However, the memory of GYSGT Howard is immortal - So I received a good indoc as to the fact that Squid aviators were only tolerated if they could handle close air support and that pressing the target to be accurate was shit hot and pull outs above the frag pattern were chicken shit.

During Tet '68 they kicked us off the boat to performed cyclic operations out of and at Danang. Our flights were as long as 1/2 hour and as short as 9 minutes the old log book tells me. We just stayed in the cockpit for hours and reloaded and refueled and blasted the hell out of Monkey Mountain over and over again.

As I was walking back from the head to climb back into my Fox 4 in its revetment the fence line became quite active with zipper heads making another crazy attempt to get through. Some grunt line sgt. ''mentioned'' that the fucking line was going to hold and that we were loaded up and time to get back to work. As I was strapping in I asked the very young PFC that was helping me out, if the South Vietnamese army was defending that fence line.

His response was great. He said something like, ''No fucking way, Sir, the fucking Marine Corps band is on that fence, doing its ''real fucking'' job! Semper Fi!'' And with those words of wisdom he climbed down from the a/c and into my memory and started me up. I chuckled as I cranked it up and taxied and went out and dropped some more iron and napalm below my safe drop altitude and in front of other such Marines as that plane captain had said, were just doing their real ''fucking job.'' Semper Fi, indeed!

I hope that when the balloon really goes up again that we will have Marines like Howard, that plane captain, those grunts trying to hold their positions on that worthless fucking mountain, Aviators who will do what is necessary to get iron on target, and the Marine Corps band, doing its ''real fucking'' job!