MARCAD James O. Atkinson, Jr.

Jimmy Atkinson was a Marine Aviation Cadet, or MARCAD as they were known. As a MARCAD, the Marine Corps had agreed to make him a Naval Aviator and give him the gold bars of a Marine Corps officer if he agreed to stay unmarried for the 18 months of training and then remain in the Corps for another three years after that. Being married might be a distraction from the intense rigors of the program, I guess, not to mention that the pay was only about $98.00 every two weeks, as I recall. Hardly enough for one to live on much less two or three when the baby comes along. Jimmy became a MARCAD in 1964 and was transferred after finishing boot camp at Paris Island to Pensacola, Florida, where he joined other guys in the program like Sonny Vergara, Norm Whitbeck, Gary Shields, Doug Sanders, Larry Bancells and others. We were all bright, brash, very young, and none of us believed we would ever die.

In those days we felt we could learn and do anything and we had the greatest military organization in the world showing us how to do it. Everything was possible and nothing was impossible. Our futures promised a life of living on the edge as aviators in an organization where we were the best of the best. We were filled with exhilaration at the thought of flying and being in control of some of the most powerful and dangerous machines made by man. Dying was just a concept, part of the mystique and thrill of becoming a pilot in the United States Marine Corps. We all knew about the dangers of flying especially military flying but the thought only heightened our excitement. The fallibility of the machine while always in our minds was set aside by our trust in the training of our comrades and our belief that they, like us, were the best on the planet. Besides, we also believed mortality was for humans and the Corps had convinced us we were more than human. We were of teflon and steel and nothing could take us down.

Jimmy Atkinson was a Marine's Marine. Strong, straight jawed, ramrod straight, lean and dark eyed. He could have been a male model and he could have had any girl on Pensacola Beach if he had wanted any of them. He embraced the challenges of the program, as we all did, with energy and excitement at what might next be put before us to conquer. The program was designed to teach us everything we needed to know about flying as well as to train our bodies and spirits to be sharp and ready for the demands and expectations of a Marine pilot. Jimmy did it with finesse.

We all thought it was a bit odd, however, that every Friday afternoon, he would be seen leaving the base in his little black MG convertible, going south and not returning until late Sunday. For a long time we thought he had a girl friend back in his hometown of St. Petersburg, but it wasn't until much later that we learned he was actually married all that time. Suddenly it was clear why this guy would never go out with the rest of us on the weekends to "terrorize the natives" as it was known. He never went carousing, as a bunch of red-blooded young men are prone to do, but was quick to laugh with us when we bragged of our often fruitless but hilarious escapades.

After the Training Command, like the rest of us, Jimmy would be ordered to Vietnam. There he would fly the UH-34 Sikorsky helicopter rescuing recon teams, getting wounded Marines from the battle to the hospital, and getting them resupplied when they ran low on ammo, all of which happened many times under fire from a determined enemy. Jimmy flew hundreds of these missions. Despite the dangers, the MARCAD mentality of invincibility held true and he returned home safely after his 13-month tour of duty.

Ultimately, he stayed in the Corps for 20 years, becoming a jet fighter pilot and going back to Vietnam for a second harrowing tour flying the A-4 Skyhawk. Again, the teflon and steel of the MARCAD credo stayed strong and he returned to his family which by then included three strapping sons. Jimmy subsequently left the Corps and spent another twenty years quietly delivering mail for the United States Postal Service back in St. Petersburg. He never bragged about his past and talked little of his war experiences.

Then, last October he developed a cough and went to the VA to have it checked. It was not good news. When his emails suddenly quit coming, Norm Whitbeck inquired and Jimmy sent us a note saying he had been diagnosed with stage four lung cancer. He said they had told him he had three to six months to live, without treatment, and maybe a year with treatment. Faced with such prospects, which he said were unacceptable, he headed for Mexico for alternative treatment. He said he'd let us know when he got back.

After a month or so, he emailed us that he was back in St. Pete and feeling better but that he was going to start chemo and radiation treatments soon. We didn't ask him, but it was apparent the Mexican treatments hadn't worked.

Norm went over to see him a number of times and I saw him twice after that. He was much thinner, on oxygen and unable to get around except in a wheelchair. Karen, his wife who is also a nurse, doted on him and it was clearly apparent he was under the best possible care he could have which, I suspect, had been the case for every one the many years they had been married. We took pictures and he told me not to worry because he had already talked to Jesus and was ready to "go vertical" to God.

In December, when Norm and I heard the news, we were terribly saddened but in full belief that Jimmy did not break the MARCAD code of invincibility. Like any good MARCAD and Marine jet fighter pilot would do under such circumstances, he just waited until the time was right and pulled the nose of his aircraft straight up into the noon sun, hit afterburner, and went vertical to God.

Semper Fi, Jimmy.

Santa Ana Flat Hatting

After I returned stateside from Vietnam, I was assigned to HMMT 302 at MCAS Santa Ana which was located next to El Toro Marine Airbase in southern California. One of my duties was to be an in-flight maintenance test pilot performing system checks on H-46 helicopters that had just received some form of repair. The repair might have been due to a minor sound or vibration that made a pilot nervous enough to “down” the aircraft and require a maintenance check, or it might be the full testing of a bird just out of complete overhaul. Test pilots always took the repaired aircraft up first to insure it was ready to be placed safely back into regular service.

For our test flights, we had a section of airspace assigned to us from 1500 to 10,000 feet along a narrow path north of El Toro between the airbase and the low mountains on the eastern side of the Los Angeles basin. In this space, we were allowed to perform any maneuver necessary to demonstrate that the helicopter had been properly repaired and was now ready to be returned to the flight line. This might mean testing any or all of the bird’s hydraulic, electronic or control systems. When we weren't flying test hops, our mission was to take pilots just out of the Training Command (newbies and FNG's) to those same mountains for some “real world” training and try to prepare them for the flying they would experience in Vietnam.

Southern California is essentially desert, and the heat on the mat where we parked the helicopters could be blistering. Some days, the smog from L.A. would be so thick it would burn your eyes when you looked west directly into the wind. On those days, I yearned for the crack and boom of those 4 0’clock summer thundershowers that always cooled the afternoons and scrubbed the air clear back home in Florida.

Pre-flighting an H-46 requires climbing and crawling around the fuselage and going over in detail with the maintenance crew the tests you were going to carry out in flight. Maintenance flights always required a more detailed pre-flight, some taking 30 minutes to an hour. A normal preflight can be done in about 20 minutes. There were days when I would have to pre-flight and test ten aircraft in temperatures that reached well over 100 degrees. On days like that, the thrill of flying abandons you. It was a hot and greasy job and that’s when it felt too much like real work. So, sometimes, just to get a break, I would finish my testing, leave the test area and fly over to those mountains just to see what I might see and feel what I might feel.

Even though the H-46 Sea Knight is required to have two pilots in the cockpit for normal operations, test flights were typically flown with only one well-experienced pilot and a crewchief. I was always amazed that even though some of the crewchiefs were not much older than 18, they were given full responsibility to maintain those machines. They were skilled and truly dedicated young men you trusted with your life, and did so readily. On those hot grinding afternoons, I’d occasionally invite my crewchief to join me in the cockpit. Sometimes I'd give them the stick and let them fly the aircraft. Giving them the controls always brought a wide grin of excitement. On other occasions, I'd just tell them to strap in and hold on, and we’d go “flathatting.”

Flathatting is strictly forbidden but it's why pilots fly. It is flying on the edge, defying calculated danger with nothing but your own talent, training and judgment. Out of Santa Ana, flathatting in an H-46 meant flying at maybe 50 feet above the terrain at maximum cruise speed which, I think, was around 150 knots (which is maybe about 180 MPH. Not sure now) ... maneuvering between mountain peaks and whipping along turning valley floors, pulling up sharply to clear mesas feeling the pull of the increased G's, then dropping power to idle and going weightless to return to the valley floor, “splitting the needles,” meaning your engine was no longer powering your rotors and only the downward force of descent and the upward force of air through the rotors were keeping them turning fast to enough to maintain flight.

During those moments, my heart would swell at the way the huge powerful bird would respond to the lightest touch of the stick and collective and the excitement of flying would return. Any fear would be ignored and I would think, this must be how the great-winged, soaring birds of the mountains or the predator hawk in chase of its prey must feel. During those moments, I would feel release and my spirits would soar with them once again.

Iraq Conversation

The pictures in the news trigger memories of my own military experience. That’s the personal part.

I can see an H-46 in the news from Iraq and smell the pungent aroma of hydraulic fluid, the blood of the machine that courses throughout its metal which, ironically, is blood red in color. I can smell a squad of recon Marines rushing up the ramp after five days in the jungle as the rotors suck the air from the rear fuselage past our faces and out the open cockpit windows. It’s a grassy, green smell, not body odor at all, that envelops us as they enter. I can hear the crew chief screaming his count over the intercom as each Marine charges up the ramp. If we were extracting an eight-man squad, for example, he would shout his count so the pilot would know exactly when all were aboard and get the hell out of there. I can smell the jet exhaust of the turbine engines and I can hear the crackling of the radios as we monitored sometimes four different frequencies at once. I can hear the short, clipped monotone transmissions of the pilots, clear god-like commands from Landshark, the control center, and the excited pleas of the Marines on the ground coordinating our pickup as rockets and napalm landed sometimes almost at their feet.

“Say your color smoke, Redbud?”

“White! White! You’re 1-8-0 from us!”

“Roger, Redbud. White smoke. We’re inbound.”

I can hear the F-4 pilot key his mike and say calmly over the high-pitched whine of his engines that he’s a flight of two holding on the 2-7-0, Danang tacan, 1-9 miles, at level 1-5, and Landshark say, “Roger, BlueDog, hold your position.”

Over the barking of my own two 50-calibers that shake the aircraft when they fire, I can hear the Huey gunship pilot say, “You’re taking fire, Skyshadow! Tracers, nine o’clock.”

I can feel the rotors loosing grip, slowing, as I yank the nose of the big bird up and pull max power to stop its forward and downward momentum to land in a clearing only a few feet larger than the plane of the spinning blades.

“I got one! I got two! I got three! Four! Five! Six! Seven! I got eight! Go! Go! Goddamnit Go!”

The rockets from the Huey escort explode past us, walking the dog, laying them down on both sides of us, if not killing the enemy maybe scaring the shit out of’em long enough so we can get our turns up and get the hell out of there.

Away from the zone now and climbing, still in one piece, I hear Landshark clear Bluedog in for his run. We look back and see hell descend. Wump. Wump. Wump. The blasts send shocks through the helicopter as we turn for the airfield ten minutes away at Phu Bai, or Khe Sanh, or Dong Ha, or Monkey Mountain … and a San Miguel beer after the day is done.

Pictures bring it back and I remember what we did in Vietnam, over and over again. Sometimes I laugh out loud at what I see. Sometimes I fight tears. Sometimes the grip in my stomach surprises me and makes me flinch.

The political thing about Iraq? Frankly, the more threatening it becomes, the less and less of a rat’s rear I’m caring about the politics. Why? Because they’re out to kill us, and when someone has sworn to kill me, “by God”, I tend to get less concerned about the politics of a matter and more about where I’m going to find a 2X4 big enough to defend myself, including whacking him first before he whacks me.

I believe the whole terrorist thing is truly frightening and a threat to every country that is non-Muslim and some that aren’t. Terrorism and terrorist tactics are being developed to a high art. One does not need to be a citizen of a country to be a terrorist. You only need a cause, some training in explosives, access to explosives (like fertilizer, for Pete’s sake), and, Shazam! You’re a terrorist! I hate the Government so I’ll blow up a government building. I hate American infidels so I’ll blow up myself and a bunch of Marines. I hate the British so I’ll blow up some trains. Since that worked really well and I hate the Spaniards, I’ll blow up some trains there, too. But I really hate the American non-believers who give money to the Israelis so I’ll hi-jack some airliners and drive them into the Twin Towers. And, along the way maybe I’ll hi-jack a cruise ship and toss an elderly, crippled Jew over the side to make my point.

Terrorism knows no limits now. It has been released like a poison gas on the civilized world. It’s the zealots who are willing to blow themselves up to achieve martyrdom that have raised the ante. I can understand how there are militias that operate without allegiance to any government or recognized political boundary who follow only the bidding of the Immans that control them. I can understand how their strength comes from the money and guns of Iran and Syria. I understand how the Immans have strategically allowed the Muslim faith to be hijacked by the fanatics because it gives them, the Immans, more power and I understand how religious faith has become the fuel for the emotional fire that drives the killing and mayhem of terrorism. What I don’t understand is the real reason for the fight. What is their ultimate goal? Is the complete destruction of western society because it is not Muslim their objective? Is it the Immans who see the spread of western values eroding their Muslim traditions and religious and political power over such desert tribes as the Sunnis and Shiites, who are keeping the fires lit? I mean is that what it’s all about? Have they become so powerful that they can seriously seek to obtain a nuclear or other mass destruction weapon in order to destroy us across 10,000 miles of earth and ocean? All because they fear losing their own power? Really?

That is what scares the crap out of me. Whatever their reasons for causing the death of civilians and using the innocence of the innocent as weapons of war, they aren’t rational in a civilized world, and not truly understanding the reasons why they’re doing it denies us an effective, rational way to respond to it. Without understanding, we are left only with direct and forceful defensive action. Whack’em before they whack us.

So, despite my feeling that the closer the danger gets to me and my family the less important it is, on to the politics of it. Was the war in Iraq justified? Yes, knowing what I know today and what’s happening in the Arab/Muslim world that is so dangerous to the rest of us. I believe the U.S., if it’s going to be involved effectively at all, and surely it must, had to take a drastic step and Saddam Hussein gave us ample reason to take him out. Weapons of mass destruction? I believe firmly that he had them and was looking to use them. The problem was the lack of backbone and loss of time caused by the patronizing weaknesses of the United Nations which gave him time to secret them out to Syria before we got there. Right or wrong, though, we need to be there and as involved as we are, before those 10,000 miles are eliminated altogether. Yes, the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon brought it to us but we will learn as a result, and new barriers will be created and erected to protect us until we truly understand why they’re so angry.

Which brings me to the issue, how is it all affecting America?

First, how do we define “it”? Well, “it” is not the war in Iraq. “It” is the war on terrorism. Were it not for terrorism, I think Iraq would not have been necessary, but the fact is that the DNA of terrorism comes from there, and Beirut, and Iran, and Syria and everywhere the Muslim faith is being morphed into the snake-headed hydra it has become. We needed a foothold without qualifications or limits so we can look Bin Laden and Zarqawi and Muqtada al-Sadr and all the rest directly in the eye and say, “You want us, here we are.” That part of America hasn’t changed. We can be pushed only so far, and 9/11 got us there on that brilliantly-clear-for-all-to-see morning in a digital media second. Once pushed there, we come together. We become one, no matter the color, the credo or the lingo. It is not bravado. It is an appreciation for freedom. That part of America has not changed. If it ever does, we are lost.

That is the fundamental difference with Vietnam. America did not come together there.

The circumstances were different. In Iraq, like I said, it has more to do with our response to terrorism and the horror and fear caused by 9/11 than anything else. Vietnam? The match was lit on a foggy black night in the Bay of Tonkin off the coast of North Vietnam when a U.S. warship fired at a blip on its radar that it later claimed was a gunboat making aggressive maneuvers. Congress really touched off the fire when it passed the Tonkin Bay Resolution authorizing further military action against North Vietnam, a small agrarian nation, fearing that the loss of its southern neighbor, South Vietnam, to communism would be the first of more. The Domino Theory. A major difference between Iraq and Vietnam is simply that the chalice of morality is filled higher for one than the other. Eventually, years and 48,000 American lives later, America did not buy it, did not come together, and we lifted the last of those we could from the roof of the American embassy in Saigon as the North Vietnamese Army took control and fled.

America has and will continue to change as a result of terrorism. Freedom is not free. Our brand of freedom while based upon simple human axioms is a living, complex brand of government that must continue to change in a changing world. Many freedoms taken for granted until now will need to be more particularly defined. Yes, we will always be free to travel any where we wish but now there will be a more refined need to know who is traveling with us and whether or not they have a bomb in their shoe. Yes, we will always be free to say what we wish but now there will be a more refined need to know it isn’t being used to incite zealots to commit suicide against us, or to raise money for those who would a la Sami al-Arian. Yes, we can always buy fertilizer for our fields but there will be a more refined need to know it isn’t going to be used to blow up government buildings instead, or another World Trade Center. Yes, we will always have a right to bear arms but there will be a more refined need to have a reason for owning a scoped rifle and carrying it around when the President’s in town.

America is changing. Its naive trust in the goodness of its people is being eroded by those who would take advantage of its naiveté to destroy it. I believe I have overcome it now but when I first returned from thirteen months in Vietnam, I felt a very strong aversion, i.e., negative emotional reaction, to anyone clearly oriental. I have talked to Marines back from Iraq and they speak of similar feelings toward anyone clearly middle-eastern. Non-specific fear of others will separate us, reform the shape and consistency of the human family we are as a country, and terrorism has the capacity to do this by causing fear when and where none need exist. That aspect of life today alone will transform us as Americans. I am not schooled enough to know the mechanics of it. I just feel it in myself.

Our view of religion is changing. Once religion was simply a personal choice we respected in anyone that, when acknowledged, assured us they could be depended upon to follow a reasonably acceptable code of behavior, certainly a non-threatening one. No more. Now we have learned that belief in God can be used to justify the most horrid of carnage that humans might perpetrate on other humans. How will we now tolerate a belief in God that does not acknowledge our right to exist because our beliefs are different? Has the sanctity of the concept of God been hijacked from our own sense of faith as it has been so certainly hijacked from the Muslims?

Email from Cindy

-----Original Message-----
From: Cindy
Sent: Tuesday, May 30, 2006 9:44 PM
To: sonny
Subject: email

Sonny,
Thanks for sending the site. Pop forwarded it to me. Attached is the most recent photo Geoff sent today. He is on the left with floppy hat (takes after granddad) I have many photos that cannot be shared, please know know he is well and working hard. Give Aunt Donnie a great big hug and kiss for us.
Love Cindy



From: Sonny
Sent: Tuesday, May 30, 2006 11:30 PM
To: Cindy
Subject: email

Cindy,

You’re certainly welcome.

I think a lot about the soldiers and Marines in Iraq and Afghanistan, and everywhere that our men and women in uniform are in danger on behalf of what this country stands for. I know that while it is different from my own experience in Vietnam, some aspects will always be the same in war, i.e., the feeling that every day you’re alive is a good day, handed to you more by fate than good sense; the ache inside the fear, wondering if you’re being remembered by your loved ones as they carry out their routine, stateside lives going to jobs, paying bills, sleeping in comfortable beds, waking to a secure world every day; … feeling like your own life has been suspended for reasons you’re not sure you completely understand or agree with but you endure because of a larger belief that, right or wrong, if not you, who?

The poignant pictures found seemingly everywhere on the internet these days often bring tears to my eyes. I worry that my sensitivity might be noticed by those near me so I hide it, not wanting my friends and family to think there’s something left over in me from my own experiences … I don’t know why … a soldier sitting, staring into space, holding a letter from home; a soldier with his arms around his buddies laughing, in a bunker, dirty, seemingly oblivious to the danger outside, mistakenly understood by those who haven’t been there as “courage.” I saw one the other day of two women soldiers asleep in the sand, one resting her head on a hard metal box in the shade of an armored vehicle, the other with her head resting on her comrades thigh, both obviously bone tired, not ready to go back to their sleeping area before getting up and doing again whatever it was that was so needed by their fellow soldiers. I reacted, I guess, because of the exposed innocence it portrayed on the violent edge of war that is in all young soldiers. It’s called allegiance to duty, unquestioned loyalty, camaraderie, passing of childhood, unwitting participation in history, sensing change in one’s self as one never thought possible …and more, so much more. I guess I hide my emotions because I don’t want to appear sappy about what is so common “there.” Maybe I shouldn’t.

Satellite phones and e-mail may have changed it all now. I don’t know. I’m sure it’s different … but in many ways, it’ll always be the same.

Tell Geoff, we think about him … every minute, every day.

Sonny

Officially arrived

I deplaned in Vietnam, along with all the other Marines on the flight from Okinawa, at Danang Airport. It was late, maybe midnight. We tried not to look like we were affected by the fact that we were now in a war zone. A normal reaction might be to stand for minute and just look around, try to get one's bearings. We didn't. We focused on getting our gear and trying to act like this was just another military assignment.

After collecting our bags, we were directed to a tin roofed hootch where we were identified and our orders checked. Our arrival in South Vietnam was now official.

It was humid but cool. Having grown up in Florida, I was familiar with the humidity but others were obviously uncomfortable.

I was beginning to feel a little anxious about not having seen anyone I really knew for several weeks. I had left Jacksonville - New River, North Carolina, weeks before on annual leave and had reported 30 days later to Norton Air Force Base in San Barnardino, California. Now, finally back in the military environment, I was anxious to see some of my old buddies, guys I had been flying with in South Carolina (HMM 264) or knew from the Training Command. I knew none of the pilots I had met on the flight over and I could tell they were also getting a little nervous about which squadron they would be assigned and who they might find there when they reported in.

Eventually our group was separated from the enlisted Marines. I watched as they were lead off into a maze of partially lighted wooden buildings, each carrying the duffel bags that contained what they had brought from Conus. I wondered what would happen to them and what they were thinking. Did they have any idea what was ahead of them over the next 13 months?

We were directed to an area where we were told to wait for transportation to a place where we'd find some bunks and get some sleep. We were to report back at 0700 hours.

In the morning, we were herded to a chow hall for breakfast where full bird colonels and generals were sitting everywhere. I don't remember ever seeing so many majors in one place at one time before. They barely acknowledged us. We moved through the chow line quickly and found an area away from all the rank where we ate silently, each of us trying to find some rational link between what was our previous world and what was now before us. There was none.

That was my arrival to Vietnam. So far so good.

Most of that day was spent going here and there getting papers signed and stamped, I think. I don't reallyremember much about those first days. I do remember being asked which squadron I might want to be assigned. I said I'd like to be assigned to HMM 164 because Pat Connelly, a close friend, was assigned there.

Burning the "Honey Pots", Khe Sanh, summer '67.

H-46

The H-46 Sea Knight.

"Turning up" and awaiting clearance for liftoff somewhere off the DMZ. Summer - 1967

Welcome to Hotel Vietnam

Hotel Marble Mountain

Ville of hootches

I remember as our flight from Okinawa made its final approach into Danang, I could see flares off to the south and west of the airfield floating downward, rocking slowly ... strange smoking lights falling from a black, black sky. They seemed so far away.

As the pilot throttled back the 707's engines to make his approach much steeper than normal, we had no idea what awaited us ... but those flares drifting slowly down on that night with no horizon was clearly a first exposure to what would become our new reality.

I remember thinking how odd it felt as we touched down in that strange country, not knowing what was to come next, but, at the same time, not being afraid. It was an odd excitement. "State-side" immediately seemed far, far away, and everthing I knew there was transformed into memory as that reality was replaced the new.

We had left Norton Air Force Base in San Bernardino, Ca., and flown to Hawaii. There we stopped for less than an hour before heading on to Okinawa. They had given us just enough time to deplane, see what a lei looked like, and grab a pineapple rum toddy. Then back on board for the next leg to Okinawa. There we would stay the night and part of the next day.

On Okinawa, I somehow found my sister, Ginger, who was staying there with her Air Force husband on an "accompanied" tour. I remember walking in with my 2nd Lt. bars. Six months later I would return on "R&R" from Vietnam with Captain's bars. I know George, her husband, must've noticed but he never mentioned it.

When I had made promotion to 1st Lt., there was an administrative time lag before I would actually receive and be authorized to wear the silver bars that signified the new rank. Flying helicopters in Vietnam was hazardous duty. The life expectancy of a Marine helo pilot was very short. Since there were mostly captains flying helicopter missions for the Marines in Vietnam, the Marine Corps was finding itself with a shortage of captains. So, 2nd Lt.s being promoted to 1st Lt. were were simply promoted again within a few months to Captain. Many of us, consequently, never saw 1st Lt. bars. We went directly from the rank of Second Lt. to Captain.

It created an odd situation sometimes when a second Lt. that was used to saluting and saying "Sir" to a salty old captain suddenly found himself with the same rank. It was awkward for both.

I didn't stay with my sister for more than a few hours that evening. I had to get back to the base where we would be boarding another flight for Vietnam the next morning. After leaving their house and getting back to the base, I stowed my gear and found my way over the Officer's club with some of the guys I had met on the flight over from Conus.

There, we saw a number of helicopter pilots who had just completed their thirteen-month tours of duty "in country" and were now on their way home. They were a strange lot to us. Drinking heavily, sitting relatively quiet in groups clearly apart from us, the "newbies." We would see them glance our way ocasionally but mostly they kept their distance giving us looks that to me ranged from disgust to sadness. It was strange. We wanted to talk to them and ask a thousand questions, which is probably why they stayed away.

In any case, we had to turn in early. They stayed drinking early into the next morning, though, and when we saw them the next day they were red-eyed and weary. The few I noticed as we boarded our flight had a look about them that was confusing. It seemed to me they should've been happy to be headed home, and I'm certain they were, but that wasn't how they looked.

Eventually, we went our separate ways and didn't see them any more. The bottom line was that we were headed west to a reality we could not fathom at the time and they were headed east, back to the "real world" which they had left a very long time ago.

So, on we went to Hotel Vietnam where living would be world class at MCAS Marble Mountain and I would be assigned my first missions with HMM164 flying H-46's.

Marble Mountain

Any Marine helicopter crew member will recognize this place. It's the primary airfield used by Marine helicopter pilots for operations in the Northern I Corps, Marble Mountain.

All in-country Marine helicopter squadrons were located here except those temporarily aboard a ship. H-46's, Hueys, H-53's and the workhorse H-34.

This is where I checked in and was assigned to HMM 164, a squadron of H-46 Sea knight helicopters built by Boing Vertol. The field was located just east and south of the City of Danang. Just to the north of the field was a series of low mountains that had several distinct peaks jutting into the Pacific. This ridge was called Monkey Mountain and so, sometimes the airfield was called Monkey Mountain. Some of the guys claimed the reason they called it that was because that's what the locals called it. Some said the ridge looked like a monkey, but I could never see any resemblance.

H-46 Sea Knight

I met Pat Connelly while at my last assignment with HMM-264 in Jacksonville New River, North Carolina. He and his wife were really nice and we had become close friends. So when I was asked if I had a squadron preference, I requested his squadron, HMM-164. I even spent my last night in CONUS at their house. Pat was already in Country so Terry had her brother stay there that night with us. Having me there was a very, very thoughtful thing for them to do.

MARCAD Whitbeck!

When I arrived in Pensacola late that day in march 1964, my perception of the military was based upon what I had seen in the movies, in other words, fantasy. It came as something of a surprise, consequently, that the meanest, ugliest and biggest sonofabitch in the world would offer himself as the apparent, official welcoming committee. As a matter of fact, saying it was a surprise vastly understates the feeling that gripped me as he pulled his hulking mass onto our bus like a gathering storm and, with a roar that shook the dirt from under the fender wells, bellowed, "Get your shitbird civilian pansy asses off my bus and line the fuck up outside. NOW."

As my heart sank to the bottom of my miserable "civilian pansy ass" I realized that I had most likely made a very serious misjudgement and thought, as did the thirty or so other miserable humans on the bus with me, "What the fuck have I gotten myself into?"

As it turned out, those other guys would become lifelong friends, bound by the experiences we would share over the next 18 months learning to fly airplanes and helicopters as Marine Aviation Cadets in the U. S. Marine Corps. After flight training came fleet training and then Vietnam. While we haven't all stayed in touch since that time, even now, 41 years later, they are all special people, special friends, who will always hold permanent residence within my mind's reservoir of memories.

MARCAD Whitbeck, 1966

The military is all about war and what to do if found in one. The guys on that bus would come to share a comaraderie only those who have been in a wartime military can understand. Some of us would survive the consequences of the war experience and some wouldn't. Norm Whitbeck is one who has clearly survived in one sense, but in another he is yet still suffering the wounds of those lessons and experiences. His ultimate survival remains in front of him. He is an absolute and unflinching friend and I love him ... even though he's from Pennsylvania and talks like he's from Manhatten.

I hope to tell you about Norm in future postings as this site proceeds along. I have no experience with weblogs and hve no idea where it will take me but I'm sensing the pathway will reveal itself as I trek along its twisting way. I lost track of Norm for over 30 years only to have him stumble by accident back into my conscious world just a few years ago. Maybe he'll join me on this walk like he did when we first met in Pensacola that spring of 1964, and help me share with you what it was like being a Marine Aviation Cadet in the Naval Air Training Command, and preparing for what we've come to refer as being "in country."

Somehow ... we kept on smiling.

Somehow in the midst of it all, we could always smile. (Khe Sanh, summer '67)

38 years ago and today.

Today, my wife, Pam, and I were fortunate to have some very nice friends come by to see our vinyard. When I was in RVN, I could never have imagined how or what it might take for me to eventually, someday, find happiness, but now I do.

Jim Martin, wife Celia, son Devonte (I hope that's correct. He's ten.), and friends Particus and Clive dropped by to pick some grapes and share some of their wine. What fine people. We sampled wine they had made as well as some we had made. Having someone taste your very own wine is very scary. But their assessments were very gentle and sincere. After they left, Pam and I talked about how much we liked each of them and that we want them to come here whenever they can.

My life is so different from any I could have imagined 38 years ago when I was there "in country." I am so incredibly fortunate. War is such a lesson, a revelation, for those who survive the main event.

Mission over

Buddy, there ain't anything like gettin' back aboard ship ... alive ... and knowing a good hot meal and air conditioning were waiting. Not having to worry about "incoming" would mean a another safe night with comforts that the less fortunate guys stuck ashore could only dream of. It was a brief but greatly appreciated respite for the squadron. It never lasted as long as we all wanted. Morning would start the war all over again ... ashore.

End of a long day.

Sitting in that seat for 6-8 hours makes for a very long day when the cockpit temperatures routinely ran in excess of 100 degrees and the humidity over 90%. The "D" ring just to my right when pulled would release the heavy protective plates put there to protect the pilot from small arms fire, should he find himself in the water, allowing access to the safety release pin that, in turn, would open the door and let him "swim to safety." Yeah, right. That is, if you could also release and get free of the 40 pound chest protector plate which was attached to his upper body with monkey tape (velcro).

This shot was made just after touchdown aboard, I think, the LPH Tripoli after a very long day flying missions in the northern I-Corps area between Phubai and the DMZ. A San Miguel beer after a day like that, of which there were many, would be gone in one swallow. Seriously. They were so incredibly cold and delicious.

Monkey Mountain backdrop

Mission weary at Marble Mountain (Monkey Mountain in the background) just south of Danang. The 2nd Lieutenant bars were followed by Captains. I never saw silver 1st Lieutenant bars because they needed more Captains. New in-country. Late spring, 1967.

On Standby at Phu Bai

On Sparowhawk standby at Phu Bai, summer 1967.

... we were so friggin young.