REUNION AND VIETNAM WAR STORIES: AFTER 34 YEARS

Little compares to the camaraderie of military men who shared wartime adventures. Years drop away with shared memories. The photo shows me and war buddy Bill Kibble. For the reunion photo, I retrieved the “Boonie hat” I wore in Vietnam. Bill looks older than the last time I saw him thirty-four years ago (he says I do too). A couple of years ago, Bill and I relocated each other over the Internet.

Bill Kibble was a wonderful friend in Vietnam and Thailand. When we met again Thursday evening, after thirty-four years, we picked our conversations where we left off. But we also enjoyed re-telling our “war stories” - and I included" off-the-record legislative war stories" (Bill lives in Boise, Idaho, so that's probably safe!). As a bonus, I got to meet Bill’s wife Pat, and Pat met my Marlene. Life is good.

Bill Kibble and I served together in Vietnam at Monkey Mountain outside DaNang in 1972. At top camp, I was a Senior Director with Panama Control, a manual radar control site; Bill was next door in the same building as a Battle Commander with Motel Control, a computerized radar control site. We both lived at the “Monkey House” at bottom camp. Bill and I were both active with the little base chapel there operated by Father Paquette, an older civilian priest of French-Canadian ancestry. The priest had managed to escape from North Vietnam to continue his work around DaNang.

In addition to the war hazards of Monkey Mountain, one memorable adventure stands out. Father Paquette offered Bill Kibble and me a “tour” of Catholic orphanages in his little Dalat automobile, plus some “sightseeing” outside the confines of DaNang. The priest slalomed his strange little car through civilian and military traffic to areas where no GI with common sense should have traveled without being accompanied by a swat team - all the while Father Paquette merrily repeating in his advanced Maurice Chevalier accent, “Never worry, never worry, we’ll be OK, these are my people.” Bill and I thought, “If the Viet Cong doesn’t get us, surely Father Paquette will!” Thirty-four years ago, but it seems like yesterday.

Eventually, I was transferred from Monkey Mountain to Pleiku Air Base in the central highlands to take command of Peacock Control, another manual control site - but Bill Kibble remained at Monkey Mountain.

When the “war ended” (well, that’s what they called it) with the “cease fire” in 1973, I was transferred from Pleiku, via Saigon, to the Udorn Royal Thai Air Base at in northeast Thailand near the Laotian border. I was assigned at Udorn to be a Battle Commander at Motel Alpha Control, a computerized detachment of Motel in Vietnam. As good luck would have it, Bill Kibble was also transferred to Udorn. There being no quarters available on base, Bill and I lived in a hotel in downtown Udorn, and then shared a Thai hootch near the base (directly under the flight path of F4s taking off from the base, water buffalo grazing near our hootch window).

During a short leave with my family in Ohio, I was granted a humanitarian leave extension to travel to March AFB in California, to be with my mother for her laryngectomy (removal of voice box) operation due to cancer. Then I received unexpected orders to proceed to a radar site at Sembach, Germany after my mother’s operation, rather than return to Thailand to complete my tour. As a result, poor Bill Kibble was stuck with packing up all my household goods in our hootch to ship home to me!