HH-53 in air B&W by
John Ratliff, on Flickr
Great videos, JB!
I said above that I'd update you about participating in "Living History Day" at Aloha High School, in Beaverton, Oregon last Wednesday, May 22, 2019. I have participated in these high school events whereby the schools invite Veterans in to talk with their students. I obviously talked about USAF combat rescue, and what we did in Vietnam. I have a PowerPoint presentation that I have been using for the last several years to illustrate what we did. But before that, I this last Wednesday asked the students whether they had any questions for me, as I had more slides than I could present in 30 minutes. One of the questions when along the lines of what traumatic events I had witnessed that changed me.
Rocket Attack from Air by
John Ratliff, on Flickr
I gave the answer by using the story above of the rocket attack, and that's what this above photo is of, a rocket attack. This one I took from the air, and is unrelated to the story above.
Another question was about what we did for bathroom business in the Super Jolly Green Giant helicopter? Well, I used this story:
www.jollygreen.info/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Humor-in-the-Air.pdfI also told them that, as a retired industrial hygienist, I use this story to illustrate why we never want to use our own senses to sample of a chemical contaminant! (You'll get what I'm saying if you click on the link, and read the story.)
Then a student asked, "Was it worth it?"
That was, I said, a complicated question. I told them another story; sometimes using stories better illustrates the answer to questions than simply saying "Yes" or "No."
I was at home in bed on a Saturday morning in 1998 with my wife, Chris when we received a phone call. I answered, "Hello."
"Is this John Ratliff?" the caller questioned.
"Yes," I answered.
"Were you in the Air Force?" he asked.
"Yes, I was," I answered.
"Did you serve in Vietnam?" came the next question, and I was starting to get annoyed.
"Yes, I did," I answered, starting to get a bit testy.
"Were you an a rescue mission on March 23, 1971 into North Vietnam?"
"Yes," I answered, starting to get interested, as this was unexpected.
"Well, I'm the son of the pilot, Major Robert Cubberly, that you rescued that day, and we have been trying to find the crew of the helicopter that rescued our Dad to thank that crew," Troy Cubberly stated. "You don't know what it meant to our family to get Dad back. Thank You!" he said. With that, we exchanged contact information, and subsequently have remained in contact through the years. By now, I was tearing up a bit. We had some more conversation, hung up, and I turned to my wife, Chris to explain the phone call and the rescue mission I had participated in.
I related this story to the students at my table at Aloha High School, and followed it up with saying, "Yes, it was worth it," with some emotion behind my words.
If any of you veterans have the opportunity, there are these "Living History Days" at high schools happening around Veteran's Day and Memorial Day, and I would highly encourage you to participate. But don't do what one Veteran who was 81 years old, and a Marine pilot in Vietnam. He was very overbearing with the students, condescending, and self-agrandizing. We don't need that kind of "stuff" happening at high schools. These are for exchanging history that has not really been well documented, not political stuff or stating how great we were. Many students don't have a good idea of what happened in Vietnam, and even Veterans don't really know our contribution to humanity there.
To illustrate that, I told of our mission to Bein Hoa, Vietnam in 1971. It wasn't to do anything around Bein Hoa, but rather to be a rescue force in a top secret mission to Phnom Penh, Cambodia to evacuate our embassy. Then I asked when Cambodia actually fell to the Khamer Rouge? They could not tell me. So I asked,
"Have you heard of the "Killing Fields"?
The students had not heard of this. So I gave them hints, that Cambodia fell in 1975, and that the Killing Fields were the fields where anyone with ties to America or who had an education ("the elites") were buried after they were killed. I talked a bit about the Cambodian holocaust, and the "Boat People" coming from Vietnam. Then I told them that this could only occur after the American military had left Southeast Asia, that we had prevented the Killing Fields for over 10 years by simply being in Vietnam. That saved many, many lives in both countries. How do I know? Well, my daughter-in-law is one of the Cambodian refugees, who at about four years old with her mother and two-year-old sister walked out of Cambodia to Thailand's refugee camps, and eventually to the USA. My daughter-in-law's father had been a doctor who was killed by the Khamer Rouge.
John