Releventchair, are you talking about Lasalle's ship, Griffon. LaSalle and Tonti spent some time in my neck of the woods.
I haven't posted here for a long time but I still read the stories and keep up on everybody's adventures. I'll throw in a war story just for the heck of it. In one of my previous posts on this thread, I mentioned a bad typhoon my outfit experienced while pulling security for a mortar team during the fall of '68. After a couple of weeks, the weather broke well enough for the CO to call for a chopper extraction. The sun was actually shining when the choppers started coming in to pick us up but the hill was nothing but a muddy, sloppy mess. The North Vietnamese had been probing our perimeter the whole time we were up there so we were set up in a tight perimeter as the first chopper came onto the pick up spot at the top of the hill. When the mortar team started getting on the chopper, the NVA opened up on them with automatic weapons. A few guys got hit but the chopper was OK so they got the mortar team loaded and took off. I was about 30 feet from the top of the hill on the side that was getting hit hardest. I got caught out in the open so I dropped to the ground and kinda looked around for someplace to go. I was further away from the pickup spot than anybody else and I didn't want to move away from the other guys so I decided to stay put. At that time I did something that seemed like a good idea at the time. I tried to dig a foxhole with my belt buckle. I would have done anything to get a little lower. It must of looked kinda funny because I could hear a couple of guys laughing even with all the firing going on. If nothing else it gave me something to do until our gunships got the situation under control. The gun ships were making passes right in front of me and they were so close I started worrying about getting hit by our own guys. We didn't seem to be taking anymore fire and the last pickup chopper was coming in so I flipped my rucksack onto my back and grabbed another rucksack that belonged to a guy who was already loading up and I started up the hill. I took a few steps and slipped and fell on my face. I got up and tried it again with the same results. Everybody else was on the chopper and they were yelling at me to quit screwing off and get up there. The whole time I had my back to the perimeter and I was just waiting for the AK rounds to start slamming into my back. All this stuff is happening real fast but it seemed like it was happening in some kind of slow motion. I decided to take more deliberate steps and actually made it halfway there before I slipped and slid back to where I started. By this time everybody in the chopper on my side was looking at me and grinning like a bunch of goons, even the pilot. I finally got down on my knees and threw the pack in my left hand out as far as I could without letting go and then I dug the butt of my rifle into the ground with my right hand and pushed my way up. It took a few minutes but I finally made it to the chopper and crawled inside. We took off and headed east toward LZ Uplift and the land of cold showers and semi-warm food.
Rick
I haven't posted here for a long time but I still read the stories and keep up on everybody's adventures. I'll throw in a war story just for the heck of it. In one of my previous posts on this thread, I mentioned a bad typhoon my outfit experienced while pulling security for a mortar team during the fall of '68. After a couple of weeks, the weather broke well enough for the CO to call for a chopper extraction. The sun was actually shining when the choppers started coming in to pick us up but the hill was nothing but a muddy, sloppy mess. The North Vietnamese had been probing our perimeter the whole time we were up there so we were set up in a tight perimeter as the first chopper came onto the pick up spot at the top of the hill. When the mortar team started getting on the chopper, the NVA opened up on them with automatic weapons. A few guys got hit but the chopper was OK so they got the mortar team loaded and took off. I was about 30 feet from the top of the hill on the side that was getting hit hardest. I got caught out in the open so I dropped to the ground and kinda looked around for someplace to go. I was further away from the pickup spot than anybody else and I didn't want to move away from the other guys so I decided to stay put. At that time I did something that seemed like a good idea at the time. I tried to dig a foxhole with my belt buckle. I would have done anything to get a little lower. It must of looked kinda funny because I could hear a couple of guys laughing even with all the firing going on. If nothing else it gave me something to do until our gunships got the situation under control. The gun ships were making passes right in front of me and they were so close I started worrying about getting hit by our own guys. We didn't seem to be taking anymore fire and the last pickup chopper was coming in so I flipped my rucksack onto my back and grabbed another rucksack that belonged to a guy who was already loading up and I started up the hill. I took a few steps and slipped and fell on my face. I got up and tried it again with the same results. Everybody else was on the chopper and they were yelling at me to quit screwing off and get up there. The whole time I had my back to the perimeter and I was just waiting for the AK rounds to start slamming into my back. All this stuff is happening real fast but it seemed like it was happening in some kind of slow motion. I decided to take more deliberate steps and actually made it halfway there before I slipped and slid back to where I started. By this time everybody in the chopper on my side was looking at me and grinning like a bunch of goons, even the pilot. I finally got down on my knees and threw the pack in my left hand out as far as I could without letting go and then I dug the butt of my rifle into the ground with my right hand and pushed my way up. It took a few minutes but I finally made it to the chopper and crawled inside. We took off and headed east toward LZ Uplift and the land of cold showers and semi-warm food.
Rick