What's the scardest you've ever been ? Kinda long...

This goes a bit beyond being scared but to get to the meat of the question, here's the short version of a longer story I was a bit player in Friday afternoon.

Buddy of mine with several properties has had ALOT of stuff stolen from him in the past year or two in the way of both good items and scrap. That's not including the damage done to three of his machines where people stold the radiator out of his 25B BE crane, butchered the wiring harness on his 952HD Liehberrer, and vandalized a 988 CAT loader to the point that he's now scrapping it to fund getting the other two machines repaired. He said he's estimated the cost to him to be about $53,000 between the scrap and replacement value of what was stolen, the cost to have replaced the 988, along with the estimated repair costs to the other two machines. Basically he has taken a BIG hit, caught and prosecuted numerous people on various charges related to theft. He's already on a first name basis with the DA from all of it, and basically he is getting sick and tired of the whole deal......

That said he caught yet another thief trying to steal a 5000 lb drop ball from him yesterday. I had just passed by earlier, headed to look at a machine for a customer, and saw the truck and trailer setting beside the road, but assumed it was the scrappers doing the 988 since it was right beside where that machine sets. When I came back by about 30 minutes later my buddy was beside the road holding a three pound shop hammer and a set of keys. Standing beside him was one of the scrappers, and there was a third guy, with his kid beside him, setting on the trailer.

Turns out the guy on the trailer had pulled over on the side of the road, unloaded his Bobcat, and was at the top of the hill, on the other side of the road, trying to get the dropball loaded in his bucket to steal it. Needless to say my buddy more or less went into the cab with him, snatched his keys, and got in a few whacks before forcing the guy out of the cab. He said the only thing that prevented him from beating the guy to a pulp was looking up and seeing the kid standing there on top of a rock watching.

When they got to the bottom of the hill the guy 'excused himself' for a minute and stepped off the edge of the road, dropped his pants, and stripped off his boxers. Seems my buddy had literally "scared the $hit out of the guy"....

There in lies the question of, "What's the scardest you've ever been...". Personally I've had a few minor frights in my life, but never anything like this....LOL One thing about it, now my buddy has lifetime bragging rights that he literally 'scared the $hit' out of somebody...LOL... I don't think we'll ever hear the end of that one...LOL

This is turning out a bit longer than planned but to continue the story, fast forward a few minutes and the cops get there. Not only did they not cuff the guy and take him away, but they also let him go back up the hill and get his machine, and leave. They did say they would try to get the DA to file charges but couldn't make any guarantees because the guy claimed he 'had permission' from one of the scrappers to get the stuff. So, because he had a 'plausible story', as well as a couple of other things like he never actually got away with it, they said they really couldn't take him in as it was hard to prove his intent. Too the value of the ball wouldn't have been that high anyways since he was probably planning to scrap it....IF in fact he intended to steal it.... Funny thing drop balls are typically high manganese steel, not plain old carbon steel, and most junk yards I've talked to over the years won't even buy them... if they really know what they are looking at that is.
All in all everything we were told by the cops was really just a bunch of BS of you ask me....They could have cuffed the guy, put him in the car with the kid watching. Maybe then the kid would have grown up knowing the consequensts of stealing instead of thinking it was 'just an adventure with dad'.

Given what they were saying I asked the cops what would happen if I decided to steal the guys machine or his truck, with the intent to take it to the scrap yard. There the value of both wouldn't have been but a few hundered dollars as scrap....I was told that even if that were my 'intent' I would still be nailed to the wall for grand theft auto, and/or whatever they decided to call it for stealing a machine....all based on the actual "value" of the object stolen........EVEN if my INTENT was to scrap the items like they were claiming for the thief.... Seems like nowdays the value of an object is determined by the thief, not the person who owns it.... Again it all sounds like a bunch of BS to me.....

Funny thing, a neighbor who fit the description of the alleged scrapper the guy 'got permission from' dropped by after the cops left and said he had seen the red truck a few days before cruising around casing the place. Said when they saw him and his BIL they took off the other direction. We figure the guys must have thought that the two guys they saw were the scrappers and since he didn't see them there on Friday his story was safe because no one was there to deny it if he got caught.......

Just though it was funny that the guy was scared as badly as he was...LOL...especially given that he had "permission to be there"...Not to mention him being allowed to leave. We kind of speculated on wether it was because he had his kid with him and the cops didn't really want to deal with that, or wether he smelled so bad from his little accident the cops didn't want him in their car......

Either way none of us could understand how someone gets caught red handed stealing, regardless of what it was, and not get arrested. How could he have showed any more intent than he did, how can you think it's OK to take anything from property not belonging without even knowing who the owner is, who in their right mine thinks a scrapper is going to let you have 5000 easy lbs when they are having to work cutting up a macine to get sellable scrap themselves.....And worse WHO IN THEIR RIGHT MIND TAKES THEIR KID WITH THEM WHEN THEY ARE STEALING STUFF?????????????

Many years ago I was walking down the street with a friend of mine when a fellow came up and asked if we had change for a twenty. He held out the twenty and I pulled out my wallet. He pulled out a 12 inch butcher knife and said you know the drill. I was on him like stink on chit before he completed that sentence. The gal I was with ran into a near by store and called the cops.

In the end they let him walk. 1) He never "demanded" money, so it was not a robbery. 2) He never "threatened" me or her with the knife so it was not assult. 3) Two of three witness could not say exactly who said what and didn't even know there was a knife (gal was one, two others were 200 feet away looking out a window).

She was so p1ssed off, she cut loose on the one cops and he promptly threatened to haul her of to jail for disorderly. I was just glad I did go to jail for assulting him. This was before the proceting ones life crap came about and the rule was run first, defend only if last resort.

Most scared....Lets see now.

When a doctor told me my 3 year old son had to have Hernia surgery......Very scared then, he pulled through it just fine. My son is 11 now.

Shocked beyond imagination......When my wife was 6 months pregnant for what was supposed to be my first son and she had a real bad miscarriage. Horrible to say the least. Yes, 6 months pregnant. This happened 12+ years ago now.

I had 2 close calls with deer on the roads of Michigan. 10 years ago I missed a full size doe by inches. I almost clipped it right in the head with the A pillar of my car. The sense of OMG !!! I almost got in a wreck, thats scary.

I have never committed a crime so I have not been that scared......

Most scared? Was at a nice, peaceful bonfire on the river bar one time, when a drunk girl got ahold of some jokers desert eagle. That`ll kill the mood in a hurry :shock:

Scaring the shi3 out of someone is normal in these surcumstances,There was some theives that broke in to the plant I worked in and stoled all of our tools,and before they left took a crap on the floor,the police said it was very common

jimmy

First trip on a train as a brakeman west from Minneapolis. Sixty mph, double track, big curve.
Oncoming train also about sixty, four o'clock in the morning. BIG, BRIGHT,HEADLIGHT.
The engineer was a little perturbed when I hollered.

Stop and think about thieves and the law. If the D.A. and police were to lock up all of the criminals they would put themselves out of a job. They have to release them in order to stay in business themselves. Once in a while they put a person in lockup for a few hours to make a show. There are a lot of judges and lawyers that need the work too.

It makes you wonder if the cops are in on it.

My worst time. Was my first landing on the USS Saratoga CVA 60. Inside a little C1A COD two engine prop job. I could have sworn I heard the engines stop. My butt was sucking up seat

Maybe your buddy could have loaded that drop ball into his pickup and accidently dropped it from 10 ft or so.

Kenneth O. Are you engineer out of Souptown? Me former conductor Mpls and Superior. E-mail open.

Most scared? It was when I was hauling a combine in western Kansas about ten years ago. I was westbound on a well traveled road with narrow shoulders when I met a straight truck loaded with wheat. The straight truck slowed way down and got over as far as he could, and then out of nowhere another straight truck, also loaded with wheat, rear ended the first one real hard with a loud WHOOMPH!. The first truck swerved a little, heading right for me and then he go hold of it and kept it on his side. Then it was past me in the blink of an eye. The whole thing lasted no longer than five seconds. I looked in the mirror and I saw two trucks locked together spewing wheat, smoke and steam. All of a sudden I had to go real bad. I always thought getting the sh-- scared out of you was just an expression until then. Jim

To keep this tractor related, when I was a kid, I stood a John Deere H straight up on a hillside. The front end raised up and left me standing on the ground looking straight up in the air at the hood. The differential turned the tractor around 180 while it was straight up in the air and it came back down heading down the hill. I got back on and drove it down the hill. Didn't have time to be scared. Just wasn't my time to check out that day.

The threat of prosecution and jail time is the biggest deterent to crime. When it becomes obvious to the crooks that they will not be punished...guess what....crime goes up.

I know it is not Polical. correct to criticize our men in blue who "every day put their life on the line" to save us from evil doers, but a bit more attention to their job and getting out of the car and off their cell phones occassionally to uphold the laws, might deter crime a little more.

By the way, the next time you hear on a talk show how we should give special treatment to officers because they "put their life on the line every day"...just remember that the rate of death due to felonious acts against police officers, is less than the rate of deaths of sanitation workers on the job.

Don't blame the DA for what the police did. The DAs office and cops don't really work in tandem. There are instances where DAs are very displeased with officer work, and vice versa. They try to work together, but police do not get direct orders from the DAs office.
I saw where one poster mentioned that if the DA were to lock up all the criminals, he would be out of a job. That is not true. Number one, DAs work on a salary and get paid whether they convict or not. Number two, the only time DAs can be condensed is when districts are redrawn, which is usually done based on population, not crime rate. Number three, DAs are elected. Are you going to vote someone out of office if he cuts the crime rate in half? Number four, it is impossible to eliminate crime. It can be reduced to an extent, but there will never be a time when prosecutors are not needed (at least as long as we stay under our current system). Mind you, I have seen (first hand) defense attorneys get fighting mad when a DA is really trying to reduce crime rate. This specific case centered around domestic violence. The DA launched a program to educate the public on the causes and effects of domestic violence, and the program was wildly successful. It reduced the rate of DV by about 50 percent. This, however, stopped Joe Blow coming to the lawyers every Monday after beating his wife over the weekend. The lawyers launched a huge campaign to remove this DA from office, which succeeded.
Of course, some people accuse DAs of trying to "boost conviction rates" by just finding a scapegoat (even though no one even counts conviction numbers). Keep in mind, though, that the police arrest suspects and that the DAs have an obligation to prosecute them according to the facts. It is not uncommon to have a DA dismiss a case for lack of evidence, however.
All parts of government have corrupt units. In my firsthand experience, though, DAs get an unfair reputation.

SF

Those of you from Mich will know what I'm talking about. I own a Mi gravel train a couple of years ago I was hauling salt for the state. Loaded coming out of Detroit minding my own talking with a friend on the cb. All of a sudden he yells LOOK OUT! I look just in time to see a full size van heading for the steer tire. Van driving to fast for the ramp and lost control and there I was. I swerved and that's when it got crazy. My second trailer started to "crack the whip" then it started rocking side to side to the point of the tires are about 3' of the ground! At this point the only thing I can do now is pull the trailer brakes and foot to the floor gas. It did this three or four times before settling down like normal. AT THAT POINT YOU COULDN'T POUND A SEWING NEEDLE UP YOU KNOW WHAT WITH A 30# SLEDGE HAMMER.

BTDT. When were you on the Sara? I was aboard her in a Marine fighter squadron for a couple of months in the fall of 1956 when the Sara herself was still in her shakedown period.

The scaredest I've been was probably the time I came within inches of going overboard off the flight deck of the USS Lake Champlain (CVA 39) while the ship was underway at 10 pm.

One of the aircraft refueling crews had simply coiled a refueling hose up in the catwalk beside the flight deck instead of rolling it up on the reel under the edge of the deck like they were supposed to. I'd been on the flight deck working on an airplane and was headed back to the Avionics shop.

Walking down the catwalk with just a flashlight, I tripped over the hose. The hose fell over the edge of the catwalk and somehow wrapped around my leg. So there I was, kicking to try to get loose of the hose, 80 feet above the Mediterranean Sea, with only three wire ropes holding me. I finally kicked free of the hose and it went the rest of the way overboard, and broke off at the reel.

I was scared as hell and mad as hell. I went into Flight Deck Control and got hold of the Officer of the Deck, a LCdr. I took him out and showed him what happened, and he got kinda white around the gills. He went back to Flight Deck Control and got on the telephone with the Officer in Charge of the refueling crew, some Ensign.

I don't think that Ensign knew what an a$$ chewing was until that LCdr got done with him. The Ensign was also assured the incident WOULD be reported to the Captain and also included in his next fitness report.

Needless to say, from that moment forth, when refueling ops were done, the hoses were rolled up on the reels like they were supposed to be.

The thing is, working by myself on an airplane on the flight deck at that time of night, it could have been a half hour before I was even missed.

BTW, the "Champ" no longer exists. It's been recycled through a steel mill. I understand the Sara is mothballed.

about 2weeks ago ,working in our gym put up some banners up,working off of 24ft ext ladder,my ground man walked away an left bottom go,rode ladder down from 24ft to 12ft bouncedoff top of bleachers.fortunatly worsed injury so far is a broken wrist,real pia,hit head rt forarm anbrused knee. gave alot of thanks to god for letting survive this trip.

The real cops were not there. I would (and have) booked them for a lot less. Some cops are worthless and some regulations they have to go by are worthless. When both are present, you lose.

Exactly why no one has any repect for the law and those that are supposedly enforcing it they don't deserve any respect.The whole system is corrupt.

The day the world almost came to an end. The day the Navy intercepted the Russian ships headed for Cuba, loaded with nuclear missles. I was on a B52 base not far away where fifteen B52s were located, 12 were on high ground alert loaded to the gills, the other three were somewhere in the air.

In later years I met a commander of one of the Navys ships , he stated that they had orders to sink the Russian ships if they didn't stop dead in the water. If they had not stopped, it would have been all out nuclear war. Thank God sanity prevailed. Joe

Goose. I was on the Sara from DEC 68 until Oct 72. I was used to hearing the Jets come in under power. So when it sounded like the COD had lost its engines. My butt was sucking up all it could.

We had a guy blown overboard one night. No Moon out cloudy and his beacon light failed. Our escorts had a hard time finding him.

If any of you want to see what it is like at see with clouds and no moon. Just close your eyes. Our escorts were a mile away. You could see guys smoking.

I was a yellow shirt (Aircraft Director) on the USS Coral Sea CVA-43. I was spotting an F-4 on the number one catapult. Had her up at after burner and ready to launch,..then all of a sudden that F-4 started to shudder and the engines made a wierd screaming sound. It had sucked up some bolts out of the catapult track that had been worked on the night before and fodded out both engines. I stood up and signaled the shooter to abort the launch. He was within a second or two of launching that F-4 into the "drink". Had he launched,..I would have been cut in half and both pilots probably would not have made it. The Old Coral Sea is razor blades now,..de-commissoned in 1991.

Makes me think.

How many people have I seen blow thru a red light?.....dozens!..maybe hundreds.

How many have I seen caught, pulled over and ticketed for it...none in my case.

No penalty...more violators.

Wonder how many deaths result each year?

Could have charged the guy with theft of the replacement value instead of the scrap value.

Spent two years on the America as a machinist mate and watched the planes landing and taking off when ever I got the opportunity. Not ever getting the opportunity to take off or land from the 'ole girl is one of the few things in life I really regret not getting to do.

Saddly the America was sunk for target practice testing new munitions so now she's setting in over 1000 feet of water and no one will ever get that opportunity again. Makes me sick to think about it. I'd almost preffer to have seen the old girl go the way of my first ship, the USS William V Pratt (DDG 44) and be scrapped rather than to be shot at and sunk....

My brother worked the cats on the America. Maybe we should start a bird farm post. We did have tractors on board.

During the first Gulf War we had an F18 land one evening and after disengaging the wire started to taxi to it's parking spot. For some reason when he hit the brakes to stop there were none and the plane made a bee line for the side. Both the pilot and navigator ejected with the plane setting on deck. Word was that both said there was ABSOLUTELY NOTHING in this world as scary or as thrilling all at the same time as having a rocket go off under your a$$ and sending you several hundered feet in the air in a split second. Both of the guys shoots popped and everything worked just like it should, and both got lucky enough to land back on the deck, even though one did catch a gust and get pulled a little bit before the deck crew could grab him and keep him from going over the side. The plane, on the other hand, wound up stuck on the walkways at the intersection of the main deck and the angle deck. I've actually got a video of the demise of the plane where they brought out the deck crane, hooked the tail, and unceromoniously tipped it on over into the water. Given that the plane this happened to was one of the first back on board there was still a whole flight of planes in the air coming back and having somewhere for them to land was more important than just the one...

Long story I'll make it short as possible. Our Aunt & Uncle Come home for 4th of July. Uncle working at NASA at the time rented a small plane to fly in from Fla.To SC Where we lived. They were staying in a beach house they rented for the week. Uncle buzzed the house to let us know to come pick him up. We jumped in the car (Grand mother, Aunt, Cousin, my brother, and Me) to Meet him on a county maintained dirt road that local crop dusters used. When we got there he had not landed and it was dark. Aunt decided the best thing to do was light the road with her headlights. The way she went about it was all wrong. She stopped the car in the middle of the road facing the plane and planned to back up lighting the road as the plane landed. At twelve years old I recognized that it was not a good Idea. My Uncle kept flying over us trying to signal my Aunt to get out of the road. Finally he makes an attempt aunt starts backing up then it looks like he is going to pass over again so she puts it in drive while backing up and stalls the car. Uncle sets the the plane down right in front of the car and goes around us.I can still remember the sound of the radio antennae as the wing hit it which is amazing to hear over the screaming that was going on inside the car. I was never in my life so scared (did not soil myself).The story was related at the recent funeral of My Aunt.
Ron

It wasn't uncommon for bomber crews of W.W.II to need to clean up after making it back...if they made it back.

Sitting in a bunker in Vietnam when a 122 rocket hit the top of it.

Standing on the signal bridge of the USS Belknap the evening of Nov 22, 1975
Belknap

I would say that the scardest I've ever been is when a teenage kid of a certain racial group pointed a small automatic pistol (which I had every reason to believe was loaded) in my face. That was two weeks before my first child was born. Coming close was last winter when my wife and I went skating down a quarter mile long hill in our Suburban.

Christopher

Sacred out of my mind , May 16, 1968 at 01:38 Had just got into my bunk after my going back to the World party half drunk . When the V/C decided that they needed to give me a going away party. They mortared and made a ground assault I heard the first round leave the tube and was on a dead run for the bunker flat run over a couple guys getting there . it lasted till almost three in the morning . when it was over i went back to my hooch and got dressed garbed my weapon flack vest and turtle pot poncho liner and went to the como bunker and curled up in the corner , told a couple guys to wake me a 06:30 . When they woke me up i went and had breakfast then loaded my junk on the Col.s chopper and told mike the pilot to get his egg beater up just as high as he could and not drop down till we were over Tongsenuit (s/p ) and set down as close to the plane as he could . Held onto my weapon till the last min. and gave some airman and almost new A K and ten mags. as i was getting on the plane . I did not start to relax till we were way out over the ocean . The next time i saw mother earth was Anchorage Alaska where we stopped for fuel and resupply of the plane for and hour and a half . the next stop was Was Ft. Dix .

I'm with you American. My experience with our "courageous" men in blue is almost universally to get hassled for rolling through a Stop sign, inadvertantly speeding in an area I am unfamiliar with and getting hassled for not having my seat belt as I was still getting settled and adjusted two blocks from my hotel. Pretty hard to respect these "heroes" "putting their life on the line" under the guise of "service".

Billy,
I'm surprised to hear your escorts were a mile away.
Spent a WestPac cruise on a DDG in '69/'70. Half the time on call-fire missions up in I Corp and half the time plane guarding "bird farms". Our station was always 1,00 yards astern. IIRC it was called Station Alpha. You could always smell the fuel being dumped when they were landing.
Pete

If the local police or sheriff didn't want to bother arresting a theif, I'd have called the state police immediately, like right in front of them from a cell phone. Everybody would wait en place til they came and sorted it out. Worked with two of them, and they preferred things be carried to the letter of the law.

State police wouldn't have responded in Washington- they are strictly traffic, all criminal stuff is the county Sheriff and city cops. They pretty much do haul everyone in that should be, but the big problem is space and money to have a bunch of folks in jail. Just costs too much, and staffing is much higher now to comply with federal mandates. They end up letting folks out early, to save money and free up room.

Driving while intoxicated is an automatic one day in jail in this state. They told a local guy to come in at 7 PM to do his night in jail. He never left the booking area, and they cut him loose at a minute after midnight, because his "day" was done. Had NO room in the jail, 3 to a room and guys sleeping in the hall. Its the same everywhere.

(quoted from post at 19:33:59 02/19/12) Sitting in a bunker in Vietnam when a 122 rocket hit the top of it.

Click to expand...

BTDT, Tet/68. With mortars you could hear a 'kaphump' in the distance and head for a bunker, by the time you heard a 122 incoming, you was in deep doodoo.

Nope, there's a never ending supply of crooks out there, growing all the time, as more meth heads look desperately for ways to fund their habit. Studies have shown that you do have a pretty good drop in crime rate if you keep the perps locked up for a long time, but lack of jail space and lack of money prevents that.

I worked as a jailer in my county for about a year in 1973- we averaged 25 men, maybe one woman, but usually no women, in jail at that time. Now, about 40 years later, average is 125 men and 25 women. The liberation of women has resulted in them acting as badly as the men in a lot of cases.

And its not making very many lawyers rich. The vast majority of cases are "indigent"- county has to hire a lawyer to defend the perp. Believe me, nobody gets rich on those cases- and its difficult for the courts to find enough lawyers willing to do it. The high dollar cases are few and far between.

As far as prosecutors working themselves out of a job, that doesn't seem to be working out, either. In '73, there were about 3 deputy prosecutors; in '96, when I did public defender work for about a year, I think there were 6 or 7. At last count, they're up to about 12, I think. Again, not easy to get good talent there, because they can't pay enough to keep anybody. Much of the increase is because of more emphasis on domestic violence/ child abuse and neglect. IMHO, much of that increase is because the losers don't have to work any more to live, just get a handout- and hence, too much time on their hands, and too much time with ma and the kids, resulting in more domestic friction.

I was camped out in a tree house 1/4mile into the woods during the time of the crisis. Jim

I think my scardest moment hasn't happened yet. I think it will be when they announce Hussien external_link has won a second term as president of the US. If that won't scare you then you have no idea what "they" have instore for us during his second term as dictator.

Pete when you get old. Memory is not that good. Closer than I said but still from the bird farm. You guys looked pretty small. Did you guys get any ice cream from the bird farms.

Purty darn scared when I was landlord in Detroit. Went in building to do electrical work with 22 in my shirt pocket. Doors all secure and big noise and curtains moving next to me. Realized that both very large windows were totally broken out and nothing there to keep anybody out. I had just been in basement and assumed nobody could get in. Another story I went into house and found bedroom door locked inside. Never bothered me till after I left and remembered only look was on the inside and later was told lady was in room with gun waiting for me to open door and she would shoot. She had previously shot out 3 windows trying to kill her boyfriend. All properties went up FOR SALE, soon . Dave

The Kennedy was a screwed up ship from the start. Always had a bad feeling about that ship.

#1...STOP sign means STOP!!....not slow down and keep on rolling.

#2...Speed limit signs are put up for a reason!!

#3...My seat belt is fastened...and my a$$ settled... BEFORE my key is turned. If that takes too much time...you need to leave earlier.

I'd say your "experience" stories were justified.

BTW...Scaredest I've ever been was observing a female talking on cell phone while driving...saw that way too many times to count.

Last presidential election! Followed by last congressional election! Followed by last local election!

Did you know Ed Rodgers.

The collision was mostly the fault of our OOD. We were in plane guard station 1.4 miles off the carrier's port quarter while Kennedy did flight ops in what we called "racetracks": Corpen Starboard 200, thirty minutes later Corpen Starboard 020. Been running back and forth for hours; around 2200 we were waiting for the next turn when the OOD said he'd do the maneuver visually. A few minutes later the carrier radioed the command Corpen Port 200. Nobody on watch picked up that it was Port instead of Starboard that time, OOD got confused by all the red lights in the hanger deck and turned directly into the carrier's path.

Well if he went to Canfield High school then yes if not then no . Why ??

The day my wife told me she was preganant with my first son, or the day he was born! Im sure which scared me the most!!

Maybe the time in the back seat of my friends dads car. He was driving, trying to load his shot gun leaning against the front seat pointing back. For some reason the gun went off, and blew a hole in the roof of his dad's car. For a instant I thought the world was ending right then. To me that was scary. Stan

Maybe the time in the back seat of my friends dads car. He was driving, trying to load his shot gun leaning against the front seat pointing back. For some reason the gun went off, and blew a hole in the roof of his dad's car. For a instant I thought the world was ending right then. To me that was scary. Stan

When I think of 1968. I think of Khe Sanh. He was there. Also a friend of mine lost his brother there. I know big country and lots of people. But you never know who you will run into.

Got ice cream once in awhile from an AFS but never from a bird farm. Know what you mean about memory and getting old.

Other end of country.. My base camp was down south in the delta. , but worked off the boats ,it gets a little involved as what i did.

Hard to put a handle on that one, but maybe should have been, Aug "65, last jump of our Army Green Beret training. Jumped into the Pisgah mountains, western NC, for a 2 week training mission between our A-Team and another. Out of 22 jumps, like the two 5000 footers one day off the Pacific Ocean in Panama, this is one of a half dozen that are very vivid. Still picture it to this day, like my first jump at Benning....or the 5000 footers, the night jumps at Ft. Bragg, chopper jumps over Lake Gatun... I"m always a tailgater, rushed the sgt in front, chute opened and I found myself standing on his about 800 feet off the ground. Amazing how airborne training kicks in, ie, in 1965, they had 25 years experience in what could go wrong, literally taught us everything that could go wrong, like getting snagged alongside an aircraft, standing on another"s chute, now, my daughter is a paratrooper, and they have over 70 years of experience. On that Pisgah mountain jump, I had 3-4 seconds to decide which way to walk off his chute, fwd or back, before mine collapses. It is literally like standing on a big pillow, about thigh high. Yeah, BTDT, one time is enough! He is in no danger, and I can ride his down, but when he lands, he"s ok, I"m still 30 feet up when his collapses....my bones break, at the least, and I"m of no value to the mission. So I "walked" off to the SE, pulled a "slip", to drop faster and get away. We both landed ok, and finished the mission.

Dong Tam ?????
Led

Check lists of "Most Dangerous Professions" and cops will be way down there, probably below convenience store night clerks.

Here in my town every year they have this schmaltzy memorial service for all of the "fallen"---bagpipes, taps, etc. They go all the way back to the 1870s, but there's only about 15 names on the list. At least two of those were cops who were sideswiped while writing tickets. Another was an older cop who died of heart attack between the station and home. Technically he was still on duty.

farmall cub sickle bar. I was lowering the bar to work on something and didn't realize I had 2 of my fingers in the guard between the knife and the guard. when I lowered it, the knife pinched my fingers between the guard to the point that they turned blue and had cut to the bone.

The question is...

Do you lift the cutter bar not knowing if the cam had slipped over center, because it was pinching harder and made bone breaking sounds, or do you continue to lower and again, the bones made breaking sounds. I took a long time to realize the fate of my two fingers. I lifted the bar while kicking hard on the pitman until I broke teh top of my shoe off. screaming and crying, thinking that was teh last I would see my fingers...


I was 13 years old.


I got it to snap back over center and didn't have my fingers cut off, but, never again will I ever lower that bar without remembering that day. I still get chills thinking about it. It took me 3 days to get out of bed after that, because it shook me so bad. I was sure I'd never touch another tractor again.

Firebase Henderson, 1970. Almost overrun by a reinforced Battalion of NVA. Had one Company on the Firebase. Alpha Co. 2/501st 101st airborne. We took about 30 KIA and 35 wounded. With some airpower we held the hill. They hit 1st platoon head on which was my platoon. We had 3 or 4 left an hour later out of 27 troops. Had to blow the 105 Howitzers on top of base and walk out with 16 more wounded 3 days later after we got our dead and wounded out in a cargo sling. Purple Hearts for almost everybody. Yes, I got one. Have a Goodun. Dick in Vermont.

Yea that was the place .