[LadyX]

Thank you,ladtx.
Went shopping in Myrtle Beach last week, and in checking out, the small store manager was a tall dude with pony tail whose bearing cried 'military.'

Engaged him in conversation, relating I'd remained on base there (now closed) when my husband was sent to Southeast Asia, and he responded he had been an Army chopper pilot over there - - - nice to say it calmy now, pain diminished; and recognition was exchanged.....

[ladtx]

Hard to believe it has been 34 years this month that I departed Oakland for Tan Son Nhut AFB in what used to be Saigon. Most of us were very young and thought we were invincible. I was 22 at the time. We lived every day over there as if it were our last, resulting in some wild times both in the air and on the ground. Unlike the Air Force and Navy jet pilots, the helicopter pilots (Army, Air Force, Marine, and Navy)were close enough to smell the paddies and the smoke, something none of us can forget. We lived our lives both in the mud and the humid air just above the treetops, occasionally climbing high enough to cool off, our only respite. Now most of us have grown paunchy, gray, and hard of hearing because of the noise of those screaming transmissions, radios and rotor blades. You couldn't tell by looking at us now that we were once those young, skinny, clear-eyed pilots. I have a hard time believing it myself sometimes, but like anyone who has been to war, it defined each of us. We are different men than we would have been, not necessarily better, just different.