From: Forrest Brandt
Date: December 27, 2020
Subject: Christmas 1967
Ditto, Steve. Had access to all the film I wanted and didn’t take anywhere near enough pics, especially of the day to day life in Lai Khe.
Forrest
From: Frank Rogers
Date: December 28, 2020
Subject: Christmas 1967
I stood arm’s length from President Thieu in the newsroom. Wikipedia says he settled near Boston & died 2001. My celebrity talk was with Skip Young, the guy who played Wally on Ozzie & Harriet TV show. Jim White was Admin chief when I was at AFVN 69-70. Col Souville took photo with my wife. She came for 2 weeks in 1970. My Vietnamization story was of AF Academy in Nha Trang. Frank.
From: Hank Nevins
Date: January 2, 2021
Subject: Christmas 1967
Hey Guy - Gave you a shout this a.m. on WBEN for your fans in Buffalo, Rochester and Toronto.
=HN= AFVN/Pleiku 1970
. Here
From: Dick Ellis
Date: December 26, 2020
Subject: Christmas 1967
Note; Dick simply included a link to his Photos and Stories page and then the 96 photos in his slide show. They are available on the AFVNVETS.net at https://www.afvnvets.net/pho-sto---ellis01.html and then scroll down to his slide show or enter https://nebula.wsimg.com/6391dc60626734613754fc21f784a3bd?AccessKeyId=867C324947D38D2A0B0A&disposition=0&alloworigin=1 -- click on either of the above. but to make it easy for you, , he had really meant to send only Photo #36 as shown below.
AFVN Group Conversations
From: Forrest Brandt
Date: December 28, 2020
Subject: Christmas 1967
Jim, I confess that I’ve only been to the site one or two times this year. I went today and scrolled down to the KLIK button and clicked on it. Ummmmm. The persons who provided most of the info on KLIK are Time Abney and John (I’m drawing a blank) who came over with the Division in 1965 and used to be part of this net, but I haven’t heard from him in a while. He was at the reunion in Memphis and shortly after that his wife died. Anyway - my point is this: Tim Abney is more responsible for the background story on KLIK than I am and deserves to have his name posted as the author of the KLIK page instead of me. Also - can I re-write what I have to say about KLIK?
Thanks for your time on these issues,
Forrest
From: Ken Gilder
Date: December 26, 2020
Subject: Christmas 1967
Never saw much of LTC Jones, who was the network commander during a portion of my tour (10 Aug 67 - 3 Aug 68), as I was up at Det #1, in Qui-Nhon. I remember his nickname being "The White Knight."
Martha Raye paid up a visit at Det. #1. Remarkable woman.
Ken G.
From: Bob Morecook
Date: December 27, 2020
Subject: Christmas 1967
Hi Dickie
Those are wonderful slides You really got around! Thanks for sharing them
Bob
Christmas 1967 and other Topics
Christmas Tree
January 2021
From: Mike Goucher
Date: January 1, 2021
Subject: Christmas 1967
Glad you did, Dickie! The pix of Pleiku's Dragon Mountain brought back many memories, as I was stationed at Det. 3 before these pix were taken. Much of the non-quonset-hut facilities were built from reclaimed materiel because 1st Air Cav re-located their command and our Gunnery Sergeant at the time, Bill Rich, organized a truck cavalcade to brave the terrain and "scrounge" their leavings. The carpentry at the van entrance was from that materiel cache as was another building adjacent to our issued studio Quonset hut. The scrounged hooch housed a sometimes studio (Chris Noel sang and danced there once)/most times saloon, which provided off-hours relaxation and entertainment for we who were stranded on the mountain and our comrades-in-arms who did other duties (notably enemy troop-tracking along the Ho Chi Minh Trail (just 4 miles from us) using high-tech gear). Alas! The enemy destroyed the mountain and AFVN fled to the Western side of Pleiku City. This happened on the same week that President (and General) Eisenhower passed, and got very little press attention because Ike was popular and important, and Vietnam was unpopular, ergo not as important. I did not learn of the enemy over-run until years later.
From: Randy Kafka
Date: December 26, 2020
Subject: Christmas 1967
Dickie,
I really enjoyed the trip down memory lane....glad you made the error my friend, I am sure others are happy also.
hang tuff,
Randy
From: Steve Pennington
Date: December 26, 2020
Subject: Christmas 1967
Don't apologize, they are great slides. I regret not taking more pictures in Vietnam. I took a couple of rolls at Phu Cat and a couple at Danang, but was not much of a photographer, and had buddies who were, and they gave me a few pictures. Your slides brought back a lot of memories like the Montangards at Pleiku, over the hill from Phu Cat.
Cheers,
Steve Pennington
From: Bob Peetz
Date: December 28, 2020
Subject: Christmas 1967
Dickie, Slide 53 - John Denver or Bob Denver??? Hello Gilligan.
From: Billy Williams
Date: January 2, 2021
Subject: Christmas 1967
When I was doing Orient Express, remember the TOH ID sequence being changed to drop Pleiku ~June 1972. Trained several arriving in Saigon from Pleiku to operate Saigon AM master control.
Saw a memo complaining that the OIC of the host site was not friendly toward AFVN there at all. One night he took them off the air due to alleged interference problems.
As when Qui Nhon AFVN closed, they left an unattended 50-watt Bauer AM in Pleiku.
Apparently 50-watt Bauers were not substantial enough to include in the TOH ID.
Home Contact AFVN Past Contacts AFVN Roster POWS: The Honored Taps: Those Departed AFVN Organization AFVN Reunions
AFVN History AFVN Photos & Stories AFVN Group Conversations Audio Archives Video Archives AFVN Guest Book
Project Jenny KLIK - 1st Inf Di v Women in Vietnam RELATED-- To AFVN To Saigon To Vietnam Further Afield Index
From: Dick Ellis
Date: December 31, 2020
Subject: Christmas 1967
Thank you sir...Cal almost got me killed several times!
From: Guy Slater
Date: January 2, 2021
Subject: Christmas 1967
Mike, I was attached to Det 3 from Jan to April 70. 4th ID during that time, moved from Pleiku to An Khe, and I was pulled back to Division in April. Just before leaving, there was a staff meeting that I was excluded from (not being assigned, I did not have a need to know) about the move of Det 3 from Dragon Mountain to the Pleiku AFB.
When the Cambodia Invasion/Incursion happened in May, Division went back through Pleiku, and it became a sortie base for resupply. I got assigned to recover equipment and visited the gang at the new location. I picked the wrong day to visit!
As the hour tone was broadcast at midnight, the AFVN transmission tower took a direct hit, knocking the station off the air. The only rocket/mortar thrown at the AFB that night.
I left on the 4th of June and didn't hear about anything happening on Dragon Mountain afterwords. To the best of my knowledge, there was little American left on the mountain by the time I left country. When did that over-run happen, and to what result? If you have that information, I'd be most appreciative.
Guy
From: Ken Kalish
Date: December 27, 2020
Subject: Christmas 1967
Excellent collection, Dickie. Like some of the others, I regret not having taken more pictures of "us" and have had the visual acuity to arrange scenes worthy of notice.
Ken Kalish
From: Guy Slater
Date: January 4, 2021
Subject: Christmas 1967
Hank, Thanks, but... Is there a way that I can get it? Didn't listen this past Saturday, so I missed the shout-out, and WBEN doesn't allow one to listen to anything after a couple hours past air time. BTW, how the hell do you manage to wake up that early?
Guy
From: Jim White
Date: December 27, 2020
Subject: Christmas 1967
Dear all,
The AFVNVET.net web site was originally developed under the name "AFVN" by Bob Morecook with help from Jack Leigh and Terry Oliver in 1998 or so. Bob used Geocities, a free site for building web pages until it was closed down in 2009.
I first met Bob at the 2012 Reunion in Nashville. I talked with him about the AFVN site. He was obviously disheartened by the fact that it was no longer possible to edit or add to the site that he had spent many years building. I offered to take it over and see what I could do with it. He quickly brightened up and agreed.
I started working on a new site under the name "AFVN-RADIO-TV.COM" in late 2012. Later on, I changed the name to the shorter "AFVNVETS.NET," partly because it seemed more representative of the people who were assigned to AFVN from 1962 to 1973.
I was the sole webmaster until April 2017. That was when I invited Jerry Nelson (who had worked for me at AFVN in 1970/71) to help and perhaps take over after I go through those (pearly or not so pearly) gates--your guess is as good as mine. Since April 2017, Jerry and I have gotten together via computer for nearly daily sessions lasting from 60 to 90 minutes each. As of this writing, we have "met on the net" a total of 720 times totaling 984 hours. And, believe it or not, we are still friends. That says a lot for Jerry! How many hours I have spent working on the site by myself, both before and after Jerry joined me, is uncountable.
I have paid something over $10,000 to GoDaddy for their services. But anyone who even suggests that I be reimbursed in any way for this will be tied to an imaginary firing squad post and shot by whoever is second to suggest the same, he or she will then be shot by the third person in line, and so on....
Over the years I have sent out lists of addition/corrections, but sometimes except for a rather small group of "fans," I sometimes wonder if anyone knows the site exists. If you are in that latter group, please go to AFVNVETS.NET and look around. You might find something interesting--or perhaps find many things that are not interesting. But every one of those 900+ pages of HTML (many running to close to 1,000 lines of text) is related to or should be of interest to AFVNs veterans. The number of PDF documents is almost uncountable!
Now, on to Dickie Ellis' problem of sending 96 or so photos when he meant to send only one: GoDaddy has a "slide show" app which is absolutely lousy. You could go through it only at a fixed pace and finding a specific photo was impossible. I cured that problem once by making my own slide show app. An example is https://www.afvnvets.com/2016-re-bragg00.html I liked this system because you could go through the show at your own pace, find and index individual photos, etc. It had a weakness in that sometimes the GoDaddy system would make a photo disappear. When I discovered such a problem, I could sometimes find my copy of the errant photo and replace it. But, sometimes I could not find my copy so I was simply "Up a creek without a paddle." Jerry and I have been going through the website looking for this type of slide show and converting them into one wherein all of the photos are put in a single "long" PDF file. The slides that Dickie sent out on December 26th is an example of the new system of having all of the slides on a single PDF file after it has been uploaded by GoDaddy. (The"Nebula" near the beginning of the URL is the clue.) This means that none of the slides are "lost" but this does make indexing a little more difficult. Under the new indexing system, if you want to see Dickie encouraging people to try out some white lightening, look for Ellis under Index E and click on the underlined "SW(#02)" at the end of the line "Ellis Dick ^ Memphis October 2012 Reunion - Photo - Offering some white lightening SW(#02)" [Underlines indicate links. The link is really "Steve Wiltsie (#02)."] Clicking on it will take you to the top of the PDF file of photos. Then, on your own, you will have to scroll down "#02".
Please note that the indexing may seem a little strange in that I have not indexed SP5 Dickie Ellis in his own slide show but have indexed SP4 John Doe." This is because one should expect Dickie to be in his own slide show but one might not expect John Doe to be in Dickie's photos. I have also indexed the possibly more unique scenes, places, objects, etc., but have not indexed every single photo. That may be a project for the future. Index links not in the format shown above are most likely to the older style of slide show but they will slowly disappear over time or they may not go anywhere due to my lack of diligence.
Now, assuming, DIckie still wants to send out just the photo of the Christmas tree: He could have done so by (Win 10 Instructions):
(1) Finding the photo,
(2) Centering it on his computer screen,
(3) Pressing "PNTSC" his keyboard,
(4) Opening a blank page in PAINT or a similar program,
(5) Pressing "CNTL C" to copy the screen,
(6) Use "SELECT" and "CROP" or whatever to cut the photo down to just the tree,
(7) Save to someplace in his computer (a place he remembers) and naming it "a name he will remember,"
(8) Attach the new photo to his message (see attached).
Good luck, and again, if you haven't looked at AFVNVETS.NET. Please do so once a couple of blue moons.
Formation dismissed and best wishes for a better 2021,
Jim White
From: Walt Christiansen
Date: December 26, 2020
Subject: Christmas 1967
Dickie...
Thank you for making the mistake and sending all of the slides. As I said here in quarantine in Tokyo it was nice to take a bit of a trip down memory lane. All AFVNers should do so occasionally and post.
I lost most all of my AFVN memorabilia when hurricane Michael in Florida wiped out my house in 2018. Always trying to reconstitute a little bit on my computer that traveled with me in Europe and in Asia. I appreciate folks doing that.
Walt
From: Dick Ellis
Date: December 29, 2020
Subject: Christmas 1967
Actually, someone else titled the slides for me due to my ,lack of computer skills and I never noticed the slip up! Gilligan, Bob Denver, and I remember he was high on marijuana that afternoon and very silly!
From: Dick Ellis
Date: December 26, 2020
Subject: Christmas 1967
Thank you Walt...I am not much of a computer guy. Please help yourself to any of my photos of the station or whatever.
Dickie