Glad you remember them that way. I don't think I'll ever call too many of them "good" times, but they were some freaking amazing times! Very focused and turbo charged! Life for me today couldn't be more different.
The only time that I was in a C-130 it was like a roller coaster. The pilot must have flown through thunderstorms all the way from Monterey to Pendleton. I couldn't help but think that he was just screwing with us ground-pounders.
I only spent a few weeks in 29 Palms, and my first ride on a CH46 was a wild one there. They were old aircraft 20 years ago, and this thing had hydraulic fluid dripping inside the fuselage. We flew low through the mountain passes and banked around cliff only 100 yards away from us. Very thrilling!
I remember the name Gallant Eagle but don't recall if what we were doing was part of it. I still have most of my original orders and some other literature, and could probably look it up.
I was in 1st Mar Div G2 intelligence operations at mainside all the time except for brief deployment with various MAU's (Marine Amphibious Units) and MABs (Marine Amphibious Brigade). I did basic intelligence school in Northfork VA, and did maneuvers in Ft Ord, 29 Palms Ft., Camp Roberts and one float to Hawaii. I also worked in the Division map room for almost a year. It sounds like we likely worked in support of the same ops, but no telling if we bumped into each other.
I was writing to another old Korean era Marine a couple of days ago here, and his experience made me think that it would be nice to be able to enter your military locations and dates into an Internet application and chat with others who were in the same space. Something like FR, but where threads would be units you worked with during a specific time frame. It' wouldn't be an easy project, but with a good interface and database design, it wouldn't be rocket science either,… Hey now were back at your MOS. Got any opinion on that?