I'm comin' up on it in a couple of years, but CPF friend Grouchy Old Cripple does it up well in this look back at the event that changed his life....

http://grouchyoldcripple.com/2015/10/fifty-years-ago/#comment-51204

Ughhh, it's been 45+ years since those grueling days, days I'd hate to repeat, but an experience I cherrish.
One that made a man out of a rather ignorant young teen.
The time served that followed were the best and worst years of my life, an experience I'm glad I endured.

Speaking of cold, you couldn't light a match in our windy, leaky ass barracks, that were constantly well below freezing during winter months, add to that a case of scabies, where being cold was a saving grace, because going to bed and turning on my electric blanket was a wake up call for continual itching.
DDT was my friend during my stay.

Addendum: Nixon had just resigned, Carter rationed our diesel supplies to the point we were allotted 4 hours of heat a night, barely enough to stave off frostbite.
God I hate liberals!!!

I went in just before the first Forrestal fire, meaning EVERYBODY went twice through firefighting training, an experience totally unlike what many folks may think.

Crawling around without masks in oil smoke -- ah, that was something to really drive home the terror those men must have felt when that jet came down and everything went to hell up on deck. You pay attention to that stuff when the nearest land is five nautical miles straight down.

Then I got caught smoking in the company's head...and got sent back a week in training, so I got a third dose of that for my sins. I deserved it.

2/22/2018 will mark 60 years since I enlisted in the Navy! Damn I still remember that first day like it was yesterday!

50 years ago this year I was stationed at Fitzsimons Army Medical Center attending BioMedical Electronics School. Had some great times that year! 

Quote from: tac on October 29, 2015, 08:52:06 AM
2/22/2018 will mark 60 years since I enlisted in the Navy! Damn I still remember that first day like it was yesterday!

50 years ago this year I was stationed at Fitzsimons Army Medical Center attending BioMedical Electronics School. Had some great times that year! 

Yep, like breaking both legs and nothing for the pain for the next 8 weeks.
The first day really sucked, and it only got worse from there. Made some great friends though.....

Are you still in contact with any of them?

Quote from: Solar on October 29, 2015, 10:15:12 AM
Yep, like breaking both legs and nothing for the pain for the next 8 weeks.
The first day really sucked, and it only got worse from there. Made some great friends though.....

Are you still in contact with any of them?

No I'm not in touch with any of them. I was stationed with my Navy graduating class in DaNang with the Marines, but lost touch with them after that. I suspect many are dead now; I was 22 when I was at Ftiz - the youngest of the bunch.

Quote from: tac on October 29, 2015, 11:37:11 AM
No I'm not in touch with any of them. I was stationed with my Navy graduating class in DaNang with the Marines, but lost touch with them after that. I suspect many are dead now; I was 22 when I was at Ftiz - the youngest of the bunch.

Sorry to hear that.

Quote from: tac on October 29, 2015, 11:37:11 AM
No I'm not in touch with any of them. I was stationed with my Navy graduating class in DaNang with the Marines, but lost touch with them after that. I suspect many are dead now; I was 22 when I was at Ftiz - the youngest of the bunch.

Got me thinking and I looked up a really good friend whom I hadn't spoken with since Korea, but still had his parents ph#.
To cut short, caught him on his last day as an engineer at Caterpillar.
The guy still sounds the same    
That was really nice to hear he's still kickin...

Quote from: Solar on October 29, 2015, 12:38:24 PM
Got me thinking and I looked up a really good friend whom I hadn't spoken with since Korea, but still had his parents ph#.
To cut short, caught him on his last day as an engineer at Caterpillar.
The guy still sounds the same.    
That was really nice to hear he's still kickin...

Great I'm glad you were able to hook up. 

My Dad had been Navy with a total of about 12 years, including the Big War ( aren't they all ), I did my term paper in high school English on the role the Navy had in the Pacific during that Big War, and just always assumed I would be Navy. Instead I enlisted in the damned Army when it looked like I was gonna be drafted in '58.  It mattered little if you were bunged up when going in or not. I had a bad new, shoulder, positive tuberculin, and wore glasses which promptly went the way of the Dodo Bird while on the KD range at Carson. I hated every minute of it, especially my 'idiot year'. It was a time for a transitional army, basically still using M-1 Garands ( I love 'em now but hated carrying that damned thing all over the Rocky Mountain foothills at Fort Carson ) and there were far too many Old Drunk NCOs. Spent 13 months and nine days in Korea and far too much time at Fort Bragg, NC.

Looking back, I'm glad I served, even though I hated it at the time.

Quote from: Solar on October 29, 2015, 10:15:12 AM
Yep, like breaking both legs and nothing for the pain for the next 8 weeks.
The first day really sucked, and it only got worse from there. Made some great friends though.....

Are you still in contact with any of them?

HEY! Sounds like your familiar with MEDDAC services. "Here's some motrin 800's, call us in the morning". 

That said on a more serious note. Since some of you guys are prior Navy, please tell this landlubbing ground pounding prior Army grunt. Is this normal for Russia?

http://www.stripes.com/news/pacific/russian-aircraft-approach-uss-ronald-reagan-prompting-us-fighter-jet-scramble-1.375709

And is it SOP for our Navy not to shoot down an aircraft like this, that ignores being warned off and just keeps right on flying at one of our Aircraft Carrier's?

Seems to me, that a bomber, which ignores being warned off, that keeps on coming ultimately getting within one nautical mile, of an aircraft carrier, is fair game for being shot down.

Quote from: Solar on October 29, 2015, 08:17:06 AM
Ughhh, it's been 45+ years since those grueling days, days I'd hate to repeat, but an experience I cherrish.
One that made a man out of a rather ignorant young teen.
The time served that followed were the best and worst years of my life, an experience I'm glad I endured.

Speaking of cold, you couldn't light a match in our windy, leaky ass barracks, that were constantly well below freezing during winter months, add to that a case of scabies, where being cold was a saving grace, because going to bed and turning on my electric blanket was a wake up call for continual itching.
DDT was my friend during my stay.

Addendum: Nixon had just resigned, Carter rationed our diesel supplies to the point we were allotted 4 hours of heat a night, barely enough to stave off frostbite.
God I hate liberals!!!

The absolute worst mistake ever made, was the banning of DDT! Which was done as it turns out, based upon bald faced environmental wacko lies. (Yes like the A.G.W. nutjobs who try to use that to push marxist ideology out there today) There's simply zero comparison between it's effectiveness as a bug repellant, and those on the market today. None. DDT is by far better. And while it was a bald faced lie, even if true. So what if it makes some birds egg shells too thin. Better that, and their extinction, than a single human being dying because they were bitten by a mosquito carrying god only knows what blood born disease.

Quote from: daidalos on November 30, 2015, 11:21:55 AM
HEY! Sounds like your familiar with MEDDAC services. "Here's some motrin 800's, call us in the morning". 

ROFL! Motrin.... The VA equivalent to the 60s APC, Aspirin, Penicillin, codeine.

Quote from: daidalos on November 30, 2015, 11:26:12 AM
The absolute worst mistake ever made, was the banning of DDT! Which was done as it turns out, based upon bald faced environmental wacko lies. (Yes like the A.G.W. nutjobs who try to use that to push marxist ideology out there today) There's simply zero comparison between it's effectiveness as a bug repellant, and those on the market today. None. DDT is by far better. And while it was a bald faced lie, even if true. So what if it makes some birds egg shells too thin. Better that, and their extinction, than a single human being dying because they were bitten by a mosquito carrying god only knows what blood born disease.

Nope, no evidence of thinning egg shells either, all one big ass lie!
Thank you Rachel Carson, you freakin commie lesbian feminazi bitch.

Quote from: daidalos on November 30, 2015, 11:21:55 AM
HEY! Sounds like your familiar with MEDDAC services. "Here's some motrin 800's, call us in the morning". 

That said on a more serious note. Since some of you guys are prior Navy, please tell this landlubbing ground pounding prior Army grunt. Is this normal for Russia?

http://www.stripes.com/news/pacific/russian-aircraft-approach-uss-ronald-reagan-prompting-us-fighter-jet-scramble-1.375709

And is it SOP for our Navy not to shoot down an aircraft like this, that ignores being warned off and just keeps right on flying at one of our Aircraft Carrier's?

Seems to me, that a bomber, which ignores being warned off, that keeps on coming ultimately getting within one nautical mile, of an aircraft carrier, is fair game for being shot down.

The Reds did this at least once to the carrier I was on. They announced it would be flying nearby and we got up on the catwalks or the flight deck to watch it. The Tupolev Bear is a monstrously huge menace with wings. It's also essentially unarmed in its reconnaissance mode (though originally it was designed as a bomber). I expect the photo experts will be studying pictures intently trying to see if anything new was added on exterior antennae and the like.

Almost anything we had (except our propeller-driven mail-plane) could outrun it: it was only about 650 m.p.h., tops.

Quote from: Solar on December 01, 2015, 02:34:13 PM

ROFL! Motrin.... The VA equivalent to the 60s APC, Aspirin, Penicillin, codeine.
Nope, no evidence of thinning egg shells either, all one big ass lie!
Thank you Rachel Carson, you freakin commie lesbian feminazi bitch.

Oh I know I know. But then again I am also one of those throwbacks to the caveman days, who for some crazy assed reason thinks and says Human lives come before that of animals. Even if and or when, it means that a animal faces death, or that animal species will go extinct.