Headin' Home!

Well, I’m on the final leg of my trip home…DFW to Seattle. It’s a beautiful clear day over the Western US with smooth flying so far (I think I’m over Colorado…Hello Larry Conway!) and we should touch down at Sea-Tac Airport in about 2 hours.

On board this American Airlines MD-83 there are ten or so troops (ranging in rank from PFC to E-7 and aged from too young to over 55) who are on leave from duty in Afghanistan. If you look closely at the photo above you will see several shoulders in camouflaged uniforms. The pilot announced that these troops were on board and the entire aircraft erupted in applause with a few “Hooahs” thrown in! I’ve taken the opportunity to say “thank you for serving” to several of them and have shared with them that I was a vet from a different war who was coming home from our Reunion, and there was an instant bond and recognition for our mutual service experiences. The next time you see a young (or older) service man or woman in uniform, take the opportunity to say “thanks” to them…they will really appreciate it!

A couple of hours later……..

We’ve touched down at Sea-Tac, and another Reunion has officially come to an end for me again. Now my task is to not get too anxious with anticipation for next year in Dayton. I hope you will seriously consider coming the second weekend in September 2010!

Banquet in Nashville

The 20^th Annual Reunion continued tonight with our banquet and featured speaker MG Bill Page sharing about his eight years flying Mohawks (and his life-long love affair with the bug-eyed, triple tailed, funny looking, wonderful flying machine). The food was wonderful, the drink was plentiful, the lies no doubt a little more exaggerated, the stuff piling up on the floor a little deeper, and the camaraderie better than ever! General Page described the first time he heard, then saw his first Mohawk and how, as a young 2LT in a Birddog unit, he knew he just had to fly the Army’s newest and, he added, “the coolest” airplane. He masterfully described flying techniques, rolls, and other types of intricate flight maneuvers in a way that was completely understandable for the non-aviators, wives and others present.

For me, who spent my entire Army career at Phabulous Phu Hiep by the Sea, for many of our Blackhawk/Phantomhawk comrades, and indeed for others in the banquet hall, seeing the pictures of our airplanes, the company area and the beach on that big screen brought back a flood of memories of the good times there, and the tough times when we lost seven of our brothers in the four crashes of June and October 1969. The launch of the birds searching for our lost brothers and the soldiers on the ramp watching them go emphasized the effort we made and pulling together of the company as we tried to find our missing friends.

Bill said his one-year at Phu Hiep was the highlight of his 39-year military career. I would echo that remark by saying that I will never regret that I served my country in the Army with the 225^th Aviation Company.

We plan on putting a movie together and producing a DVD so people can see it. We'll let people know through this blog and the Association website when it's ready. (I’ll be putting more pictures on the blog soon. Steve Hammons [left] and Joe Beckham are pictured above. )

All in all, our 20^th Anniversary Reunion was an outstanding one, one that I will long remember for old friendships renewed and the new ones made, the bigger and more elaborate stories that were told (but not necessarily believed) and retold time and again, and the new places in Tennesee we visited.

I am looking forward to the weekend after Labor Day next year when we will gather in Dayton, Ohio, one of the birthplaces of powered flight. We will visit the Air Force Aviation Museum at Wright-Patterson AFB and, of course, the Wright Bothers’ Bicycle Shop among many other attractions. It is promising to be a very good Reunion!

Historic Lynchburg, Tennessee

Our alarms went off in Nashville before the sun came up on Thursday, and at about 8:30am Mohawkers piled out of bed and, still blurry-eyed, climbed aboard 2 buses to head for historic Lynchburg and a wonderful day touring the Jack Daniels Distillery, the oldest registered distillery in the US.

We began with an authentic boarding house great lunch of fried chicken, meat loaf, fried okra, beans, and broccoli and cheese casserole at Miss Mary Bobo’s Boarding House (built in 1820 and just recently restored), we went on a self-guided walking tour of Lynchburg Square, and the walked the short distance to Jack’s. We were not permitted in any of the buildings except Jack’s original office, because of the alcohol fumes that are flammable, and a spark cannot be risked. We were shown how charcoal is made and ground to the proper size to filter the alcohol through. There was a great video on the hand-crafting of the barrels in which the new alcohol is stored until the right moment when the flavor and color of the sugar maple barrel staves has created the whiskey we buy.

It was a very interesting and educational tour. The only 225th Mohawkers on the tour were Alex Berkeley and me, who were doing research to make a full report to Joe Beckham. We then loaded the buses again for a short trip to Barbecue Hill, part of the distillery’s operation, for a great dinner of pork, chicken, coleslaw beans and hush puppies. (The consolidated city-county government of Lynchburg the only “dry” county in the US, so no liquor is sold at the distillery, except for a commemorative bottle. But the Association saved the day by bringing Jack that was purchased outside the county, and it was served to us at the barbecue.) Around 6:30pm we headed back to Nashville for an evening of socializing with more friends who had arrived that during the day.

I’ll try to tell you who all is here now, but as you know, my memory isn’t as good as it used to be…. The list is in no particular order, just how my brain is recalling them. Ernie Serna, Joe Backham, Joe Floyd, Jerry Murphy, Ernie Marsh, Don Bernstein, Bill Page and Alex Berkeley.

The OV-1 Mohawk Association 20th Reunion Begins!

Well, I’m on my way to Nashville for the 20th Anniversary Reunion of the OV-1 Mohawk Association! Got up at zero-dark-thirty to catch the Metro bus from my house to downtown Seattle, and then get on our new Link Light Rail directly to Sea-Tac Airport. We left for DFW on a jet plane (hum the John Denver song now!) where I’ll connect a flight to Nashville. I’m somewhere over Oregon now; I’ll continue journal a little later in the flight.

I’m somewhere between DFW and Nashville at 29,000 feet now, and I’m thinking about what our reunion will be like this year. In Portland last year there were guys I had not seen in several, indeed many, years. Bill Page I saw last in 1999 in Minneapolis. Steve Hammons and George Baena I had not seen in a few years. The last time I saw Dugan Lawrence was in the summer of 1970 after he had DEROSed and I had gotten out of the Army. I am so glad that Dugan was there! Alex Berkeley, Loren Schrock and Danny Talbot were there too. I had not seen George Burns since Phu Hiep!

We’ve landed in Nashville now. Everything is a beautiful green, the thermometer is hovering in the low 80s, and the humidity is even higher. By chance, Dave Olney (the Association XO) and his wife, Kathy, are waiting for the hotel shuttle as I walk out of the terminal, so we’re on our way to the hotel together.

After a light snack and a glass of vino for dinner, I’m off to publish this blog entry and then hit the hay. I am anxious for our first full day tomorrow here in the Volunteer State, to renew friendships, and make new ones, with brothers with whom I shared a common experience. I’ll update with photos tomorrow…