13 January 1970
Well, I let down last night and failed to write - I’ll write a quick note now.
Yesterday was a better day than most because we spent the whole day in the field. We had a very fine artillery display in the afternoon - which convinced me that artillery is not nearly as good as aviation!
Rumors are flying fast and thick now about who is being pulled out of country. Seems now that the word is that VMFA-542 and the A-4 squadrons at Chu Lai are being pulled out. As much as I would like to be out of country - looking at it realistically - the best thing would be for me to stay in country and hope to rotate to Japan at the end of 6 months. That way I can save more money. The only way I’d want to leave country before 6 months would be if I went back to the states or Hawaii.
The chances of my actually going FAC duty have been cut even more since the 26th Marine Regiment is being pulled out. That’ll leave only two Marine regiments in country to go FAC with.
Looks like we’ll be leaving Okinawa on the 19th to head back in country. The main bad thing about going back is having to fly those out of country missions! Seems like they get more dangerous everyday. But - that’s what we’re here for, unfortunately. I’ve never been to worried about it personally.
Tuesday night
13 January 1970
Another day - another dollar! Things are still dragging by. Today we finally got around to learning how to be a FAC. Up ‘til now we’ve been studying everything else under the sun.
The instructor was a Major, a helicopter pilot who, as we found out, didn’t know beans about jets, or close air support. We kept trying to point out to him that things were being done in-country in a different way than he was teaching - but he wouldn’t accept that! He just said that we were doing everything wrong. Finally all the students were so pissed off we just gave up. In 30 minutes one instructor turned every student against the school.
Other than the above, I don’t know of another thing to say!
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