{"id":24071,"date":"2017-08-21T14:02:33","date_gmt":"2017-08-21T14:02:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=24071"},"modified":"2017-08-21T14:02:33","modified_gmt":"2017-08-21T14:02:33","slug":"49-years-later-the-day-remains-as-vivid-as-ever","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=24071","title":{"rendered":"49 years later, the day remains as vivid as ever"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Forty-nine years ago today, I said so long to my father, piled into a car with my mother and drove into downtown Portland, Ore., to begin two of the most important years of my life.<\/p>\n

I was about to be inducted into the U.S. Army. I kissed Mom goodbye and reported to the induction station near the Greyhound bus stop. I took the oath, gathered my belongings and rode about three hours north to Fort Lewis, Wash.<\/p>\n

I completed basic training nine weeks later and got my orders for where I would report for my advanced individual training: Fort Eustis, Va., where the Army would turn me into an aircraft mechanic.<\/p>\n

We boarded a plane after graduation from basic and flew to Richmond, Va. En route from Boeing Field to Richmond, I chatted with one of the flight attendants.<\/p>\n

“You must dread these flights with a bunch of military guys,” I said to her. “Oh, you guys are angels,” she replied. “The last military charter flight I worked carried a plane full of sailors who’d been on a submarine for six months.” I got the picture.<\/p>\n

Sixteen weeks after arriving in Fort Eustis, I completed by training and then awaited my orders: Vietnam.<\/p>\n

This is my segue into my discussion topic for the next brief period: The Ken Burns-Lynn Novick documentary film on “The Vietnam War” that will air on Panhandle PBS beginning Sept. 17<\/strong>. It’s a must-watch TV event. At least it is for me.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

I arrived in-country at Bien Hoa Air Base, South Vietnam in the spring of 1969 and was bused immediately to Long Binh, the huge logistics center near Saigon. I was there only for about four days before I got my orders for Marble Mountain, a secure base just south of Da Nang. While at Long Binh, though, I had to perform some of the usual duties assigned to newly arrived soldiers, such as burning fecal matter from the latrines scattered throughout the sprawling compound.<\/p>\n

I flew to Da Nang aboard a C-130 transport plane and reported for duty.<\/p>\n

I was what the grunts called a REMF, which stood for “rear echelon mother-f*****.” I didn’t take it personally. I knew we were doing important work there. Our task was to keep OV-1 Mohawk reconnaissance planes in flying condition to perform their duty. Later, I would be assigned to another station at the I Corps Tactical Operations Center, where I became a “flight operations specialist”; my task there was to communicate with aircraft — and to scramble missions on an as-needed basis.<\/p>\n

My time in Vietnam was largely uneventful, although we weren’t entirely immune<\/em> from occasional mortar and rocket barrages from the bad guys camped inside Marble Mountain.<\/p>\n

I served and then came home. I remained somewhat confused about a couple of aspects of that conflict in which I participated.<\/p>\n

What were we doing there? And for what purpose?<\/em><\/p>\n

The PBS documentary I hope helps resolve some of that confusion for me. That’s my goal in my plan to watch every single moment of it. I suspect as well that many millions of other fellows my age will want to understand that period of our nation’s history.<\/p>\n

I hope Burns and Novick provide us all with the understanding we want — and which some of us need<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The Vietnam War<\/a> will be told through rare archival film, interviews with those on both sides of the conflict — and through some of the coolest music ever recorded.<\/p>\n

I am waiting with bated breath.<\/p>\n\n

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Forty-nine years ago today, I said so long to my father, piled into a car with my mother and drove into downtown Portland, Ore., to begin two of the most important years of my life. I was about to be inducted into the U.S. Army. I kissed Mom goodbye and reported to the induction station … Continue reading 49 years later, the day remains as vivid as ever<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[2649,3487,3532,5041,5116],"class_list":["post-24071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-military-news","tag-ken-burns","tag-panhandle-pbs","tag-pbs","tag-us-army","tag-vietnam-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24071"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24071\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24073,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24071\/revisions\/24073"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}