I am once again at work.  Since I left home to join the war effort in 1970, I’ve either been away from my family or worked 37 of the 43 Christmas holidays.  Am I whining, complaining, or lonely?  No.  I’ve accepted it.  Has it made a Scrooge out of me?  Maybe.  Do I still remember the true meaning and spirit of celebrating the coming of the Christ child?  Sure, of course, but the thrill of gift giving and festivities isn’t there.  It died a slow death a long time ago.

Sadly, for me it’s for the most part, nothing more than overtime or holiday pay.  It’s mammon to pay for the stuff we’ve bought and fodder for upcoming taxes and that is the real shame of it. 
I want my Christmas ghosts to give me back what I lost.  I want what they took from me.  I want to be a kid again, excitedly opening my eyes after a near sleepless night and rush down to a bright tree full of presents.  I want to eat until I'm sick and then eat more.

The reason I write this is I'm not the Lone Ranger on missing the Christmas holidays and certainly not for pity or sympathy.  Nope.  All around the world this holiday season are thousands of sons and daughters, mothers and fathers working in far away countries defending our way of life and they can’t come home.  Say a prayer for them.  Right here in Baytown, we have many men and women working in the chemical plants and refinery’s doing the same thing as I have all these years.

Our restaurant workers, fire fighters, medical professionals, and police officers are working overtime and swing shifts and will miss the Christmas holidays also.  The fellow at the convenience store told me that if I needed something on Christmas day, they would be open and he will spend the day behind the counter talking to strangers and away from his family.

My point in all of this is, if you can be with your family on these special days, take a moment to cherish it.  Enjoy how fortunate you are.  Hug those around you and tell them you love them.  Merry Christmas to my fellow Baytownians and Happy New Year to you too.  Something tells me I am going to spend Christmas 2014 with my Bride and family and it’s going to be a terrific year.  See you in 2014!
 
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The Times They are A-Changin`

"Come gather 'round people wherever you roam and admit that the waters around you have grown and accept it that soon you'll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to you is worth savin' then you better start swimmin' or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'".

I followed a link on the Internet to the far-away city of Chang Mai, Thailand. Chang Mai is in northern Thailand; the ancient country of Siam from The King and I movie fame. It has a core population about double the size of Baytown.

Now at one time, I lived about 200 miles south of this beautiful and exotic city and even though I made it a point to travel around the country, I never made it to Chang Mai. I was stationed at Takhli Royal Thai Air Force base for just shy of 2 years and the nearby (City of) Bahn Takhli was a filthy little hamlet with trash and refuse everywhere. It was a rough and chaotic place, with over 30 bars and nightspots which catered to the thousands of servicemen who frequented them.

The main drag was a two-lane macadam road which ran from the first massage parlor to the dark corners of the market where fly-covered hog heads and fish defying description were bought, sold or traded in the stifling heat. The frequent intense and offensive odors you would encounter while riding a baht bus or in a three-wheeled samlaw bike would either brutalize your nose, or cause you to gag depending on your individual stamina and tolerance.

In the 1970's, most of Thailand was a third world country in every respect and to this day, some of its population is probably resistant to change. However, this is apparently not so for Chang Mai. What I saw when I followed the link was a Google Earth-like view of the streets of this city, with a very current 3-D virtual street view. I could see people walking down the street and by using the panning software, go past them and see them from the opposite view. I "walked" all over the city, not just the tourist areas.

I marveled at this technology, but that is not what really knocked me on my duff. What interested me most was the city itself! Now, I pointed out that Chang Mai is a city of about 140,000 at its core, but with surrounding population it is over 700,000, or ten times the population of our city. What I saw on a street by street level was a totally clean and neat city; flowers everywhere, no litter or trash, people walking around enjoying themselves, rows and rows of neatly parked motor scooters…and a place unlike my own town on so many levels. Why can't we have this here? Why are we so behind the times?

Now granted, Chang Mai was never Bahn Takhli, but it surely isn't so advanced past the country I remember from the early 70's is it, so I took a look at my old stomping ground also. To my total amazement, I found Bahn Takhli is clean also. This is very difficult for me to comprehend. Thirty five years ago this place was a literal dump, where the citizens and visitors burned trash in front of their homes, or simply threw it down. Open sewers, garbage, loose dogs, debris and filthy junky conditions lined the streets and today it is clean as a whistle? No way!

I don't believe Takhli or Chang Mai decided on an individual level to clean itself up, but followed the directives of a city council or government plan and I imagine some folks were resistant to it.

Now, let's take a look at Baytown 35 years ago, when I first moved here. It had a vibrant and optimistic city population and it was pleasant to live here and basically clean. It was the place to be for most of us and no one thought that by the year 2008 citizens would be in disagreement about restoring and upgrading the standards in the town.

With a patriotic flag in one hand and wagging a finger on the other, some scream property rights violation because they can't park their boats, trailers, cars, etc., in their front yard or run a garage sale 3 days of every week. They want it like it used to be they say. They are mad as a hatter over "all these ordinances being forced down our throats", but honestly, I think they forget there are only two – garage sales and parking.

On one hand I see their point, but on another I see a need for city council to force a change. The city's core appearance has degraded and I don't think anyone will deny that and the only way back will be a little rocky to put it mildly. It's going to take a paradigm shift by the general population. City council is attempting to make changes for the better and it is an uphill battle. The city is not blameless either; they have work to do in their own backyard.

I'm not going to include the smoking ordinance in this argument, as it was voted on twice like Debbie Griffin said in yesterday's paper. The citizens voted to ban smoking in public places. The people decided. By the way, she made some excellent points and I adjure everyone to read and reread what she said. "Most people look for clean, orderly and attractive areas in which to live".

Personally, I feel like I've beat my head against a dead horse on this issue of cleaning up the town. "It's a no-brainer" (thank you again Debbie).If it ever does come down to a vote over excessive garage sales and lawn parking, I think those who feel their property rights have been violated will find out that the silent majority sides with City Council.

Bob Dylan said it best: These times are a-changin' and if the third-world hamlet of Bahn Takhli can out-shine Baytown, Texas in 2008 by cleaning up their city, while ours has disintegrated into a slum, why in the world would anyone resist an attempt by City council to set a higher standard for the citizens, businesses and property owners here in our home city of Baytown?