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How' s about Spam on rice, over cooked by Japanese cooks with no clue. Dear Old Harry Truman cut our rations way back in1945-47 and we ate what was available. I lost 25 pounds on the Nipponese rations in just six months and when I left I weighed 100 pounds soaking wet.

Harry S ( as we called him--say it fast for the real essence of his name) cut the military to the bone, just in time for Korea. Many of our military in Korea, some were my buddies, were cut down or captured during the first month of that "police action." They might have been saved with better armor, equipment, artillery, planes, ammo and training. Our CO told us we had to get used to being ignored by the pols in DC. He was right!.

We made aerial maps of Korea (just in time) and the guys in our unit there knew the commies were going to attack two years before it happened. No one paid attention to the troops. It wasn't PC to talk about another war so soon after WW II.

We never seem to learn the lesson of staying prepared and Klintoon's devastation of the military after Desert Storm was just another treasonous example of dumocrap idiocy.

We were in a HURRY. My squadron was VA-15 out of Cecil Field in Jax. It's 1980, a few days before Turkey day. My ship was the big bird farm, Indy, out of Norfolk. When we set sail, it was unusual, because for days, there were no sorties. We just steamed to the Cape of Good Hope and around the horn we went. I never seen seas so rough. We put 16 point tie-downs on the birds and busted our butts to get below. Back home, Reagan was getting ready to settle in at the White House. Our CO finally told us where we were going. Persian Gulf. There were 50 held hostage in Iran. We were going to be on station if there was any funny business. The scuttlebutt was that the hostages would be released the very minute Reagan took office. Up on deck, the Phantoms, Prowlers and Corsiar II's were getting ready. I was a lowley plane captain for an A-7 squadron. Thanksgiving and Christmas came and went. All my nights looked alike "on station". UGA became national champion and Hershel went down in the record books. I wore my UGA sweatshirt for 3 days. Other "brown shirts" hated me. All I could think about was "God's little acre", I called home. Home, Cochran, Georgia. I sure wanted to be there. Then we got word. THE word. The hostages were coming home.They had been transported to somewhere in Europe. Then it hit me. I was a tiny, tiny part in a very big picture. The next day, when my bird flew, it was the shiniest in the sky. I made sure of it.