Bushes' Fault

The current Geo-political situation in the Middle East causes the Colonel to chew on his tongue..., because..., he told you so.

Two decades ago, back at the beginning of the idiotically named Global War on Terrorism (GWOT) -- successful wars are fought against specific regimes; not their tactics -- the Colonel opined that unless and until the specific regimes employing terrorism as their asymmetric weapon of choice were deposed/destroyed, state-sponsored terrorism would continue to plague the planet.

Specifically, the Colonel identified the strategic center of gravity in this fight, and he will repeat it here: 

The strategic center of gravity of the current troubles in the Middle East (with spill-over effects globally) is the Iranian theo-fascist regime. 

Parenthetically, it matters not what the brand of theism is. Despite the inane and shallow attempts by many to portray the current conflict in the region as religiously motivated, the root cause of this conflict is the same as it has always been in every war in history: Land, Resources, and Power.

Let the Colonel repeat that for clarity.  The root cause of all conflict is Land, Resources, and Power.  And, yes, the Colonel includes supposedly religion-based conflicts such as the spread of various caliphates across the Middle East, North Africa, and the Iberian Peninsula, and the strategic counterattacks of the Crusades and the Castille-Aragon alliance.              

Certainly, leaders cloak their ambitions in religious garb to inflame the passions of the people, but they couldn't care less for the spiritual welfare of their people -- only that they fall in line.  

Iran -- more specifically, the theocratic dictatorship running the nation of Iran -- is the single largest supporter of terrorism on the planet.  Has been for the last two generations.  Without Iran's material support, Hamas, Hezbollah, and a plethora of lesser-known militant groups employing terror -- internally, as well as externally -- to exert control over local land, resources, and power, would not exist.  Iran bankrolls these groups' terror tactics. Period.

The Iranian regime cloaks its territorial, resource, and power ambitions in the garb of Shia Islam, but the theo-fascist Iranian regime cares not one whit for the spiritual welfare of the people of the region.  

So, if the Iranian regime is the strategic center of gravity of the current conflict in the Middle East, why did we waste so much time, blood, and treasure on peripheral campaigns (Afghanistan and Iraq, mainly) that had no appreciable effect on diminishing Iranian influence in the region?

Bushes' fault.

For those of you whose historical memory is limited by lack of study and/or age, the expeditionary forces of the United States and an unprecedented coalition of Middle Eastern and European nations had Saddam Hussein's bloody regime on the ropes in the Spring of 1991 and failed to administer the coup d' gras.  What took another expensive expedition twelve years later to effect regime change, could have been accomplished quickly in 1991.  That was George (the elder) Bush's fault.  

The intervening decade saw a weakened Sadam Hussein's Baathist regime struggle (with bloody results) to resist growing Iranian influence over the majority Shia population in the southeastern portion of their territory, and a growing Kurdish nationalism in the northeastern portion.  

Because we didn't depose Sadaam in 1991, he was left alive to plot an assassination attempt against Bush 41, for which Bush 43 held an understandable grudge.  But grudges rarely make good bases for strategy.  The attacks of 9/11/2001 and the resultant Congressional Authorization of Force for the Global War on Terror (the phrase still sets the Colonel's teeth on edge) gave Bush 43 the green light to topple Sadaam in the Spring of 2023.  

A brilliantly executed destruction of Sadaam's forces was followed by a dismally bad occupation and rehabilitation of the nation of Iraq.  Instead of maintaining an overwhelming force in Iraq until we re-established the security apparatus we broke, token forces were left in place with large red targets on their backs.  Not only did the understrength US and allied forces struggle to defeat the Sunni insurgency in the west, but US forces were increasingly under attack by Iranian-backed militias in the south.  It is no exaggeration to say that the theo-fascist regime in Tehran was directly responsible for several hundred US military deaths at the hands of Shia militia trained and supported by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).  

Bushes' fault.  

Had we liberated the Iraqi people from the brutal Baathist Regime immediately following the liberation of Kuwait in 1991, we would have been free to address the true center of gravity for the current terrorism scourge: the mad mullahs in Teheran.

And now, two decades later, the theo-fascist regime in Iran, whose tentacles have spread not only across the Middle East, but also throughout our own hemisphere, is at the bottom of the vast majority of the terroristic mischief plaguing regions whose fate are undeniably in the strategic interest of the United States.  

It's not rocket science -- it's basic strategic thought.  Iran's ruling regime is the Center of Gravity.  Take it out and peace will break out.     

A Dog Named "Heck"

The Colonel's father, the quiet and straight-shooting Mister Vernon, sat nursing a cup of hot black coffee (Gregory men don't drink iced or polluted coffee) and watching his bird-brained son's cloud of thirsty hummingbirds milling buzzily around a feeder just out of arm's reach.  For long, still minutes, broken only by the hum and chatter of the ruby-throats, the Gregory patriarch and his heir apparent (with no hair apparent) sat in the oak shade relishing the slightest of breezes blowing away the growing heat of a July morning.

"Almost comfortable out here this morning," the old man finally offered to the sparse conversation.

"Yessir."  

"Could use some rain."

The Colonel thumbed open the weather app on his phone.  "Nothing in the forecast for at least a week."

"Hmmmph. Whaddatheyknow."

"Well, it is July in Mississippi, Dad.  Ain't never much chance of rain in July."

Buzzing and chattering filled the warm air between them, again.  Sometimes bird chatter is preferable to the human kind.  But, as quiet as Gregory men can be on occasion, the urge to talk is often irresistible, and stray synapses fire to spark stories. 

"Inherited a weird dog, once."

"Sir?"

"His name was Heck.  Weird dog.  He belonged to my cousin, Al.  When Al went off to the Army, ole Heck took up with me."

"What kind of dog was he?"

"German shepherd.  Big ole scruffy, German shepherd.  Weird dog."

"What was weird about him?"

"Well, for starters, ole Heck had a broke tail.  He would follow me to Lee High School and run alongside my bike.  Got his tail stuck in my spokes once and broke a crook in it."

"Did that break him from following you to school."

"Naw. He just kept his distance."

"Ha! I bet he did."

"Weird dog.  Had a big chunk of brick that he chewed on like a bone."

"A chunk of brick?"

"Yeah, a big ole chunk of brick.  Ole Heck could hardly get his jaws around it.  He'd just chew and slobber, and roll his eyes like he was having a fit.  That brick bat had been kinda square, but Heck had the thing pretty well rounded off.  I tried to take it away from him a couple of times, but I could never pry it out of his jaws."

The patriarch looked off into the middle distance.  The birds buzzed and chattered.  The Colonel waited for the next story synapses to fire.

"Ole Heck carried that brick to school one day and one of the teachers saw him sitting on the front steps with that big ole brick bat in his mouth, eyes rolled back in his head.  She felt sorry for Heck, 'poor puppy has a brick wedged in his jaws!'  She knelt down and tried and tried to get the brick out of Heck's jaws.  She couldn't budge it.  Ole Heck just laid there with his eyes rolled back in his head, slobberin'."

"She stood up and asked, 'whose dog is this?'.   I just shrugged my shoulders.  I wasn't gonna claim that weird dog."

"Ole Heck got up and walked over to me, dropped the brick at my feet and turned and grinned at that teacher.  She glared at me for a moment and then stormed up the steps."

"Ole Heck went missing a few weeks later and my mother sent me out to look for him.  I didn't look too hard." 

 

 

Rebel's Rules

In no particular order of importance or inspirational catastrophic event; and with no claim of originality nor exclusivity:

1.  Tractors don't swim. (Don't ask.)

2.  Loving a woman is like paddling a canoe in a stiff breeze -- both require constant attention, a little bit at a time.  

3.  First reports are nearly always false, but perfect intelligence is unattainable.

4.  That which does not kill you, may make you a cripple.

5.  E-mail kills.  The spoken word is thin as air, the written word is always there. 

6.  The speed and accuracy of an electron is inversely related to the urgency of the task involving the electron.

7.  Power tools don't discriminate.

8.  Low-information voting is not an exclusive province of either end of the political spectrum.

9.  "Please" and "Thank you" are power words.

10.  Trees and trucks are mortal enemies.

11.  Give a man a 4WD truck, a length of chain, and a chainsaw and he will play, not-so quietly, by himself for hours.

12.  Any store that doesn't sell duck calls and stink bait is a waste of bricks and mortar.

13.  Eating during hours of daylight is a sign of weakness.

14.  A mug of strong, hot coffee fuels inspiration.  

15.  Never trust a man who wears a hat indoors.

16.  Never trust a man who wears his hat backwards -- fashion statements are for women.

17.  Never trust a man who doesn't carry a pocket knife.

18.  The bigger the knife the smaller the man.

19.  Never underestimate the destructive potential of a squad of Marines, a three-year old grandson, or a six-month old labrador retriever.

20.  Empires that build walls aren't empires for much longer.

21.  The larger the known universe becomes, the greater God is.

22.  Gardens cause weeds and trailer parks cause tornadoes.

23.  Perception becomes reality.

24.  The best ideas in any organization usually come from the ranks.

25.  An organization is as great as the leader says.

26.  Hope is not an acceptable course of action.

27.  Training is everything and everything is training.

28.  Meetings that last longer than 15 minutes usually devolve into pole vaulting over mouse turds.

29.  Executive actions are indicative of legislative paralysis.

30.  No such thing as an "over-built" bridge.

31.  Change is a dragon; fight it and be eaten; ride it and live.

32.  The line beyond which a word or idea is considered "politically incorrect" incessantly encroaches on common sense and freedom of expression, and is destructive to society-binding customs, courtesies and traditions.

33.  Political correctness is antithetical to diversity.

34.  Pity the man who has everything to live for and nothing worth dying for.

35.  February is twenty-eight days of being pecked to death by a duck.

36.  Never pass up the opportunity to allow someone else the opportunity.

37.  Republics either continue to expand, or contract into irrelevance.

38.  Chewing gum is the devil.

39.  The highest responsibility of the government of a free people is to stay out of the way of the people it serves. 

40.  Limited war limits the possibility of a satisfactory outcome.

41.  Covering wood grain with a coat of paint is a crime against nature.

42.  Nothing calms the soul like a bird at your feeder.

43.  Men and women are different for a reason and equal by reason.

44.  No such thing as a fair fight.

45.  Nothing good happens after midnight, unless you're at home.

46.  Sleep is the reward of the righteous.

47.  One man's music is another man's noise; share accordingly.

48.  There's no such thing as a free lunch, a deep discount, or a pet rattlesnake.

49.  Wherever you go, that's where you are.

50.  The smartest man in any room is the man looking for the smartest man in the room. 

51.  The Pepsi Rule: Drinking more alcoholic drinks in one sitting than you would drink non-alcoholic drinks is alcohol abuse.

52.  A long walk alone is therapy for a frantic mind.

53.  Righteous indignation is a dish best served rarely.

54.  A license to drive should not be issued to anyone without a full-time job.

55.  Never pass up the opportunity to catch the buck.

56.  The "perfect" leader would have perfect subordinates.

57.  Boredom is God's call to prayer.

58.  Understand the present by knowing history; understand history by knowing geography.

59.  Climate and culture are not static.

60.  A man who makes long lists of sophomoric sentences has far too much time on his hands.       

Sawa, sawa! Maape!

 

The man behind the Immigrations and Customs counter at Chicago O'Hare asked the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda, "Who is this gentleman with you?"

"Who? Him? That's my husband, Knucklehead."

"I'm sorry ma'am," the 'Denied Entry' stamp grasped menacingly in his bureaucratic fist.  "What did you just call me?"

"Oh, no! Not you! That's my husband.  I call him 'Knucklehead' because, well..."  Miss Brenda rolled her eyes in the Colonel's direction.

A quick glance at the Colonel standing slack jawed and bleary eyed behind her in line explained the appellation.

"I see. And where did you take your husband?"

"We've been on safari in Kenya for two weeks."

"Okay. Anything to declare?"

The comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda channeled Scarlet O'Hare, "I do declare that we had the most wonderful time!"

The man behind the counter blinked twice and looked at the Colonel, who, stupefied by 16 hours of air travel in the cheap seats, could only muster a shoulder shrug. 

"Ma'am, I mean any goods purchased. Any trophies?"

"Oh. No, just lots of pictures."

Counter Man stamped the passports, "Welcome, home."

The Colonel and Miss Brenda weren't exactly "home" yet.  But before she could launch into an explanation of where home really was, the Colonel grasped Miss Brenda's elbow and guide her away with a "Thank you, sir." to Counter Man.

Home was still a three-hour flight and a one-hour drive away.  But it was good to be back in the good ole U.S. of A. 

The previous two weeks had been a whirlwind of bucket list checking for the Colonel, Miss Brenda, her twin sister Linda, and the Colonel's brother-in-law Bruce (not to be confused with his other brother, Bruce). After flights from Memphis to Dallas to London to Nairobi, the stay in Kenya began with an 18-hour jet-lag recovery in the Eka Hotel.  The next morning a guide picked up the Mississippi Four (as they later became known) and drove them to the regional airport that services domestic flights. They boarded a 12-passenger Cessna 208 and were quickly airborne over the wilds of Kenya, headed for Porini Maji, the first of four Porini Camps sited on Nature Conservancies. 

After an hour flight, the Cessna landed on a dirt strip in the absolute middle of nowhere and the pilot announced, "Welcome to Selenkay International Airport."

The Selenkay Conservancy was the first unfenced private property established in Kenya as a not-for-profit organization to both preserve wildlife and benefit local tribes.  In Kenya, the conservancy model provides land on the periphery for indigenous tribes.  The conservancy is managed by a board in cooperation with the local village elders, with the agreement that a portion of the conservancy is allocated for grazing of the village's cattle and goat herds, the remaining majority set aside and protected for wildlife.  Partnerships with private companies hosting limited tent camp non-hunting safaris provide employment for the local villagers -- a ten-tent camp hosting a maximum of 20 guests at any one time employs nearly three dozen staff (hospitality and game-drive guides).  Selenkay became the model for several more like conservancies with safari company partnerships.  The Mississippi Four stayed at four of them over the course of 12 days, with flights between adjacent dirt strips.

The company with which the Colonel's group stayed for ten total nights is Porini, which means "in the wild" in Swahili.  Accommodations can best be described as luxury camping.  Some might argue with the "luxury" tag, but the Colonel has slept in a lot of tent camps over the years that didn't have floored tents with flush toilets, showers (albeit by bucket), and electricity; not to mention turn down service including a hot water bottle that perfectly warmed the bed for the rather cool nights.  Game drives started early each morning, preceded by a wake-up call by an attendant with a tray of coffee, tea, and biscuits, as well as a pitcher of hot water for shaving.  Most breakfasts were picnics on the plains after a couple of hours of viewing wildlife from specially modified vehicles.

Each vehicle sat no more than six guests and included a driver and guide who expertly located the animals the guest particularly wanted to photograph, as well as pointing out all manner of flora and fauna along the way.  As the vehicle slowly traversed the terrain, mammal and bird life was often not much further than a stone's throw away, and sometimes even disconcertingly closer, as was the case with lion prides at fresh kills, bull cape buffalo fights, and long-tusked bull elephants in musth.  The guides taught guests the Swahili words for "okay; let's go" -- "sawa, sawa; maape," which indicated that the photographers in the group had their shots, and it was time to go find something else at which to marvel.

   

After a six-hour morning game drive guests were returned to camp to freshen up before lunch.  When not picnicking, meals were served in a luxury mess tent.  Again, one might argue with the term "luxury", but the Colonel has eaten many meals in camp over the years that didn't include tablecloths, three courses, and drinks of choice. Lunch was always followed by a three-hour afternoon rest.  

At around four each afternoon a short "time of tea" prepared guests for the evening game drive.  And, as the sun began to dip toward the horizon, the guides would find a spot to watch the sun set.  This "sundowner" was complete with a table set for snacks and drinks.  And nearly always the atmosphere provided the ingredients for spectacular animal-silhouetting sunsets.  At dark, guests were returned to camp to freshen up for dinner.

Chairs around a campfire provided perfect perches for performing after action reviews of the day, and then dinner was served sharply at eight. Meals included fare familiar to western palates, but also included samplings of local foods.  The Colonel found the goat preparations particularly interesting, the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda not so much.

Nights in camp were not quiet. Wildebeest males guarded their mating sites with incessant grunting, the occasional lion roared in much too close proximity, and, in one camp, hippos left a nearby river pool to snort complaints and munch grass surrounding the tents. Hippos kill more people in Africa than any other animal, so the Colonel will admit that having nothing but canvass separating bed and tusks was a bit disconcerting. The Colonel is happy to report that no tourists were eaten, trampled, or otherwise harmed in the making of this trip.

Following introductions with the other guest parties, the Colonel's party quickly became known to the other guests as the "Mississippi Four."  One lady originally from Switzerland would greet us accordingly and the Colonel would respond with "Swiss Family Robinson!"  High hilarity, that.

Escape from Nairobi 

Of course, no long-distance, long-endurance trip by the Colonel and the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda is complete without some drama entailing sickness, missed or delayed flights, or a combination of the two.  Miss Brenda's silent migraine (no pain, just dizziness) decided that the last two days of the trip would be a boffo time to present itself.  She was a trooper, though, and kept to the rigorous game drive schedule with the help of the Colonel's arm.

By the time we arrived at the airport in Nairobi to catch the first of three flight legs home to the Sip, the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda was flat wore out.  Seeing the very long lines at check in and security, and seeing Miss Brenda eyeing the situation warily, a wheelchair was requested.

What ensued was the makings of a potential travel nightmare.

The supervisor at the check-in counter wanted to know why Miss Brenda was in a wheelchair.  When told she was experiencing migraine symptoms, he determined that she was not well enough to make the nine-hour flight to London.  A call in to the medical bureaucracy resulted in the recommendation that Miss Brenda spend a few more days in Nairobi, rest and hydrate, and get a doctor's clearance to fly.

As much as we had enjoyed the previous two weeks in Kenya, spending a few more days at the whim of faceless bureaucrats was, in the Colonel's not-so-humble opinion, unacceptable, and he made that forcefully (but just under the threshold requiring the intervention of security) known.  We were given the option of appealing the bureaucrat's decision to the captain of the flight when he arrived to board. Turns out British Airways captains -- at least this particular one -- are possessed with extraordinary common sense as well as command skill, and the Mississippi Four were soon aboard the flight.

Most every trip the Colonel has ever been on has provided a lasting lesson learned on which to reflect and rely on future trips.  

This one?

If someone in an airport asked you if you need a wheelchair..., SAY: NO!

For those of you wondering about the health and welfare of the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda, fear not.  She was home executing her farm chore responsibilities within 36 hours. 

Independence Morning

Forty-six years ago this morning, the Colonel was standing in formation on the physical training field at the Marine Corps' Officer Candidate School.  

It was a surreal moment.  

It was Independence Day, the 4th of July 1977.  But, for the 250 officer candidates (and their trainers) it would be no holiday.  It was business as usual.

"Business" that day meant 0500 reveille, a rushed breakfast, an hour and a half of calisthenics and a run, a rushed shower, a few hours of classroom instruction, a rushed lunch, a couple of hours of close order drill, more classroom instruction, a rushed supper, and several hours of gear and barracks cleaning -- all the while closely supervised by very vocal and highly demanding drill instructors. 

The candidates knew it was the 4th of July.  They knew that under any other circumstances they would be observing this day in a far different fashion.  And, yet...  there was not the slightest hint in the demeanor of their trainers that morning that suggested they had a clue that the day was the most significant of American holidays. The battle-hardened Marine senior NCOs with urgent, gravelly voices, and company grade officers with stern reinforcing looks, were doing their duty in the same superbly professional way; as if the day was the last day they would ever have to impart discipline.

The candidates had formed into 50-man platoon blocks surrounding a waist high platform on which a drill instructor stood, square- shouldered and square-jawed, crisply barking out the directions of the exercise routine.  With a couple of weeks' reinforcement, the words had already ingrained themselves in the candidates' psyche.  The Colonel's memory of them is as sharp as the way they fell upon his young, non-tinnitus-ravaged ears those long, dewy Virginia mornings years ago.

The drill instructor sang out, "The next exercise will be the Marine Corps Pushup!"

The candidates responded with a lusty "Ooorah!"

It wasn't lusty enough. "I said," the drill instructor's voice climbed an octave and ten decibels higher, "the next exercise will be the Marine Corps Pushup!" 

"Ooorah!"

"The Marine Corps Pushup is a four count exercise!  I will count the exercise and you will count the repetitions!  Front leaning rest position.., move!  

On the command "move," the candidates dropped quickly from the rigid position of attention to the pushup position, in the "up" position, bodies stiffly planked with heads inclined up and eyes locked on the Marine on the platform.

The move was not quick enough.  "Not fast enough, candidates! Position of attention, move." 

The candidates scrambled back to the position of attention.

"Front leaning rest position, move!"

The company of candidates dropped as one, as if hit by the same stun gun.

"Ready..., exercise!  One, two, three..."

On the completion of the first two pushups, which counted only as one complete exercise in the Marine Corps world of never too much of a hard thing, the candidates shouted, "One!" 

"One, two, three..."

"Two!"

"One, two, three..."

"Three!"  

There is something deliciously motivating about the Marine Corps Pushup...

...for the one leading the exercise.

That morning, it began to dawn on the candidates, as they pushed the planet away en mas, that something was amiss.  

The drill instructor had not announced, in the pre-exercise directions, how many Marine Corps Pushups the candidates would be doing.  

At the "ten" count, wheretofore the exercise had been complete, the drill instructor continued, "one, two, three..."

"Eleven!"  

"One, two, three..."

"Twelve!" 

"One, two, three..."

"Thirteen!"

The counting and the pushing continued.  The planet began to move ever so slightly away from the sun...

Yeah, maybe not...  But, it seemed that the exercise would not end until the problem of global warming was solved.

Sometime later, the exercise concluded.  The Colonel retaineth not the ability to recall the specific memory of exactly how many Marine Corps Pushups were executed that morning.  

As the candidates stood panting and "shaking out" abused arms and shoulders, rebellion brewed.

Suddenly, a candidate, possessed of a fairly good singing voice, if little sense of self-preservation, began to sing,

"Oh, say can you see?  By the dawn's early light..."

A few more brave souls joined in, "What so proudly we hailed, at the twilight's last gleaming."

Five hundred eyes turned to the Marine on the platform.

He was at the rigid, disciplined position of attention.  

So were the rest of the Marines and officers in charge of the company.

The rest of the company snapped to attention and the candidate choir filled the air with the best rendition of the "Star Spangled Banner" the Colonel had ever heard, or has ever heard since. 

It was glorious!

As the anthem concluded, the Marine on the platform filled his lungs to announce the next exercise.  Before he could expel that air past raspy vocal chords, another candidate began to sing,

"From the Halls of Montezuma..."

Discipline reigned.  Marines stand at attention for the Marines' Hymn.

Marines and Marine officer candidates sang the song of their people.  All three verses.

It was glorious!

As the Marines' Hymn concluded and loud cheers echoed across Quantico's hallowed hollows, another candidate, hoping to forestall the continuance of physical exercise, began to sing,

" O beautiful for spacious skies, For amber waves of grain..."

Alas, there is no proscription for standing at the position of attention for "America the Beautiful."   

"No, no, NO!  Shut your mouths!  Position of attention!"

"The next exercise will be Mountain Climbers..."

It was a tall mountain.  The candidates smiled as they climbed.

War Story

Several times a week, the Colonel has the immense pleasure of sharing strong coffee and significant memories with his ninety-year-old father.  One story that figures prominently in his recollections, and grows richer with each re-telling, is an account from his service in Vietnam. 

In the summer of 1966, then Technical Sergeant Vernon Gregory, USAF, received orders to the US airbase at Nha Trang in the Republic of Vietnam. His specialty was aircraft maintenance, but when he arrived the critical need at Nha Trang -- with the war heating up and air operations increasing exponentially -- was someone to head up an ad hoc "crash recovery crew" whose task was to immediately respond to, and clean up, the aftermath of crashes at the airfield, and, on occasion, fly to remote dirt strips for the same purpose. 

Three sips of strong black coffee stir the synapses and the story rolls out like it's not the hundredth time he's told it, "We got a call that one of our C-123s had landed hard during a resupply of an Army fire base inland. They told me that the airplane was smack dab in the middle of the dirt strip with a sheared off landing gear.  It was stuck; couldn't take off; couldn't move itself off the runway."

A pause -- always the same at this point -- a quick sideways glance at the Colonel as if to make sure the jarhead understands the predicament, and then the story continues, "My boss told me to take who and what I needed, fly up there, and figure out what needed to be done to recover the aircraft."

The Colonel has tried several times to suss out the organizational details, "Dad, who was your 'boss'?"

The answer is always the same, and always a veiled shot at his commissioned son, "Oh, some officer who worked in an air-conditioned office up at Operations.  Rarely saw him."

"Anyway," slight irritation showing at the Colonel's off-topic question, "I grabbed one of my guys and we piled everything we thought we might need on a four-wheeled trailer and loaded up on a C-123. We got up to the site pretty quick and the 123 pilot circled the hilltop where the dirt strip was, and sure enough, the crashed plane was sitting there in the middle of the runway, slewed off to one side and leaning over on one wingtip."   

"The pilot said, 'Can't land. No room. Need to go see if the Army can get you in with something smaller'." 

"So, we flew up to an Army airbase.  I thought they might put us on a big helicopter, but an Army captain said, 'Put your gear on that plane over there and I'll get you in'."

"The plane was a small, two-engine, high-wing thing called a Caribou. We flew back to the crash site and the Army pilot flew the length of the strip and sized up the situation.  I asked him what he thought, expecting him to say that he couldn't land, either.  He said, 'No problem. But you might want to hold on to something'."

The Colonel's dad had learned to fly before he enlisted in the Air Force in early '53, "I wasn't real sure that Army guy really knew what he was trying to do -- that dirt strip was short enough as it was and having a crashed airplane sitting halfway down it was going make landing a real challenge." 

"But this Army guy swung around on final without hesitation and dropped like a rock right on the very approach end of that dirt strip.  I was glad he had warned me to hold on, because as soon as the wheels hit the dirt, he stood that Caribou up on its nose and screeched to a halt not much further than a 'first down' from the C-123."

"As we were unloading our trailer, an Army lieutenant colonel walked up and asked, 'who's in charge?'"

"I told him I was, and while the Caribou taxied around the C-123 and took off, he button-holed me and said, 'You need to get this plane off my strip, ASAP.'"

"'Yessir,' I told him, 'I'm gonna work on it. I need to figure out what parts we need and then figure out a way to get them from Nha Trang up here, so that we can make repairs.'"

"He said, 'Sergeant, I don't think you understand.  My battalion depends on this airstrip.  You've got about a New York minute to get that thing off my strip, or I'm gonna do it for you, and I guarantee you it won't be flight worthy when we're done'."

"Well, we started hustling.  We unloaded our gear from the trailer and jacked up the wing to get the broken landing gear strut off the ground.  Then we rolled the trailer under the wing and let the jacks down.  The weight of the '123 was too much and the tires blew out on the trailer, and I thought, 'Well, that ain't good'.  She still rolled, though."

"Now we had the aircraft where we could move it without tearing anything else up.  We bummed a tow bar and a tracked vehicle from the Army, and rigged up a chain from the trailer, and slowly pulled the C-123 onto the shoulder of the strip, and out of the way."

"The Army lieutenant colonel walked up and slapped me on the back, 'Outstanding, sergeant! Great work! How would you guys like a cold beer'?"

"I wiped the sweat and dust off my face and said, 'Yessir, I'd love a cold beer'."

"He clapped me on the shoulder, looked me in the eye, and said, 'Wouldn't we all'." 

"An hour or so later another C-123 from Nha Trang landed on the strip and I put my guy on it with a list of parts we needed.  The Army lieutenant colonel walked up as that plane took off and said, 'That was the last flight for the day. Gonna be dark soon'." 

"I asked him where I could bunk overnight, and he looked around the hill, 'No barracks here, sergeant, and we're full up in our bunkers and fighting holes. Recommend you find yourself a place to rack out inside that concertina wire around our supply dump'."  

"I thought about sleeping in the plane, but then it dawned on me that if the bad guys decided to attack, the plane would be a big target.  So, I stretched out between some crates in the supply dump and spent a sleepless night listening to out-going artillery."

"At one point early in the night, I was rustling around in the dark trying to get comfortable, and a voice from outside the supply dump hollered, 'Who goes there!?!.'  I stood up and identified myself and the soldier walking sentry asked, 'What are doing in there?' He must have thought I was trying to steal something.  Anyway, I explained to him who I was and why I was there, and we both agreed not to shoot at each other the next time."

"Next morning, a C-123 landed and a couple of my guys and another pilot from Nha Trang got off with a replacement gear for the broke plane.  A couple of hours later, the gear was fixed and the pilot got ready to taxi the plane and try to take off."

"I asked him if we could load up and go with him back to Nha Trang, and he said' 'No'. That he wanted the plane as light as possible, but that there would be several more C-123 flights into the dirt strip delivering supplies later that day."

"Every time a plane would land, I would go out to it and ask if I could load up and go back to Nha Trang with them.  Each time they would tell me, 'No'. That they either weren't going back to Nha Trang or that they didn't have room."

"Late in the afternoon, I was beginning to think I might have to spend another night on that hilltop listening to outgoing artillery all night.  I was sitting there on my busted up trailer feeling sorry for myself, when a crusty old soldier hollered at me, 'Hey, Air Force! Get your gear ready, the next plane is your ride'!" 

"Got a hot shower and a cold beer that night."