My best photos were lost in a theft from my car many many many years ago, these photos I had completely forgotten and luckily were returned to me in 05 by my girlfriend at that time. I forgot that I had sent these photos to her and it was 30 years or more before I was in touch again. I forget what the brand of the camera was but I am pretty sure it was one of those small Polaroids that were popular then. The ship had just come out of the hangar and we were re arming and getting ready to go back on line the next morning. The chubby guy's name is Sweet and he was the crew chief, he held the record for sucking a beer can dry in 6 seconds. A few years ago I learned that he had gone to flight school after leaving VN and just before graduating he up and quit, the purpose was he got the free flight training and left the Army and got his license as a civilian. Smart man! The Black guy worked in the hangar in Avionics, I can't remember his name.
Several years ago my Platoon leader made a dvd and gave a copy to those of us that were still in touch, these chapters are from his dvd. Only one very short clip of myself, the rest was daily routine and how it was in 1968. All these years later it is very humbling to be one of the survivors, not from the war but from Father time!. They have said millions served in this 10 year war and I believe this to be accurate, my entire 3 years the strength levels never dropped below 500,000. I am in the remaining 1/3 still alive. Many of these men in 5 chapters are not with us now, some never made it home. Total helicopters destroyed in the Vietnam War was 5,086 out of 11,827 Dailymotion - chap 1 - a Art et Création video Dailymotion - chap 2 - a Art et Création video Dailymotion - chap 3 - a Art et Création video Dailymotion - chap 4 - a Art et Création video Dailymotion - chap 5 - a Art et Création video
Me my Mother and Father. My father was a submariner in WWII, after the war he was assigned to the USS Los Angeles Heavy Cruiser and was on the first two Korean War patrols, I don't know about the third but he died in Los Angeles in an accident. My Mother is still living in California, myself I was with my Grandparents my entire life and was born in Houston.
Wish I had some old money! I do have some more old photos SS Cobia, my father served on the Cobia in WWII, dates I don't know but this photo shows my Father on deck with other members, the boat is still around in Manitowoc where it was built, a floating museum now. FanTail USS Los Angeles, this photo was validated by the USS Los Angeles Assn as taken on the first Korean War cruise, my Father was standing on top turret no 3. The makeshift gun emplacement on the right of the photo was only used for the first patrol, each afterward it was not there. The Los Angeles was hit by North Korean shore fire two times. It was more like a mosquitoe biting an elephants ass, but there were numerous people injured. My Father on Deck, this one is my Father on deck, he is the radio operator standing by himself, the historians in washington could not identify the boat since no markings were present. I believe it is at the close of WWII because the Cobia was a Manitowoc built sub a GATO Class and this is a Balao Class, which was the latest at the time. All the submariners were discharged or reassigned at the close of WWII and these boats even though they were new were put into mothballs for several years and then upgraded to the newer closed bridge style. Some went to the scrap yards while others remained in service even into the 70's, some were even sold to foreign countries. Interestingly the USS Los Angleles Heavy Cruiser did not meet a good fate, it was sold for scrap and cut up in Long Beach, the ship was paid for by the citizens of Los Angeles through war bonds, however it was never stationed in Los Angeles, nor did it see service in WWII. Early 50's era,, My Father was a two time War vet, he has a campaign star for the WWII Pacific and one for the Korean War. He seemed like a terrible dresser, his work uniforms were all two sizes too big and the sleeves were just awful, I guess by the time he got to the end of the clothes issue all the good stuff was gone.
http://k003.kiwi6.com/hotlink/29860d05j8/tbird_thunder.mp3 http://k003.kiwi6.com/hotlink/p8y16x47t3/xmas_eve_1969.mp3
For sure, this is what a blade strike looks like, or getting too close to another helicopter. All that stuff is still spinning and it takes a while to stop, if your a pilot sitting up front all strapped in it get's a little uncomfortable when that main gear box drops on the back of your head. You can only lean over so far. These blade strikes were common back then because they all operated so close together. We had two gunships make contact, one was sitting on the ground in front, and the other accidentally struck his tail rotor, the one that made the contact flipped over on top of the one in front, it killed the pilot of that one and parts and pieces flew down to the other end of the airfield , the tail rotor came through the roof of living quarters and broke the arm of another pilot standing there shaving!. The best thing you can do is just hit the floor or ground and wait til it all stops flying around.
Look's like one of my corn fed cousins from norlins I found my platoon photo taken a week before leaving Fort Ord, I never got a copy or even knew it existed until I found it on the Fort Ord web site after the base was shut down in 98, another member had sent it to the web site to be posted, at the time I found it there were only around 10 photos which consisted of Infantry companies which was where I was, and Basic Training companies. In ten years that the Vietnam war was going on 10 million men were trained at Ford Ord, I guess that's the equivalent of finding a needle in a haystack, the photo. I'm not 100% sure but I think the barracks I was in is still standing, they were slowly tearing them all down but since Commiefornia is so screwed up they brought in people to take out insulation because it was a hazard, my ass, I lived there and that was 45 years ago, still breathing on my own. Dumb bastards!
In my spare time I make photo tributes for people I flew with and others that served in other Units, I'll put some up a few at a time. Now this was a long time ago! Summer 1966 Fort Campbell Peter Miller was one of my Pilots, he was from Stanford NY, I was in the trail ship off to his right no more than 100 feet when their ship was hit. The only good news that day was the three shooters were also killed. This was one of those what you would now call a cluster fuck day, the water was standing in this LZ and there were hooches everywhere back in the tree lines, with the water standing you couldn't ignite these houses and force anyone out, so none of them fired until the troop ships arrived and we escorted the string in, Peter's ship on the right and us on the left, since the troop ships landed we over flew and flew right into them, never even saw them! Killed 23rd Sept 68 Flying Lead ship Crew of T-Bird 8 This is the same aircraft as the one photo showing a big black spot, they took a 51 caliber hit in their push pull tubes and nosed over into the ground. Shot down TET 68 Another crew and aircraft lost KIA TET 68 I had very poor small black and white photos to work with , couldn't really do much with them but this is what I came up with.
I like old pictures that are actually old. These are WAY cooler than the Hipstamatic prints I see people posting on Facebook that try to make them look vintage with hue and texture changes.
I found for making tribute photos regular wall papers worked well, some I cut and use what I want and mix a few. Of course I usually have more than one photo with the same backgrounds but then the people I give them to don't usually see the others so it isn't a problem. I plan on posting a few , the colors look nice maybe a little too bright in some instances but the whole purpose was to draw attention to the photo. It takes some time to host them and I am very bad about losing my original urls so now I need to go back to a few places where they are already posted and retrieve the urls to save some work.
