Now THAT looks like it would be interesting. There were times I felt a C-141 or C5A was my home away from home. My brother was a Loadmaster on a C-130 during ‘Nam and flew a few supply missions into Saigon. We’d usually find time to hook up whenever he flew over. P-hole, my main base station was about 20 klicks from a big F-4 (C’s, D’s and E’s) base. I was actually on a waiting list to fly the back seat of an F-4 on a training mission, but moved down south about a month before my flight. Sometime while there, we helped track an SR-71, I think for a speed run around the world (or something like that) I don’t remember the details as it was not part of my mission, but I was right next to the bay that was working that mission and listened in on a lot of the banter.

I spent quite a bit of time there at the Air America base (flying into Laos) We had our ARDF planes there as well as the U-2’s. We also trained a lot of Thai, Vietnamese and Laotian pilots there with our T-28’s. I was still working intel when ‘Nam fell, the went down south to help with the refugees coming in from ‘Nam in April ‘75. The “Operation Baby Lift” crash was the first C-5A Galaxy stuffed full of orphans to take off from Saigon during the evacuation. The dead were all brought to Thailand. I was still there for the Mayaguez Incident in May (have pics around here someplace) and my final duty was in August ‘75 when I personally (with an officer and two other NCO’s) burned a truckload of babies from the C-5A crash. One by one, by hand at a Buddhist monastery out in the jungle at 3:00 in the morning. (This was later found to be the impetus to my PTSD although I didn’t realize it until the shrinks figured it out). I was stationed just outside of the largest base in S. E. Asia, mostly B-52’s and KC-135’s. I was out in the Gulf, floating in an old inner tube right at the end of the runway when the last B-52 to fly out of S. E. Asia took off right over my head. That was when we were pulling out after ‘Nam and turning the bases over to the Thai government.

A couple weeks after that, I was headed home on a nice, commercial Pan Am flight with hot stewardesses (the norm in those days), but got pulled from the flight in Guam when we stopped for fuel. Some mucky-muck General took me in his office to inform me I was the only one passing through Guam within the next couple of weeks who had a high enough security clearance (Top Secret Crypto) to do the job. The job? Carry a briefcase to deliver to another mucky-muck in Hawaii (I was originally headed for Oakland, California, then home) I was also given a .45 with orders to shoot anyone who approached me and refused to back away before the briefcase was delivered. (True story and I almost had to do it! Long story.) The plane? A C-141 and I was the only passenger except for some military equipment and caskets for stateside burial. So much for my nice commercial flight. To this day, I have no clue whatsoever what was in that damned briefcase.