Phuket

Aaron's ship dropped anchor off Phuket, Thailand on Tuesday for four days of liberty (sand, surf, suds, etc.). His unit is split between three Navy ship. Two of them went to Singapore for liberty and his (on the biggest ship) went to Thailand. He says the place is beautiful. Apparently a lot of Europeans use it as a vacation site, much like we use Florida beaches. He's taking a couple of guided tours while he's there including the temples, local scenery, history, elephant rides, etc. Basically having the time of his life, thanks to Uncle Sam.

I touched base with Chris and Kimberly last night. Their both in Bham now. Aaron wanted their email addresses to contact them. From what I understand, Chris is living in Vestavia Hills and works at NAPA Auto Parts as a Manager. Kim recently moved to Homewood with her daughter, Hayley, and is looking for a job.

I tested and interviewed with AT&T last week and things look good for going to work with "Ma Bell" within the next couple of months in their DSL support call center in downtown Bham. After they heard I had worked at AmSouth Bank's call center for ten years doing basically what AT&T is doing, they were very impressed and were gonna try to work me into the class starting in March, time will tell.

Batcats

I just found a website about the Batcats of Korat RTAFB. I was stationed there in early '70 originally for the full one year tour, but I was shipped out for medical reasons after three months. I spent about two weeks in Clark AFB, PI hospital for diagnostics. Then I was air evac'ed on to Guam (overnight), Yakota AFB in Japan (overnight), Elmendorf, AK (refueling stop), and finally Maxwell AFB, AL on board a C-141 Starlifter (sitting facing backwards the whole trip) for three more months of medical tests and out-processing on a medical discharge (pre-existing condition, bummer!). I was in for 2 years, 4 months, and 16 days total ('68 - '70).

I was in the 553rd EMS in Korat and worked on the speech cryptography "black boxes". Remember the funky paddles with the metal fingers set at differing depths that you had to use to change the security codes in the radios every 24 hrs? That was me! Here's a set of 53 pictures on Flickr that I took while I was in Korat. I don't remember any of the names of the guys, but I DO remember that I had just bought a bike in town for for 20 Baht (I think) to use to do back and forth to work and Camp Friendship. Their movie theater was air conditioned, ours was not (LOL). All my stuff was boxed up and shipped back to the states after I was air evac'ed out, EXCEPT for that bicycle! Pissed me off!

Looking through some of the links on the website brought back tons of memories I had forgotten about. Examples: Sawadee vs Swadee Club, the water festival, the gold stores, the mama-sans in the barracks, etc. How well I remember that statue covered in gold flake and silk in town. Got my first piece of Thai ass in a brothel not too far from that statue. I saw the picture on Arley Hamiltons' website of the guy elbow-deep in an ARC-27 radio in the EMS shop on the flightline. I was like: been there...done that!!!