SwiftVets.com

[Harvuskong]

BuffaloJack's reply to Lew in the Pearl Harbor survivors share memories of the attack thread started by Lew

[TEWSPilot]

A short 39 years ago this week, I was laying in my hammock in front of my hooch watching the B-52s passing overhead enroute to Hanoi and Haiphong (200 KM away as the crow flies) during Linebacker II. Little did I know that the guy leading the first cell second wave (Chuck Nelson, Callsign Amber 01) would later be my cubicle mate for nearly 20 years at Boeing in Wichita, Kansas. He played football at Oklahoma University under the legendary Bud Wilkinson. He died earlier this year from prostate cancer...Agent Orange induced perhaps, after five combat tours, including one in F-100s and one in OV-10s.

Yesterday I spent from 5:45 A.M. till 8:00 P.M. supporting flight testing on one of the two VC-25A 747-200 aircraft known as "Air Force One" when the President is onboard and on one of the four E-4B 747 "Airborne Command Post" aircraft. We are finalizing some modifications and upgrades to the fleet. One of our Weights engineers (he can calculate the change in weight and balance and C.G. of the effect of changing a harddrive in a computer) is Vietnamese. His name is An Luong. I was discussing what we were doing 39 years ago this week, and he grinned and told me that if we hadn't bombed North Vietnam and forced them into the ceasefire and eventual POW release and other terms, he and his family would still be in Vietnam, or perhaps dead, instead of enjoying the wonderful freedom here in America and being able to celebrate again this joyous season.

Some of my vet friends take this opportunity every Christmas to bring joy and hope into the lives of homeless vets. Their operations are centered in Florida. National Veterans Homeless Support (NVHS) needs help to make another successful event for their Homeless Veterans at the Super 8 Motel on Garden Street in Titusville, Florida and the Tropical Inn Highway US 1 in Palm Bay. On December 24th and December 25th, NVHS will take 50 homeless veterans out of the woods for a Merry Christmas. In order to do it, they need help. Each veteran will receive a room for 2 nights, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day dinners, as well as lots of holiday goodies. For more information about NVHS, how to help out and/or make a donation, please call 888-787-6847 ext 802 or go to their web site at www.nvhs.us -- and please pass this request on if you feel inclined to do so.

Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year.
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[TEWSPilot]

I venture to say virtually every military unit that ever existed had a mascot at one time or another. We were no different during my tour in Vietnam, and it inspired me to post this story. It is taken from accounts written by several of my comrades and captured in photos they took, so I acknowledge their contribution to this post and don't claim credit for anything except posting it here with my undying love for our mascot and my gratitude for the love she returned to all of us. She served as mascot for all three of our squadrons during her extended "tour". Thanks to Tom Pickett for the bulk of this information. Her name was "Lady".



The 360th, 361st, and 362nd Tactical Electronic Warfare Squadrons (TEWS) & The Lady SUX

It seemed to me that every unit in Nam had their own mascot, and ours was no different. Our mascot was a lovable, though rather hairy and disreputable looking female dog of indeterminate ancestry named "Sux". The men in our unit took great pleasure in referring to her as "our dog Lady Sux". [editor's note: the spelling of her name is the "French" version, showing respect for the influence their former presence had on the region known then as French Indochina]. She became an important part of a monthly ritual. Each month the squadron would throw a party to honor those men returning home at the end of their tours, as well as welcoming the new replacements to the unit. The lowest ranking officer of the newcomers would be presented with Sux, and told it would be his task to see she was fed and cared for. Also, at the end of that month, the officer was tasked to bathe Sux, tie a large bow around her neck, and present her to the next newcomer to be so tasked. Feeding her was really no problem. She was very popular with the men, and everybody liked giving her snacks. Bathing her wasn't too bad, but keeping her clean and presentable between bath and party time was really tough. After a bath, her favorite thing to do was run through the "clong", a ditch filled with filthy water.

We had an Air Force van that ran a route between our barracks and our operations center, which was located on the flight line. It shuttled the men back and forth. Sux got a ride on it one day, and thereafter decided that would be her primary location. She spent a large part of every day laying on the step of the van's open door, riding back and forth, greeting each flyer as they boarded the vehicle. If she spotted another dog enroute, she would bark loudly, letting them know she was very important and had a vehicle to ride in.


(My room is the last one on the far end of the hooch on the left)

Sux had the run of our barracks and training facility. She came and went as the mood struck her. Sometimes she would sleep outside, other times she would wander into someone's room and curl up in the corner for the night. Sux had a peculiar prejudice, she didn't like Vietnamese people. She would bark continuously at the maids. Also, If any of our squadron members went into Saigon, when they returned, she somehow knew where they had been, and she would bark at them in an unfriendly manner. I think because they had the smell of the Vietnamese on their clothes. This idiosynchrocy may have stemmed from a bad experience she had with the Viet Cong that resulted in an injury. She lived through a number of rocket and mortar attacks. She earned an Air Medal (normally awarded after 35 combat sorties) and the Distinguished Flying Cross. Note also the Purple Heart she earned -- unlike John F. Kerry, she actually suffered injury due to enemy action. One of our flight surgeons operated on her to repair a broken hip.


The Lady Sux arrives at NKP ( NOTE: The Distinguished Flying Cross and Air Medal ).


This Photo of "The Lady Sux" taken in May 1973, Provided by David Steiner

She was brought to America near the end of the war, where she most certainly lived out her life in well-deserved and prosperous retirement with full honors and benefits.
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[Navy_Navy_Navy]

I would love to see more pictures and reminiscences such as these.

Thank you very much for sharing them!
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~ Echo Juliet ~
Altering course to starboard - On Fire, Keep Clear
Navy woman, Navy wife, Navy mother

[TEWSPilot]

Here's another one to keep this topic string alive....

A few years ago, the late Curly Musgrave and I combined my modestly similar experience with "survivor's guilt" and Curly's superb talents as a counselor to help an Iraq/Afghanistan vet suffering from survivor's guilt after one of the young Sergeant's men pushed him aside and took an RPG during a battle. My experience was not as dramatic as that of the young Sergeant, but the guilt was similar in feeling someone else had died in my place. Curly had a superb counseling ability. Survivor's guilt can have as depressing an effect as PTSD. The effects on me were short-lived; not so with many others. I have one of Curly's poems dealing with PTSD on my website. It is entitled The Thunder in the Hills.

By the way, here is a series of photos of how safe we were on the ground. We only had access to sidearms when we flew, so nobody was armed on the ground except the Security forces guarding our compound.

The Remains after a Rocket Attack


They found the body of one of the barbers who worked in what served as a barber shop in the concertina wire after a sapper attack on our revetments and airplanes dressed in his black VC "uniform". Don't have any photos of that one, but there is a series of photos after some of the rocket and mortar attacks on our EC-47 history website. One of our maids reported to the infirmary the morning after one attack complaining of a badly wrenched back. When asked how it happened, she said she was carrying a rocket (122 MM Rusian made) up a hill to launch on us, and her foot slipped, and she fell back down the hill. Many of the locals were forced to aid the VC because members of their families were being held hostage and threatened with death if they didn't cooperate.
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[dusty]

When I saw this thread topic I thought it meant that the Swift Vet and POWs for Truth Forum in it's entirety might be preserved for posterity.
It really is a part of history now as far as it's reason for being and success in fulfilling that mission.

Hope everybody is well....haven't been by this way in a while.
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Left and Wrong are the opposite of Right!

[four-niner delta]

I haven't been here in a while (probably a couple of years), but I happened to see this post and it caught my eye.

A couple of weeks ago, I received an e-mail from a 17 year old, high school girl in Austin, Texas. Her AP English teacher was having her class read the book, "The Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brien. They also were assigned to pick a name from the Vietnam Memorial Wall and research that chosen name and find out who these folks really were. Talk to the families, to sons and daughters, parents of those killed. This girl had picked my Platoon Sergeant's name, PSgt Kenneth C. Rakentine, US Army, Mobile Riverine Force, 9th INF DIV, KIA September 13th, 1967. She contacted me because I had left a memorial to my sergeant on the Virtual Wall. I have been sending her stories of our times in country and shared some photos of him to use in a PowerPoint project that will be added to their high school website, honoring Vietnam Veterans. I have looked at some of the projects already completed in the past five years. They are very well done.

The high school is Westlake High School in Austin, Texas. A link to their website is:http://www4.eanesisd.net/~vietnam/.

It's about time these young people learn what the war was about from those of us who served there and NOT from the "revisionist" bunch headed by Sen. John Kerry.
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Gary Armitstead
Burbank, CA
U.S. Army Vietnam 1966-67 Mekong Delta
Mobile Riverine Force
A Co. 3/60 9th INF DIV

[LewWaters]

1970 Sapper Attack by lawaters3,

The remains of what was an OH-6 Helicopter after the April 1970 Sapper Attack at Camp Radcliffe, An Khe Vietnam.

In all, Charlie totally destroyed 12 helicopters and heavily damaged 5 others in that attack.


Lew '69 by lawaters3

A very young me (20), resting next to an AH-1G Cobra in the Maintenance Area in the late summer of 1969 at Lane Army Heliport, An Son Vietnam
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[TEWSPilot]

The following was sent to me by a friend who is in "Rolling Thunder".

[TEWSPilot]

Poetry.com asked me to submit another poem this year, so this is the one I sent them.

From Broomstick Mounts to Rocking Chairs

In retrospect, I must admit, I've lived a life unique;
sat on a Civil War vet's lap, and went to war most bleak.
In baseball I could pitch and catch and hit a long home run;
in football I could "take it home"; in golf made hole in one!


I've helped to put men on the moon, flown past the speed of sound;
I've even helped to engineer the best machines around.
I've watched the world around me change, some changes good, some bad;
been blessed with opportunities so very few have had.


I didn't do the best with each, I squandered most you'd say;
I always thought I'd have the chance to make it up some day.
But some day never seemed to come, or maybe it went by
while I was busy looking down instead of at the sky.


Now, those accomplishments are dust, I'm past my peak it seems;
I don't still have those visions of the future, just daydreams.
I don't regret the way I've lived, I do have one request:
When I'm too old to ride the wind, please face my rocker West.


Copyright 2012 by Bruce Obermeyer. All rights reserved.
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[BuffaloJack]

Good poem, TEWSPilot.
We must have similar backgrounds.
I too, sat on a Civil War vet's lap, designed stuff for the moon and space and engineered all manner of contraptions and widgets.
The poem allowed me to look back on my life and although I'm past retirement age, I'm still working and engineering even newer stuff. I hope I never have to retire and sit on a rocker facing West, though.
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Swift Boats - Qui Nhon (12/69-4/70), Cat Lo (4/70-5/70), Vung Tau (5/70-12/71)

[TEWSPilot]

I'd be willing to bet that poem describes just about all of us on this site, one way or another. I don't think it describes the bunch of whiners and parasites and instant-gratification misfits coming along behind us, though...with some exceptions.
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