I always thought that you and I were in Viet Nam at the same time but
your history shows otherwise. After Basic and Tech School (Air Force) I
was sent to Tachikawa AB, Japan in December, 1966. This was only about
8 miles from Yokota AB. While there I would spend about 30 – 40 days in
Cam Rahn Bay, Viet Nam, then come out for about 20 days. Then start the
whole cycle over again. This went on until December, 1968.

From November 1970 – February, 1972, I found myself at Ching Chang Kwang
(CCK) AB, Taiwan for a 15 month tour. It was history all over again; 30
– 40 days at Tan Sahn Nhut AB, Saigon, then out for 20 days. After
coming back to the States and doing a review of my travel vouchers, I
found that, of those 15 months, I had only spent 3 months in Taiwan.
Talk about living out of a bag.

In January, 1975, I was at Kadena, AB, Okinawa doing the same thing
again until Viet Nam closed down in April, 1975. Three days before Viet
Nam was taken over, I was at Saigon with a team repairing a plane that
was badly shot up bad and needing an engine change. We made it back out
the day before the country was taken over but we sure didn’t go out
empty. We took a jam-packed load of Vietnamese back to Clark AB (PI)
then on to Guam before going back to Okinawa. Would I trade the
experience for anything else and would I do it again? NOPE to both!!

Keith: I like your hurricane magnet on the East Coast. So far, they
are all going your way this year. Please continue taking them away from
the Gulf. Dale

Since you lived there for many years you clearly are familiar with the weather of the great Northwest. I found the weather to often be cloudy, damp, and downright dreary. I spent a total of about a year at Ft. Lewis while in the Army and have been in the Seattle area several other times throughout my life so have been there many times when it was overcast and damp. But, I’ve also been there in the summer months when it was just beautiful weather as it was last summer when we went on the cruise.

One of my best and most lasting memories of the Seattle area was when I first arrived by train from North Dakota in early April 1969.. When we left North Dakota, there was still a lot of snow on the ground that year and that continued to be the case all the way through Montana. In the western part of Montana (as we climbed the mountains) there was even more snow and that seemed to be the case all the way west until we came down out of the mountains in Washington. It seemed like all of a sudden we came out of winter and into a summertime scene of beautiful, lush, green trees, shrubs and other plants with some in full bloom. I guess it was the suddenness of the change that made it stick out so much. Wow!

Another good weather related memory I have was of a flight out of Seattle some years later. It was an early morning flight and as is fairly common out there is was overcast that morning with a lot of fog. The cloud layer basically went from ground level up to about the 12,000 foot level. So as soon as we lifted off we were in heavy dark clouds and that continued for about 10 – 15 minutes as we climbed toward our cruising level. All of a sudden we broke through the clouds and into the beautiful blue sky and bright sunshine and sticking up through the clouds we see the peaks of all the high mountains down the chain to the south. Of course we were right next to Mt. Rainier, but we could also see Mounts Baker, St. Helens, Hood and I seem to remember even Shasta in the far, far distance. Another wow moment! We have nice mountains our here to, but nothing that compares to the mountains of the west or to that particular scene.
Keith Pladson (66)