Saturday night
15 Nov. 1969

I got back to sunny Chu Lai at 1700 and it is good to be back!! When people ask me how the trip was, I just say okay, because they think I’m crazy if I say I didn’t like it!

I hit the jackpot on mail!! Four letters and a tape.

We get two points for missions that require us to fly outside of South Vietnam. I’ve flown three of these missions, but I can’t say much about them. These include the BARCAP missions up off the coast of North Vietnam. So three missions out of country and one mission where we were shot at, give me four extra points.

We had a squadron formation tonight and several air medals were given out, but I didn’t get mine! The formal citation has to be signed by the wing CO and that takes a long time. Russ Fyke just got his air medal tonight and he has already earned several.

Russ has also been recommended for the DFC. (Distinguished Flying Cross) for a mission on which he flew about a month ago. All four people in the flight were recommended for the DFC, but probably only the pilots will get it. Usually the RIO gets the next lower medal, in this case would be the Bronze Star, or a single mission air medal. Sometimes they award an air medal for only one mission if its real good, but not good enough for DFC. The DFC is the fourth highest award in the Marine Corps. Mike Sharbaugh had one and Major Heald had one or two.

Two more days and it’ll be one month since I left the states. And it seems like ages!

They have two survival schools in the Philippines. One at Cubi Point NAS for one day, run by the Navy. Another, at Clark AFB for ten days by the Air Force. There is also a water survival school at Okinawa. O.J. is going to that one in about a week. I don’t know when I’ll get out of country again.

It has just started raining! Looks like it’ll never stop.

Photo - Go Go dancers at the officer's club, Chu Lai