Wednesday, January 22, 2014

Robert E. Lee Barracks, Mainz, West Germany

17 comments:

  1. Thanks for the memories, Brock! I spent a lot of time guarding that gate when I was stationed there from 1986-1988 with D 3/8 Inf. (used to be D 2/28 Inf.)

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    1. :) It would be fun to go visit now if you get back there.

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    2. I'd probably go visit my brother in DaNang before I go back to Germany.

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    3. You got a brother in Da Nang? Tell me about that, please. I've been back to Vietnam many times since 1992.

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    4. He's running the Agent Orange cleanup at the airport. I won't get into the politics of the whole thing, because it just pisses me off. *Why is our tax money being used to clean it up?)

      He really likes it over there and says he has more freedom in Vietnam than he did living in Seattle.

      He and his wife just had a baby boy, and apparently they haven't seen a mixed race (white and Vietnamese) baby around there in a very long time, as the kid is a minor celebrity - to the point my sister-in-law can't go to the market without there being a big stir around him. My brother is thinking about changing the kid's name to Elvis.

      He's thinking about opening a business up there, but needs to find a chopper pilot first.

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    5. He's running the Agent Orange cleanup at the airport. I won't get into the politics of the whole thing, because it just pisses me off. *Why is our tax money being used to clean it up?)

      "At the airport?" Agent Orange was never dispensed around the airport. Even if he is venturing out in the country, it's a ripoff after all these years. I know full well as I lost my voice box from it. Pisses me off also, as most everything else does with our government these days.

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      He really likes it over there and says he has more freedom in Vietnam than he did living in Seattle.

      Nothing wrong in the South, (No Da Nang for me) but I don't get along with the central and northern Vietnamese just like the south Vietnamese don't and for good reason! :)

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      He and his wife just had a baby boy, and apparently they haven't seen a mixed race (white and Vietnamese) baby around there in a very long time, as the kid is a minor celebrity - to the point my sister-in-law can't go to the market without there being a big stir around him. My brother is thinking about changing the kid's name to Elvis.

      Oh yes, I have 5 half Vietnamese girls and they are marveled at both there and here in the Vietnamese community.

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      He's thinking about opening a business up there, but needs to find a chopper pilot first.

      He's going to have to deal with the Communist government then and it could work, but they will need constant bribes. They make the Thieu government look lily white, how well I know. :)

      I haven't gone back since 2005 and would like to, but this TSA crap bugs me.

      Vietnam Babylift, My Story
      http://www.namsouth.com/viewtopic.php?t=20&highlight=c5a

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    6. You're a good man, Brock - I didn't know about the baby lift.

      At the link, if you go to picture #6, my little brother is the guy in the dark suit and bald head on the left (with the wide shoulders).

      http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/us-starts-landmark-agent-orange-cleanup-in-vietnam/2012/08/09/2bc8954c-e22d-11e1-98e7-89d659f9c106_gallery.html#photo=6

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    7. Thanks and I'll check it out. Looking at the pictures jogged my memory and I believe I did hear about it before. Was he in Vietnam?

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    8. He and I were a little too young for the war, there. Our heroes growing up, were all Vietnam Veterans, though, and we grew up on their stories. Dad volunteered to go in the early days, when they were just sending advisors, but the Army wouldn't send him.

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    9. Thanks. It's hard to believe, but The Ballard of the Green Beret was the most popular song in 1966.

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  2. That type of building is so typical of many barracks in Germany. My dorm in Munich looked just like that, we used to climb out those top windows with a Paulaner bier and enjoy a warm day and watch the coeds walk by...

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  3. Brock Da Nang was a storage and transfer point for 2-4-5-T(Dioxin) from the beginning of the program. I have two friends that were USAF loaders at Da Nang and both are dieing of Agent Orange(Dioxin) poisoning . They tell me that the dump near the air base was HUGE and the stuff leaked constantly.---Ray

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    1. I hadn't heard that. Thanks. I believe I saw it dispersed, but once and that was at Phu Loi around the perimeter. We thought it was a good thing, which it actually was in killing vegetation. Sorry about your friends.

      Cancer
      http://www.namsouth.com/viewtopic.php?t=272&highlight=cancer

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  4. Operation Ranch Hand was run out of the Da Nang air base, so that's where they loaded the planes with it, and of course where they stored it. As far as spending our tax dollars to clean it up, we made the mess so we should pay to clean it. You can see what it did to Americans who were most likely only exposed to it briefly, so imagine what it did to the Vietnamese who had to live in it for years.

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  5. Spent Time There CSC 2/87 Scout Plt

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