Sunday afternoon
26 Oct. 1969

I flew my first mission this morning at 0300! I had to get up at 0115. Boy was that early. Sunday is just like any other day of the week over here. The only way I can tell what day it is, is by looking at my watch.

We flew up to Danang on our mission this morning and bombed a rice cache, of all things.

People are starving to death and we bomb food. But that’s the way it is I guess. I flew with the squadron XO, and we’re going to fly the same thing again in the morning at 0500. One thing about it over here, I can get to bed plenty early since there is no TV to watch.

The squadron has the hot pad alert for 5 days, so I can’t fly to much really except for the TPQ. [radar controlled bombing mission. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AN/MPQ-14]

I still haven’t been assigned a job in the squadron. They have so many lieutenants that there just isn’t much to do.

I can hardly wait to get my first letter from home! I really feel lonely without any mail! The more mail I get, the better.

I’m the ODO [operations duty officer] right now and everything is so confusing I don’t know what is going on. So I’d best get back to my job.

Photo - me standing on F-4 fighter-bomber.