# heading home



## cdestroyer (Sep 14, 2021)

50 years ago this week I was packing my gear, getting my stuff shipped home from the "nam". I was 24 (and I dont mind posting my age) been in the mekong delta hauling cargo resupplying the units, food booze, ammo, etc.....bought up a bunch of stereo,camera gear in the exchanges. the ship was loading out cargo in saigon (then) and I had only one day to get my stuff shipped home and get to the airport at tan son nhut. I had to go back to the base at nha be to get some records. boarded the plane and we climbed so fast my ears did not acclimate until we came back down at yakota afb japan a couple hours later....asked the stews(flight attendants) for some gum they said get back to my seat....50 years a long long long long tim ago.........


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## mellowyellow (Sep 14, 2021)

I hope your service was appreciated, the Aussie boys who came back were not lauded as heroes, but totally ignored, and anti-war protests made things worse for them.  We were told that communism had to be tackled head on as our geographic location would mean that, should they succeed, the 'domino effect' could reach us and we would be doomed.  It sounded reasonable at the time so they started pulling boys names out of a hat and away they went.


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## squatting dog (Sep 15, 2021)

cdestroyer said:


> 50 years ago this week I was packing my gear, getting my stuff shipped home from the "nam". I was 24 (and I dont mind posting my age) been in the mekong delta hauling cargo resupplying the units, food booze, ammo, etc.....bought up a bunch of stereo,camera gear in the exchanges. the ship was loading out cargo in saigon (then) and I had only one day to get my stuff shipped home and get to the airport at tan son nhut. I had to go back to the base at nha be to get some records. boarded the plane and we climbed so fast my ears did not acclimate until we came back down at yakota afb japan a couple hours later....asked the stews(flight attendants) for some gum they said get back to my seat....50 years a long long long long tim ago.........


I hear ya. 2 months and it'll be 51 years for me. Time is a fast old train and it don't come back around.


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## cdestroyer (Sep 15, 2021)




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## Remy (Sep 15, 2021)

Can't even imagine.....


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## fuzzybuddy (Sep 16, 2021)

It won't be until June 18, 2022, until it's fifty years for me. I have no memory of what happened after I left the Naval Base in Norfolk. I flew to NYC. There just was one more  Navy thing I had to deal with.  I has been stationed in GTMO, Cuba. We could send belonging back to the States with the Navy picking up the charges. I had a nice stereo system, with large speakers. They put the speakers in a crate that was 6 feet by 6 feet by 6 feet, It was two little speakers in this big box. Then they filled the entire box with packing. The Navy had much smaller crates, but it would have meant having two crates to ship the speakers. And Navy regs said you could  ship only one crate.-thus the 6x6x6 crate. I had to go this warehouse in Brooklyn, where  I watched 4 guys unpacked the huge crate, and one guy carried over the speakers to me. Somehow that symbolized the US Navy for me.
BTW I don't want to sound overly bitter about my time in the Navy. It was work, but I enjoyed most of it. And met a lot of cool people.


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