It is indeed a very small world. I arrived in Pleiku on 5 July 1967 on a C-141 and was immediately taken to Camp Enari where I was assigned to E Co. 704th Maint. Btn. I very likely wrenched on one of your Hueys. Did you leave for Holloway before or after we built the BIG hanger. It sure was better than working in the rain under those conex/canopies we started out with. One of my memories is of running down the wooden sidewalk at the airfield and almost knocking Gen. Abrams into the drainage ditch. He had a habit, as I later learned, of taking strolls through strange company areas just to see what was going on. I mumbled "Excuse me, sir" or something to that effect and it wasn't till 10 or 15 seconds later I suddenly realized who it had been. By then he was out of sight. I also have a few pictures from around the compound. Might be fun to share them.
Ya know, I want to say it would have been right around the time you arrived. Since the whole unit had the same DEROS, they started the shuffles around April and I got caught on the fourth one. I know I was there when they had the ceremony to name the airfield after WO Hensel. I can't remember when they named the base after LT Enari.
You would have enjoyed seeing us arrive by Chinook from Plieku AFB in January. IIRC all the personel, except for the advance party, arrived in two C-141 flights. We had no aircraft and there was about two weeks before we were farmed out to other units for in-country orientation. I did two weeks out in Qui Nhon flying with the 161st which supported the Korean Tiger Division. Talk about war stories.
A Co. was a bit heavy in the rank department. We were authorized one Major, four or five Capts, and a bunch of WOs. We arrived with 11 Majors, 15 Capts, four or five LTs, a CW3, a couple CW2s and 16 of us WO1s who had graduated from flight school in Aug 66.
Someone commissioned the Montonards to build an O-Club. It had a thatched roof, open sides and on stilts. Saw some pretty good fights and even better poker games in there. You may have heard about the night it was destroyed? During the first round-eye floor show, there were so many people trying to get a glimpse of the babes, the place collapsed on itself. This was during the rainy season, mind you, and I remember drunks of every rank rolling around in the mud.
Every one of the pilots that went over with A Co. made it back from the first tour except LT Jim Pavlicek. It was towards the end of 67 and he had gone over to B Co to fly guns. The entire crew was killed down near Plei Me SF Camp during a Tac Emergency. They were shot down during a night gun run. He was a Notre Dame graduate and a few years ago the school dedicated a football game in his honor.
I gotta stop. The memories just keep rushing over me.
Welcome home!