Congrats new VOM and POM

[Beau]

I have not been on this site very often lately ... I am gone long times and thats the way it will be, so I am not familiar with your ship and duties. Was this a Destroyer or something like that ? What did your ship do ? Beau

[Seascamp]

Beau,
I was in 7th fleet CRUDESPAC (Cruiser Destroyer Pacific), Operation Market Time. Supposedly our role was coastal, estuary and river interdiction of supplies and movement of enemy troops. We did that but by percentage of time our larger task was gun support of field troops; mostly Marines, and busting up hard structures and deep bunker systems when they were found. The majority of my time was on Gun Cruisers but also did a small craft conversion gig at the Navy yards in Da Nang. In essence, that was taking conscripted crabbing and fishing junks and installing a four-cylinder Gray Marine diesel engine, some commo gear, deck mounted weaponry and things of that nature. Then turning them over to supposedly friendly Vietnamese for Market Time patrol and observation tasks. That was a short lived deal in that all we really did is make hot rod fishing and crabbing junks that went back to crabbing and fishing or got into pirating or contraband running.
In prior times you may have known me as ?Cracker Jack? or ?Westman?.

Scamp

[Beau]

Originally posted by little sparrow "We did our job of getting ammunition to the Infantry up by the DMZ, and that is all --- no books, heroics, or even popular history about us."

Beau, I think that may bethe answer to "Are you Sure?" you did your job andeveryone just wanted to say thank you for a job well done.

Peace....

I really am not that humble --- catch me when I project an arrogant aura.

But, there is this person at work, a "higher up" as we measure such temporal ranks. He has walls in his office (not a cubicle like me) that are checkered with honors and certificates. I am sure he earned them all. The one that I have always wondered about is the framed and matted Bronze Star (Vietnam) with text that states it was for Meritorius Duty. He did serve in an Army Recon unit.

I mentioned to him that there was no V Device --- he said something like "... ah... the Army and it's record keeping. They gave me a Purple Heart and I did not get hit." A few days ago I asked him "... what did you do to get that Bronze Star" ...... Then a moment of numb surprise and paralysis came over his face, like "What do I say. This guy probably knows enough to know ...." Then he stumbled out some story about a grenade that had half the pin out that rolled between his legs and it did not explode and his LT gave him the Bronze Star for that (the assumption is that an enemy through it) ... just another military screw look came over his face: The LT awarding him, that is, and not the unexploded grenade. [not my idea of "The Hero's Journey" but "whatever"]

Ok --- the LT was just feeling pretty liberal and gave the Bronze Star for that grenade that did not explode "action" and then to make matters of honor more ridiculed --- the Army record keepers screwed up and forgot to give the device for the non-exploded grenade action.

No further comment, or evaluation on his story from me --- "whatever" ---

BREAK DANCING SEGMENT --- tune out now, since the Bitnam part is over: it is odd that in the great California heritage of Mesican-Americans and the Spanish West, there are extremely few real Latino looking people that have office spaces to be adorned with this-ez and thats-ez and awards of honor --- a secretary to order "book me a flight. I'll be gone a fortnight." They are conspicuously absent at my daily business.

Where I live, in an 'upscale' part of Calif --- there is this little pocket of true Latino looking people whom I have a fondness for. They live in a section that I call "Hommieville" --- they wear the mark of the mix of Indian (Aztec/Toltec etc. and Spanish (Mestizo Mexicans) ... they wear the mark of quiet folks that hold the "McJobs" of our communities --- no baubles attached. [ an aside memory: I must remember --- a job I held in my mid-twenties at Lawrance Livermore National Lab (Bombs and Nuclear Research lab) --- of the time when an older man made some insult about Latinos. But he did so in one of those ways that could be interpreter this way or that ... but you knew, as did he. When he went to his building ... I told my work friends "I did not like that ...." and turned to go into that building and find him: one guy said "let it go." I did.]

Beau de las aguas cafe