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Recording: SP5 Gray sent this tape home after he had been 'in country' for a while. Pleiku, October 1970 (02:36mp3)
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Recording: Tei, a young lady sings "Chuyện tình Lan và Điệp", a popular love song. Nha Trang, Oct 1970 (01:26 mp3)
SP5 Gray was playing his harmonica that day in Nha Trang in October, 1970 while waiting for a flight to his permanent duty station in Pleiku to start his tour. A few Vietnamese women came up to listen. One of them was Tei. She saw his tape recorder and asked him if she could record herself singing.
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Recording: SP5 Gray recorded the pilot and crew of this flight in a rapid landing descent marking the start of his year long tour of duty. Above Bien Hoa Air Base, Oct 17, 1970 (02:54 mp3)
Was it just me or weren't some of you vets also amazed to be flying in (and leaving) Vietnam on a commercial jet? Maybe I had seen too many WW2 movies with troop carriers doing the heavy troop movements, but really? This was a war zone! And we're flying in on a commercial aircraft with real civilian stewardesses (PC alert: flight attendants).
I don't remember if I expected to see fighter escorts for protection since it was a nighttime flight, but I would have believed we would have come under some AAA fire. But no, just a smooth routine landing. I don't recall a steep landing like SP5 Gray experienced. Maybe that was reserved for daylight conditions or during periods of elevated enemy activity. But I do recall looking out the window on our final approach and seeing the city lights and wondering why it wasn't under a blackout. (Of course there were no blackouts. We owned the sky.) - SP5 Schmidt / CCCK
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