Voice From the Past

What I am trying to point out here, somewhat unsuccessfully, is that for a period of 30 years, although I thought about those days of combat occasionally, I had no contact whatsoever with any of the principals.

All that changed in 1998 when, on a Sunday afternoon, a disembodied voice on the telephone inquired whether I was Jolly 09, the pilot who had rescued Kenny Fields in 1968. Wow, what a surprise! Little did I know that both Craig and Kaye had conspired together to instigate this call.

Here is what happened—Craig (who was flying H-60’s for the Army in Korea) noticed the Jolly Green website and sent an email to Kaye to see if she had found it. Kaye visited there, dug a little deeper and found a note that they were looking for information about me!

She reported this back to Craig, who got in contact with George Marrett (one of the Sandy A-1 pilots who had escorted me). It was George who called me. What he had to say was that the principals involved in that rescue were meeting at Nellis AFB to brief the Air Force on the mission. Would I like to attend?

That’s how Kaye and I found ourselves at Nellis, with me meeting face to face with Kenny Fields (the Navy pilot I picked up) after 30 years. Things went well, and a month or so later, everyone was invited to Pope AFB to brief the east coast folks. This time I went by myself, once again meeting with the gang.

The following year (1999), I retired from teaching and we began looking around to see where we wanted to spend our retirement years. We looked at places in our town, the mountains and by the ocean without finding anything that fully satisfied. I had told Kaye that, since she had faithfully accompanied me during 24 years of Air Force service (23 different homes, remember), I would let her make the final decision.

I finally came to realize that, although, since being born and raised there I had a soft spot in my heart for it, California had just gotten too crowded and hectic. So, we began looking--expanding our search to Arizona and Oregon. Then there came a day when Kaye announced that she wanted to move to Abilene, Kansas.

I was shocked. Craig had been trying for years to get us to move to Abilene, but although we had visited often, neither of us had ever seriously considered living there. Kaye said that our two grandchildren were growing up (4th and 10th grades at the time) and she wanted to be a grandmother to them while they were still young.

Enough for now. Next, our move to Abilene, a precusor to the writing of the book.

Dave

A Return to those 'Golden Days of Yesteryear'

Yikes! I had not intended to be away for so long. My defense, such as it is, is that I was fighting the battle of the website, which, I am happy to report, has been resolved in my favor, although the issue was in doubt for quite some time.

But, I am getting ahead of myself. The whole reason for this ramble is to support, and give some explanation for, the book, Vietnam Air Rescues, written by yours truly, which may be previewed at http://www.vietnam-air-rescues.com/ . I know you may think, or wish, that these remarks had been written as the events took place, rather than after the fact, but, as you will discover, the idea of a Blog occurred quite late in the scheme of things.

Thus, it seems fitting to me to return to those 'Golden days of yesteryear', so to speak, and describe how this whole thing came about. Here goes—

Back in 1967-1968, I was occupying my time as an Air Force Jolly Green combat rescue pilot in Vietnam. I had a quite eventful year and, just as I was preparing to return home, an incident occurred which precipitated what I am involved in now.

Specifically, I rescued a Naval pilot under somewhat grueling circumstances. Following the rescue, I was rotated back to the states, where I reunited with my family and transferred to Germany. Sometime after arriving in Germany, I was presented with a medal for that rescue. Otherwise, the events of my sojourn in Vietnam (actually, I flew out of Thailand) receded to the back of my memory as I was preoccupied with other matters.

David and Craig had been born before I went to Vietnam; Eric and Mark were born while we were in Germany (a fact that causes them difficulties to this day when applying for any official documents). We moved from Germany to Texas to Oklahoma to two locations in Georgia, before I finally retired from the Air Force and began phase two of my life’s plan.

Perhaps I should explain here that, while in the seventh grade, I determined that my future life would consist of a career as an Air Force pilot, followed by a stint in the teaching profession. Kaye still says she thought I was ‘unusual’ when she met me in HIgh School and I announced these plans to her. In her words, “Nobody knows how, in detail, they plan to live their life when they are in the seventh grade!” Fortunately for me, she married me anyway. (The account of our courtship, engagement and subsequent marriage is a subject for another time.)

Well, that would appear to me to be quite enough for now. When next we return, we will continue our exploration of the background to the book as this rambling dissertation continues...

Dave