tinwhistle

Amen!!!!!!! We have (had, lost Jon to a motercycle accident) 4 boys! The thing that still amazes me is that they could whale the tar out of one another, but let some other kid lay a hand one one of them and the wrath of God would rain down on that poor kid!!!!!

I'll try the clorox and brake fluid in the morning. The marbles in the gas tank I'll set aside for someone I really take a dislike to!!!!!!!!

We talkin' here about an "underwire bra"?????

Yup, there I was at 30 thousand, inverted with no inverter,,,,,,,,,,The difference between a war story and a fairy tale........a fairy tale starts " Once upon a time...........", a war story 'This ain't no shit, guys....." Ya know, the funny thing is, so much of what we all experienced, anybody who wasn't there just can't believe it. Couple years ago, I was out in eastern PA visitin' an old buddy i had not seen in 38 years. Contrary to what you see here, I don 't talk much about my C-130 history to the general public or even family, but we got to talkin' and a little liquid tongue lube kicked in, and we got to talkin' in a little more detail and our wives were settin' there with their eyes bugged out and their mouths hangin' open. Finally my buddy's wife says to mine " Ihave never heard this stuff before. It's just luck that they are still here."""

But back to the thread, a Herky Lurker assembly would be great............

Ken, his wife, my wife and I are sitting in his living room simply visiting and the conversation slowly slides to Ken and I and C-130's. The next thing I know I'm back in South Vietnam. Later, Mary say's to me, "why haven't you ever talked to me about those things"? I did not answer; what could I say. If you weren't there.........

Herky lurker?????? I like that. Thanks Casey for this opportunity!!!!!

Hey Greywolf...rant accepted!

I, of course, read this thread with interest. For some reason,I, as a young airman saved an awfull lot of the paperwork I generated while in the employ of the USAF. I don't know why I saved it all, because I have never been known to care much for paperwork (ask any one of my dispatchers!). When considering a comment or two on this thread I find it odd that most of the various TDY orders I have are in multiple copies, many, many multiples!! It makes no difference anyway. I also have several travel VOUCHERS, or the carbon copy, that show me in several locations throughout South Vietnam. I also have a "performance report" describing my work while in South Vietnam. I do not believe that when making my claim any of those documents carried any weight, however, it was those documents that generated the DD215 which states I served in the Republic of South Vietnam, on the Nha Trang Shuttle (that was the performance report). Doesn't make a whit of difference how many missions you were on, nor how long you were in country, nor how many S. Vietnam bases you were attached to (they are going to get that wrong anyway!!!). You HAVE TO have an actual paper document stating you served on the ground in South Vietnam. It didn't always have to be that way; there was a time when a photograph, a written testimonial, or the like was acceptable. No longer. So you guys that are still struggeling with this B.S. I humbly suggest you spend your energy and time in getting that one piece of paper that the idiot behind the desk at VA HAS to recognize!!!!!

Thanks for listening....tw (Chris)

Good for you SEFEGeorge! If you think you have basis for an appeal, go for it. Don't let them get away without a fight!

My wife and I (just this evening) ran into a guy who was a year behind me in H.S. and I just recently found out that he is a Nam Vet, in our conversation he mentioned behavior patterns that reek of PTSD. I urged him to file. He said he felt really odd in doing that, almost ashamed. Darn it all, that's juist what the SOB's at VA want us to think!!!!!! I believe that I convinced him to get started on a claim. I'll follow up with him and just for the fun of it I'll keep us all in the loop. I wonder how long his process will take?

I just got through reading about the passing of Dan Wilson. Made me pause for a moments reflection. Since finding this site a few years ago I have become more aware of the role that the Herk and her crews have played in my life and just how much you folks out there mean to me. I have had the distinct pleasure of meeting, in person, two of you, and these new friendships are special. Giz calls us "brothers"; different mothers, but brothers just the same. So true!!!!

And MTCrewchief: fellow photographer, outdoors man, and conversationalist!!!! You're special...

Rest in peace Dan

I've been away for several days and thought I'd check in to see what's up. Feel like I've been kicked in the stomach. Never met Dan, but he was a "friend" non-the-less. I'll miss his "direct" approach!

My sympathy to his family.

This is all very confusing. The joy stick jocks sit at a console, in an air conditioned building, probably 8 hour days, coffee break, two, maybe three times a day, at least a half hour lunch break. End of thier day they hot foot it out of the air conditioned building into thier air conditioned vehicle, traverse the very dangerous highway to thier air conditioned home, greet thier spouse and kids, eat a good hot meal (maybe pizza), watch a little TV, sleep in thier Sleep Number bed and awake to the smell of fresh coffee. Now, I'm suppose to empathize with said joy stick jock, 'cause he has spent the past several days following around a terrorist (these guys are the same people that strap bombs on kids have the kids blow themselvs up in a crowded street) via a computer monitor (the terrorist is about 4,000 miles away), and the jock goes into mental anguish when his boss tells him to squeeze the button, cause he, the jock, actually saw the terrorist get blown into little bitty pieces. My oh my.

I've always been very thankful that I didn't spend my days in Vietnam slogging through jungle or rice paddy, but I was actually there, in country, and did on ocassion call the sheet metal guy out to the plane to patch a hole or two. But apparently that isn't dangerous enough to warrent anything more grand that a Vietnam Service medal, which ranks somewhere below the Good Conduct Medal. Most of us here on this forum can tell a war story or two, but we were simply doing our job and few if any went fishing for accolades. Ridicule the joy stick guy's? No, this is not ridicule.

Useing the above logic, PTSD would qualify the individual for the Purple Heart Award.

Gary, if there is anything I can add, from my experience, to help, send me a private message and we will go that route. I have learned that not everybody gets the same treatment, and my experience is much different than others, but it could provide some direction. I'd be glad to help in any way I can

Giz

My friend, Giz, is no stranger to profundity, but the "I have observed..." sentence above is especially meaningful. Although VA has all sorts of guide lines for raters to follow it is obvious that each District Office is it's own fiefdom, and each individual rater marches to his own drummer. Those of you that are still struggeling for your rating; please don't give up. I was 18 months Giz was 23, my friend in Florida has been at it for at least 2 years, and is still waiting for "final" adjudication (he has a partial resolution).

Best wishes and Welcome Home......tinwhistle (Chris)

Really very pleased for ya!!!!

Well, Guy's

You've done it now!!!

I inherited a trait of my dad's: he hated bumper stickers, and anything that was similar, and I've followed his example. However, seeing what yoos guys have done with stickers and your trucks, I guess I'll have to pony up and find some stickers for "BigBlue"!!!!! The only one I have is the small "Real Planes Have Props", so it may be awhile before I can compete, but I'll get right on it..................

tinwhistle (Chris)

OK Giz

I HAVE met your wife and if she ever finds out that you described her the way you did, you won't have to worry about a VA disability!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have not yet taken the time to look up the web sites that sarg has suggested, but simply want to add that what sarge has said is probably some of the best advice I've seen on this topic. Everyones experiences are different as is each of the VA District Office and thier response to claims, but some things are constant. You are your best (maybe only) advocate. Keep each and every piece of paper. If you can do it yourself, do it yourself; don't trust anyone with your future.

Rotating back to Pope from P.I. (Clark or MacTan) one of the "Food Service" (cooks) guys had a large aquarium with several very tiny, very beautiful tropical fish. We nursed them along to Wake where the aquarium cracked upon landing. Somebody rounded up some plastic and we transfered the fish into a bucket, lined the aquarium and put the fish back in. Only loosing a couple. The cook was very concerned about customs upon ariving Hickum, so I hid the tank (if memory serves me) in chain storage. Customs simply walked through, no problem. We had a days layover and the cook retrieved his fish, smuggled them into the guest barracks, changed the water and promptly killed the fish!Salt water fish, fresh water!!!!!!

I have to compliment you both: Nice trucks!!!!! Nice window stickers!!!!!!!

I told you it's YELLOW!!!!!!!!!

Chris

One thing is obvious: for 3 and one half years in the USAF I had it "made in the shade". Most of these acronyms you guy's are throwing around I never heard. To tell ya the truth, I never had a flight crew turn down a plane. The years that I was a Herky Healer the US was crankin' up for war, and like I said in an earlier post, we were sent all over hell and back with only a toolbox and the cloths on our back and told to "keep 'em in the air". We did. I'd have liked to see the look on the face of the line chief when some of those planes returned to CCK. And those guy's did a hell of a job too. Sgt. Middleton sent many a bird back with maxed out hours and the very same plane was back in Nam 10 days later. The really great thing about those days was the super high espre de corps. That ended when most of us rotated back to the arm pit called Langley. I'll never understand why a squadron commander would take a bunch of hardened crew chiefs off the flight line and put them in exile.

Ya, one thing you want to consider is that I get pretty anal when it comes to photography!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Why's everybody always pickin' on me.......?

Anyway; it kinda depends on the equipment you have (hardware, read: scanner) and the software you have (read photo shop), or how much money you want to invest. I have the Epson V6000 Photo scanner. It only scans 4 slides at a time, however, it does a supurb job, the jig also holds negative strips. Quite possibly of more importance is the software. I use Adobe Elements 11. Of some importance is your ultimate objective. Do you simply want to scann slides and store them on your computer, or do you want to scan, then improve quality, before storage???

I was going to suggest you personal email me, but it may prove helpful to others if we work on this on the forum.

Chris

This may be of interest to some and no surprise to Giz. This month's issue of VFW magazine has a couple articles discussing the sorry state of VA claims. To no ones surprise VA's promise to improve claim decisions is not meeting expectations, and if they don't do something about it soon the system will collapse with the influx of claims from the War on Terror. Of special interest to me was the lengthy discussion of the horrendous mess in the Baltimore MD. district office........

Thanks, Bob!!

And therein lies the problem. Quit chasing metrics. The rewrite of the MX regs in '99 to include all these mandatory metrics has driven a wedge between ops and mx.

The books are different for a reason. What may be acceptable to generate an aircraft if you're looking for generation numbers isn't acceptable for certain operational reasons. Are there grey areas that cover both edges of the differences in the books? Yep and those are reserved for true operational necessity, not a local pilot pro - and the crews know the difference.

We really need to work together instead of against each other, but so long as MX leadership is driven by metrics instead of mission effectiveness, we're in a losing battle.

*donning flame retardant suit*

A couple of points. What is it you refer to with "metrics"??? I think I know, but would like to hear from you. Second: what is infered by "driven by metrics instead of mission effectivness"? I know nothing about the rewrite of the MX regs in 1999, however, I can assure you that the objective of every ground crew maint. type (engine, prop, sheet metal, etc.), and every single crew chief I ever knew was the safety of the aircraft and the safe return of the crew that flew her. One thing the crew chief dreaded the most was an aborted mission at the end of the runway due to mechanical failure.........

Last fall when I reunited with my old bird #877 one of the guys dug up her log book. The air frame had 30,040 hrs, but the truly amazing item was that #1 engine had just short of 25,000 hrs!!!

As with anything with the VA the devil is in the details. It is quite likely that VA reduced your benefit 'cause in thier mind the cancer is now gone. Have you had your review yet? If VA has not set a review, you need to request one, ASAP. At that review you need to make the case that you just did here, you're unemployable: and while your at it press them for P&T., permenant and total. You would have it made if you can get some medical or psyc. opinion in writing stating that you are unemployable and unlikely to ever be employable. If you can secure P&T with unemployable you will receive the 100% disability rate regardless of the rating you have, although you should strive for at least a 70% for other benefits. As I stated above there are a ton of details that can effect a VA rating, most of which can be found in the 38CFR, and if you Google 38CFR the whole shootin' match should come up.

I truly wish you the best of luck, keep us in the loop!

Chris

Giz, Was this guy the dingbat that removed all the single troops from seperate rations without considering what that would do to morale. Talk about a flawed decision making process. Am I right in thinking this guy was the CO? Scarey!!!! On the plus side consider how much money he saved theAF.

I want my medal too.

OK, wait a minute....are you guy's talking about Langley??? If so, after 52 years I'm just now getting something figured out. I've made no bones about the fact that I would have re-upped had the USAF not stationed me at Langley for my last 7 months. I hated it there, because they not only revolked my crew chief status, but put me in post dock baby sitting a bunch of 1 stripers. That was 7 months of torture!!!! So if what Larry and Giz are refering to is Langley, then at least now I have the background of those events.