Keeping busy with my wife Donna, whom I will be married to forty years in July 2009.  We've traveled quite alot having gone to Germany, Switzerland, Italy and Austria in March 2006. March 2007 we drove my inlaws to the Mayo Clinic in Minnesotta. What a snow storm we ran into in Madison Wisconsin! January 2008 we drove to Florida. Visited some of the old TDY bases Tyndall and McDill. I always enjoyed TDY's, and it brings back good memories to go their.  July 2008 we drove to Albuquerque New Mexico for a wedding, then up to Colorado Spings and Denver. As you can see I enjoy driving, so I took a part time job driving. One of my "FOX HOLE BUDDIES" Joe Fenton, convinced me to look into parts delivery. I work three days a week for an auto dealership and have a four day weekend. WOW, if I knew it would be that good, I would have done it forty years ago!!Â
  When our children were young, it opened up an avenue to our social lives, so do our five grand children. In many ways re-aquainting us with people we lost touch with. Its true, you really get to enjoy them so much more than the hectic pace of raising your own. I finally have two sons! both are really nice guys and thank God, both marriages seem to be very sound.
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Other Comments:
I graduated from Cape May Vocational Technical Institute in 1966 and went to work for Weaton Plastic Co. in Mayslanding as a design draftsman. I had a technical deferment from them to avoid the draft and one from my parents' family farm but felt an obligation to serve in the military. As a child who played soldier with my cousins and admired my uncles in uniform I was inspired to join the military. The Vietnam War was going on and everyone was saying "don't join", this didn't persuade me . I joined the New Jersey Air National Guard in August and left for basic in October 1966. After graduation from Chanute AFB as a hydraulic repairman, I was hired full time by the NJANG as a technician. From that day on I knew I made the right decision about joining the military. On January 26, 1968 the 177th TFG was activated for the Pueblo Incident and we were sent to Phu Cat, Vietnam for a one year tour. After 14 years as a hydraulic technician, I cross trained to flight line and was a crew chief certified on F-106s, T-33s and F-16s. I retired from my technician job with NJANG on my 55th birthday, December 27, 2000 and stayed on as a triditional Guardsman working in the Maintenance Control section (MOCC). The first plane flew into the World Trade building at 0910 and by 0925 hours I received a phone call saying we were activated and to report to base ASAP. I stayed on active duty for two years doing Noble Eagle missions and retired from NJANG military on December 27, 2005 at age 60.Â
   From my first day as a technician until my last day as a traditional guardsman, I knew I had a job that was the envy of my family and friends. Exotic travel to places they only heard about and TDYs to warm climates in January and Feburary always seemed like greener pastures to them and for the most part, they were correct. I couldn't imagine working any other job and being any happier than with what I was doing in the Air National Guard.Â
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Vietnam War/Counteroffensive Phase V Campaign (1968)
From Month/Year
July / 1968
To Month/Year
November / 1968
Description This period was from November 1, 1968-February 22, 1969.
Following the cessation of bombing on October 3,. 1968, the United States for the next 4 years restricted flights over North Vietnam primarily to reconnaissance missions. The Air Force diverted airpower resources committed to the campaign over North Vietnam to the air campaign in Laos in an attempt to slow the flow of suppliesfrom North Vietnam down the Ho Chi Minh Trail. This interdiction effort covered an area in the Laotian panhandle from about the 16th to the 18th parallel and focused on the Laotian/North Vietnamese border near the Keo Nua, Mu Ola, and Ban Karai Passes. Much information about targets on the l-lo Chi Minh Trail came from air-dropped electronic sensors. When American bombing choked the major transportation arteries. the North Vietnamese directed truck convoys along secondary roads where they became more vulnerable to tactical air strikes. Throughout November and December 1968 U.S. tactical aircraft and B-52s attacked targets in the Laotian panhandle. AC-130 gunships, flying at night and relying on infrared, radar, and other sensors. proved especially effective in destroying trucks. To counter the intense air attacks, the North Vietnamese quadrupled the number of anti-aircraft guns along the Ho Chi Minh Trail, while adding logistical personnel in Laos for repair work and transport duties.
The USAF also provided close air support to hard-pressed Royal and irregular Laotian forces in northem Laos, where on December 25, North Vietnamese and Pathet Lao troops launched a strong offensive. By late February 1969 the enemy had driven the Laotian forces back across the Plain of Jars to Na Khang.
In South Vietnam, meanwhile. the Viet Cong suffered temporary setbacks under Allied air and ground attacks. On November 1, 1968, the Republic of Vietnam began a military and civic pacification program intended to bring most of the onuttry quickly under government control. Two operations underscored Allied military approaches to pacification.
In the first, the Allies learrted of a large enemy force moving into the Savy Rieng Province, Cambodia. the so-called “Parrot's Beak" that jutted deep into South Vietnam northwest of Saigon. To thwart this penetration, between October 18 and November 11, 1968, the U.S. Air Force airlifted 11,500 men of the U.S. lst Cavalry Division and 3,400 tons of cargo in C-130s over 500 miles from Quang Tri Province in the north to Tay Ninh. Binh Long. and Phuoc Long Provinces. northwest of Saigon. Until the tum of the year, these U.S. Army forces. working with the South Vietnamese, conducted operations in the Cambodian/South Vietnamese border area along the Parrot‘s Beak between the Vam Co Tay and Vam Co Dong Rivers. The USAF supported these operations with tactical aircraft and B-52s flying air support and interdiction missions against troop concentrations, base areas, logistics complexes and transportation lines. In the second major winter operation. starting the first week of December. the Seventh Air Force launched another air campaign in the A Shau Valley, located near the Cambodian border some 30 miles southwest of Hue. Afterward, in January 1969. U.S. Marines entered the valley and found large amounts of materiel that the Communists had abandoned unable to move it during the sustained air attacks. After months of negotiations on January 18, 1969, representatives of the government of South Vietnam and of the National Liberation Front. the Communist political branch in South Vietnam joined the United States and North Vietnam in the Paris peace talks. While negotiations continued in France, the Communist forces in Vietnam launched their first offensive of the new year.