Let me tell you about the time that MFM saved my life...
Last edited Fri Jan 17, 2014, 05:57 AM - Edit history (2)
It was in 1968, when I was assigned to a special squadron of USAF Junior Combat Controllers, behind enemy lines in Vietnam. I was seven years old at the time. I didn't think that I would be sent straight to fight in South East Asia right out of the first grade. But darn it, did I have another think coming.
Anyhoo, to make a long story short, I was cut off from the rest of my team in a tense firefight, ammo almost running out, my killbar buried deep inside the guts of charlie, who was sinking fast in the muck. Pretty soon an entire division of Ho Chi Minh's cousins would be all over me and the only thing that I'd have to defend myself was a sharpened twig and a Hershey Bar.
But before my radio was shot full of holes, I was able to radio in coordinates for a last gasp, desperate air strike. I had serious doubts that help would come before it was too late, though.
But just as Charlie was coming up the hill, so close to the wire that I smell what they had for lunch (It was fish balls and rice), an entire group of B-52s appeared out of no where and dropped their load, Operation Arc Light-style, on the advancing troops' heads. Saving my young ass so I could see the second grade.
Once I got choppered out of there after taking some flak in my arm, I was able to track down the pilot who led that bombing run which saved my life to write about it today.
It took me a while but I found out who it was, it was none other than our own MFM. We met up at Miss Riki-Tiki's club in Saigon and I told that I owed him my life. You can say that it was the very first DU meet up, before there was even a DU. He told me to think nothing about it as long as I was buying the drinks, and over round after round of San Miguel later we solidified our life long friendship.
Of course, he was too modest to ever bring up that time he saved me and he never ever brought up the fact that I never returned the favor. But that was our MFM, you know how he was, selfless to the end.
But that wasn't our only adventure together. A few years later, he and I had the opportunity to pull Rachel Welch out of a burning limo that had crashed in the Hollywood Hills, way back in '77. Let's say that she was very appreciative to us for helping her out...
But, alas, that's a story for another day.
= new reply since forum marked as read
And mine had been ripped off in the tree.
On edit: To repay him for his kindness I built an "auto on" feature for his cloak:
(cloak off photo) -- redacted.
