It's 'Nam, but that's not me, it's a TC named Wayne Gundersen. The pic's one of the 1/69th Armor's tanks in Spring or early Summer of 1968, shortly after Sp4 Dwight Johnson earned himself a Medal of Honor near there just after Tet '68. I had the reasonably good fortune to work later that year with 1/69th's HHC company tank section around the old SF A-23 team camp at Dak To, later to be hit hard by the NVA at the Dak Pek camp in 1970. Bravo company 1/69th got in a tank-versus-tank fight [PT-76 amphibians] at Ben Het on the Laotian Border, not too far from where that pic was shot, between Dak To and Laos.
Remember, you have to start it off with, "This is no s***, there I was!"
Or with *Once upon a time....*
The guy with the best related story of that sort would have been from a bout a year later, Jan '69, when two C-company 1/69 tanks were ambushed on the morning of January 16, 1969 while returning from bridge guard duty on bridge 27, on Highway 19. Charlie 14 and Charlie 15 were ambushed by the NVA/VC midway between Bridge 25 and Pump Station number 7, and SFC Allan Scavella, was killed when a B40 rocket in the back. The anti-tank rocket had been intended to strike the tank, which would have quite probably killed the entire four man crew and destroyed the vehicle, but it missed and hit Scavella instead. His loader, was wounded but his wounds were not considered life threatening. If SFC Scavella gets to tell his war story anywhere, it's in some corner of Valhella where old Viking and Roman warriors get a look at him and ask *Holy $h#t! What happened to you? and he gets to explain to them what an RPG is....
BTW, I wore the Armor Brass but drove Hueys. And, I suck at your "Helicopter Pilot's Test."
Give the *throttle* little short *bursts* of altitude with the mouse, taptaptap, ant try to split the difference between the *rocks* and ground/roof. Ican generally get around 2500-3000.
You must have done real swell with the Mattel Messerschmit.... No KA-52 for you! I far prefer my airplanes not to have hinges on their wings, but I spent a little time with Bell 205s after Vietnam, though I rode in C and D-models quite a few times. It was the guys who flew $hi!hooks and Skycranes who impressed me, as well as LOH and snake drivers. Crazy people.
I should have a good *Farmer's War Story* link up later today....
-archy-/-