I just wanted to say "thanks." This is great fun. I think it is probably the most fun I've had "flying" any computer game in a long time. I don't say sim because while it is, I just think the way you've done the stories it really makes it "real" but also not - in that I know when I succeed only five of ten times in a particular mission, it's just a game and my wife and three kids aren't getting a Western Union.

My dad is going back to Vietnam on a "vacation" in April for 3 weeks. He was at Pleiku. (Holloway). Got hurt in a rocket attack, is on his third manmade knee to go with some really, really ugly seared hamburger looking legs - nothing I wouldn't give him crap about directly (and got lucky in others to not get killed like in '65). Anyway, he says they won't let him go there because it is basically uncontrolled territory. Honestly, I'm not sure he'd want to go there anyway, but I'm not sure why he wants to go now or honestly, what you do for three entire weeks in Vietnam...

Nothing pleases us more than to hear things like that.

Your father will find what he is looking for.

Got this email today sent as he got into Hue...nothing too personal included but interesting:

I echo Airdrop01's comments John. You guys have gone WAY "above and beyond" on this. Very nice indeed.

My Dad too was at Pleiku flying H-21s in 1962-63, when was your father there? I know it's probably not THAT small of a world, but you never know.

(Note on that. When my Dad retired from the Army, he took a job as a civie I.P. at Ft. Wolters [the Army's Primary Helicopter School back then]. He taught in the TH-55 'till they packed up and moved all of their stuff down to Ft. Rucker in the early '70s. I was flying a trip home from Anchorage one day, and had another one of our pilots on my jumpseat. We started talking about how hot it had been in the MSP area, and I made the statement..."yeah, you'd swear you were in N. Texas." He quipped that he had spent some time flying in N. Texas, and I asked him where. You guessed it, he was a student at Wolters in the early 70's, and upon further review...you guessed #2...any ideas who his Instructor Pilot might have been? YEP...my Dad was his I.P.! WOW...it was kind of freaky. He sent me some pics of himself and my Dad doing their helo thing when he got home. I lost my father back in '93, miss him dearly...he's STILL the yardstick by which I measure myself...and I'm not ashamed to say that I welled up seeing those pics. Sometimes it IS in fact a small world.)

My airline is starting service to Saigon in June, and I'll be bidding those trips for sure.

Anyway, thanks again John and crew. You guys are amazing.

Capt. William S. "BBall" Ball
Boeing 757, Northwest Airlines (now Delta )
Senior Editor; Frugalsworld of Simulations

No matter what they say, just say no to nuoc-mam.

That is disgusting. Rotten, fermented fish carcass juice. Ugggh.

BB, I PMd you.

Got it...thanks.

So...NO to the fish sauce.

YES to what?

(probably shouldn't ask)

BBall

Well, he's back. I'll get more pictures of some more culture and war related stuff plus other things that make me glad I live here...these are just a few.....













and, some of the "cuisine" (DISGUSTING!):



More to come as I get time....

Hi all,

I can still remember the smell of the marketplace in Vung Tau, Vietnam, 1967. It was our second time in town and I and two other Army friends wanted to take a short cut to get to the movie theater, to see the "Glass Bottom Boat." The movie was in French and though we didn't understand what they were saying, it was clear what they were doing. Anyway, I digressed, so we walked through the Marketplace not fully realizing what was in store. Half way into the Marketplace, we knew we had made a bad mistake, the smell was worse than dead bodies rotting in the sun. We almost puked trying to get away from the stench.

There are other smells and sights I remember well, as if just yesterday, and most of them are still worth remembering. We were not all affected in the same way by the war, but we all have memories. I still have an affection for the Vietnamese who worked with me, they were very generous and gracious to us soldiers. They were not rich, but before we left country in 1967, they held a banquet in our honor and fed us like royalty. I never got over that act of kindness, nor the thought of what it cost them to honor us as they did.

I know Airdrop01's father will find what he is looking for. Vietnam will always be a significant part of his life as it is for me.

Out of here,
Wired

More here:

http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/2712376/3/Vietnam_pics.html