Notes on a Reunion
There was a rumor a few months ago of a reunion for the first unit I was attached to when I was in the Navy. I didn't think on it much until I realized the proposed date was rolling near, so I delved into the new media (Facebook) to track down any information on the old unit (RVAH 7). I only go to Facebook about once a month and generally forget what I have left there between visits. I found a slow collection of online communiques had occured. Between Me Mark Edmunds and Kent Dotson. Thomas Grube, over the last few years. A Mike Byerly with some of the others. I had someone email me some years ago, who wanted to get in touch with LCDR Paul Habel, one of our senior pilots at the time, who had flown during the Vietnam conflict. I've heard recently from Chris Healy, who I only knew for a couple of months or so. He and a Mark Schwartz had rotated out of RVAH 7 as Mark Edmunds and I came in. I found my old supervisor Mark Ramsey on Facebook, who in turn seems to be in Facebook touch with some of the others. Kent Dotson, who was Edmunds roommate in the BEQ at NAS Key West left a message on my "Wall" saying that Mike Byerly was trying to organize a reunion in Pensacola this summer. While I can't confirm this, I did look over the group that someone created RVAH 7 Peacemakers. Well its not a group exactly, but rather an activity an organization a local business. A thing to contain the attribute of being "liked", that can support a wall, pictures, a discussion on it. It doesn't appear you can join it. I can't tell who set the page up either. I've got to get someone to explain Facebook to me again.
Regardless; I think I will pass on this event. I've never been to any school reunion or similar event, I imagine with difficulty making small talk with people I knew only as a teenager, even as I recall them fondly. At the same time I know the majority of hits I get on Atomized jr. are for pictures of RA5Cs and other Navy things. There are two minor problems with this. It was, of course, only one part of my life, and very far back in the past now. I only want to revisit it so much. On the other hand I have all these pictures, and I do want these moments set down in writing and given their due justice. To that last point, it is genuinely hard to remember accurately and entertainingly that far back. There is the sense that while you can immerse yourself in the moment, with the aid of various tokens and tangibles, and create a brief intense deep recollection, you only get one shot at it for you damage the memory and overlay it with the sense of remembering. However, since I write for whomever is listening -- as long a memory and digital scanners hold at all; there will be more pictures and stories.
SW Cay Somewhere in South China Sea taken by an F4 1979
I have a few pictures here to share. Call this catagory: RA5Cs vs. F4Fs. This first is another example of F4 photo intell This is a concept applicable from Sopwith Camels onward, the best camera in the world -- is the one you have with you. Who knew there were islands in the middle of the South China Sea? Always keep the local TPCs out on the table people. This particular island which sometimes carries the name S.W. Cay [Spratly Islands - Google Maps] has a light-house on it these days, and looks a lot more inviting now that some full trees have grown up on it. I think the Philippines are trying to develop some of their similar Spratelys as resorts.
F4 over Diamond Head 1979, taken by RVAH 7 RA5C
This next picture has the Diamond Head volcano in the background. Pictures like these were taken by the RA5C squadrons as favors and gifts for the other squadrons, they required a degree of co-ordination. I can't pin the date of this one down except, to remark VF-21 was with us on the USS Ranger's 1979 WestPac, so this may come from that same period. What this picture reminds me of are two trips round Oahu I took. One on the way out to the seventh fleet, and one on the way back to San Diego. On the outchop when we laid over in Pearl Harbor for a few days I was invited by Ensign Gent to go with him and two other officers from the squadron around the island in a rented car. It was a perfectly wonderful normal sedate and sober experience. Even a generation later while watching Lost on TV, I would see sections of hills and knew they were probably filming out on Rt. 83 on the north shore in or around Kahana valley. A bit over half a year after this first trip I joined a similar excursion, this time with friends from my enlisted peer group. There was different music playing in the vehicle. I recall Ted Nugent's "Stranglehold" coming around a least once on the latter trip which I don't believe I heard on the former. The only part of that trip I remember clearly is when we stopped to take pictures at Diamond Head (Along the highway running along the water's edge in this picture). That was in the morning. We drove counter-clockwise from there. Ended up back in Honolulu at dusk. If I took more pictures, they would be the only permanent record of the day which didn't end for many more hours.
I suppose at the time I was tempted to read some sort of cultural message into these trips. White trash dereliction against class and refinement. Even then I knew that less dramatically, callow youth against even moderate age was a better fit. Our untutored moments shedding sparks of an enthusiasm sold wholesale to those too inexperienced to know different. I had few categories to fit experiences into back then. A glance over Facebook profiles and I see that the proletariat went on to degrees and middle class lives.
Nothing but Blue Sky and a couple of RA5C's 1979
The third picture is from a set of color pictures taken during one of the flyouts of our three planes from NAS Key West to NAS North Island near San Diego. This would have been sometime between Thanksgiving 1978 and the beginning of February 1979. I can't determine who was flying the plane taking the pictures and strictly speaking that would be part of the story, I'm pushing artifacts out onto the internet with incomplete metadata, I do feel bad about that. It captures the RA5C with its own assets; a 3 inch right oblique Im guessing. I know a black and white version of this photo was used in our decommissioning booklet, in the center across two pages, but I don't think I've seen this color version I have online. An eternal moment in time, RVAH 7 planes in flight and all around them sky, nothing but blue sky.
4:07:56 PM  ;;
|
|
