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An interesting aside:

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DrEntropy

DrEntropy

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I'm seeing a lot more on-air recognition of the role played by combat camera personnel lately on TV. History Channel has aired a few programs lately with mention of the job. Some of the footage I recognize as stuff my contemporaries shot. Heck, they even mentioned "still" photogs in one show! :wink:
 
My uncle was a combat photographer in the Korean war. He used a Speed Grqaphic 4x5. Despite the fact that there were two sheets of film in the film holders, he told me that during combat they were instructed to only use one side to eliminate the possibility of double exposures. Lotta wasted Tri-X there! :laugh:
 
I grew up with 4x5 sheet film, "bride chasing". By the time I was in combat camera they'd "updated" to the Graflex single lens rangefinder 2.25"x3.25" cameras. Ugh. I HAMMERED for adopting 35mm Nikons. We HAD 'em, but we had to sign 'em out as if they were weapons requisitions! My name was on reams of those sheets... and my photos were showing up all over Airman Mag, recruiting posters, etc. They finally relented and we all got Nikons.

There's nothing so ponderous as government change. :laugh:
 
I have one of the WW2 field processing/printing rigs. 35mm enlarger, I believe. Was probably used for re-con, maybe gun camera???
Like so many of us, hanging on to something too big for a boat anchor and not much use for anything else.
 
I went "Direct Duty Assignment" Roy. I took what THEY called a "Proficiency Test" in Basic (it was really a "history of photography" exam... VERY old, outdated stuff.) and passed it. First assignment was Det. 10, 1365th Photo Sq.

I was ALMOST able to go to Syracuse a few years later. I was the "first runner up" in a service-wide competition for two seats at S.U.

Much politics and carrot dangling...

I couldn't find anyone to put a "hit" on one of the other guys. :devilgrin:
So I left to hunt my Pulitzer on the "outside" as result. Still huntin' :wink:
 
I didn't have enough photo knowledge at the time to take the test and ended up at Ft. Monmouth in photo lab training. I passed on invitations to attend OCS and rotary wing training....always been sorry I didn't take them up on the rotary wing training though. But, no regrets, my three years were interesting enough to include one year in Viet Nam. Being there for the TET offinsive made it VERY interesting....
That's frustrating, first runner up for a seat at S.U. but still a great accomplishment. Hope you invite all us BCF types to the Pulitizer presentation when you get yours!
Roy :cheers:
 
I did a year PCS at Ubon. One of the Phlyin' Photogs of th' 601st: "We kill 'em with fil-um!"

"Rat Pack"

Back then it was Aerospace Audio Visual Service. You were 600th then? There was a "reunion" for 600/601 just recently in Las Vegas, y'know.

<span style="font-style: italic">EDIT: I'll bet we know people in common.</span>
 
<span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="font-size: 14pt">UBON...</span></span> I spent a year in Korat...teletype communications. :cheers:
 
Hey Doc:
I was with the 245th Aviation Company originally, an aerial recon outfit. They flew bricks with wings called "Mohawks" and me and my buddies processed film, prints etc. I was with them at Danang for my first 3 months in country then sent to the 244th Aviation Company in Can Tho (Mekong Delta area) for the last nine months in country. I didn't get around much so not certain if we know any of the same people or not, but you never know!
Roy
 
ummm.... I wuz an <span style="font-style: italic">Air Force</span> photo weenie, Roy. :wink:

Got sent around to "wherever" on TDYs for the first few years. PCS'd to Ubon in early '73 and did TDYs ~again~ all over SEA. Been to Korat, Art. NKP & Udorn, too. Even managed a few "unofficial" trips down to Bangkok by train. Saw DaNang, Saigon Phu Cat and a few of the less lovely places as well (once, in Vientiane, tried to schmooze my way into a future UPI job but they all looked at me as a pariah. <shrug> )

When I was workin' on the floor I wished I'd been in the air and vice-versa. :wink:

A friend and fellow AAVS "MoPic" photog has recently left his home in Hawaii and moved to a condo in Chiang Mai. He's runnin' barefoot thru SEA with digital still cameras and lovin' every minute! He'd gone to India when that Bombay fracas went off, he e-mailed later and relayed he'd been on the OTHER side of the country.
 
martx-5 said:
<span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="font-size: 14pt">UBON...</span></span> I spent a year in Korat...teletype communications. :cheers:
Click to expand...

I bet your signals went thru the Warin switching station then!!
 
DrEntropy said:
martx-5 said:
<span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="font-size: 14pt">UBON...</span></span> I spent a year in Korat...teletype communications. :cheers:
Click to expand...

I bet your signals went thru the Warin switching station then!!
Click to expand...

I don't remember what went through where, but when I first arrived in Korat, they put me in the relay center...lots of micro-wave antennas. That's where all the Thai and most Viet Nam traffic flowed through for re-direction. I worked there until just after the Tet offensive when they started to put in Univac 1004's and didn't need as much personnel handling the paper tape. By then I was a buck sargeant (E5), so they moved me to the on base (Camp Friendship) communications center as a shift supervisor. Camp Friendship was adjacent to the air force base at Korat.

BTW, I made many trips down to Bangkok for R&R! :laugh: The army had a bus going down there everyday, so whenever we had a few days to kill, off we went. Korat was about 150 miles NE of Bangkok, so it was about a three hour hair raising ride, as local nationals did the driving! :driving:

I had a good time in Thailand. :cheers:
 
I learned to cook Thai foods while there. Just can't seem to get the noodle soup to taste like it did then. We had a "Ma 'n Pa" hooch behind our HQ which served the on-base nationals. Tin roof, plywood "walls"... I was there every day for lunch. WONDERFUL soup. Fresh greens, noodles, Thai pepper! Mama-san tried to teach me to cook and enuff Thai to converse. In return I fixed her clapped out MG 1100. She was considered "well off".

I'd go back in an eyeblink. If for nothing more than totry and EAT my way across the country. :wink:

OH! And "bus rides"... Nakon Phanom. From the base to the "town" was a notorious run. Did it once, head on a swivel the whole way. Very different from the relative civility of Ubon!
 
You Air Force guys.......

I learned how to spice up "LRRP rations"! & got 1 R&R but had to fight for it!

And my camera & all my photos never got back to me after I was medivacced & flown to Ft Lewis...somebody else ended up with everything I had in-country, I guess!
 
Tony, I knew ~then~ just how priveleged I was. I got to see BOTH ends of that stick, too, BTW.

That some snake lifted your stuff is really upsetting. I've heard similar tales from other friends.
 
I don't know if some snake lifted it or not...medivac from the team base to Chu Lai & then to Ft. Lewis with only the uniform on my back...no records, none of my personal belongings, nada! I was told when I finally got to my new unit in Ft Benning (after about 9 weeks in hospital & 30 dayd of recuperation) that my belongings ould be sent there - nothing ever came except a packet containing all my records!
 
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