Faces From Vietnam
Three friends of mine joined the Marines and went to Vietnam. Chamblee High, Atlanta,
Class of '67. This pic was taken in 1969. Phil Plott, Ronnie Baker, and David Childress.
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God bless them. Some gave all.
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Did they make it home?
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Four of us spy pilots in our little day room/library at Ban Me Thuot I'm the one lower right. Note our non-uniforms with no name tags, rank, or military patches. That's what we flew in on our ultra-classified missions over Cambodia. I know the guys' real names, but won't print them here. (In my books, those are "Sandy" "Flip" "Richard" and "Rusty"!)
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My three buddies all made it home from Vietnam with no physical injuries.
None are still alive.
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Ah tiger camo, spent quite a few days wearing that stuff, also no rank and working the same country and the one to the north.
Smoky
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Thanks to all of you for your service and what you went thru
Sad the country had such a bad reception for the returning military personnel
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Only one who I could describe. He was 5-6 years older than me, knew the ins & outs of the business, and helped me learn what was necessary to survive. The others are just a blur. None were people who I'd want to associate with as a civilian even if they were still alive.
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What kind of job did you do, Smoky?
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Very early pave program ALD. Last tour was 1st SOW working out of. NKP.
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Yup, another spooky. Thought so.
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Smokey14 , care to translate for us civilians ?
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PAVE was a laser guided precision weapons program. I'm guessing that Smokey was deep in-country "painting" targets for air strikes. Â
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Thanks Mark well said.
Smoky
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One of my best friends was the electronics tech on one of the nightime spy planes . Not sure of the designation but remember him talking about the infrared systems finding trucks hidden in the brush, and calling in strikes on them . Guess Rocky would know what i am talking about . I think Richard was there in 1968 to late 1970.
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Sounds like one of the gun ships. C-47 didn't have those electronics, so it was either a C-119 or C-130. Most likely the latter. I can't think of an unarmed search plane that found targets and then called in strikes - except for the O-2 like I flew. There were some Nail FACs operating out of Thailand who flew night O-2 missions over the Trail on truck hunts, but the right-seater in those used a starlight scope held out of the window.
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Reading this got me to digging in the old slides (1966 was 56 years ago) boy was I young, but then we all were!!!
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Rivet Hook is a term known to all of us "spookies".
Crisp salute, brother.
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Rocky you may very well be right. Afterall it was a a few years ago when we talked about it ,like about 45 of them .
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Rocky Raab: 30465311251611/comments/30465267058843
Four of us spy pilots in our little day room/library at Ban Me Thuot I'm the one lower right. Note our non-uniforms with no name tags, rank, or military patches. That's what we flew in on our ultra-classified missions over Cambodia. I know the guys' real names, but won't print them here. (In my books, those are "Sandy" "Flip" "Richard" and "Rusty"!)
I've read Rocky's books, so for me it is amazing to see a genuine photo of the "fictional" characters, especially "Rusty"...AKA Rocky Rabb. Rocky, the nose gives you away!
Here is a link to Rocky's books, which I maintain should be mandatory reading in every US service academy, and should be made into major motion pictures:
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You should see Rocky demolish a bison burger in person 😂
And I hope to in the future get the privilege again, that or a chicken fried steak at JC’s .
I feel privileged to have been able to make his acquaintance.
Mule
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That goes both ways, mule.
My publisher has just raised book prices. I have no control over that, but I apologize anyway. Inflation affects paper and ink, too. Both books are still available in ebook form for much less.
Mark, I refer to my nose as the Gibraltor of Rocky.
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I prefer aerodynamic leading edge, they called me beak
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Rocky I am going to have to appologize for costing you a few royalties. I ask for your books at the local library to see if by chance they had a copy, they didn't at the time but ordered on copy of each to put on the shelf. guess in our little town you may lose a few royalties, but gain a few more admirerers.......
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hillbillie, I get almost zero royalties on book sales. That wasn't why I wrote them. In fact, I owe you for getting them in a public library where more 'Nam vets and others can benefit from reading them.
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