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Graywolf88

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Everything posted by Graywolf88

  1. Is anyone monitoring the forum now? It has garbage that needs to be removed and spammers that need to be blocked. This is supposed to be a C-130 Aircraft Forum. It ain't a social hookup website.
  2. Yeah, I am still alive. CCK - did rotations to CRB, TSN, Utapao, Bangkok, NKP, extended TDY to Korea. Other places I don't even remember or want to remember. Most of the crew members that were at CCK with me are now gone. I was there from early 1970 - May 1973. 776 TAS Loadmaster.
  3. I was recently informed by the county Veteran Service Officer of the county where I now live that the rules have been changed and a lot of new areas have been added to those where Agent Orange was presumed to have been used. There is also a list of the new areas added to the list of presumed Agent Orange exposure in a recent Agent Orange Newsletter from the VA. If you were rejected from Agent Orange presumed exposure in the past, you should get a copy of the new rules and try again. Many other bases have been added and if you could not prove you were exposed before, you might have been stationed at one of the new locations where they now admit Agent Orange was used. I got my own DD-214 modified with a DD-215 to include all the things they left off of my original 214. Had get the help of my representative in congress to do it, but it is changed now. The person blocking the applications for disability rating for Agent Orange exposure is no longer working at the local VA hospital. Things change and if your paperwork was rejected several years ago, it might go through now. Some things have been declassified, some new areas where Agent Orange was used have been identified, and you may be able to get your paperwork through now. Don't give up, try it again. List of Agent Orange Exposure areas now include Royal Thai Air Bases, Guam, American Samoa, Cambodia, Laos, an others. This information is from "Agent Orange Newsletter" 2024, which I recently recieved in the mail. It is printed and distributed by www.publichealth.va.gov JRH
  4. Mrs Candelario is correct. Jon Cadelario did make it out of the crash and died in the hospital of severe burns. A crew chief who was also on board made it out of the crash too. I believe they went to the hospital was on Okinawa. Hard to remember some of the details. I flew several shuttles with that crew. I was with them about 2 or 3 days prior to the crash on Guam. We had just about completed a 14 day input to 834th AD at Tan Sun Nhut. Had a load going into Danang. On the decent there was a rapid decompression and it ruptured my sinuses. I was bleeding from the nose, mouth, and some more places when we got on the ground at Danang. Ground crew van picked me up and took me to the Danang Dispensary for x-rays and I was grounded there for about a week. The crew returned to Tan Sun Nhut without me. They picked up a replacement loadmaster at Tan Sun Nhut and were returning to CCK by some round about route. I did not know what happened until I got back to Tan Sun Nhut. I do remember that part of it. I was stuck at Danang for a week with nothing but the bloody flight suit I was wearing when the ground crew took me to the med unit. Danang put me in the transient barracks when the med unit finished with me. I was grounded there. Yeah, took the flight suit in the shower and hung it on the end of the bunk several times before I got back to Tan Sun Nhut. Tried to get Danang to issue another flight suit. They refused. I got a pass for the chow hall and remained stuck there until the flight surgeon cleared me to fly back to 834th.
  5. After about the middle of April, 1972, the tail numbers and squadrons had very little meaning. So many planes were disabled or lost, and so many crew members killed or injured in the Easter Offensive of 72, that the crews which had DEROSed back to the world were TDYed back in to Ton Son Nhut as replacements. They brought replacement aircraft from stateside bases to replace the ones lost of disabled. Nobody knew what squadrons the replacement crews were assigned to, if any. The crews TDY from stateside were kept together and assigned missions like everybody else. All the crews were TDY from somewhere. I was duty Loadmaster for the 834th for a couple months and flew as replacement LM with crews I had never seen before.
  6. Several places are selling a 1/200 scale model of Spare 617 now. They are from "The Airplane Shop. It looks pretty accurate. There is a video on U-Tube showing the model. For any who do not know, Spare 617 was the call sign of the C-130-E that was shot up really bad on a low level airdrop at An Loc, Vietman in April of 1972. It was flown back to Tan Sun Nhut and crash landed on the runway with only one engine still turning. The entire crew, except for the Aircraft Commander was injured from ground fire, and a fire in the cargo compartment. Spare 617 is now in the USAF Museum in Ohio.
  7. Actually, CRB was the base designation used instead of full name on mission assignments, filing travel vouchers, etc. Each base or air port had a 3 letter designation. CRB = Cam Rhan, TSN = Ton Sun Nhut, ect.....
  8. CRB home of Herky Hill, the only base in country that was a beach. Everything was a beach, sand everywhere, in everything.
  9. Little more information on the seaplane research project. https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/40694/amphibious-mc-130j-transport-is-on-special-operations-commands-wishlist
  10. Best I can remember, back in that time period, the hat rule was, if the wing commander approved it, the squadrons could wear hats of the squadron color with the squadron patch on the front of it. It could be legal for a long time, and then the wing commander got promoted, or reassigned. The squadron hats suddenly became illegal to wear. They were always, only for work uniform and never legal for any other uniform. Had a red hat with 776 TAS patch on the front of it. It was legal, then it was not, then it was. When the new wing commander took over, the custom hats were not legal until he actually approved them.
  11. There are different levels of classified information.
  12. Correct........... classified information remains classified until it is officially de-classified. If anything classified is discussed, I want no part of it.
  13. Plenty on the Internet about C-130 operations in Vietnam. It would be mostly TDY to Det 1 Ton Sun Nhut or rotations to CRB when it was operating C-130 out of there. Just put in search requests and include C-130 and year or battle. You will find plenty. Ton Sun Nhut Association also has a lot of info. The "Wings" programs from the History Channel also has a lot of the episodes on U-Tube. A lot of it is on the web if you look for it. I remember everything and sometimes wish I could forget it.
  14. Bunch of 7s............. I flew that one a lot. Had them put that tail number on the oil painting the old guy in the art shop right outside the CCK gate painted for me.
  15. It might depend on which model Herk it is, but if I remember right, the intercom plugs inside the cargo compartment only have crew intercom. If anything else is fed into the cargo compartment it has to be done by the navigator.
  16. Yeah, you and Charley both went straight to the hospital. They let us in to see Charley. You was in the operating room by the time we got there.
  17. Doing fine. Faced a lot worse odds a lot more times and survived.
  18. Putting chains and straps on, or taking them off, sitting on the ramp without a pile of gear on was no big deal. When it got bad was climbing over the loads, getting the straps off flying low level, while wearing flak helmet, flak vest, survival vest, parachute, and the plane is rocking and rolling, down some river valley just above the water. Getting everything set for a drop wearing all that gear was a work out.
  19. I wish I had a nickle for every strap I ever tightened down. I even got three or four surplus straps to tie equipment down on my trailer. I do put the equipment CG just slightly forward of the tandem axle center, but no, I do not make out a Form F every time I load the trailer.
  20. Me too! And they even fed us!
  21. I just received and email from the family of Big John Kolvich. He passed away recently from heart relate problems. Big John was a C-130 Loadmaster at Pope AFB, CCK, and Clark. Vietnam veteran who was there for the Easter Offensive of 72 and the AnLoc Airdrops. Big John was born in Illinois and recently passed away in Oklahoma. John was in 776TAS at CCK from about 1970-1973. I served with him at Pope in 69 and CCK 70-73. Rest In Peace, Big John Kolvitz.
  22. I was reading about how the Coast Guard would paint a pot leaf on the stack of the ship every time they made a pot bust. It reminded me of how some of the crew chiefs would paint little kites under the pilot's side window every time we hit one. The small fire bases had the wire right at the end of the runway. The VC could fly a kite with little nuts or nails tied on them right at approach level to try to get them sucked in an intake. They were almost impossible to see at night. Difficult to avoid even in the daytime. Don't think I have seen any pictures of a 130 with a little line of kites painted under the side window. Just something that came into my mind without really thinking about it. I am sure some of the crews from Det 1 have seen the little kites painted on the side of the planes.
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