A Fighter Pilot, Political Science Prof and Author with Opinions and a Weird Streak
Monday, April 09, 2012
Might be a Creedence Clearwater Tune in This
...Looking out my back door:
1 comment:
Dweezil Dwarftosser
said...
Nice yard - but the Creedence Clearwater reference triggered a spurious memory (something that happens to us old folks) which some might find triggering their own:
It was Bitburg Air Base's Rod and Gun club, rented for the 36th AMS Christmas Party of 1975. The Vietnam War hadn't been over for very long, but the SE Asian bands that had traveled base-to-base in Thailand and SVN during the war (in the military clubs) - were now doing the same thing in Europe.
Almost every one of the GIs over age 24 or 25 clearly remembered seeing this band during at least one of their tours in SE Asia. (The band's English-speaking skills had improved considerably since then . . .) The difference was that this time, the wife or girlfriend (but not both) was seated next to them, dressed to kill. The band was playing songs popular in 1975.
The WCS (Weapons Control Systems) folks took up an entire third of the place; it took a lot of them - about a hundred - to keep radars working in an F-4E wing.
The band had taken a break, and Dick Garn had hurried to speak with them. Tom Eide was just finishing up his tale of how he had cut off his own nose with a lamp, during a rocket attack at Danang: "The Doc injected me with anesthetic, but started sewing it back on without waiting for it to work. I was flinching, every time he plunged the needle into my face. He stopped and said 'Keep that up, and I'll sew it on upside-down; you'll never be able to go out in the rain again'! " Just then, Garn walked over: "I've got you beat, Tom. Just wait; sometime in the next ten minutes."
The band came back, and started playing an old Creedence tune which everyone recognized immediately - but the wives were clueless about what was coming: the WCS troops (and others) drunkenly joining in for the chorus: "Lollin', Lollin', Lollin' on the Lee-bah" !!
1 comment:
Nice yard - but the Creedence Clearwater reference triggered a spurious memory (something that happens to us old folks) which some might find triggering their own:
It was Bitburg Air Base's Rod and Gun club, rented for the 36th AMS Christmas Party of 1975. The Vietnam War hadn't been over for very long, but the SE Asian bands that had traveled base-to-base in Thailand and SVN during the war (in the military clubs) - were now doing the same thing in Europe.
Almost every one of the GIs over age 24 or 25 clearly remembered seeing this band during at least one of their tours in SE Asia. (The band's English-speaking skills had improved considerably since then . . .) The difference was that this time, the wife or girlfriend (but not both) was seated next to them, dressed to kill.
The band was playing songs popular in 1975.
The WCS (Weapons Control Systems) folks took up an entire third of the place; it took a lot of them - about a hundred - to keep radars working in an F-4E wing.
The band had taken a break, and Dick Garn had hurried to speak with them. Tom Eide was just finishing up his tale of how he had cut off his own nose with a lamp, during a rocket attack at Danang: "The Doc injected me with anesthetic, but started sewing it back on without waiting for it to work. I was flinching, every time he plunged the needle into my face. He stopped and said 'Keep that up, and I'll sew it on upside-down; you'll never be able to go out in the rain again'! "
Just then, Garn walked over: "I've got you beat, Tom. Just wait; sometime in the next ten minutes."
The band came back, and started playing an old Creedence tune which everyone recognized immediately - but the wives were clueless about what was coming: the WCS troops (and others) drunkenly joining in for the chorus:
"Lollin', Lollin', Lollin' on the Lee-bah" !!
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