[AT] Thank You Vets

[Don]

On 11/12/2015 5:35 AM, charlie hill wrote:
> He was on her when the N. Koreans captured
> our spy ship in the late 60's and took a high speed ride up the coast as we
> repositioned assets for that episode.

Long ago and far away.  I was air crew on the Kearsarge CVS33 when that 
happened.  We were in Subic Bay in the Philippines for a scheduled 
week.  Some friends and I were on Grande Island, playing in the water, 
exploring the fortifications, drinking beer, and eating hamburgers.  
That evening we retired to the EM club to continue the most import 
activity of the day.  This was out last port before heading to Japan 
then Hawaii then home.  They announced that liberty was cancelled and 
all were to return to their ships.

The boat that went back and forth was a WWII era landing craft and it 
did not take much thought to realize there was no way they had room so 
we stayed.  A round trip was about 45 minutes.  You could buy a large 
Dixie Cup of San Miguel Beer for a dime so we would each buy all we 
could carry.  They kept announcing the next boat and we kept buying 
beer.  It got to the point where they would turn out the lights and 
people would head for the dock with hands full of Dixie Cups.  The boat 
would fill and lights would come back n.  This continued until it got 
down to the last of us.  My friends and I were at the back of the crowd 
and knew this was the boat we would take.  Then some drunk dived off the 
dock onto the boat and all we saw were flying fists.  The boat backed 
out and the lights came back on.

We pulled out later that night, had a six hour stop over is Sasabo Japan 
and were soon off Korea.  Were were there for several weeks then headed 
for Yokosuka Japan then Hawaii then home.  The problem was that I was 
due to get out at the end of May.  I made it, the first newscast we 
heard from the mainland was the MLK assassination.

-- 
Don Bowen       --AD0NB--