Simpy One of Many Stories of a Time Not So Long Ago

[Badwater Bill]

You guys have written some cool stories in a thread above. Here's one
I wrote tonight. Here's fictional story number #69a.

It's not polished. It's just a draft. Some of you might like it. Some
of you might identify with it. But, most of all, I hope you enjoy it
because I hope it puts you there. That was my goal.

BWB
__________________________________________________ ______





It was the most God-awful sound I ever heard, but I couldn't
figure out what it was. This loud drone beat me in the head as if a
sledge hammer were pounding my entire body from front, then behind,
then from the front again.

What the hell was going on? I struggled to think, to see, to
feel. Was I being electrocuted? What was that piercing, killing
sound? I knew it was not good. It even sounded diabolical, but how
could I stop it? How could I even figure out what it was? I strained
to peer but my eyes were useless. All I could see was a wall of red.
All I could hear was that loud sound of: "Bang-bang-bang-bang,"
hammering me in the head every second.

The red was confusing. Why wasn't it black, or white or
clear? Christ, what the hell is going on? Where am I? What is this?

I heard a scream from somewhere, a long way off. It almost
sounded like it was coming from the end of a large tin water-pipe. It
came again, then a lower pitched scream down the same pipe. Am I
asleep? I don't think so.

I struggled for consciousness. Things wouldn't come quick
enough. That sound? The "Bang-bang-bang-bang," every second or so.
Then it changes a bit. Now it's a piercing "bleep-bleep-bleep-bleep"
at the end of that tin pipe. At least I'm not being bashed by that
sound anymore. I just simply hear it. It's familiar for some reason,
but what is that reason? What is going on?

I know that sound. God, what is happening, where am I?
Christ, I have to figure this out. I'm almost awake now. I can feel
that I am, but I can't see. The sound isn't right. I know it's not
RIGHT at all. But why not?

What the hell is that wall of RED I see? The screams become
more clear then I hear a rifle pop. It too is at the end of a long
tin pipe. I hear a couple other pops from things that sound like hand
guns ... way down the pipe.

Where did all this come from? What are these familiar noises?
I don't get it, but I feel like I better start making sense of it soon
or I might have bigger problems. Something is horribly wrong. I feel
like I've done something that I'm guilty for. I feel like I'm about
to go to the principal's office because I just kicked the **** out of
somebody, but I don't know who. The world feels like it's whirling
around in circles.

Now I can sort of feel the forces on my body, but that damn
"Bleep-bleep-bleep-bleep-bleep," just continues to pierce my ears! It
pierces my brain, my nerves, my soul. The sound of rifles gets louder
but doesn't seem to overcome that damn bleeping. I hear more
screaming, then I hear a voice in my head. "Captain, Duke is dead.
The son's a bitches got him. And, Pete! His leg is gone and he's
bleeding out. The femoral artery Captain! I can't get to him Sir,
and the left half of his head...Christ, I didn't know that brains
looked like that."

I struggle for consciousness but I just can't get a clear view
of what's going on. My mind is scrambled. This can't be a dream.
What is all that red? What is that God-damn bleeping sound that is
drilling me? Why doesn't someone shut that thing off? Nothing is
clear. Nothing makes sense. But-I do feel that it's paramount that I
figure this **** out, and figure it out as soon as I can.

Then out of nowhere my mind seems to "just return." I didn't
do anything, it just came back on it's own. Men in combat have this
happen a lot. They are completely disoriented and the out of nowhere
their senses just seem to miraculously return. It's a common thing in
combat. I watched a buddy of mine once who didn't even know his name.
He could walk around, look at things (he couldn't speak), seem
somewhat normal although he was GONE. Then all of a sudden, he's be
back. He'd return to the world.

I wiped the blood from my face. I was back and things weren't
good. I wiped the blood from my eyes as I heard the low rotor rpm
horn bleeping-bleeping-bleeping. For Christ's sake, I have to see.
We've had the **** shot out of us. What the hell is going on? Is the
main rotor gone? Has it stopped? Are we dropping like a brick into
the jungle? I wipe my left hand across my eyes to blot up some blood
into my Nomex flight gloves. It's like taking a paper towel to a
windshield that is completely slaughtered by bug-guts.

If you drive down a road and hit a million grasshoppers and
their guts splatter all over the window to the point you can't see,
then you take a paper towel and smear it all around so you get a tiny
little port-hole, you can view the world out of it. That's how the
world looked to me while we were spinning out of control and dropping
like a brick into the jungle.

I could hear more clearly now. I had no idea why Gil was
shooting that damn M-60 while we were spinning out of control. I
wiped my eyes once more on the back of the glove of my left hand. The
world was spinning and that damn low-rotor rpm horn was pulsing and
piercing my head to the point of insanity. Christ--- I'd pull the
circuit breaker on that prick if I could find it without dying. But
screw that, I have to see what the hell is really going on and bail
this out if I can.

There it is! It's all there in tones of gray on the
helicopter instrument-panel in front of me. Every engine gauge is
setting on zero!

But, thank God we have 90% main rotor rpm. Damn... I might be
able to fix this crap. I drop the collective and watch the rpm whirl
up past 95%...then all the way up to 110% as the autorotation spools
me back to the NON-BLEEPING zone. God damn, I hate that horn! I'm
going to cut those wires if I live through this.

I jam the pedals a bit to get the nose straight and I'm a
glider pilot just flying an airplane, but an airplane with a 4 to 1
glide ratio. We do have some altitude. We're lucky. The clock may
have not run out, quite yet. There's a clearing up ahead, someone's
even popped smoke. Interesting how "gone" my brain is, purple, green,
red smoke? I can't tell what it is. It's just smoke. The blood in my
eyes makes the whole world look red anyway.

The gooks are shooting the **** out of us. I hear the ping,
ping, ping of the bullets going through the chopper. My right
Plexiglas window disintegrates and fragments hit what is left of my
helmet. The front windscreen was gone when I came back from my
dementia. I hope that the equal opportunity employees of Bell did
their job when they bolted this "SLICK" together. It's a hell of a
machine. This old Huey's been hit before but it's never been turned
to Swiss cheese like this. I can feel there's something wrong with
the lift of the rotorsystem, but, what the hell, it's flying. I'm not
dropping like a Roll's Royce engine strapped to my back.

The blood clouds my vision once more and I wipe it away. I
hear Gil screaming in the back as he blows away an endless stream of
rounds through that M-60. There are some things in combat that you
never forget. I had an instant to turn my head right and try to see
what the hell Gil was shooting at. I saw nothing but jungle. I
cranked my head around to look at him. I saw a crazed man with eyes
the size of silver dollars, blood running out of his helmet and his
mouth in a contorted geometry that looked impossible to duplicate.

Gil keys up his mic, "I'll kill everyone of these son's a
bitches Captain! I swear to God. The *******s blew Duke's head the
**** off."

"Just hang tight Gil. I'll probably slam this bitch down on
the LZ ahead. I'm sure they've punched holes in our rotorblades.
I'll never get enough lift to bail this **** out of the flare. We
have to be full of holes man...so hang on."

"Okay, Captain, gotcha. If you can't bail this **** out, then
see ya in hell Sir. Can't be much different than being in country."

I keyed up again, "****, I'd give anything to be out of gas at
this point. Too bad that 'Ops' juiced us back on hill 83. If it
weren't for the gas, I think we'd have a fightin' chance Gil."

"Don't worry Captain. If anybody can fly this pile of
Colorado Cool Aid, tin-can muther-****er into a safe landing at a
'hot' LZ, it's you Sir. If we don't get creamed, I just wonder what
the rest of my life will be like in the Hanoi Hilton. Hey maybe that
bitch, Hanoi Jane Fonda will come around an flash us Sir."

A bullet in my brain, blood flowing down my face from a
lacerated forehead and my eyes red with flowing-red-goo, I had to
grin. It was just the way it was. The whole war was a piece of crap.
All of it. Fighting people we didn't hate, killing people we had no
idea about. It was all a pile of ****. Then you have some celebrity
like Jane Fonda, traitorous bitch. This had to be a cartoon.

I landed that UH-1H that day in a rice field that had been
owned by a family for thousands of years. They didn't know what
government was in control that day. All they knew was that they had
owned that little piece of earth for some 5000 years. In fact they
didn't even know that. It was a given. They had passed that little
plot of land on from generation to generation through hundreds of
wars. This war was no different in principle. It was only different
in technology. It was the 20th century and the machines were more
capable of killing. The smoke I saw was them cooking a pig. It was a
sacred and religious day. Although a holiday to them, it was just
another day for us to kill people, or be killed.

We were lucky, they were "Friendy's" and hid us until a Jolly
Green came in and picked us up two hours later. They even fed us some
of their pig. It was Friday the 13th.

BWB

[bryan chaisone]

Hey BWB,

Good 'Fiction', I enjoyed it. I think my grandfather told us stories
of hiding a couple of GI flyboys that got shot down. He said they
gave him some brownish sugarbar. I later understand that to be
choccolet.

Bryan "the monk" Chaisone
http://www.alexisparkinn.com/rogue's_gallery_a-h.htm#C

To ensure safe flight, have your planes blessed.

Buddhist monk, available to bless airplanes:

Blessing on site: cost of travel + $350.00 and a
case of Corona.
Blessing by phone: $12.50 and a sixpack of Bud.
Blessing over the internet: buck twenty five ($1.25).

Above prices are good for first three flights. Add 76 cents
($0.76)for each additional flight.






(Badwater Bill) wrote in message >...
> You guys have written some cool stories in a thread above. Here's one
> I wrote tonight. Here's fictional story number #69a.
>
> It's not polished. It's just a draft. Some of you might like it. Some
> of you might identify with it. But, most of all, I hope you enjoy it
> because I hope it puts you there. That was my goal.
>
> BWB
> __________________________________________________ ______
>
>
>
>
>
> It was the most God-awful sound I ever heard, but I couldn't
> figure out what it was. This loud drone beat me in the head as if a
> sledge hammer were pounding my entire body from front, then behind,
> then from the front again.
>
> What the hell was going on? I struggled to think, to see, to
> feel. Was I being electrocuted? What was that piercing, killing
> sound? I knew it was not good. It even sounded diabolical, but how
> could I stop it? How could I even figure out what it was? I strained
> to peer but my eyes were useless. All I could see was a wall of red.
> All I could hear was that loud sound of: "Bang-bang-bang-bang,"
> hammering me in the head every second.
>
> The red was confusing. Why wasn't it black, or white or
> clear? Christ, what the hell is going on? Where am I? What is this?
>
> I heard a scream from somewhere, a long way off. It almost
> sounded like it was coming from the end of a large tin water-pipe. It
> came again, then a lower pitched scream down the same pipe. Am I
> asleep? I don't think so.
>
> I struggled for consciousness. Things wouldn't come quick
> enough. That sound? The "Bang-bang-bang-bang," every second or so.
> Then it changes a bit. Now it's a piercing "bleep-bleep-bleep-bleep"
> at the end of that tin pipe. At least I'm not being bashed by that
> sound anymore. I just simply hear it. It's familiar for some reason,
> but what is that reason? What is going on?
>
> I know that sound. God, what is happening, where am I?
> Christ, I have to figure this out. I'm almost awake now. I can feel
> that I am, but I can't see. The sound isn't right. I know it's not
> RIGHT at all. But why not?
>
> What the hell is that wall of RED I see? The screams become
> more clear then I hear a rifle pop. It too is at the end of a long
> tin pipe. I hear a couple other pops from things that sound like hand
> guns ... way down the pipe.
>
> Where did all this come from? What are these familiar noises?
> I don't get it, but I feel like I better start making sense of it soon
> or I might have bigger problems. Something is horribly wrong. I feel
> like I've done something that I'm guilty for. I feel like I'm about
> to go to the principal's office because I just kicked the **** out of
> somebody, but I don't know who. The world feels like it's whirling
> around in circles.
>
> Now I can sort of feel the forces on my body, but that damn
> "Bleep-bleep-bleep-bleep-bleep," just continues to pierce my ears! It
> pierces my brain, my nerves, my soul. The sound of rifles gets louder
> but doesn't seem to overcome that damn bleeping. I hear more
> screaming, then I hear a voice in my head. "Captain, Duke is dead.
> The son's a bitches got him. And, Pete! His leg is gone and he's
> bleeding out. The femoral artery Captain! I can't get to him Sir,
> and the left half of his head...Christ, I didn't know that brains
> looked like that."
>
> I struggle for consciousness but I just can't get a clear view
> of what's going on. My mind is scrambled. This can't be a dream.
> What is all that red? What is that God-damn bleeping sound that is
> drilling me? Why doesn't someone shut that thing off? Nothing is
> clear. Nothing makes sense. But-I do feel that it's paramount that I
> figure this **** out, and figure it out as soon as I can.
>
> Then out of nowhere my mind seems to "just return." I didn't
> do anything, it just came back on it's own. Men in combat have this
> happen a lot. They are completely disoriented and the out of nowhere
> their senses just seem to miraculously return. It's a common thing in
> combat. I watched a buddy of mine once who didn't even know his name.
> He could walk around, look at things (he couldn't speak), seem
> somewhat normal although he was GONE. Then all of a sudden, he's be
> back. He'd return to the world.
>
> I wiped the blood from my face. I was back and things weren't
> good. I wiped the blood from my eyes as I heard the low rotor rpm
> horn bleeping-bleeping-bleeping. For Christ's sake, I have to see.
> We've had the **** shot out of us. What the hell is going on? Is the
> main rotor gone? Has it stopped? Are we dropping like a brick into
> the jungle? I wipe my left hand across my eyes to blot up some blood
> into my Nomex flight gloves. It's like taking a paper towel to a
> windshield that is completely slaughtered by bug-guts.
>
> If you drive down a road and hit a million grasshoppers and
> their guts splatter all over the window to the point you can't see,
> then you take a paper towel and smear it all around so you get a tiny
> little port-hole, you can view the world out of it. That's how the
> world looked to me while we were spinning out of control and dropping
> like a brick into the jungle.
>
> I could hear more clearly now. I had no idea why Gil was
> shooting that damn M-60 while we were spinning out of control. I
> wiped my eyes once more on the back of the glove of my left hand. The
> world was spinning and that damn low-rotor rpm horn was pulsing and
> piercing my head to the point of insanity. Christ--- I'd pull the
> circuit breaker on that prick if I could find it without dying. But
> screw that, I have to see what the hell is really going on and bail
> this out if I can.
>
> There it is! It's all there in tones of gray on the
> helicopter instrument-panel in front of me. Every engine gauge is
> setting on zero!
>
> But, thank God we have 90% main rotor rpm. Damn... I might be
> able to fix this crap. I drop the collective and watch the rpm whirl
> up past 95%...then all the way up to 110% as the autorotation spools
> me back to the NON-BLEEPING zone. God damn, I hate that horn! I'm
> going to cut those wires if I live through this.
>
> I jam the pedals a bit to get the nose straight and I'm a
> glider pilot just flying an airplane, but an airplane with a 4 to 1
> glide ratio. We do have some altitude. We're lucky. The clock may
> have not run out, quite yet. There's a clearing up ahead, someone's
> even popped smoke. Interesting how "gone" my brain is, purple, green,
> red smoke? I can't tell what it is. It's just smoke. The blood in my
> eyes makes the whole world look red anyway.
>
> The gooks are shooting the **** out of us. I hear the ping,
> ping, ping of the bullets going through the chopper. My right
> Plexiglas window disintegrates and fragments hit what is left of my
> helmet. The front windscreen was gone when I came back from my
> dementia. I hope that the equal opportunity employees of Bell did
> their job when they bolted this "SLICK" together. It's a hell of a
> machine. This old Huey's been hit before but it's never been turned
> to Swiss cheese like this. I can feel there's something wrong with
> the lift of the rotorsystem, but, what the hell, it's flying. I'm not
> dropping like a Roll's Royce engine strapped to my back.
>
> The blood clouds my vision once more and I wipe it away. I
> hear Gil screaming in the back as he blows away an endless stream of
> rounds through that M-60. There are some things in combat that you
> never forget. I had an instant to turn my head right and try to see
> what the hell Gil was shooting at. I saw nothing but jungle. I
> cranked my head around to look at him. I saw a crazed man with eyes
> the size of silver dollars, blood running out of his helmet and his
> mouth in a contorted geometry that looked impossible to duplicate.
>
> Gil keys up his mic, "I'll kill everyone of these son's a
> bitches Captain! I swear to God. The *******s blew Duke's head the
> **** off."
>
> "Just hang tight Gil. I'll probably slam this bitch down on
> the LZ ahead. I'm sure they've punched holes in our rotorblades.
> I'll never get enough lift to bail this **** out of the flare. We
> have to be full of holes man...so hang on."
>
> "Okay, Captain, gotcha. If you can't bail this **** out, then
> see ya in hell Sir. Can't be much different than being in country."
>
> I keyed up again, "****, I'd give anything to be out of gas at
> this point. Too bad that 'Ops' juiced us back on hill 83. If it
> weren't for the gas, I think we'd have a fightin' chance Gil."
>
> "Don't worry Captain. If anybody can fly this pile of
> Colorado Cool Aid, tin-can muther-****er into a safe landing at a
> 'hot' LZ, it's you Sir. If we don't get creamed, I just wonder what
> the rest of my life will be like in the Hanoi Hilton. Hey maybe that
> bitch, Hanoi Jane Fonda will come around an flash us Sir."
>
> A bullet in my brain, blood flowing down my face from a
> lacerated forehead and my eyes red with flowing-red-goo, I had to
> grin. It was just the way it was. The whole war was a piece of crap.
> All of it. Fighting people we didn't hate, killing people we had no
> idea about. It was all a pile of ****. Then you have some celebrity
> like Jane Fonda, traitorous bitch. This had to be a cartoon.
>
> I landed that UH-1H that day in a rice field that had been
> owned by a family for thousands of years. They didn't know what
> government was in control that day. All they knew was that they had
> owned that little piece of earth for some 5000 years. In fact they
> didn't even know that. It was a given. They had passed that little
> plot of land on from generation to generation through hundreds of
> wars. This war was no different in principle. It was only different
> in technology. It was the 20th century and the machines were more
> capable of killing. The smoke I saw was them cooking a pig. It was a
> sacred and religious day. Although a holiday to them, it was just
> another day for us to kill people, or be killed.
>
> We were lucky, they were "Friendy's" and hid us until a Jolly
> Green came in and picked us up two hours later. They even fed us some
> of their pig. It was Friday the 13th.
>
> BWB

[pacplyer]

I really thought that was good Bill. I liked the suspense and early
deception. I thought that was going turn out to be an alarm clock
beeping. I thought the story was going to be about drug-running for
some reason, with "the man" standing over you in the cockpit of your
stripped down Beech 18. It inspired me to pen this piece below this
morning:


The Buzz of RAH

You see there were eleven of them in all and they really had nothing
in common. The engineers, the builders, the dreamers, the weekend
warriors, the curious outsiders, and even the high flyers,
unsatisfied with having done it just the week before. But there were
more in the shadows. Many more. And this is where they would come
to find out about it so they could get their weekly fix. They spoke
in a kind of code and they talked about getting high all the time.
You see they were addicts. They were hopeless pathetic addicts. And
they could not be rehabilitated. Eleven little Indians hooked on the
intoxicating elixir of forcing their bodies into a state of utter
euphoria. Taking their bodies where they should not.

And it was dangerous. Most every young man wanted to get some at some
time in his life. And some paid with their very lives. They believed
in the dream. Some built the apparatus for it right in their garage
because they believed in the dream. And then something went wrong and
their friends had to say goodbye to them.

They were breaking the law. Newtonian Law as it was known all the
way up to 1900. This was a new drug. It was really only a rumor
until 1903. Then it became believable and hit mainstream. And it was
good. It was just as good as falling in love. You never forgot your
first hit. You never forgot that feeling that you had conquered the
whole world, and you never forgot the look on people's faces after you
did it that first time by yourself. They could see the glow on your
face. They could see you were slightly smiling to yourself doing
mundane chores that you always did. They could see something had
changed in you for the better but they weren't sure what it was and
they had this quizzical look on their faces. They noticed it
everywhere you went... as you ran your errands, as you went to work,
as you said hi to your neighbor and stopped to pet a dog that you did
not like.

And they were right. Something was going on with you and there was no
way for you to hide it. Music sounded better to you. Food tasted
better. You found pleasure in everything you did. Life was good. It
was good to be alive with your little secret:
Your feet had left the ground that week with only you as the master of
your fate. And here you were walking and talking to mere mortals a
few days later, who had no idea where you soul had been soaring. You
would forever savor that feeling and spend the rest of your life
hoping to do it again.

pacplyer


( I hope some of you liked it.)

[Badwater Bill]

On 2 Mar 2004 06:00:39 -0800, (bryan chaisone)
wrote:

>Hey BWB,
>
>Good 'Fiction', I enjoyed it. I think my grandfather told us stories
>of hiding a couple of GI flyboys that got shot down. He said they
>gave him some brownish sugarbar. I later understand that to be
>choccolet.
>
>Bryan "the monk" Chaisone


Bryan:

Tell your grandpa thanks from one of the old boys who lived through
that era. He might have saved one of my friends or even a relative.

Was he living in Viet Nam at the time, or was it another war?

BWB

[Badwater Bill]

>
>The Buzz of RAH
>
>You see there were eleven of them in all and they really had nothing
>in common. The engineers, the builders, the dreamers, the weekend
>warriors, the curious outsiders, and even the high flyers,
>unsatisfied with having done it just the week before. But there were
>more in the shadows. Many more. And this is where they would come
>to find out about it so they could get their weekly fix. They spoke
>in a kind of code and they talked about getting high all the time.
>You see they were addicts. They were hopeless pathetic addicts. And
>they could not be rehabilitated. Eleven little Indians hooked on the
>intoxicating elixir of forcing their bodies into a state of utter
>euphoria. Taking their bodies where they should not.
>
>And it was dangerous. Most every young man wanted to get some at some
>time in his life. And some paid with their very lives. They believed
>in the dream. Some built the apparatus for it right in their garage
>because they believed in the dream. And then something went wrong and
>their friends had to say goodbye to them.
>
>They were breaking the law. Newtonian Law as it was known all the
>way up to 1900. This was a new drug. It was really only a rumor
>until 1903. Then it became believable and hit mainstream. And it was
>good. It was just as good as falling in love. You never forgot your
>first hit. You never forgot that feeling that you had conquered the
>whole world, and you never forgot the look on people's faces after you
>did it that first time by yourself. They could see the glow on your
>face. They could see you were slightly smiling to yourself doing
>mundane chores that you always did. They could see something had
>changed in you for the better but they weren't sure what it was and
>they had this quizzical look on their faces. They noticed it
>everywhere you went... as you ran your errands, as you went to work,
>as you said hi to your neighbor and stopped to pet a dog that you did
>not like.
>
>And they were right. Something was going on with you and there was no
>way for you to hide it. Music sounded better to you. Food tasted
>better. You found pleasure in everything you did. Life was good. It
>was good to be alive with your little secret:
>Your feet had left the ground that week with only you as the master of
>your fate. And here you were walking and talking to mere mortals a
>few days later, who had no idea where you soul had been soaring. You
>would forever savor that feeling and spend the rest of your life
>hoping to do it again.
>
>pacplyer
>
>
>( I hope some of you liked it.)

I liked it. Nice job. It's fun to write. I see that you like it
too.

BWB

[Blueskies]

Thanks guys, those are great...

Stepping just a little bit lighter...

Dan D.



..
"pacplyer" > wrote in message om...
> I really thought that was good Bill. I liked the suspense and early
> deception. I thought that was going turn out to be an alarm clock
> beeping. I thought the story was going to be about drug-running for
> some reason, with "the man" standing over you in the cockpit of your
> stripped down Beech 18. It inspired me to pen this piece below this
> morning:
>
>
> The Buzz of RAH
>
> You see there were eleven of them in all and they really had nothing
> in common. The engineers, the builders, the dreamers, the weekend
> warriors, the curious outsiders, and even the high flyers,
> unsatisfied with having done it just the week before. But there were
> more in the shadows. Many more. And this is where they would come
> to find out about it so they could get their weekly fix. They spoke
> in a kind of code and they talked about getting high all the time.
> You see they were addicts. They were hopeless pathetic addicts. And
> they could not be rehabilitated. Eleven little Indians hooked on the
> intoxicating elixir of forcing their bodies into a state of utter
> euphoria. Taking their bodies where they should not.
>
> And it was dangerous. Most every young man wanted to get some at some
> time in his life. And some paid with their very lives. They believed
> in the dream. Some built the apparatus for it right in their garage
> because they believed in the dream. And then something went wrong and
> their friends had to say goodbye to them.
>
> They were breaking the law. Newtonian Law as it was known all the
> way up to 1900. This was a new drug. It was really only a rumor
> until 1903. Then it became believable and hit mainstream. And it was
> good. It was just as good as falling in love. You never forgot your
> first hit. You never forgot that feeling that you had conquered the
> whole world, and you never forgot the look on people's faces after you
> did it that first time by yourself. They could see the glow on your
> face. They could see you were slightly smiling to yourself doing
> mundane chores that you always did. They could see something had
> changed in you for the better but they weren't sure what it was and
> they had this quizzical look on their faces. They noticed it
> everywhere you went... as you ran your errands, as you went to work,
> as you said hi to your neighbor and stopped to pet a dog that you did
> not like.
>
> And they were right. Something was going on with you and there was no
> way for you to hide it. Music sounded better to you. Food tasted
> better. You found pleasure in everything you did. Life was good. It
> was good to be alive with your little secret:
> Your feet had left the ground that week with only you as the master of
> your fate. And here you were walking and talking to mere mortals a
> few days later, who had no idea where you soul had been soaring. You
> would forever savor that feeling and spend the rest of your life
> hoping to do it again.
>
> pacplyer
>
>
> ( I hope some of you liked it.)

[pacplyer]

(Badwater Bill) wrote
>
> I liked it. Nice job. It's fun to write. I see that you like it
> too.
>
> BWB

Well, I wouldn't call mine real writing. I just copied a lot of your
style with the cool repetition and great front-end suspense (i.e.
reader gets hooked and asks himself: just how sinister is this story
anyway?)

Glad you're not sore about it. :-) Your a good author Bill. The Nam
story was a real cliffhanger.

Anyway, shouldn't have put mine in your "fiction" thread. Mine is a
"true" story about Rahians that have actually been signed off for
solo. ;-]

I mistook it for a creative writing thread. What threw me was the
rough-draft comment and thinking: why would a full bird be in an army
helo in the jungle? Then I saw a Charles Lindberg thing on "D.C.
Wings" today about Lindberg sneaking into the Solomon Islands and
shooting down Japs without permission from the war dept, and realized:
Hey, it could happen.

So BWB did you really do it?

As Howard Hughes was asked if he meant to fly the Spruce Goose off the
water he replied: "*You'll* never know!"

Great stuff, keep it comming,

pacplyer

(It seems to me I remember a story by you about gun running. I can't
seem to find it. You don't have a link to that do you?)

[Badwater Bill]

>So BWB did you really do it?


Nah. I was never in a war. Air America was a civilian airline
Everybody knows that. Ask Walt Troyer. He flew for AA. He and I are
about the same age and lived through the same ****ty times. I was a
cargo dog like you Pac. Just on the helicopter end of things and
peripherally attached to Air America. Never saw any real heat. At
least that's what my file in the Pentagon says.

But, I'll tell you another bit of fiction. The Army Huey's couldn't
cross into Laos or Cambodia to chase the Viet Cong (VC) over imaginary
borders in the middle of the jungle. The Air Force couldn't bomb over
these borders either although it did happen a few times and we took a
lot of heat for it. That was one of the things that was so crazy
about that war. There were gobbs of rules that were all in favor of
the enemy. So, there had to be some way around this at times when it
was absolutely essential for the safe ops of a mission to be
successful "in country."

If a civilian pilot for Air America crossed a border in a slick, it
was a sacrificial mission and nobody gave a **** if they didn't come
back. The Huey had no markings and the occupants carried no ID's. If
you got shot down, nobody knew you and nobody came to get you. If you
lived, you ate bugs, dogs, cats and monkeys. You used your sniper
capabilities to take out any unfriendlies and you walked back to Viet
Nam. You actually crawled back to Viet Nam because you had to stay
hidden in the dense jungle. You used your pocket knife, your survival
gear and your wit to get you back. You didn't even have a radio
because that would give you away. Water was usually the most critical
thing. If you had water, you'd most likely make it. So, the first
thing you did was try to figure out how to follow a path that had
water along it. River's, streams, lakes, anything with water.

Getting shot down for Air America wasn't like the Army. If you were
a soldier and you went down in a slick or a gun ship (in country), the
Army would almost commit endless resources to picking even one man up.
The Marines operate that very way to this day. Nobody gets left
behind, PERIOD. If one guy is out there in the weeds, they'll napalm
the **** out of the jungle and kill every living thing within 5 miles
to clear an LZ for a safe pick-up.

Air America was different. The CIA operated it covertly but those who
worked for it knew that they were to be sacrificed if they creamed in
over some imaginary line (border) somewhere where "We" (the USA)
weren't supposed to be. The way it would be explained is that the
crew was a mad-dog renegade group of drug smugglers on a personal
mission to smuggle heroin or opium across the border for their
personal profit. That was one story. There were others.


__________________________________________________ ______

A couple definitions for the kids who didn't live through that era:

VC= Viet Cong "gooks", the enemy

LZ=Landing Zone

Slick= A stripped down Huey helicopter like a UH-1H or a B-model with
no guns on the outside.

Hog=Same UH-1H with guns, rockets and all sorts of other **** attached
to the outside of it. It was slow and dirty so it was called a HOG.

Air America= CIA owned and operated airline run by a bunch of card
carrying crazies. Although most were civilians, even the one's who
weren't never carried any ID. I've heard there were many military
people including Bird Colonels who flew for Air America. But I
wouldn't know for sure. At the end of my career in the government I
even had a couple O-6's who worked for me, but they never admitted to
doing anything like that during the war.

in country= Means, in Viet Nam


>
>(It seems to me I remember a story by you about gun running. I can't
>seem to find it. You don't have a link to that do you?)

I posted it 10 years ago here somewhere. It was the story of how
Badwater Bill got his name. I've been through about 5 computers since
then and it's probably lost somewhere. It was about my inability to
fit back into society after the Viet Nam war. I ended up in Central
America supporting a bunch of good looking women. I had a lot of
testosterone in those days.

Some son's a bitches stole my women one day and I had to hunt the
*******s down and kill them. In the process, I got my name Badwater
Bill. But it was in Spanish. I'll try to find it. It was just a
fun story I wrote one day, just like the one above. It was about 80%
truth and 20% fiction. That's about the way I write this stuff. I've
lived a lot of it, but just in different circumstances. I embellish
it and change it to make it entertaining. There's nothing romantic
about war when a man is there. It's the Tom Clancey in me that makes
me write this stuff. I'm an armchair warrior. I never want to be in
harm's way again in any circumstance. I'm a coward. I'd rather sit
home and watch TV than be in a battle. But, when I was younger, I was
different. All of life was an adventure.

I'm old too, and I'm cranky. If the enemy didn't get me, my own men
would frag me for being so cranky. I got a kick out of somebody here
the other day who was talking about somebody by calling them by their
first name then using the word "Grump" at the end. It was like: "Oh
yeah, John the Grump riveted those. He did a great job too." That
would fit me nowadays. "Bill the Grump."

BWB

[John Ammeter]

On Wed, 03 Mar 2004 15:22:18 GMT,
(Badwater Bill) wrote:


>I'm old too, and I'm cranky. If the enemy didn't get me, my own men
>would frag me for being so cranky. I got a kick out of somebody here
>the other day who was talking about somebody by calling them by their
>first name then using the word "Grump" at the end. It was like: "Oh
>yeah, John the Grump riveted those. He did a great job too." That
>would fit me nowadays. "Bill the Grump."
>
>BWB
>

I resent that.... I'm not THAT grumpy...

John

[pacplyer]

"Blueskies" > wrote in message >...
> Thanks guys, those are great...
>
> Stepping just a little bit lighter...
>
> Dan D.
>
>
>

You're welcome Dan.

pac



> .
> "pacplyer" > wrote in message om...
> > I really thought that was good Bill. I liked the suspense and early
> > deception. I thought that was going turn out to be an alarm clock
> > beeping. I thought the story was going to be about drug-running for
> > some reason, with "the man" standing over you in the cockpit of your
> > stripped down Beech 18. It inspired me to pen this piece below this
> > morning:
> >
> >
> > The Buzz of RAH
> >
> > You see there were eleven of them in all and they really had nothing
> > in common. The engineers, the builders, the dreamers, the weekend
> > warriors, the curious outsiders, and even the high flyers,
> > unsatisfied with having done it just the week before. But there were
> > more in the shadows. Many more. And this is where they would come
> > to find out about it so they could get their weekly fix. They spoke
> > in a kind of code and they talked about getting high all the time.
> > You see they were addicts. They were hopeless pathetic addicts. And
> > they could not be rehabilitated. Eleven little Indians hooked on the
> > intoxicating elixir of forcing their bodies into a state of utter
> > euphoria. Taking their bodies where they should not.
> >
> > And it was dangerous. Most every young man wanted to get some at some
> > time in his life. And some paid with their very lives. They believed
> > in the dream. Some built the apparatus for it right in their garage
> > because they believed in the dream. And then something went wrong and
> > their friends had to say goodbye to them.
> >
> > They were breaking the law. Newtonian Law as it was known all the
> > way up to 1900. This was a new drug. It was really only a rumor
> > until 1903. Then it became believable and hit mainstream. And it was
> > good. It was just as good as falling in love. You never forgot your
> > first hit. You never forgot that feeling that you had conquered the
> > whole world, and you never forgot the look on people's faces after you
> > did it that first time by yourself. They could see the glow on your
> > face. They could see you were slightly smiling to yourself doing
> > mundane chores that you always did. They could see something had
> > changed in you for the better but they weren't sure what it was and
> > they had this quizzical look on their faces. They noticed it
> > everywhere you went... as you ran your errands, as you went to work,
> > as you said hi to your neighbor and stopped to pet a dog that you did
> > not like.
> >
> > And they were right. Something was going on with you and there was no
> > way for you to hide it. Music sounded better to you. Food tasted
> > better. You found pleasure in everything you did. Life was good. It
> > was good to be alive with your little secret:
> > Your feet had left the ground that week with only you as the master of
> > your fate. And here you were walking and talking to mere mortals a
> > few days later, who had no idea where you soul had been soaring. You
> > would forever savor that feeling and spend the rest of your life
> > hoping to do it again.
> >
> > pacplyer
> >
> >
> > ( I hope some of you liked it.)

[bryan chaisone]

Bill,

It was the Vietnam Conflict. He was living in Laos at the time. He
now lives in Thailand.

Bryan 'The Flying Monk" Chaisone
http://www.alexisparkinn.com/rogue's_gallery_a-h.htm#C

(Badwater Bill) wrote in message >...
> On 2 Mar 2004 06:00:39 -0800, (bryan chaisone)
> wrote:
>
> >Hey BWB,
> >
> >Good 'Fiction', I enjoyed it. I think my grandfather told us stories
> >of hiding a couple of GI flyboys that got shot down. He said they
> >gave him some brownish sugarbar. I later understand that to be
> >choccolet.
> >
> >Bryan "the monk" Chaisone
>
>
> Bryan:
>
> Tell your grandpa thanks from one of the old boys who lived through
> that era. He might have saved one of my friends or even a relative.
>
> Was he living in Viet Nam at the time, or was it another war?
>
> BWB

[bryan chaisone]

(Badwater Bill) wrote in message >...
> >
> >The Buzz of RAH
> >
> >You see there were eleven of them in all and they really had nothing
> >in common. The engineers, the builders, the dreamers, the weekend
> >warriors, the curious outsiders, and even the high flyers,
> >unsatisfied with having done it just the week before. But there were
> >more in the shadows. Many more. And this is where they would come
> >to find out about it so they could get their weekly fix. They spoke
> >in a kind of code and they talked about getting high all the time.
> >You see they were addicts. They were hopeless pathetic addicts. And
> >they could not be rehabilitated. Eleven little Indians hooked on the
> >intoxicating elixir of forcing their bodies into a state of utter
> >euphoria. Taking their bodies where they should not.
> >
> >And it was dangerous. Most every young man wanted to get some at some
> >time in his life. And some paid with their very lives. They believed
> >in the dream. Some built the apparatus for it right in their garage
> >because they believed in the dream. And then something went wrong and
> >their friends had to say goodbye to them.
> >
> >They were breaking the law. Newtonian Law as it was known all the
> >way up to 1900. This was a new drug. It was really only a rumor
> >until 1903. Then it became believable and hit mainstream. And it was
> >good. It was just as good as falling in love. You never forgot your
> >first hit. You never forgot that feeling that you had conquered the
> >whole world, and you never forgot the look on people's faces after you
> >did it that first time by yourself. They could see the glow on your
> >face. They could see you were slightly smiling to yourself doing
> >mundane chores that you always did. They could see something had
> >changed in you for the better but they weren't sure what it was and
> >they had this quizzical look on their faces. They noticed it
> >everywhere you went... as you ran your errands, as you went to work,
> >as you said hi to your neighbor and stopped to pet a dog that you did
> >not like.
> >
> >And they were right. Something was going on with you and there was no
> >way for you to hide it. Music sounded better to you. Food tasted
> >better. You found pleasure in everything you did. Life was good. It
> >was good to be alive with your little secret:
> >Your feet had left the ground that week with only you as the master of
> >your fate. And here you were walking and talking to mere mortals a
> >few days later, who had no idea where you soul had been soaring. You
> >would forever savor that feeling and spend the rest of your life
> >hoping to do it again.
> >
> >pacplyer
> >
> >
> >( I hope some of you liked it.)
>
> I liked it. Nice job. It's fun to write. I see that you like it
> too.
>
> BWB

Ditto!

Bryan

[bryan chaisone]

I'll let him Know you said, "Thanks".

Bryan

(Badwater Bill) wrote in message >...
> On 2 Mar 2004 06:00:39 -0800, (bryan chaisone)
> wrote:
>
> >Hey BWB,
> >
> >Good 'Fiction', I enjoyed it. I think my grandfather told us stories
> >of hiding a couple of GI flyboys that got shot down. He said they
> >gave him some brownish sugarbar. I later understand that to be
> >choccolet.
> >
> >Bryan "the monk" Chaisone
>
>
> Bryan:
>
> Tell your grandpa thanks from one of the old boys who lived through
> that era. He might have saved one of my friends or even a relative.
>
> Was he living in Viet Nam at the time, or was it another war?
>
> BWB

[bryan chaisone]

(Badwater Bill) wrote in message >...
> >So BWB did you really do it?
>
>
> Nah. I was never in a war. Air America was a civilian airline
> Everybody knows that. Ask Walt Troyer. He flew for AA. He and I are
> about the same age and lived through the same ****ty times. I was a
> cargo dog like you Pac. Just on the helicopter end of things and
> peripherally attached to Air America. Never saw any real heat. At
> least that's what my file in the Pentagon says.
>
> But, I'll tell you another bit of fiction. The Army Huey's couldn't
> cross into Laos or Cambodia to chase the Viet Cong (VC) over imaginary
> borders in the middle of the jungle. The Air Force couldn't bomb over
> these borders either although it did happen a few times and we took a
> lot of heat for it. That was one of the things that was so crazy
> about that war. There were gobbs of rules that were all in favor of
> the enemy. So, there had to be some way around this at times when it
> was absolutely essential for the safe ops of a mission to be
> successful "in country."
>
> If a civilian pilot for Air America crossed a border in a slick, it
> was a sacrificial mission and nobody gave a **** if they didn't come
> back. The Huey had no markings and the occupants carried no ID's. If
> you got shot down, nobody knew you and nobody came to get you. If you
> lived, you ate bugs, dogs, cats and monkeys. You used your sniper
> capabilities to take out any unfriendlies and you walked back to Viet
> Nam. You actually crawled back to Viet Nam because you had to stay
> hidden in the dense jungle. You used your pocket knife, your survival
> gear and your wit to get you back. You didn't even have a radio
> because that would give you away. Water was usually the most critical
> thing. If you had water, you'd most likely make it. So, the first
> thing you did was try to figure out how to follow a path that had
> water along it. River's, streams, lakes, anything with water.
>
> Getting shot down for Air America wasn't like the Army. If you were
> a soldier and you went down in a slick or a gun ship (in country), the
> Army would almost commit endless resources to picking even one man up.
> The Marines operate that very way to this day. Nobody gets left
> behind, PERIOD. If one guy is out there in the weeds, they'll napalm
> the **** out of the jungle and kill every living thing within 5 miles
> to clear an LZ for a safe pick-up.
>
> Air America was different. The CIA operated it covertly but those who
> worked for it knew that they were to be sacrificed if they creamed in
> over some imaginary line (border) somewhere where "We" (the USA)
> weren't supposed to be. The way it would be explained is that the
> crew was a mad-dog renegade group of drug smugglers on a personal
> mission to smuggle heroin or opium across the border for their
> personal profit. That was one story. There were others.
>
>
> __________________________________________________ ______
>
> A couple definitions for the kids who didn't live through that era:
>
> VC= Viet Cong "gooks", the enemy
>
> LZ=Landing Zone
>
> Slick= A stripped down Huey helicopter like a UH-1H or a B-model with
> no guns on the outside.
>
> Hog=Same UH-1H with guns, rockets and all sorts of other **** attached
> to the outside of it. It was slow and dirty so it was called a HOG.
>
> Air America= CIA owned and operated airline run by a bunch of card
> carrying crazies. Although most were civilians, even the one's who
> weren't never carried any ID. I've heard there were many military
> people including Bird Colonels who flew for Air America. But I
> wouldn't know for sure. At the end of my career in the government I
> even had a couple O-6's who worked for me, but they never admitted to
> doing anything like that during the war.
>
> in country= Means, in Viet Nam
>
>
> >
> >(It seems to me I remember a story by you about gun running. I can't
> >seem to find it. You don't have a link to that do you?)
>
> I posted it 10 years ago here somewhere. It was the story of how
> Badwater Bill got his name. I've been through about 5 computers since
> then and it's probably lost somewhere. It was about my inability to
> fit back into society after the Viet Nam war. I ended up in Central
> America supporting a bunch of good looking women. I had a lot of
> testosterone in those days.
>
> Some son's a bitches stole my women one day and I had to hunt the
> *******s down and kill them. In the process, I got my name Badwater
> Bill. But it was in Spanish. I'll try to find it. It was just a
> fun story I wrote one day, just like the one above. It was about 80%
> truth and 20% fiction. That's about the way I write this stuff. I've
> lived a lot of it, but just in different circumstances. I embellish
> it and change it to make it entertaining. There's nothing romantic
> about war when a man is there. It's the Tom Clancey in me that makes
> me write this stuff. I'm an armchair warrior. I never want to be in
> harm's way again in any circumstance. I'm a coward. I'd rather sit
> home and watch TV than be in a battle. But, when I was younger, I was
> different. All of life was an adventure.
>
> I'm old too, and I'm cranky. If the enemy didn't get me, my own men
> would frag me for being so cranky. I got a kick out of somebody here
> the other day who was talking about somebody by calling them by their
> first name then using the word "Grump" at the end. It was like: "Oh
> yeah, John the Grump riveted those. He did a great job too." That
> would fit me nowadays. "Bill the Grump."
>
> BWB

Bill,

The B52s bombed the sh*t outta Laos, "Carpet Bombing" they called it.
Various types of bombs. Tens and hundreds still get killed or mamed
each year from UXOs. These little metal balls or tin cans look
attractive and kids want to play with them. Farmers still lose their
legs in Laos every year. Even China has signed a Treaty to stop
producing these. My Grandpa used to live in Laos. Laos still holds
the world record for being bomded the most. More bombs were dropped
in Laos than in both WWI & WWII combined." Guinness Books. Grandpa
saids, "You want a pond? build a fire, big bird come make hold."

Bryan

[bryan chaisone]

(Badwater Bill) wrote in message >...
> >So BWB did you really do it?
>
>
> Nah. I was never in a war. Air America was a civilian airline
> Everybody knows that. Ask Walt Troyer. He flew for AA. He and I are
> about the same age and lived through the same ****ty times. I was a
> cargo dog like you Pac. Just on the helicopter end of things and
> peripherally attached to Air America. Never saw any real heat. At
> least that's what my file in the Pentagon says.
>
> But, I'll tell you another bit of fiction. The Army Huey's couldn't
> cross into Laos or Cambodia to chase the Viet Cong (VC) over imaginary
> borders in the middle of the jungle. The Air Force couldn't bomb over
> these borders either although it did happen a few times and we took a
> lot of heat for it. That was one of the things that was so crazy
> about that war. There were gobbs of rules that were all in favor of
> the enemy. So, there had to be some way around this at times when it
> was absolutely essential for the safe ops of a mission to be
> successful "in country."
>
> If a civilian pilot for Air America crossed a border in a slick, it
> was a sacrificial mission and nobody gave a **** if they didn't come
> back. The Huey had no markings and the occupants carried no ID's. If
> you got shot down, nobody knew you and nobody came to get you. If you
> lived, you ate bugs, dogs, cats and monkeys. You used your sniper
> capabilities to take out any unfriendlies and you walked back to Viet
> Nam. You actually crawled back to Viet Nam because you had to stay
> hidden in the dense jungle. You used your pocket knife, your survival
> gear and your wit to get you back. You didn't even have a radio
> because that would give you away. Water was usually the most critical
> thing. If you had water, you'd most likely make it. So, the first
> thing you did was try to figure out how to follow a path that had
> water along it. River's, streams, lakes, anything with water.
>
> Getting shot down for Air America wasn't like the Army. If you were
> a soldier and you went down in a slick or a gun ship (in country), the
> Army would almost commit endless resources to picking even one man up.
> The Marines operate that very way to this day. Nobody gets left
> behind, PERIOD. If one guy is out there in the weeds, they'll napalm
> the **** out of the jungle and kill every living thing within 5 miles
> to clear an LZ for a safe pick-up.
>
> Air America was different. The CIA operated it covertly but those who
> worked for it knew that they were to be sacrificed if they creamed in
> over some imaginary line (border) somewhere where "We" (the USA)
> weren't supposed to be. The way it would be explained is that the
> crew was a mad-dog renegade group of drug smugglers on a personal
> mission to smuggle heroin or opium across the border for their
> personal profit. That was one story. There were others.
>
>
> __________________________________________________ ______
>
> A couple definitions for the kids who didn't live through that era:
>
> VC= Viet Cong "gooks", the enemy
>
> LZ=Landing Zone
>
> Slick= A stripped down Huey helicopter like a UH-1H or a B-model with
> no guns on the outside.
>
> Hog=Same UH-1H with guns, rockets and all sorts of other **** attached
> to the outside of it. It was slow and dirty so it was called a HOG.
>
> Air America= CIA owned and operated airline run by a bunch of card
> carrying crazies. Although most were civilians, even the one's who
> weren't never carried any ID. I've heard there were many military
> people including Bird Colonels who flew for Air America. But I
> wouldn't know for sure. At the end of my career in the government I
> even had a couple O-6's who worked for me, but they never admitted to
> doing anything like that during the war.
>
> in country= Means, in Viet Nam
>
>
> >
> >(It seems to me I remember a story by you about gun running. I can't
> >seem to find it. You don't have a link to that do you?)
>
> I posted it 10 years ago here somewhere. It was the story of how
> Badwater Bill got his name. I've been through about 5 computers since
> then and it's probably lost somewhere. It was about my inability to
> fit back into society after the Viet Nam war. I ended up in Central
> America supporting a bunch of good looking women. I had a lot of
> testosterone in those days.
>
> Some son's a bitches stole my women one day and I had to hunt the
> *******s down and kill them. In the process, I got my name Badwater
> Bill. But it was in Spanish. I'll try to find it. It was just a
> fun story I wrote one day, just like the one above. It was about 80%
> truth and 20% fiction. That's about the way I write this stuff. I've
> lived a lot of it, but just in different circumstances. I embellish
> it and change it to make it entertaining. There's nothing romantic
> about war when a man is there. It's the Tom Clancey in me that makes
> me write this stuff. I'm an armchair warrior. I never want to be in
> harm's way again in any circumstance. I'm a coward. I'd rather sit
> home and watch TV than be in a battle. But, when I was younger, I was
> different. All of life was an adventure.
>
> I'm old too, and I'm cranky. If the enemy didn't get me, my own men
> would frag me for being so cranky. I got a kick out of somebody here
> the other day who was talking about somebody by calling them by their
> first name then using the word "Grump" at the end. It was like: "Oh
> yeah, John the Grump riveted those. He did a great job too." That
> would fit me nowadays. "Bill the Grump."
>
> BWB


Bill the Grump,

I thought Air America was based in Laos, at Wat Tai Airport. They
were supposed to stay in Laos?

Bryan

[bryan chaisone]

(pacplyer) wrote in message >...
> I really thought that was good Bill. I liked the suspense and early
> deception. I thought that was going turn out to be an alarm clock
> beeping. I thought the story was going to be about drug-running for
> some reason, with "the man" standing over you in the cockpit of your
> stripped down Beech 18. It inspired me to pen this piece below this
> morning:
>
>
> The Buzz of RAH
>
> You see there were eleven of them in all and they really had nothing
> in common. The engineers, the builders, the dreamers, the weekend
> warriors, the curious outsiders, and even the high flyers,
> unsatisfied with having done it just the week before. But there were
> more in the shadows. Many more. And this is where they would come
> to find out about it so they could get their weekly fix. They spoke
> in a kind of code and they talked about getting high all the time.
> You see they were addicts. They were hopeless pathetic addicts. And
> they could not be rehabilitated. Eleven little Indians hooked on the
> intoxicating elixir of forcing their bodies into a state of utter
> euphoria. Taking their bodies where they should not.
>
> And it was dangerous. Most every young man wanted to get some at some
> time in his life. And some paid with their very lives. They believed
> in the dream. Some built the apparatus for it right in their garage
> because they believed in the dream. And then something went wrong and
> their friends had to say goodbye to them.
>
> They were breaking the law. Newtonian Law as it was known all the
> way up to 1900. This was a new drug. It was really only a rumor
> until 1903. Then it became believable and hit mainstream. And it was
> good. It was just as good as falling in love. You never forgot your
> first hit. You never forgot that feeling that you had conquered the
> whole world, and you never forgot the look on people's faces after you
> did it that first time by yourself. They could see the glow on your
> face. They could see you were slightly smiling to yourself doing
> mundane chores that you always did. They could see something had
> changed in you for the better but they weren't sure what it was and
> they had this quizzical look on their faces. They noticed it
> everywhere you went... as you ran your errands, as you went to work,
> as you said hi to your neighbor and stopped to pet a dog that you did
> not like.
>
> And they were right. Something was going on with you and there was no
> way for you to hide it. Music sounded better to you. Food tasted
> better. You found pleasure in everything you did. Life was good. It
> was good to be alive with your little secret:
> Your feet had left the ground that week with only you as the master of
> your fate. And here you were walking and talking to mere mortals a
> few days later, who had no idea where you soul had been soaring. You
> would forever savor that feeling and spend the rest of your life
> hoping to do it again.
>
> pacplyer
>
>
> ( I hope some of you liked it.)

I like.
Bryan "The Monk" Chaisone
http://www.alexisparkinn.com/rogue's_gallery_a-h.htm#C

[Badwater Bill]

On 3 Mar 2004 14:35:21 -0800, (bryan chaisone)
wrote:

>I'll let him Know you said, "Thanks".
>
>Bryan

You bet. I appreciate that more than you'll ever know...even to this
day.

Bill Phillips

[Badwater Bill]

p,
>
>I thought Air America was based in Laos, at Wat Tai Airport. They
>were supposed to stay in Laos?
>
>Bryan


Bryan. Early on the war was in Laos. It was when Kennedy was
president. Later on it shifted to Viet Nam. I know that they bombed
the crap out of Laos in the early years, like 1963 or so before
Kennedy was killed.

After that, all bets were off. Air America had many bases, not just
in Laos. They even opperated out of Africa for some missions. Then
later on even in the Mideast.

BWB

[pacplyer]

(Badwater Bill) wrote in message >...
> >So BWB did you really do it?
>
>
> Nah. I was never in a war. Air America was a civilian airline
> Everybody knows that. Ask Walt Troyer. He flew for AA.

I think the follow-on airline for CIA was called SAT. Southern Air
Transport (but I've heard it was exactly the same kind of thing.) He
said to leave him out of it via email. I ****ed him off doubting if
he was at that outfit. Sorry Walt. Like I said Bill, there's no
question he flew Hercs in Africa cuz I later flew with his old
co-pilot on A310's in SE Asia.

He and I are
> about the same age and lived through the same ****ty times. I was a
> cargo dog like you Pac. Just on the helicopter end of things and
> peripherally attached to Air America. Never saw any real heat. At
> least that's what my file in the Pentagon says.
>
> But, I'll tell you another bit of fiction. The Army Huey's couldn't
> cross into Laos or Cambodia to chase the Viet Cong (VC) over imaginary
> borders in the middle of the jungle. The Air Force couldn't bomb over
> these borders either although it did happen a few times and we took a
> lot of heat for it. That was one of the things that was so crazy
> about that war. There were gobbs of rules that were all in favor of
> the enemy. So, there had to be some way around this at times when it
> was absolutely essential for the safe ops of a mission to be
> successful "in country."
>
> If a civilian pilot for Air America crossed a border in a slick, it
> was a sacrificial mission and nobody gave a **** if they didn't come
> back. The Huey had no markings and the occupants carried no ID's. If
> you got shot down, nobody knew you and nobody came to get you. If you
> lived, you ate bugs, dogs, cats and monkeys. You used your sniper
> capabilities to take out any unfriendlies and you walked back to Viet
> Nam. You actually crawled back to Viet Nam because you had to stay
> hidden in the dense jungle. You used your pocket knife, your survival
> gear and your wit to get you back. You didn't even have a radio
> because that would give you away. Water was usually the most critical
> thing. If you had water, you'd most likely make it. So, the first
> thing you did was try to figure out how to follow a path that had
> water along it. River's, streams, lakes, anything with water.
>
> Getting shot down for Air America wasn't like the Army. If you were
> a soldier and you went down in a slick or a gun ship (in country), the
> Army would almost commit endless resources to picking even one man up.
> The Marines operate that very way to this day. Nobody gets left
> behind, PERIOD. If one guy is out there in the weeds, they'll napalm
> the **** out of the jungle and kill every living thing within 5 miles
> to clear an LZ for a safe pick-up.
>
> Air America was different. The CIA operated it covertly but those who
> worked for it knew that they were to be sacrificed if they creamed in
> over some imaginary line (border) somewhere where "We" (the USA)
> weren't supposed to be. The way it would be explained is that the
> crew was a mad-dog renegade group of drug smugglers on a personal
> mission to smuggle heroin or opium across the border for their
> personal profit. That was one story. There were others.

I was amazed at how loose a combat operation actually is. In Desert
Storm we landed at XXXX with a bunch of surprising stuff on board, and
after we cleared the runway everybody including the Captain whipped
out their cameras and started snapping shots of the fighters taking
off with full loads to bomb the **** out of "So-damned-insane." I was
the only one scared of losing my clearance who didn't bring a camera.
I've been kicking myself ever since. Anyway we parked right next to a
bunch of Tornados, which were being loaded with 2000lb ers (I think)
and we walked over, got in the way of loading, by accident, talked to
the jock for a second as he was inserted into to his bird and watched
him taxi out and take off for the run. I've got one shot of us in the
74 cockpit that the captain gave me if I can find it.


>
>
> __________________________________________________ ______
>
> A couple definitions for the kids who didn't live through that era:
>
> VC= Viet Cong "gooks", the enemy
>
> LZ=Landing Zone
>
> Slick= A stripped down Huey helicopter like a UH-1H or a B-model with
> no guns on the outside.
>
> Hog=Same UH-1H with guns, rockets and all sorts of other **** attached
> to the outside of it. It was slow and dirty so it was called a HOG.
>
> Air America= CIA owned and operated airline run by a bunch of card
> carrying crazies. Although most were civilians, even the one's who
> weren't never carried any ID. I've heard there were many military
> people including Bird Colonels who flew for Air America. But I
> wouldn't know for sure. At the end of my career in the government I
> even had a couple O-6's who worked for me, but they never admitted to
> doing anything like that during the war.


Of course not. It had to of been all by the book. Everybody knows
that! ;)

>
> in country= Means, in Viet Nam
>
>
> >
> >(It seems to me I remember a story by you about gun running. I can't
> >seem to find it. You don't have a link to that do you?)
>
> I posted it 10 years ago here somewhere. It was the story of how
> Badwater Bill got his name. I've been through about 5 computers since
> then and it's probably lost somewhere. It was about my inability to
> fit back into society after the Viet Nam war. I ended up in Central
> America supporting a bunch of good looking women. I had a lot of
> testosterone in those days.
>
> Some son's a bitches stole my women one day and I had to hunt the
> *******s down and kill them. In the process, I got my name Badwater
> Bill. But it was in Spanish. I'll try to find it. It was just a
> fun story I wrote one day, just like the one above. It was about 80%
> truth and 20% fiction. That's about the way I write this stuff.

That's the perfect mix, BadH2O. Perfect. I'd like to co-write the
book with you if I ever get my **** together and get published: "The
Great Misadventures of Badwater Bill." No doubt it would be a NY
times bestseller!

I've
> lived a lot of it, but just in different circumstances. I embellish
> it and change it to make it entertaining. There's nothing romantic
> about war when a man is there.

Ya got that right. I had this sick feeling in the pit of my stomache
when they started launching SCUDS and ATC turned us to the south over
egypt because of it. Cost us an extra two hours enroute. We were the
only ones on the ground that night who didn't have gas masks. (not
that it would have done us much good, if there were any "superbugs" in
the wreckage.)

> It's the Tom Clancey in me that makes
> me write this stuff. I'm an armchair warrior. I never want to be in
> harm's way again in any circumstance. I'm a coward.

Bull ****. I've never met any helo cowards! You gotta have brass
balls as big as "David Clark" earcups just to set foot in one of those
things. Esp. when the jungle is full of armed bandits who would kill
you just for your wris****ch.

> I'd rather sit
> home and watch TV than be in a battle. But, when I was younger, I was
> different. All of life was an adventure.
>
> I'm old too, and I'm cranky. If the enemy didn't get me, my own men
> would frag me for being so cranky. I got a kick out of somebody here
> the other day who was talking about somebody by calling them by their
> first name then using the word "Grump" at the end. It was like: "Oh
> yeah, John the Grump riveted those. He did a great job too." That
> would fit me nowadays. "Bill the Grump."
>
> BWB


Great post Grumpwater.

pacplyer

[bryan chaisone]

(Badwater Bill) wrote in message >...

> Bryan. Early on the war was in Laos. It was when Kennedy was
> president. Later on it shifted to Viet Nam. I know that they bombed
> the crap out of Laos in the early years, like 1963 or so before
> Kennedy was killed.
>
> After that, all bets were off. Air America had many bases, not just
> in Laos. They even opperated out of Africa for some missions. Then
> later on even in the Mideast.
>
> BWB

Damn, learned something new again.

Hate it when that happens.

Bryan

[Big John]

Pac

Wasn't SAT the outfit that Ollie was using in Nicaragua and the '****
kicker' got taken and made the headlines????

Big John

On 4 Mar 2004 23:51:14 -0800, (pacplyer) wrote:

(Badwater Bill) wrote in message >...
>> >So BWB did you really do it?
>>
>>
>> Nah. I was never in a war. Air America was a civilian airline
>> Everybody knows that. Ask Walt Troyer. He flew for AA.
>
>I think the follow-on airline for CIA was called SAT. Southern Air
>Transport (but I've heard it was exactly the same kind of thing.) He
>said to leave him out of it via email. I ****ed him off doubting if
>he was at that outfit. Sorry Walt. Like I said Bill, there's no
>question he flew Hercs in Africa cuz I later flew with his old
>co-pilot on A310's in SE Asia.
>
----clip----

[pacplyer]

Big John > wrote in message >...
> Pac
>
> Wasn't SAT the outfit that Ollie was using in Nicaragua and the '****
> kicker' got taken and made the headlines????
>
> Big John
>
>

Yeah that's the bunch all right. They were involved in a lot of other
things around the world too that didn't make the papers. "Anything,
anywhere." Everytime we'd see a grey or camouflaged herc C-130 with
no markings or registration numbers taxiing around on a ramp somewhere
around the world using a strange callsign we would smile because we
knew it might be those fearless SAT guys again. The average American
probably owes these guys a lot and doesn't even know it. I think BWB
is right, that it is really the same Co. (from the gov standpoint) but
they just changed their name and started anew aft Nam. At least
that's what I heard anyway. Should ask Walt if he's still here.

You doing better after you hosp. stay?

pac

[Big John]

Pac

Feel a lot better but still have the infirmities of old old age. Still
better than a sharp stick in the eye as we used to say.

The media trashed AA so bad in and after VN about their out country
ops, think the name was changed to protect the innocent. Probably many
of same crews moved on from AA after it was shut down or reduced in
size?

I went through a aircraft check out program during Nam with a CIA and
AF type who wouldn't talk about where they were going. From the A/C we
were flying the only place could have been Laos.

Take care and fly right :o)

BJ

On 6 Mar 2004 07:57:35 -0800, (pacplyer) wrote:

>Big John > wrote in message >...
>> Pac
>>
>> Wasn't SAT the outfit that Ollie was using in Nicaragua and the '****
>> kicker' got taken and made the headlines????
>>
>> Big John
>>
>>
>
>Yeah that's the bunch all right. They were involved in a lot of other
>things around the world too that didn't make the papers. "Anything,
>anywhere." Everytime we'd see a grey or camouflaged herc C-130 with
>no markings or registration numbers taxiing around on a ramp somewhere
>around the world using a strange callsign we would smile because we
>knew it might be those fearless SAT guys again. The average American
>probably owes these guys a lot and doesn't even know it. I think BWB
>is right, that it is really the same Co. (from the gov standpoint) but
>they just changed their name and started anew aft Nam. At least
>that's what I heard anyway. Should ask Walt if he's still here.
>
>You doing better after you hosp. stay?
>
>pac

[pacplyer]

Big John > wrote in message >...
> Pac
>
> Feel a lot better but still have the infirmities of old old age. Still
> better than a sharp stick in the eye as we used to say.
>
> The media trashed AA so bad in and after VN about their out country
> ops, think the name was changed to protect the innocent. Probably many
> of same crews moved on from AA after it was shut down or reduced in
> size?

That's what I've always suspected, but only a guy like Walt would know
for sure.

>
> I went through a aircraft check out program during Nam with a CIA and
> AF type who wouldn't talk about where they were going. From the A/C we
> were flying the only place could have been Laos.
>
> Take care and fly right :o)
>
> BJ
>

Glad to hear you're feeling better. John, I really enjoy reading your
posts. But I think you guys need to cut old BWB "the grump" a break.
Sounds like maybe you two operated in the same theater at one time.
I'd bet, that in five minutes of B.S. on the phone you guys would
probably become good friends. I'm sure you knew Curtis Lemay types in
the AF who would clamp down on a stogie and really give someone a
piece of their mind. That's Bill the grump. I talked to him on the
phone and he is nothing like he comes off on usenet. He's a regular
guy. A non-politician. A fighting man's soldier. This goes back to
what I've been saying all along about this kind of media: That with
this damned usenet you can't be certain if people are talking in a bar
room humor or a formal essay mode. There's no voice inflection or
body language or eyebrow arching to clue you into the fact that the
guy is spinning a tale tall or just floating a trial balloon. And
then tempers flare, and heels get dug in, and well… it becomes just
like the U.N. ;-)

I'm going to continue championing free speech around here even if
it's unpopular. Including the right my detractors have to verbally
(but not in the real world) attack me.

Glad both of you survived such a ****ty war (even if in the periphery
roles.) My Saudi Arabian experience was, by comparison, a complete
cakewalk.

pac

[jls]

"pacplyer" > wrote [speaking of Big Littlejohn] in
message .

>I'm sure you knew Curtis Lemay types in
>
Hell, he IS a Curtis LeMay type. With a hair trigger.

[Badwater Bill]

>
>That's what I've always suspected, but only a guy like Walt would know
>for sure.


Pac: There are a lot more here than Walt who would know.

**** Walt.

He ain't the only whore who ever flew for AA. You want to know
who's aircraft the CIA put drugs on in case they went down so it
looked like a Mad-Monk Squad ****ty op? They 'sanitized' everybody
from head to foot at the LZ with no ID, no uniform, no backing and no
****ing support? Just look around buddy. Those cocksuckers from the
"company" never gave a **** about the pilots. It wasn't about
"Clean-Green-Marine-ville" old buddy. It was about sacrifice...your
life, your VA benefits, your ****ing paycheck. In the AA, you left
your buddies behind. That was the motto Pac. It wasn't like the
Marines nowadays where no man gets left behind. It was just like I
said, ALL AA PILOTS GET LEFT BEHIND.

It wasn't any romantic novel Pac. It was ****ing war. Only the
greatest patriots risked it all...and the AA guys were some of the
most patriotic muther ****ers who ever lived.

If you were an AA whore, you were "expendable" as Rambo put it so well
in one of his ****ty movies. The Government could give a **** less
about your motives. They just wanted "Meat for the Line!"

****ing Company!

Look at the poor *******s who made it in the VA hospitals now with
brain damage and ruined lives who were enlisted, with ID's, real op's,
real missions, IN COUNTRY! Look at how well they live NOW. Then you
can imagine what really happened to those who were asked to color
outside the lines.

****.

The guys who are real Army, Marines, AF or Navy are the chosen ones
compared to the AA geeks. Any AA geek who got creamed in battle and
lived, is probably farming rice in some ****ing paddy on the
outskirts of Bangkok with chains on his ankles to this day.

All for God and Country, muther ****ers.

I wonder if Jane "****" Fonda would make a visit to Thailand to try
and free up the AA pilots who have had multiple lobotomies with wires
jammed in through their eye's and twisted in circles in their brains
when the cried for help while in pain from being treated as farm
animals by the Gooks?


>>
>> I went through a aircraft check out program during Nam with a CIA and
>> AF type who wouldn't talk about where they were going. From the A/C we
>> were flying the only place could have been Laos.

Nah...not just Laos buddy. They went into China, Thailand and
Cambodia on a daily basis. You have been fed some bull-****
somewhere. I'm sure all of this is still classified, but I'm too old
to give a **** anymore.

>
>Glad to hear you're feeling better. John, I really enjoy reading your
>posts. But I think you guys need to cut old BWB "the grump" a break.

**** ya all, I don't want no breaks. I don't want no friends and I
don't need no help in finding people to "Understand" me. **** all of
you *******s.

> Sounds like maybe you two operated in the same theater at one time.

Nope, not me, I was in college. I can prove it.

>I'd bet, that in five minutes of B.S. on the phone you guys would
>probably become good friends.

**** him. I don't want to be his friend. I hate kids, dogs and OLD
PEOPLE in the reverse order. I'm not looking for friends, recognition
or reward. Just want to stir things up a bit from time to time.

>I'm sure you knew Curtis Lemay types in
>the AF who would clamp down on a stogie and really give someone a
>piece of their mind. That's Bill the grump. I talked to him on the
>phone and he is nothing like he comes off on usenet. He's a regular
>guy. A non-politician. A fighting man's soldier.

Nah, I'm a prick. I'm an old ****er and even I hate old ****ers.
Don't blow my cover Pac ;-). As I said above, I was in college and I
can prove it. Never set foot outside of this country during Nam.


>This goes back to
>what I've been saying all along about this kind of media: That with
>this damned usenet you can't be certain if people are talking in a bar
>room humor or a formal essay mode. There's no voice inflection or
>body language or eyebrow arching to clue you into the fact that the
>guy is spinning a tale tall or just floating a trial balloon. And
>then tempers flare, and heels get dug in, and well… it becomes just
>like the U.N. ;-)

Yep, I just ****ing hate people here. I get along real well in the
world each day. I flew 26 hours in the last 7 days, most of it IFR in
an MD-500 helicopter. At least today I flew back here at FL 230 in
our pressurized P-210. That son of a bitch is like a Roll's Royce
compared to most of the marginal **** I have to survive through.

I think I'm going to write a book titled "How to Fly Old **** and
Survive"


While all of you muther ****ers are sitting here posting on the
Internet each day, I'm out flying in rotten air, hot conditions,
****ty airplanes, thumping helicopters and dealing with egotists.
God, what a life....and I love it. I am sick.

>
>I'm going to continue championing free speech around here even if
>it's unpopular. Including the right my detractors have to verbally
>(but not in the real world) attack me.

Screw them all Pac. You are an alright guy. I even called your sorry
ass on the phone to see if you were for real or just bull ****. I
found you to be solid.

You post any God damn thing you want here. **** the Wantabe assholes
like that prick above with the link to "Stolen Valor"

I'll bet you a million bucks that cocksucker never set foot inside a
battle anywhere on Earth. I think I know who that little sniveling
puke is to tell you the truth. I got an email from a Colonel who used
to work for me that told me he tracked that post.

You watch out Richard. You are not as tranparent as you might
believe.

Have a nice day you pricks.

BWB



>
>Glad both of you survived such a ****ty war (even if in the periphery
>roles.) My Saudi Arabian experience was, by comparison, a complete
>cakewalk.
>
>pac

[pacplyer]

Pac sez:

Whoa, let me pull up a barstool here and catch up! Single Malt in a
classy tumbler please! (this is what happens when you take a vacation
and forget what it's like to fly redeyes and get home at six in the
morning all month...)


(Badwater Bill) wrote <snip>

> He ain't the only whore who ever flew for AA. You want to know
> who's aircraft the CIA put drugs on in case they went down so it
> looked like a Mad-Monk Squad ****ty op? They 'sanitized' everybody
> from head to foot at the LZ with no ID, no uniform, no backing and no
> ****ing support? Just look around buddy. Those cocksuckers from the
> "company" never gave a **** about the pilots. It wasn't about
> "Clean-Green-Marine-ville" old buddy. It was about sacrifice...your
> life, your VA benefits, your ****ing paycheck. In the AA, you left
> your buddies behind. That was the motto Pac. It wasn't like the
> Marines nowadays where no man gets left behind. It was just like I
> said, ALL AA PILOTS GET LEFT BEHIND.
>
> It wasn't any romantic novel Pac. It was ****ing war. Only the
> greatest patriots risked it all...and the AA guys were some of the
> most patriotic muther ****ers who ever lived.

Yeah, a tribute to the "unknown civilian" accompanying the armed
forces needs to be erected in D.C. sometime. I shutter to think about
what would happen to a guy who's airplane caught too many stray
rounds out there. If you ditched in a river or bailed out: Every
peasant with a sharp piece of bamboo who saw you for miles around
would start making their way toward you to get in on the torture.
Human life in SE asia to this very day just does not have any value.
The price of a human life in the Philippines now is about $1,500.00.
USD. That is what you are expected to pay the relatives if you kill
one of their family members drinking and driving out there (according
to the Auzzie ex-pats who have experienced this first hand.) And
that's it. Everybody's happy. No trial, no problem. Please hit
another one of my family members, I need the money... You had to
live there to really experience the indifference. A bus rolls down
the embankment with 30 pluss people in it every few months in Bagio.
Nobody cares. Bald tires? One lane mud road? Driver on uppers?
Nobody cares. I don't even want to know what happened to downed AA
guys in Laos or Cambodia. "Pol Pot's family taught me this… hold
still…" Sweet Jumping Jesus…


>
> If you were an AA whore, you were "expendable" as Rambo put it so well
> in one of his ****ty movies. The Government could give a **** less
> about your motives. They just wanted "Meat for the Line!"
>
> ****ing Company!
>
> Look at the poor *******s who made it in the VA hospitals now with
> brain damage and ruined lives who were enlisted, with ID's, real op's,
> real missions, IN COUNTRY! Look at how well they live NOW. Then you
> can imagine what really happened to those who were asked to color
> outside the lines.
>
> ****.
>
> The guys who are real Army, Marines, AF or Navy are the chosen ones
> compared to the AA geeks. Any AA geek who got creamed in battle and
> lived, is probably farming rice in some ****ing paddy on the
> outskirts of Bangkok with chains on his ankles to this day.
>
> All for God and Country, muther ****ers.
>
> I wonder if Jane "****" Fonda would make a visit to Thailand to try
> and free up the AA pilots who have had multiple lobotomies with wires
> jammed in through their eye's and twisted in circles in their brains
> when the cried for help while in pain from being treated as farm
> animals by the Gooks?
>

Man you saids it. (Hick!) What a traitor. To this day she can't
walk out of first class and chit-chat with the flight crew. No one
will talk to her pathetic ass if they realizesssss who she is. I
gotta go send her a spppecciall massage, I mean a spppecciall
message, Bill.


<snip a couple of doubles here>
<staggering back from the can>

=)

>
> Nah, I'm a prick. I'm an old ****er and even I hate old ****ers.
> Don't blow my cover Pac ;-). As I said above, I was in college and I
> can prove it. Never set foot outside of this country during Nam.
>
>

Like I said, you were in school. There were no teenagers in SE Asia.
;-) Nother round here! Uh, Bill don't step in that puddle of barf
down there...

> I get along real well in the
> world each day. I flew 26 hours in the last 7 days, most of it IFR in
> an MD-500 helicopter. At least today I flew back here at FL 230 in
> our pressurized P-210. That son of a bitch is like a Roll's Royce
> compared to most of the marginal **** I have to survive through.
>
> I think I'm going to write a book titled "How to Fly Old **** and
> Survive"
>
>

How about this one for a title: "Hair on the palm of my hand" by Capt
Badmouthplyer ;-)

Quit watering down those doubles you communist bartender!


> While all of you muther ****ers are sitting here posting on the
> Internet each day, I'm out flying in rotten air, hot conditions,
> ****ty airplanes, thumping helicopters and dealing with egotists.
> God, what a life....and I love it. I am sick.
>
>

It is sick. Having to work every day as a line dog. But you kind of
fall into a tempo. It's like "go ahead, you piece of ****, what else
can possibly break on your 20pluss year old airframe… go ahead, fall
apart, challenge me…" Sort of like the movie "Death Wish" or the book
"Fate is the Hunter." You've handled so many shortcomings in the
"aviation system" that you start feeling like you're getting pretty
good at beating the odds…

Commercial pilots get paid to aviate (while everyone else has to pay
to do it) because they put up with having to fly whether you feel like
it or not. But all the weekend weenies here will hate you because
your getting paid to do it. I have a friend who flys newschoppers who
knows what real work is, and is jealous as hell that I stay home all
the time. I LOVE flying, as long as it's when I feel like doing it
and it's for fun. Working for a task-master is hard ****ing work.
And it can drive you to drinking. If you work for butt heads that is.


>
> >I'm going to continue championing free speech around here even if
> >it's unpopular. Including the right my detractors have to verbally
> >(but not in the real world) attack me.
>
> Screw them all Pac. You are an alright guy. I even called your sorry
> ass on the phone to see if you were for real or just bull ****. I
> found you to be solid.
>

Thanks Bill. You are my kind of scum! :^D


> You post any God damn thing you want here. **** the Wantabe assholes
> like that prick above with the link to "Stolen Valor"
>
> I'll bet you a million bucks that cocksucker never set foot inside a
> battle anywhere on Earth. I think I know who that little sniveling
> puke is to tell you the truth. I got an email from a Colonel who used
> to work for me that told me he tracked that post.

Naa… John's all right. (if that's who you're talking about.) He
tells a few tall tales, but that's what this joint is all about. The
real problem is that girl/guy who goes by the imaginative name of "a."
(who disappeared by the way.) What a squirrel. What a coward. A
real cheap shot artist.


>
> You watch out Richard. You are not as tranparent as you might
> believe.
>
> Have a nice day you pricks.
>
> BWB
>

Thanks for picking up the bar tab Bill. I'll get your wallet back to
you later. ;-)

pac

[Badwater Bill]

>
>Thanks for picking up the bar tab Bill. I'll get your wallet back to
>you later. ;-)
>
>pac

Don't mention it Pac. It was the Devil in the Glen Leavit (sp)
bottle that got me last night.

I just get a bit sick of flogging around the sky in a thumping pile of
**** 35 year old Bell sometimes. We were out there IFR last Sunday,
flogging our way back from Van Nuys (over your head by the way).
Sitting there at the MEA with no autopilot I was training a new ATP
student. He's a great guy, but he was all over the ****ing sky
because the helo guys just don't get to do instruments that much.
It's just low and slow most of the time in 300 mile vis.

Training them in a real ship is hard because they are all over the
place until their scan gets up to speed. The altitude was 200 low,
then 200 high, the HSI green bar (CDI) was two dots off to the left,
then the right. The DG was 20 right then 20 degrees left. You know
how it is when a guy who's scan is slow tries to get back up to speed.
And, I like this guy. He's a crack pilot. His pick-ups and set-downs
are some of the best in the industry. He's just not an instrument
pilot and he needs to put in the time to crank up his skills.

So, I'm a bit tired this week. I flew back from Sierra Vista Arizona
yesterday in 30 knot headwinds all alone at FL 220. It was funny, I
hit the autopilot out of about 5000 feet anymore and just manage the
power, fuel flow, props all that **** that is always creeping. I got
out my video camera and put it on the dash, shooting a film of the
whole flight back here from the Mexican border. I played the tape
today and I looked bored to death, all alone up there 4 miles above
the Earth with nothing to do but monitor **** that creeps all the time
on me.

I was sitting there and thinking if I had a heart attack or the power
failed, even at 1000 feet per minute glide, I was 22 minute from
Earth. If I used 500 feet per minute I was 44 minutes from Earth.
That's kind of interesting as I looked ahead at Phoenix below me,
talking to Luke approach...I was thinking of how really detached we
are up there. This kind of **** always works on me when I'm alone.
Here I was in a $500,000 airplane, all alone, autopilot on, nothing to
do but think...nothing to look at but a gray fluid of air all around
me. I even had a hard time seeing the ground in this embryonic fluid
I was flying in. Then I got to thinking that I might not even be
there. Maybe I was dreaming that I was there...and I laughed for the
video camera. I was watching my pressurization differential and
wondering how many seconds of useful consciousness I'd have if that
baby sprung a leak. When you are up there all alone it sort of works
on you in some ways. Night time is better I think. At night you have
no sense of height. You hear all the other traffic around you as if
you are in a big theater-sized room with lots of people around you.

"Denver Center this is Lear 312 papa charlie with you, climbing
through flight level two three zero for three one zero."

You see him go by you out there in the distance, strobes flashing.

"Good evening Denver, this is Southwest three eleven with you, level
at flight level two niner zero."

Denver comes back, "SW 311, you have traffic, your 1 o'clock position
10 miles at Fl 220...a Cessna 421 level at two-two zero."

SW comes back, "Rodger, we have the traffic."

This little dance on the radio is continuous at night as the other
people up there are going in all directions and making their livings
carrying people and things around. I get a sort of peaceful sense of
belonging in this big room that they are all moving through. I feel
much more at home than I do during the day when you look straight down
4 miles to the surface at houses or cars moving along on the freeways.
It's much easier to have no surface, just stars and strobes in the
distance...especially when I'm all alone.

How do you guys feel about that? I'm never on edge at night for some
reason when I'm at altitude and I'm alone. But during the day, I'm
always on edge when I'm alone up there for some reason. I'm not
worried, or stressed out or anything, I'm just a bit on edge. At
night it's almost meditative and calm. I feel in inner peace with the
bright stars shining and the traffic moving like little dots of light
in all angles and directions. It's like I'm not flying at all, I'm
just sitting there watching out the window at the beautiful heavens
surrounding me.

What do you guys feel in these conditions.

BWB

[pacplyer]

‘Hay' Grump,

I gotta tell you I thought that was some pretty good enroute poetry
last post. You gotta include that with the rest of "The Badwater
files"

Here's mine:

*Soul searching in the thin air*

Night flying at high altitude. It is unnatural for airplanes to fly
at night up here. Especially in clouds at night. You are balanced on
a knifepoint, suspended in space with no sensation of any speed
whatsoever. It can be a surreal experience. Maybe it's the slight
hypoxia. If you do it for an hour, you may nod off, come back to, and
wonder if you're just sitting in a simulator on the ground. Maybe
you're just sitting out on the ramp in the dark and you haven't even
started this trip yet. Or worse… Maybe you're dead. It just doesn't
seem part of this life at all. It seems fake. It seems impossible
that here you are floating without any turbulence or stars or anything
except these voices in your head. Your breathing is slow and these
low detached voices are asking some gatekeeper for the "direct" way
home. There's just something supernatural about it all. It is not of
this world I tell you.

You are truly alone with your thoughts if you're solo at night and the
voices leave you. Just you and the stars and the weather. It does
have a pacifying effect on the soul. If music can tame the savage
beast, then being up here in this dark place with little magic lamps
glowing in front of your outstretched hands can cure all your worries
about the crumby world below. You are not supposed to be up here,
you know it, and the Gods are permitting it for some reason you'll
never be privy to. Thank god Apollo is in his Chariot on the other
side of the world right now. Why if he saw your complete control of
the night heavens, he might turn green with envy and strike your
mortal ship from the sky!

pacplyer

(goddamn it, I copied you again! Something about your love of flying
always gets me dreaming – Thanks Bill.)



(Badwater Bill) wrote
<snip>

> I just get a bit sick of flogging around the sky in a thumping pile of
> **** 35 year old Bell sometimes. We were out there IFR last Sunday,
> flogging our way back from Van Nuys (over your head by the way).
> Sitting there at the MEA with no autopilot I was training a new ATP
> student. He's a great guy, but he was all over the ****ing sky
> because the helo guys just don't get to do instruments that much.
> It's just low and slow most of the time in 300 mile vis.
>
> Training them in a real ship is hard because they are all over the
> place until their scan gets up to speed. The altitude was 200 low,
> then 200 high, the HSI green bar (CDI) was two dots off to the left,
> then the right. The DG was 20 right then 20 degrees left. You know
> how it is when a guy who's scan is slow tries to get back up to speed.
> And, I like this guy. He's a crack pilot. His pick-ups and set-downs
> are some of the best in the industry. He's just not an instrument
> pilot and he needs to put in the time to crank up his skills.
>
> So, I'm a bit tired this week. I flew back from Sierra Vista Arizona
> yesterday in 30 knot headwinds all alone at FL 220. It was funny, I
> hit the autopilot out of about 5000 feet anymore and just manage the
> power, fuel flow, props all that **** that is always creeping. I got
> out my video camera and put it on the dash, shooting a film of the
> whole flight back here from the Mexican border. I played the tape
> today and I looked bored to death, all alone up there 4 miles above
> the Earth with nothing to do but monitor **** that creeps all the time
> on me.
>
> I was sitting there and thinking if I had a heart attack or the power
> failed, even at 1000 feet per minute glide, I was 22 minute from
> Earth. If I used 500 feet per minute I was 44 minutes from Earth.
> That's kind of interesting as I looked ahead at Phoenix below me,
> talking to Luke approach...I was thinking of how really detached we
> are up there. This kind of **** always works on me when I'm alone.
> Here I was in a $500,000 airplane, all alone, autopilot on, nothing to
> do but think...nothing to look at but a gray fluid of air all around
> me. I even had a hard time seeing the ground in this embryonic fluid
> I was flying in. Then I got to thinking that I might not even be
> there. Maybe I was dreaming that I was there...and I laughed for the
> video camera. I was watching my pressurization differential and
> wondering how many seconds of useful consciousness I'd have if that
> baby sprung a leak. When you are up there all alone it sort of works
> on you in some ways. Night time is better I think. At night you have
> no sense of height. You hear all the other traffic around you as if
> you are in a big theater-sized room with lots of people around you.
>
> "Denver Center this is Lear 312 papa charlie with you, climbing
> through flight level two three zero for three one zero."
>
> You see him go by you out there in the distance, strobes flashing.
>
> "Good evening Denver, this is Southwest three eleven with you, level
> at flight level two niner zero."
>
> Denver comes back, "SW 311, you have traffic, your 1 o'clock position
> 10 miles at Fl 220...a Cessna 421 level at two-two zero."
>
> SW comes back, "Rodger, we have the traffic."
>
> This little dance on the radio is continuous at night as the other
> people up there are going in all directions and making their livings
> carrying people and things around. I get a sort of peaceful sense of
> belonging in this big room that they are all moving through. I feel
> much more at home than I do during the day when you look straight down
> 4 miles to the surface at houses or cars moving along on the freeways.
> It's much easier to have no surface, just stars and strobes in the
> distance...especially when I'm all alone.
>
> How do you guys feel about that? I'm never on edge at night for some
> reason when I'm at altitude and I'm alone. But during the day, I'm
> always on edge when I'm alone up there for some reason. I'm not
> worried, or stressed out or anything, I'm just a bit on edge. At
> night it's almost meditative and calm. I feel in inner peace with the
> bright stars shining and the traffic moving like little dots of light
> in all angles and directions. It's like I'm not flying at all, I'm
> just sitting there watching out the window at the beautiful heavens
> surrounding me.
>
> What do you guys feel in these conditions.
>
> BWB

[Richard Lamb]

pacplyer wrote:
>
> ‘Hay' Grump,
>
> I gotta tell you I thought that was some pretty good enroute poetry
> last post. You gotta include that with the rest of "The Badwater
> files"
>
> Here's mine:
>
> *Soul searching in the thin air*
>
> Night flying at high altitude. It is unnatural for airplanes to fly
> at night up here. Especially in clouds at night. You are balanced on
> a knifepoint, suspended in space with no sensation of any speed
> whatsoever. It can be a surreal experience. Maybe it's the slight
> hypoxia. If you do it for an hour, you may nod off, come back to, and
> wonder if you're just sitting in a simulator on the ground. Maybe
> you're just sitting out on the ramp in the dark and you haven't even
> started this trip yet. Or worse… Maybe you're dead. It just doesn't
> seem part of this life at all. It seems fake. It seems impossible
> that here you are floating without any turbulence or stars or anything
> except these voices in your head. Your breathing is slow and these
> low detached voices are asking some gatekeeper for the "direct" way
> home. There's just something supernatural about it all. It is not of
> this world I tell you.
>
> You are truly alone with your thoughts if you're solo at night and the
> voices leave you. Just you and the stars and the weather. It does
> have a pacifying effect on the soul. If music can tame the savage
> beast, then being up here in this dark place with little magic lamps
> glowing in front of your outstretched hands can cure all your worries
> about the crumby world below. You are not supposed to be up here,
> you know it, and the Gods are permitting it for some reason you'll
> never be privy to. Thank god Apollo is in his Chariot on the other
> side of the world right now. Why if he saw your complete control of
> the night heavens, he might turn green with envy and strike your
> mortal ship from the sky!
>
> pacplyer
>
> (goddamn it, I copied you again! Something about your love of flying
> always gets me dreaming – Thanks Bill.)
>

Saved, for further contemplation flying home some night...

You too, pacman.

Richard

[Morgans]

"Badwater Bill" > wrote

> I was sitting there and thinking if I had a heart attack or the power
> failed, even at 1000 feet per minute glide, I was 22 minute from
> Earth. If I used 500 feet per minute I was 44 minutes from Earth.

.. I feel
> much more at home than I do during the day when you look straight down
> 4 miles to the surface at houses or cars moving along on the freeways.
> It's much easier to have no surface, just stars and strobes in the
> distance...especially when I'm all alone.
>
> How do you guys feel about that? I'm never on edge at night for some
> reason when I'm at altitude and I'm alone. But during the day, I'm
> always on edge when I'm alone up there for some reason.

It's like I'm not flying at all, I'm
> just sitting there watching out the window at the beautiful heavens
> surrounding me.
>
> What do you guys feel in these conditions.
>
> BWB

You said it all, yourself, in your post. At night, it is like a camping
trip, sitting in the middle of a field, or floating down the Amazon it a
boat. I have done that. So many stars. You realize you are not in a normal
place, but the beauty of nature blocks out all other thoughts.

In the day flights, there are two many visual cues to remind you that you
are in a potentially bad situation. You have that programed into your DNA,
from ancient man. A sense of "on edge" is a good thing for a stone age
man, ready to flee danger, when he is at risk.

See, we are all just primitive pukes, with a better bow and arrow, zipping
along where we shouldn't be. That sense of danger, and accomplishment, and
pride over controlling the situation is what appeals to us. Anyone that
flies, is a control freak. Right?

So there it is. You are not in control of your ancient instincts. How does
that sit with you?
--
Jim in NC


---
Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
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[bryan chaisone]

(pacplyer) wrote in message >...
If you ditched in a river or bailed out: Every
> peasant with a sharp piece of bamboo who saw you for miles around
> would start making their way toward you to get in on the torture.

PAC,

My granfather hid a two downed airmen and walked them to safety in
Thailand. He was not political. He didn't care that the lands were
being bombed by the US. He wanted no part of the bloodshed and he
wished the war would end soon. He lived through the occupation of the
Japanese, the French...etc. He just wanted peace.


> Human life in SE asia to this very day just does not have any value.
> The price of a human life in the Philippines now is about $1,500.00.
> USD. That is what you are expected to pay the relatives if you kill
> one of their family members drinking and driving out there (according
> to the Auzzie ex-pats who have experienced this first hand.) And
> that's it. Everybody's happy. No trial, no problem. Please hit
> another one of my family members, I need the money... You had to
> live there to really experience the indifference. A bus rolls down
> the embankment with 30 pluss people in it every few months in Bagio.
> Nobody cares. Bald tires? One lane mud road? Driver on uppers?
> Nobody cares. I don't even want to know what happened to downed AA
> guys in Laos or Cambodia. "Pol Pot's family taught me this? hold
> still?" Sweet Jumping Jesus?

People do care, some may not, but majority do care. Noone wants to
loose their loved ones for any amount of money. There are people here
in the US just like anywhere in the rest of the world that would kill
their own mother for a dollar. As poor as those people are, they do
care. They are not happy with $1,500.00, but they make the best of
the situation. If they had a choice, they would demand more or not
loose their loved ones at all.

I don't think you really mean what you say above. Do you? If you
hang around bars in the Philipines or in Thailand, you will most
likely meet the lowest form of human beings in those countries. If
you go to the temples during celebrations or to the towns festivals
during holiday celebrations, you will meet nicer people than bar
people, people who have hopes and dreams for their family, people who
have not given up on life. You will see that people do value life and
live to enjoy life and further their family's happiness and well
being. You will see people rich with culture and tradition, who love
their families and their way of life. You know the story about the
three blind men and the elephant?

Bryan "the monk" Chaisone

[pacplyer]

Richard Lamb > wrote in message >...
> pacplyer wrote:
> >
> > ?Hay' Grump,
> >
> > I gotta tell you I thought that was some pretty good enroute poetry
> > last post. You gotta include that with the rest of "The Badwater
> > files"
> >
> > Here's mine:
> >
> > *Soul searching in the thin air*
> >
> > Night flying at high altitude. It is unnatural for airplanes to fly
> > at night up here. Especially in clouds at night. You are balanced on
> > a knifepoint, suspended in space with no sensation of any speed
> > whatsoever. It can be a surreal experience. Maybe it's the slight
> > hypoxia. If you do it for an hour, you may nod off, come back to, and
> > wonder if you're just sitting in a simulator on the ground. Maybe
> > you're just sitting out on the ramp in the dark and you haven't even
> > started this trip yet. Or worse? Maybe you're dead. It just doesn't
> > seem part of this life at all. It seems fake. It seems impossible
> > that here you are floating without any turbulence or stars or anything
> > except these voices in your head. Your breathing is slow and these
> > low detached voices are asking some gatekeeper for the "direct" way
> > home. There's just something supernatural about it all. It is not of
> > this world I tell you.
> >
> > You are truly alone with your thoughts if you're solo at night and the
> > voices leave you. Just you and the stars and the weather. It does
> > have a pacifying effect on the soul. If music can tame the savage
> > beast, then being up here in this dark place with little magic lamps
> > glowing in front of your outstretched hands can cure all your worries
> > about the crumby world below. You are not supposed to be up here,
> > you know it, and the Gods are permitting it for some reason you'll
> > never be privy to. Thank god Apollo is in his Chariot on the other
> > side of the world right now. Why if he saw your complete control of
> > the night heavens, he might turn green with envy and strike your
> > mortal ship from the sky!
> >
> > pacplyer
> >
> > (goddamn it, I copied you again! Something about your love of flying
> > always gets me dreaming ? Thanks Bill.)
> >
>
> Saved, for further contemplation flying home some night...
>
> You too, pacman.
>
> Richard

Thanks Richard.

pacman

[pacplyer]

Hey Bryan Buddy,

I should have said: "Every communist with a piece of sharp Bamboo." My
post was not meant as a slight on the people in Asia. And that
observation was not gleaned from a barstool somewhere. I have been
flying the Orient since 1987 and lived there six years. I married an
Asian lady and have 19 dependants in the P.I. Whether you acknowledge
it or not, tragic death without any real government investigation is
common in SE Asia. The reasons are probably varied and stem from
over-population to simple poverty. Now if you're renting
helicopters, you're in a whole different social-economic class than my
mother-in-law whose neighbors struggle daily just trying to eat.
Lucky Filipinos make two-hundred pesos (four U.S. dollars) per day and
have a very different outlook on life than you do. This is not to
say that they don't have feelings or mourn their dead. But more than
a years wages in exchange for the life of one of your seven children
so the rest can eat is considered an acceptable exchange for most of
the squatters living in Manila. Ninety percent of the population in
that country is poor. They used to hold up starving babies against
the hotel limo when it got stuck in traffic on the way to Makati.

I made the mistake of rolling down the window and handing the kids all
the money in my wallet one day. It nearly caused a riot. Several
dozen street kids started banging on the roof of the hotel limo with
metal coins. The driver was so ****ed at me. "Captain, please don't
do that!" The guy loved his imported Mercedes and I had just ****ed up
the paint job – big time.

Now Thailand is a much more developed country that the Philippines
or Mainland China or Indonesia. On vectors into Bangkok, it always
amazed me looking out my Airbus at the carpet of fancy tile roofs
surrounding the airport. You look out the window near Manila and all
you see are helter-skelter scraps of rusting corregated tin in between
filthy brown rivers and runoff. Every place in Asia is somewhat
different, but cultures on that side of the world more readily accept
disaster on a daily basis than we do here. If my single brother was
killed due to a bus driver on drugs in the U.S. and I found out it was
encouraged by management I'd demand and probably get media attention
about this some kind of way. But ferries to the provinces in the
Philippines tipping over with 300 plus over the max rating of the boat
are an annual occurrence and only Ex-Pats living there are outraged.
An attitude of: "God will protect us" is all you can get out of the
victim's families.


(bryan chaisone) wrote in message >...
> (pacplyer) wrote in message >...
> If you ditched in a river or bailed out: Every
> > peasant with a sharp piece of bamboo who saw you for miles around
> > would start making their way toward you to get in on the torture.
>
> PAC,
>
> My granfather hid a two downed airmen and walked them to safety in
> Thailand. He was not political. He didn't care that the lands were
> being bombed by the US. He wanted no part of the bloodshed and he
> wished the war would end soon. He lived through the occupation of the
> Japanese, the French...etc. He just wanted peace.


I think you grandfather was a great guy. My father-in-law remembers
as a little kid hiding in the bushes from the Japanese Imperial Army
who killed and tortured many villagers. The infamous "Battan March"
went right through the area. I really don't blame people, esp
uneducated peasants from wanting revenge from those that were
carpet-bombing their country. But when a pilot gets a mission, he is
expected to execute it without contemplating the moral consequences of
his action. He just hopes he won't get his ass shot off and he hopes
he won't have to answer for carrying out the mandate of some
screwed-up moron like Macnamere (sp?)

>
>
> > Human life in SE asia to this very day just does not have any value.
> > The price of a human life in the Philippines now is about $1,500.00.
> > USD. That is what you are expected to pay the relatives if you kill
> > one of their family members drinking and driving out there (according
> > to the Auzzie ex-pats who have experienced this first hand.) And
> > that's it. Everybody's happy. No trial, no problem. Please hit
> > another one of my family members, I need the money... You had to
> > live there to really experience the indifference. A bus rolls down
> > the embankment with 30 pluss people in it every few months in Bagio.
> > Nobody cares. Bald tires? One lane mud road? Driver on uppers?
> > Nobody cares. I don't even want to know what happened to downed AA
> > guys in Laos or Cambodia. "Pol Pot's family taught me this… hold
> > still.." Sweet Jumping Jesus!
>
> People do care, some may not, but majority do care. Noone wants to
> loose their loved ones for any amount of money. There are people here
> in the US just like anywhere in the rest of the world that would kill
> their own mother for a dollar. As poor as those people are, they do
> care. They are not happy with $1,500.00, but they make the best of
> the situation. If they had a choice, they would demand more or not
> loose their loved ones at all.
>
> I don't think you really mean what you say above. Do you? If you
> hang around bars in the Philipines or in Thailand, you will most
> likely meet the lowest form of human beings in those countries. If
> you go to the temples during celebrations or to the towns festivals
> during holiday celebrations, you will meet nicer people than bar
> people, people who have hopes and dreams for their family, people who
> have not given up on life. You will see that people do value life and
> live to enjoy life and further their family's happiness and well
> being. You will see people rich with culture and tradition, who love
> their families and their way of life. You know the story about the
> three blind men and the elephant?
>
> Bryan "the monk" Chaisone

Hey Brian, hope I didn't offend you. Thailand and Laos are gorgeous
and I love the people there. I think about it often. Got to see the
largest reclining Buddha in the world, but I can't think of the name
of the temple right now.

Have fun with those wirrlybirds,

pac

[Blueskies]

Interesting observations by all. Thanks!
BTW, it's McNamara:
http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2004/02/05_fogofwar.shtml


"pacplyer" > wrote in message om...
> Hey Bryan Buddy,
>
> I should have said: "Every communist with a piece of sharp Bamboo." My
> post was not meant as a slight on the people in Asia. And that
> observation was not gleaned from a barstool somewhere. I have been
> flying the Orient since 1987 and lived there six years. I married an
> Asian lady and have 19 dependants in the P.I. Whether you acknowledge
> it or not, tragic death without any real government investigation is
> common in SE Asia. The reasons are probably varied and stem from
> over-population to simple poverty. Now if you're renting
> helicopters, you're in a whole different social-economic class than my
> mother-in-law whose neighbors struggle daily just trying to eat.
> Lucky Filipinos make two-hundred pesos (four U.S. dollars) per day and
> have a very different outlook on life than you do. This is not to
> say that they don't have feelings or mourn their dead. But more than
> a years wages in exchange for the life of one of your seven children
> so the rest can eat is considered an acceptable exchange for most of
> the squatters living in Manila. Ninety percent of the population in
> that country is poor. They used to hold up starving babies against
> the hotel limo when it got stuck in traffic on the way to Makati.
>
> I made the mistake of rolling down the window and handing the kids all
> the money in my wallet one day. It nearly caused a riot. Several
> dozen street kids started banging on the roof of the hotel limo with
> metal coins. The driver was so ****ed at me. "Captain, please don't
> do that!" The guy loved his imported Mercedes and I had just ****ed up
> the paint job - big time.
>
> Now Thailand is a much more developed country that the Philippines
> or Mainland China or Indonesia. On vectors into Bangkok, it always
> amazed me looking out my Airbus at the carpet of fancy tile roofs
> surrounding the airport. You look out the window near Manila and all
> you see are helter-skelter scraps of rusting corregated tin in between
> filthy brown rivers and runoff. Every place in Asia is somewhat
> different, but cultures on that side of the world more readily accept
> disaster on a daily basis than we do here. If my single brother was
> killed due to a bus driver on drugs in the U.S. and I found out it was
> encouraged by management I'd demand and probably get media attention
> about this some kind of way. But ferries to the provinces in the
> Philippines tipping over with 300 plus over the max rating of the boat
> are an annual occurrence and only Ex-Pats living there are outraged.
> An attitude of: "God will protect us" is all you can get out of the
> victim's families.
>
>
> (bryan chaisone) wrote in message >...
> > (pacplyer) wrote in message >...
> > If you ditched in a river or bailed out: Every
> > > peasant with a sharp piece of bamboo who saw you for miles around
> > > would start making their way toward you to get in on the torture.
> >
> > PAC,
> >
> > My granfather hid a two downed airmen and walked them to safety in
> > Thailand. He was not political. He didn't care that the lands were
> > being bombed by the US. He wanted no part of the bloodshed and he
> > wished the war would end soon. He lived through the occupation of the
> > Japanese, the French...etc. He just wanted peace.
>
>
> I think you grandfather was a great guy. My father-in-law remembers
> as a little kid hiding in the bushes from the Japanese Imperial Army
> who killed and tortured many villagers. The infamous "Battan March"
> went right through the area. I really don't blame people, esp
> uneducated peasants from wanting revenge from those that were
> carpet-bombing their country. But when a pilot gets a mission, he is
> expected to execute it without contemplating the moral consequences of
> his action. He just hopes he won't get his ass shot off and he hopes
> he won't have to answer for carrying out the mandate of some
> screwed-up moron like Macnamere (sp?)
>
> >
> >
> > > Human life in SE asia to this very day just does not have any value.
> > > The price of a human life in the Philippines now is about $1,500.00.
> > > USD. That is what you are expected to pay the relatives if you kill
> > > one of their family members drinking and driving out there (according
> > > to the Auzzie ex-pats who have experienced this first hand.) And
> > > that's it. Everybody's happy. No trial, no problem. Please hit
> > > another one of my family members, I need the money... You had to
> > > live there to really experience the indifference. A bus rolls down
> > > the embankment with 30 pluss people in it every few months in Bagio.
> > > Nobody cares. Bald tires? One lane mud road? Driver on uppers?
> > > Nobody cares. I don't even want to know what happened to downed AA
> > > guys in Laos or Cambodia. "Pol Pot's family taught me this. hold
> > > still.." Sweet Jumping Jesus!
> >
> > People do care, some may not, but majority do care. Noone wants to
> > loose their loved ones for any amount of money. There are people here
> > in the US just like anywhere in the rest of the world that would kill
> > their own mother for a dollar. As poor as those people are, they do
> > care. They are not happy with $1,500.00, but they make the best of
> > the situation. If they had a choice, they would demand more or not
> > loose their loved ones at all.
> >
> > I don't think you really mean what you say above. Do you? If you
> > hang around bars in the Philipines or in Thailand, you will most
> > likely meet the lowest form of human beings in those countries. If
> > you go to the temples during celebrations or to the towns festivals
> > during holiday celebrations, you will meet nicer people than bar
> > people, people who have hopes and dreams for their family, people who
> > have not given up on life. You will see that people do value life and
> > live to enjoy life and further their family's happiness and well
> > being. You will see people rich with culture and tradition, who love
> > their families and their way of life. You know the story about the
> > three blind men and the elephant?
> >
> > Bryan "the monk" Chaisone
>
> Hey Brian, hope I didn't offend you. Thailand and Laos are gorgeous
> and I love the people there. I think about it often. Got to see the
> largest reclining Buddha in the world, but I can't think of the name
> of the temple right now.
>
> Have fun with those wirrlybirds,
>
> pac

[bryan chaisone]

No sweat Pac, I knew you didn't mean to come out that way.

I just thought I put in my two cents. I think I sent you pictures of
my visits to Thailand. My grandfather's picture was among them. He
was a great man.

You gotta give these simple people credit. They had no TVs, radios or
telephones to communicate ideas between villages or each other, but
they each form their own oppinion of the war, any war. They don't
seam to just jump to each new idea, "oh the Americans are right, oh
the VCs are right...etc." The just wanted to be left alone. For
thousands of years they have lived that way. They have developed
cultures, traditions and way of life. They respected others. Lived
slongside their neighbors...etc. for thousands of years. They even
seamed to have population under control. Then civilization came
around and F'ed it all up.

Am I being too simple?

Bryan "the monk" Chaisone

[bryan chaisone]

(pacplyer) wrote in message >...
> Hey Bryan Buddy,
>
> I should have said: "Every communist with a piece of sharp Bamboo." My
> post was not meant as a slight on the people in Asia. And that
> observation was not gleaned from a barstool somewhere. I have been
> flying the Orient since 1987 and lived there six years. I married an
> Asian lady and have 19 dependants in the P.I.

19 dependants, WOW. Can you really claim them all on your 1040?

Bryan "the monk" Chaisone

[pacplyer]

(bryan chaisone) wrote in message >...
> (pacplyer) wrote in message >...
> > Hey Bryan Buddy,
> >
> > I should have said: "Every communist with a piece of sharp Bamboo." My
> > post was not meant as a slight on the people in Asia. And that
> > observation was not gleaned from a barstool somewhere. I have been
> > flying the Orient since 1987 and lived there six years. I married an
> > Asian lady and have 19 dependants in the P.I.
>
> 19 dependants, WOW. Can you really claim them all on your 1040?
>
> Bryan "the monk" Chaisone

None. But at least 100% of what I send gets to them. I have seen
rice sacks labeled: "U.N. NOT FOR RESALE" for sale in the market in
Olongapo. Unfortunately as well, the local orphanage has had no
childeren in it for years and is run by a "priest" who is an active
member of the IRA. Safe to assume those charitable contributions are
being used to purchase weapons instead of feeding the hungry. You
just wouldn't believe what I've seen over there.

See ya Monk,

pac

[pacplyer]

(bryan chaisone) wrote in message >...
> No sweat Pac, I knew you didn't mean to come out that way.
>
> I just thought I put in my two cents. I think I sent you pictures of
> my visits to Thailand. My grandfather's picture was among them. He
> was a great man.
>
> You gotta give these simple people credit. They had no TVs, radios or
> telephones to communicate ideas between villages or each other, but
> they each form their own oppinion of the war, any war. They don't
> seam to just jump to each new idea, "oh the Americans are right, oh
> the VCs are right...etc." The just wanted to be left alone. For
> thousands of years they have lived that way. They have developed
> cultures, traditions and way of life. They respected others. Lived
> slongside their neighbors...etc. for thousands of years. They even
> seamed to have population under control. Then civilization came
> around and F'ed it all up.
>
> Am I being too simple?

>
> Bryan "the monk" Chaisone



No, I think you're right on. I'm ready for the simple life on a
little island with 100 native women using nothing but international
language to communicate. ;-) I may buy a boat later this year and
disappear into the south pacific (for some reason the wife still says:
NO.)

I think my email didn't accept you pictures, but it's probably
something I'm doing wrong. Was it in an attachment?

pac

[bryan chaisone]

Pacplyer wrote:
> None. But at least 100% of what I send gets to them. I have seen
> rice sacks labeled: "U.N. NOT FOR RESALE" for sale in the market in
> Olongapo. Unfortunately as well, the local orphanage has had no
> childeren in it for years and is run by a "priest" who is an active
> member of the IRA. Safe to assume those charitable contributions are
> being used to purchase weapons instead of feeding the hungry. You
> just wouldn't believe what I've seen over there.
>
> See ya Monk,
>
> pac

PACMAN,

Sounds like you have seen alot. Maybe a vacation to Chiangmai,
Thailand will loosen you up. It is a beautiful northern area of
Thailand and prices are very reasonable.

Bryan "the monk" Chaisone

[pacplyer]

(bryan chaisone) wrote
>
> PACMAN,
>
> Sounds like you have seen alot. Maybe a vacation to Chiangmai,
> Thailand will loosen you up. It is a beautiful northern area of
> Thailand and prices are very reasonable.
>
> Bryan "the monk" Chaisone

Monk,
One of these days I would enjoy that. Some of our guys went back and
rode the elephants up the mountains, I wish I had gone with them. I
probably already told this story but although did not spend the night,
flew the milk breeding cattle supply to Chiang Mia in a 747F-200 in
87. We could not undersand what ATC was saying when we came off
enroute freq in the middle of the night, so we just stayed over the
lights and shot the published VOR approach. When got on the ground we
realized we probably would have hit the terrain there if we had done
anything else (our worldwide Jepp kits did not show any terrain info
back then.) and here we were looking at high altitude peaks all
around the airport!

Anyway, we were taxing in when all these camera flashes went off, sort
of like the Olympics. We thought they were impressed with our 747.
But these were local farmers who were excited about the cattle. Some
of them started walking between the engines as we were trying to park
so the Captain hit the brakes and shouted to shut them all down, so I
did. I hadn't started the APU yet so we were sitting in the dark
short of the parking spot with no power. Anyway we held an open house
and had a lot of the beautiful farmers 20yr old daughters on board the
upper deck with them. The Capt looks at me as I was going to start
the walk-around and says: "Pac if there's any way to break this
airplane, this is the town to do it in!" We were scheduled to
continue on to HKG. I never did such a careful preflight in my life.
But I couldn't even find one stinking hydraulic drip to write up! I
reported the bad news to my Capt. He says: Guys that's O.K. The
off-loading has taken hours and the ramp agent Roger here (a brit)
doesn't realize we're about to run out of duty time. So we won't tell
him until five minutes before it happens.
Cpt Jim drops the bomb on him, and he panics (this means he gets to
explain to headquarters why the third leg was postponed by 24 hours.)
"Get out of here you Bloaks! Get out of here you Bloaks!"

Cpt Jim looks out at the dozens of cattle bins on the ramp that had to
be re-loaded and says: "But you haven't finished reloading the bins
yet"

Roger says: "I don't care! Get out of here! Were pushing you back
now!"

Damn. We hadn't counted on this.

Screwed out of a beautiful layover. So we left broken hearted.

pac