1/28/2017 Vietnamese TET vs 1968 TET

[redcatcherb412]

I can remember the pattern of rocks and sand in the gutter looked like when my friend told me he was moving away from NAS lemoore because his dad was shot down and missing......as we sat on the curb throwing pebbles across the road.

The families back home, the often forgotten silent heros. The things that get burned into your memories at times are quite vivid.

[Snork]

Great pics and stories - more more.  Love reading books from vets of Vietnam as well as hearing/reading posts from them as well.  Your pics and posts remind me a lot of Mark Berent's books, the first I read regarding Vietnam, and his first book "Rolling Thunder" has a lot of the first half of the book dedicated to his time flying the Huns/F100s doing CAS missions mainly in the South.  4x200 that worked pretty well, and like you posted, lots of 500lb bombs in various configs.  He also wrote in one of his books about the ingenious Air Force police which were frequently tasked with base defense, and all the things they would cook up to repel massed assaulters - they would take "discarded/damaged" flares from the fighters, and put them in these steel bowls, on top of "Totem poles", and use them as rapid night time illumination towers, and some would have home made napalm with claymores propelling them.  Really, really interesting to read about how American soldiers, airmen, and Marines improvised.

Hope you write some more posts sometime.

I went back and spent the full year of 1969 at Pleiku AB. Besides my electronics technician job I was on "security augmentee" duty and spent nights on the perimeter whenever we were in high alert or under attack. No big action like Tet but long scary nights none the less.

[Randall172]

My girlfriend's father was in Vietnam, (He's not american) lol

[redcatcherb412]

My girlfriend's father was in Vietnam, (He's not american) lol

Quite a few units from other countries fought in that war. Venerable allies like Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Korea to name a few.  We worked with some Kiwis and they were a great bunch.  I bet that they started the boonie hat craze 

[Randall172]

Quite a few units from other countries fought in that war. Venerable allies like Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Korea to name a few.  We worked with some Kiwis and they were a great bunch.  I bet that they started the boonie hat craze 

He flew a MiG21 for the North Vietnamese Air-force, was even credited with a kill. Awesome guy with some great stories

[Ripsnort]

Thanks for posting that Traveler.