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TDY\'S


DC10FE
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Actually, my best TDY after getting to Langley in 1963 was a 2-month TDY to the Civil Engineer Squadron. It was like a 2-month base clean-up, except all I did was drive a farm tractor pulling a huge lawn mower. There I was, a young 19-year old 1-striper cutting grass all over the base, but my favorite place was the Capehart base housing -- all those teenaged girls out of school for summer vacation.

Per diem sucked, though.

Don R.

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  • 1 year later...

My first TDY was from Forbes in '66 to San Isdro Dominican Republic to evacuate American citizens and miltary personnel. We were there for two weeks before going back to Forbes. Not only first TDY, but my first time out of the US. Being a country boy, it was a real culture shock.

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My first TDY was from CCK to Phu Khat Vietnam. We landed at almost dark and RON'd. I was on top of the Acft. doing my BPO and kept seeing these "fireflies" darting past me. After my BPO and prior to my Preflt I went to the Det building for some water. Asking about the fast red "fireflies" they informed me that I was seeing tracer fire! Shaken, to say the least, I couldn't help but thank God for such bad shots out there. LOL Needless to say, the top of the Acft didn't receive a very good Preflt inspection after that. As I was leaving the Det building I heard someone say, "FNG doesn't know any better than to walk around on top of his acft! He deserves to get shot in the A--!" We left there and flew into Ton Son Nhut where I decided to take care of my inspections before dark. This was also my first time to climb up the reventment wall and sleep in the reventment wall on top of the sand. Something I would repeat many times in nights to come.......

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My first TDY was in '71 from Langley to Pope (Fayettenam) for an ORI. They put us up downtown at the Prince Charles Hotel on Hay St. Anybody remember that place? It was a really ruff area back then. One of our FE's got rolled walking back to the hotel.

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Who that has been there can forget the Bounty Prince Charley surrounded by the Fayette Cong. I made a few trips there from Sewart in the mid 60's. I have heard that it has been replaced with a Marriot. The ceiling fell on us while we were asleep one night, lucky for us we didn't get hurt.

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My 1st TDY was July 1967. I was assigned to ABCCC aircraft #62-1809. We flew to Danang, Viet Nam. I had an incredible adventure. We saw a B-52 crash in the minefield at the end of the runway. Must have been a 300 ft. fireball from that crash. A few days later we were in a pickup truck heading for the Chow Hall and saw an Air Crew Member in a flight suit walking down the road. We stopped and gave him a ride to the chow Hall. turns out He was the tail gunner on the B-52 that had crashed. He was the only survivor. We saw an A1E land on fire and stop on the runway right next to where we were parked. The pilot didn't waste any time getting out of the plane. Fire guys put it out but not before extensive damage.

The high point or low point of the trip occurred on July the 15th. We had just left the flight line about 11:30 and had fallen asleep. At a little after 12:00 AM we were attacked by 122 MM and 140 MM rockets. We ran to the nearest bunker and found it nearly full. We were sitting near the edge of the bunker and could see the flashes coming from the flight line. We heard something land just outside the bunker. Everyone thought it was a dud and we sqeezed in as far as we could. After about 20 minutes the explosions stopped. Someone suggested we should see where the dud was at.I was the closest to the entrance so I and the other ACC on my plane looked out. We could see something about 25 yards from us in the middle of the dirt road between the tents. We couldn't make it out in the moonlight and being young and stupid we left the safety of the bunker and moved a little closer. We didn't think it was a rocket becase of its shape so we moved closer. When got to about 5 yards away it appeared to be a large round metallic object (turned out to be the compressor section from an F-4 that had blown up on the Ramp). As we were looking at it another round of rockets hit. The loudest and brightest explosion I have ever heard came from the area of the flight line (turned out to be the ammo dump). We quickly turned and headed for the bunker and as we neared it we could hear something that sounded like hail falling around us. I was hit by several pieces just before we got to the bunker. We were finally given the all clear by the AP's around 3:00 AM. We dressed and headed for the flight line to see if we could get our plane ready for the next days mission. When we got to the flight line the AP's wouldn't let us on until they verified we were ground crew on one of the Herks. We were also told to be on the lookout for body parts. As we got near we could see our aircraft tilted to the left. As we shone our lights on it we could see that the left wing was burned from #1 engine to the wing tip and was laying on the ground due to an F-4 that exploded off our wing tip. We knew we wouldn't be flying the next day. We then began looking for our backup aircraft #62-1815 which had been parked in the middle of the ramp. It was completely burned to the ground along with an A model #55-009. My Primary CC Sgt. Parsley and the other Assistant CC were able to get a plane to CCK the next day. I spent the next 6 days trying to get back to CCK via Udorn and Bangkok. When I got back everyone was wondering what had happened to me since everyone had lost track of me.

Hell of a 1st TDY.

Wil

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To expand the topic a little bit, my first deployment was in 1981 to Riyadh with Hellen Keller (AWACS), remember seeing that C-130 taxi in every day knowing that our mail was on that bird:) Who would have thought that 8 years later I would be on that C-130 bringing the AWAC guys their mail:D

Longest deployment would have to have been my extended long to Germany, out of four years I was home right around seven months:eek: Guess that qualifies my assignment as a deployment.

Dan

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Although not my first, one of my early TDYs was to Barbados supporting the Grenada invasion. By the time we got there, almost all the hostilities were over. We flew shuttles back and forth between Barbados & Grenada for about two weeks flying every second or third day. Our hotel (really more like a nice condominum) was right on the beach. Spent many days in the water drinking Banks beers.

War's Hell, but someone had to do it.

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