Another Internet Find/Blast from the Past

were you stationed at dover afb in 1968?my name is howard pritchard.was also in sec police and at dover delaware.my email is bartXXXXXX.the time makes it possible.i too left for viet nam in aug of 69.just curious.thanks

 

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Sometimes things just fall into place.....

The weekend was spent officiating basketball, watching the mindless muddle of pro and college football games on the tube, and basically relaxing the final day, Sunday, of the weekend.  I tried to stay away from the endless news cycle, a battle for the Republic in the war being waged against it, but a Kenyan Bastard Child named Barack Obama...who I have come to believe has one goal in mind, the dictatorial rule of this once great Republic, and the enslavement of anybody that disagrees with his views...He is one evil Son of a Bitch, or at least his "puppet masters" are, and he is nothing but a half breed, half witted pawn in the whole shooting match, which is likely what we will become if he, and his minions try to enforce any new "Gun Grab" on the real America....not to be confused with the subjects on the left.

Anyway the weekend had flown by and I had just gotten off the phone with a radical old leftist, his own description, who I sometimes officiate with....Jon wanted me to fill in tonight at Fort Recovery in a Freshman double bill, first game boys, second game girls..."Old Jon"(about 4 months older than me) gave up a kidney to his Grandson last Summer, and is coming up with a respiratory issue, so being the kind hearted Vietnam Veteran I am, I told the old radical I would fill in.  I jumped on the computer and typed a note to the Athletic Director at the Fort...while on the Internet, I decided to visit this blog, having not done much in the last handful of days, I checked the old comment section, which is usually filled with spam and other garbage.  Long ago I decided to put a front between the spamers, left wing haters, and other garbage posted by those refusing to leave a name, preferring to be labeled at "Anonymous".

Last night there were 21 such comments...18 were immediately dispatched via the delete route, which left three others to read...2 were "iffy" but I went ahead and posted, though they were likely just promotions for other web sites....the last of the 21 comments was presented on a post from a couple of years ago and is at the top of today's blog post.  I immediately recognized the name.  Howard Pritchard is a name of a fellow Air Force Sky Cop that I had searched for on occasion.  "Pritch" was from the Chicago area, but I believe his dad lived in Columbus, Ohio...he and his running mate Ron Turcotte were at Dover, Delaware, when I arrived in the fall of 1968.  Pritch, Turcotte, my roommates Jack Gates, and Bob Little the 3rd, along with a handful of others are guys I remember from then 8 or 9 months I spent at Dover...we worked the same Security Flight, mostly guarding the "Mounds" and putting up with Bullshit from a 5 striped clown named Jack Adkins..."Smiling Jack" as we called him...he was a major league horse's ass, and if the truth be known, even today, he is probably in his late 70s, I would like to kick him in the ass...there were few lifters I despised more than "Smiling Jack"...

Anyway over the years, mostly with the help of the Internet, but some just by luck, I have found a handful or more of guys I served with...Gates, Bruce Die, Kohli, "Bird Legs" Walsh, Johnny Claflin, Harry Bevan, Bruce Thompson, Marc Payan, and more...mostly from Nha Trang and Dover....others sadly, I found too late....two guys from the Pittsburgh area, Jack Friedl my best friend at Griffiss, dead from years of being hooked on prescription drugs, and Bill "Hoke" Hochendoner, dead at the hands of a jealous ex-husband, by gunshot around Christmas 1971...just after getting out of the Air Force, upon return from his Vietnam trip.

When Jack Gates and I first found each other, the first time we had made contact since a couple days of bar hopping in Saigon during the late days of our Vietnam tour...Jack had came down from Da Nang and on a in-country R&R to Tan Son Nhut/Saigon.  Once we made contact, Jack, now living on the Kentucky/Tennessee State Line, sent me a few old photos via e-mail, and Pritch was among those pictured...an Internet search had come up empty, until by luck he apparently came across my blog...via a post that really had only a small part to do with Dover, there are other posts with his and other photos, and more on our days at Dover.

After reading his comments, I e-mailed Pritch, and sent a copy to Gates....last time I had seen or talked with Howie Pritchard was the late Spring of 1969, as I was going off to AZR Combat Preparedness School in Texas, almost all of the guys with B Flight Security at Dover would be in Vietnam within the next few months...the faces and many of the names remain clear as a bell.

Another full week of Basketball awaits me...frankly, the season is dragging, although it is less than two months old...my left foot is not getting any better, but that is my problem.  Wednesday the older umpires in our Baseball Association have a pre-season meeting in Van Wert, as we set the stage for the season and meetings to come.  With the Bengals losing on Saturday, my interest in the NFL is finished for the most part, and the season has just one more college football game, tonight's BCS Championship between Notre Dame and Alabama...a game I really have little interest in...So the new year is here, and the sooner we move into warmer Spring-like weather, the better....not that the winter, as snowy as it has been, has been that bad...but I'm ready for our mini-reunion of Vietnam SPs in early March and the beginning of baseball season...hopefull the coming year will be better, health wise for the family, including me, and will result in more "finds" like  Howie Pritchard.

 

back later>>>>

Photos-Not sure what the Hell is up with Blogger, but as is to often the case, something is amiss with the photo loading portion....happens way to often, this not allowing me to load from my photo files....having to back door from the blog archives....drives me nuts!  So anyway, I added a couple of photos that really have little to do with today's blog...I wanted to upload photos of Pritch, me, and Gates from our Dover Days....those will wait, if Blogger fixes it's sorry ass self, I may be able to insert those on a make-over...in the meantime..Gawd Damn f*(&&)) Son of a B&*$#( Piece of Garbage that is Blogger is pissing me off...