Philippines
Bob Saville
Hi PigIron,
Have you ever heard my expression "I HATE A MACHINE THAT'S SMARTER THAN
I AM"?
Having said that, I'm finally caught up enough that we can have our
long delayed discussion about the Philippines that we've been wanting to
have. I received your story and I was also able to find it in
"dejanews". I tried to copy and paste per your instructions but when I
went back into the ng there wasn't any "send new msg" to click on (I'm
using netscate 3.0) and when I clicked on edit, paste was not available
to use. (not highlighted). Hence my phrase above! I couldn't get your
story transferred so I'll just refer to the copy of it that I printed
off. Ahh, such pleasant memories from the PI.......
While you were there in 1974-76 did you know about the "RIDGE RIDERS"
Motorcycle Club on the base? When I arrived there in 1967 the club was
already established but not very active and only a handfull of members.
Since I never have been anywhere in the world without a motorcycle
(unless I was just TDY there for a short visit), the first thing I did
was join the club and start building up interest in it. (I had sent my
750 Norton about a month before I left the states so it was there
waiting for me, that alone, is a whole other story)
It wasn't long until we had an up and running club and touring all over
the island of Luzon. (Just the club is a whole story, I only mention it
here to let you know that this is by far the best and cheapest way to
explore a country.)
Your expination of the Rabbit bus was very good. They were about the
size of a Greyhound Bus and they had everyone convinced that they owned
the McArthur Hiway. Everyone that is except me. I found an electric horn
that sounded just like their air horn that they used to "rule the road"
and I mounted it on my Norton. They never bothered to look in their
rearview mirrors since they were so big and usually were running right
down the middle of the road. I used to pull right up beside the drivers
window and give them a blast of my "rabbit horn" as I called it. They
thought another Rabbit bus was trying to pass them so they instantly
moved over and I passed them and waved and the rest of the club was
right behind me. It's the only time the Rabbits ever gave way to anyone
or anything that I know of.
Every Sunday we had a ride or event somewhere. The first time we went
to Baguio we discovered that motorcycles were not allowed on the base so
we had to park at the gate and walk in. The next time(s) we went, I
drove my 9 passenger stationwagon that I shipped over there and we
stopped at the gate and everyone piled in and on my s/w so we didn't
have to walk. As you remember, Baguio was north of Clark and up in the
mountains so it was cooler and not as humid as it was back in the
Angeles City area.
Speaking of Mountains, once we did a tour of the upper island
coastline. We visited The rice terraces of Banae (often called the
eighth wonder of the world). What a thing to see, farming up the sides
of the cliffs. (And I thought the Pyramids were an engineering marvel)
While I was up north I bought a lot of wood carving from the locals.
They were about 3 feet tall, as black as any skin I've ever seen and an
extremely happy and talented race of people. They are the decendants of
the pygmy headhunters of long ago. Most of them still wear nothing but
loin clothes (and get this, TOP HATS) and the women are usually bare
chested as in a lot of other areas of the PI. I have a few of my wood
carvings left, some I gave to family and friends when I came home but a
few of them I'll never part with.
Another trip we used to take fairly often was southeast of Manila to
Pagsanjan Falls. (The true name was magdapeo falls but they were near
the town of Pagsanjan). There was a little restaurant/bar at the end of
a dirt road and the local igrots, (little black guys maybe four to four
and a half feet tall) would just sort of "appear" out of the jungle with
their dugout boats and they would take us up the river through this
beautiful valley with very high walls up both sides. Covered with
vegetation and you could hear and see the monkeys and the birds up at
the top of the valley. It was like being in a Tarzan movie. These boats
had two igrots with paddles and only enough room for two passengers.
They would paddle us up the river for about a mile I would guess, and
there around the final bend was a very high (maybe a thousand feet or
more) waterfall coming down into a wide spot in the valley. This is
where the valley ended. (Or started actually) Behind the waterfall on a
sort of beach was a "sari sari" store. (We call them convinience stores)
They had food, candy, cigarettes, soft drinks and the everyloved "San
Miguel", the best beer I've ever tasted anywhere in the world. (Believe
me, I've tasted a lot of beers in a lot of countries) All of these
supplies have to be taken upriver by boats, it's the only way to get
there. We could swim in the lagoon there, eat, drink and then the trip
back to the restaurant and a grass mat to sleep on for the night. This
was one of our favorite trips, one of the few that we went on more than
once or twice. Usually we tried to find a new place that we hadn't been
to before.
Like "Balor" for example. Way over on the east coast of Luzon and north
of Angeles City a ways also. We had to cross a mountain range to get
there and in spots those of us carrying passengers had to stop in lots
of places and let our passengers walk through some of the worst spots.
Most of the time we were on dirt "walking trails" on the side of a
mountain and one wrong move would send you a long ways down. Balance was
very important so we let the passengers off as a sudden movement by them
would make us lose our balance and could be disastrous. When we finally
got there, just outside of town there was a long jagged crack in the
ground that ran right across the road. We stopped and examined it and
decided that it was a seperation of the earth as opposed to a washout
caused by rain. It was about 6 inches wide and very jagged. We could
look down into it about 3 or 4 feet before the unevenness of it
concealed the actual depth.(I'll explain why later, but the next morning
when we started back home that same crack was about two feet wide, much
longer, and a flashlight beam couldn't reach to the bottom of it.)
Anyway, when we rode on into Balor it was like seeing an old western
movie when the bad guy rides into town. No one moved or made a sound and
all they did was stare at us as we rode very slowly down the main trail
of the town. (I'd call it a street, but there were no vehicles, horses,
wagons, or even the little asses that we were used to seeing all over
the P.I.) Then I spotted (I was leading the ride) a larger "shack", it
was the only building in town that was a two story. We all parked in
front of the building and got off of our motorcycles. One of the guys
had his Filipino girlfriend with him, (we used her a lot as an
interpreter) so we had plans of finding some food, drink and a place to
sleep if possible. An old man came out of the building and said "Hi
Joe"! We later found out that he was the only person in the village
that had ever seen an American before. He remembered WWII and was an
aide to McArthur when he landed on that very section of Luzon. His two
story building had been an hotel/barracks and the upstairs was full of
the "old style" GI cots. The ones that the legs fold up on and they are
easy to stack. It didn't take us long to unfold a couple of dozen of
them and get us all set up for the night. He had the local people
bringing us food and drink and they were treating us as royalty. He told
us to ride our cycles up the steps (3 or 4) and park them inside in the
corner of the "lobby" so none of the more curious folks would want a
souvenir from any of them. There weren't any doors on the front of the
"hotel" so he told a few of the younger boys to sleep in a semi-circle
around them to protect them while we slept upstairs.
During the night, an earthquake hit and we were very near the center of
it (so we found out later) so we really had a rocking and rolling ride
upstairs in that flimsey old building. By the time we got outside it
was over and no one was hurt but it was a pretty big one. The owner of
the "hotel" told us that they had just had one not to long ago and this
one was bigger than the one they'd had before. (Remember the crack in
the road I mentioned earlier?) We all went back to bed and had no
further excitement that night.
When it was time to leave in the morning we tried to pay him for his
hospitality and he said they have no use for money since they don't have
any contact with the outside world. You should have seen us going
through our pockets and packs trying to find things that we could give
them in place of money. I think they were all very satisfied when we
left, they had things that they had never seen before and when we showed
them what they were and how to use them they were smiling from ear to
ear. I had (and still do) a GI can opener on my keyring for opening c &
k rations that we usually took on our trips. They were fascinated by
watching me use it, but it was of no use to them since they didn't have
any cans. Some of the people in our club wouldn't eat anything that we
didn't bring with us, but I always eat anything that the locals eat. I
have no idea what some of the things were that I ate that weekend but a
lot of it I knew what it was as I had eaten or seen it before (I won't
mention it here out of respect for the weak stomaches that may be
reading this post) and it was all pretty good. Just about anything that
walks, crawls, slithers, flys or swims is edible.
Some of the other trips that we went to more than once if we just
wanted to go on a short one day ride were Long Beach, Blue Beach and San
Fernando.
I think this is etting sort of long so I'll quit for this time. If you
(or anyone else) have any comments or questions let me know and I'll
send chapter two later. There were lots of other trips, the "Subic Bay"
incicent, and lots of tales about just living in the PI.
Tourists who fly into Manila, stay in a hotel and take a bus tour or
two have not seen the real Philippines, They've just seen a big city
with a lot of filipinos living there. The real Philippines is the nipa
huts, the sari sari stores, the tanickling, the roast delogo, the rice
patties, the monkeys that beg or steal food from you, etc, etc, etc.
So many stories to tell and memories to re-live.
bobs.............
Bob Saville
PigIron wrote:
>
> On Wed, 13 May 1998 17:04:12 GMT, PigIron wrote:
>
> >
> >While I got around to visit various areas of Luzon, I did not range as
> >far you did. Obviously, you were "unattached" when you were there.
> >It would have been rather difficult for me to take the wife and kids
> >out on a mountain motorcycle tour.
> >I do not recall the motorcycle club you asked about. When I was in
> >the PI we were warned about going to far into the remote mountain
> >areas due to the insurgent Huts, the Mao guerrilla group. Travel at
> >night was particularly dangerous even for locals. Did you ever visit
> >Camp McDonald, the site of the prison camp the Japanese established
> >for the survivors of the Death March. At one point in time the U.S.
> >Military had to abandon Camp McDonald because of the constant attacks
> >by the Huts.
> >As for the Negritos, the little black people. The Negritos who lived
> >near Clark Air Base had free access to the Base Hospital. This
> >privilege was granted to the Negritos after WWII in appreciation of
> >the assistance provided to the US in the war with the Japanese.
> >Ther Air Force had a survivor training camp at Clark. As you well
> >know the trainees would be given a little survivor gear and then
> >turned loose in jungle with the goal of avoiding their pursuers. In
> >that camp the Negritos were employed ny the military to act as the
> >pursuers. Not very many GIs were able to avoid detection by the
> >Negritos.
> >
> After I posted this it occurred to me that the Communist insurgents
> were not called "Huts" but were known as "Huks"
> PigIron
Good Morning PigIron,
Just checked the ng and found your post. No, I wasn't unattached, I
thought I mentioned in my post, my wife was over there with me. Most of
the rides she went with me, but you're right, it would be hard to take
kids along as well. Some of our members had families over there and
still went along. Only the last week-end of each month were overnight
trips, all the rest were one day only. A lot of the wives and older kids
went along on the one day rides. Most of the families had maids,
housekeepers and/or baby sitters. So it wasn't any problem for the man
and wife to get away for a day. Some of the wives had their own cycles
and they took one or two kids along with them. "Ridge Riders" was the
Base Motorcycle Club, I got it authorized all the way to PACAF Hdqtrs.
through the base safety office. While the base was having loss of
manhours due to motorcycle accidents (due to inexperience, lack of
governing and safety training) our club had 0% of accidents while I was
there. I had a 30 minute show on the base TV station every Friday
afternoon. It was an update on Safety tips, riding tips due to the ever
changing weather, tips on maintaining your motorcycle, report on last
week-ends events, the following week-end events, etc.
I don't know what happened to the club after I left in 1969. It's a lot
of work and coordinating to keep a club like that operating in the
military so maybe it faded out.
You mentioned the "huks", do you remember seeing HUK Mountain from the
base area? It was a big mountain that could be seen from nearly anywhere
in central Luzon. It appeared to have a big saucer shaped top on it and
the story was that it used to be a volcano and it blew the top off and
left the crater in the center of it and that was how it got that shape
on top. Now, the truth is, actually it was two mountains, on in front
of the other that gave it the appearance of a saucer in the top of it.
I've been to the top of both peaks. The rest of the rumors are true,
there were HUK villages scattered all over up there. The had no "beef"
with the americans, they were an "anti-Marcos" movement. I was very well
treated by all of them. I used to ride up there to the different
villages and eat and drink with them pretty often. I didn't smoke but I
aways carried a pack or two of cigarettes with me and I'd offer them one
sometimes and they really enjoyed the "American Cigarettes" as a treat.
They used to drive through Angeles city or Old Balabago once in a while
in there WWII 6X6's and straif the city with machine guns, but they
always aimed high, I never did hear of anyone getting hit. They just
wanted to let everyone know that they were still around and active and
Marcos's army was helpless against them. They seemed to appear out of
nowhere, when you least expected them, make one quick run through town
and dissappear again into nowhere. Most of them lived and worked in the
local areas and they were just sort of a guerrilla group as you said. I
think they just liked to make Marcos and his group nervous. They had a
few shoot-outs in Manila with the Palace guards but never around our
area. The biggest threat around our area was the local police, they
lived by the amount of kickback and graft that they could collect from
the locals, but they didn't bother the Americans much for fear of bad
international relations. The biggest threat to the GI's were the
"Jeepney" drivers at night. Many are the cases of a GI going into town
and having a little to much to drink and then hailing a "Jeepney" and
getting rolled. They would be taken to a dark area on the outskirts of
town where there was supposed to be a "private party" going on and when
they entered the "Nipa Hut" there would be several "beeks" in there who
would help themselves to your money. They never took anything but money
and they always left enough to get back to the base, knowing that you
would be to embarrassed to report that you had been dumb enough to fall
for the scam that you had been warned about so many times on the base. I
didn't ride "Jeepneys" very much since I had my cycle and car over there
and we lived off base so we walked most of the time when we went out at
night.
Remember when you went out the main gate there were a bunch of booths,
kiosks and stands along both sides of the road between the gate and
McArthur Hiway? That area was known as Old Balibago. About half way out
to the Hiway there was a road that went off to the right for about a
block and led to New Balibago. It was a walled housing area that had
armed guards on the gate, that's where we lived. The Angeles City
motorcycle cops were friends of mine, they were ruled by a Sgt named
Joe, and we used to go riding together sometimes. When he was on duty he
usually stopped by my house with his partner (they always rode in pairs)
and they'd have a "San Miguel" with me. Joe knew that I always had one
there for him and who ever he had with him. One night they stopped by
and there were three of them in a jeep instead of on their cycles. Joe
wanted me to go out on patrol with him for a little while. I thought I
knew every nook and cranny of that area but he showed me some places
that I didn't even know existed. That's when I found out where all the
"Private Party" places were and which ones I should stay away from. We
went into a couple of them where there really was a "floorshow" going
on, all I can say on this ng group is "WOW, and I thought I'd seen
everything" boy was I educated that night! (He also showed me the one's
that I should tell my friends to stay away from.)
Yes, I was at Camp McDonald. One of our rides was to the tip of the
Bataan Peninsula and then we hired "Bonca-boats" to take us out to the
island of Corregidor. We spent several hours touring the Island, went
back into the mountain (big hill) where McArthur had his headquarters,
and also the Hospital, were located. Sort of like a small city, all of
the tunnels and rooms under there. In the hospital area, it still had
the stinch of death, what an eerie feeling to be in there and remember
all the newsreels I'd seen from WWII times. Now here I was standing in
the places I'd seen on the silver screen as a youth. The tunnels were
big enough for the 6X6's to drive in or two jeeps to meet and pass. Most
of the tunnels had a sort of cement material to drive on so it wasn't
dirt. I think it had a coral and sand base to the material. (Sort of
like the roads on Guam except those were mixed with asphalt instead of
cement). We saw all the big guns that were supposed to protect against
the Japanese ships trying to get through that harbor between Corregidor
and Bataan. The biggest gun was built on a track and pivoted to cover
the entire bay. It was never fired in combat because the Japs came in
from the other end of the channnel and came in from behind that gun. The
smaller ones did little damage to the ships and the big one was aimed
the wrong direction. They say that's why we lost Corregidor and why
there was a "Bataan Death March". I have a picture (stuck away
somewhere in my stuff) of me down inside the barrel of that big gun and
just sticking out the end from the waist up and waiving at the camera.
After we returned to Bataan via the "Bonca-boats" we rode our cycles
the full length of the "Bataan-Death-March". At every kilometer there is
a wrought-iron marker with a ceramic inset bearing a number on it
marking off the kilometers. I don't remember now how many kilometers it
was but it was a long ways. I wanted to pry out one of those ceramic
numbers and bring it home for a souvenier but I just didn't have the
heart to do it. What those poor soldiers went through, and the filipino
people risking their lives to sneak out and give our soldiers food (lots
of them were shot if they were caught supplying food), it would have
been an insult to them if I had removed one of those memorial markers so
I just couldn't do it. At the end of the march was the old prison camp,
renamed to Camp McDonald and was now manned as a memorial. We stopped
there for lunch and of course a "San Miguel" (a magoo or two, as we used
to say) then on back home.
No, I never heard of the Huks attacking Camp McDonald. That surprises
me because we neveer had any trouble with them around Angeles. Were you
ever there? Did you see the sign on the wall behind the bar? The only
thing on the sign was I.I.T.Y.W.Y.B.M.A.D? The first time we were
there I made friends with the Bartender, he was a SSgt I think. Anyway,
I made that sign and took it back to him to have some fun with.(I'm sure
he had rotated by the time you got there so maybe he took it home with
him.) I went back to see him again not to long before I rotated and he
said he was really having fun with the sign. People were always asking
him what it meant. Can you figure it out? If I tell you will you buy me
a drink?
Yes, I know about the negritos having access to the hospital and the
run of the base. They were totally trustworthy and wouldn't think of
taking something that didn't belong to them or bothering anything like
an airplane or a piece of equipment. They couldn't go in the BX,
commisary, snack bars or anything except the hospital and they really
had to be sick to even go in there. They had their own medicine man that
cared for all their minor ailments. Do you remember the Base Cemetery
just inside the Main Gate? The big field behind the cemetery was our
club grounds for what ever events we wanted to hold. Right behind the
field was a very dense jungle. I decided it would be real neat to have
a moto-cross track back in the jungle so I got hold of the King of the
negrito village (he was my buddy, he loved to ride on my motorcycle with
me) and asked for his help. He brought about a dozen of his "subjects"
with their machetes. I walked out through the jungle as fast as I could
manage to move and they followed me at the same speed as I was walking.
The trail they left behind them was about four feet wide and all the
sides were straight up and down and the foilage that they cut down was
all mulched and put down on the trail to walk on. I kept putting turns
and switchbacks into the trail. (I had another of our club members
yelling to me from the rear of the negrito group so I could tell where
we were and not cut back into a previous part of the trail. When we
finally broke out of the jungle and were back in the open again I got on
my cycle and checked the length and the condition of the trail. It was
1.1 miles long and the entry and exit were less that 100 feet apart. We
used this as a timed event against a stopwatch to see who could get
through the course the fastest. This was one of the many events at our
field trials on the first sunday of every month. The trail encountered
a couple of small swamps (or bogs) so some of the guys would get stuck
in there and take them longer to get through. It was good fun.
After the negritos finished the course and I had checked it out, I went
to the snack bar and bought a whole bunch of hamburgers and brought them
back to the group (club members and negritos) and we had a picnic. Those
negritos could go through hamburgers nearly as fast as they could go
through the jungle.
I was a shopchief on one of the shops down on the flightline and we had
a scrap metal barrel that all the unusable and expendable junk went
into. I had two negritos that I allowed to come and take the metal out
of the barrel and use it for what ever they wanted. (They would always
come in the shop and get me to come and look at what they were taking)
They would take it back to their village and make some of the most
beautiflu stuff you can imagine out of it. I had them make both the
First Sergeant and the CO a deskset and they made me several "negrito
style" knives and some other things for me that I still have packed away
somewhere. What talent they have.
I also have some paintings that I had made over there on black velvet
hanging around my house. I'm sure you saw a lot of those paintings while
you were over there. The guy who was combination security guard, maint.
man, and general helper at the bar we built in Old Balibago was a very
talented young man. Some of our club members would have pictures of
their wife or girlfriend back home and he'd paint a big portrait from
that picture and sell it to them for about 5 or 10 dollars. Some of the
guys would take a centerfold from a playboy magazine and have him paint
a lage picture of them. I've never seen such a talent anywhere else in
the world. His picures were unbelievable. I had a portrait made of my
wife and I together and it came out great. I have a big picture of a
Bengal Tiger hanging in my livingroom that is set in Oregon scenery.
Unbelievable!
I could go on for hours Chuck, but I think I'd better shut this off for
this time or I'll have to get a special ng just to get this all posted.
Hope you (and all the ng) enjoy the memories. I also hope that this
post makes it too the ng.
bobs
Bob Saville
PigIron wrote:
>
> On Thu, 14 May 1998 12:33:03 -0700, Bob Saville <bo...@efn.org> wrote:
>
> <,snipped for brevity>
> >Bataan Peninsula and then we hired "Bonca-boats" to take us out to the
> >island of Corregidor. We spent several hours touring the Island, went
> >bobs
> With all the activities you enjoyed in the PI I'm surprised that you
> never went back on a return tour. I was nearing the end of my
> military career when I left the PI. All together I put in ten years
> in the Orient.
***** Hi PigIron,
Just a quick reply as I've been working on a newsletter this afternoon.
I finally hav it finished and now I'm going to fix some dinner.
The reason I didn't go back to the PI is that I do about the same thing
everywhere I go so I wanted to go somewhere else and see another new
country. I went from the PI to McClellan AFB in Sacramento CA and
started a club there and then went back overseas, this time to Thailand.
When I got there during the incoming indoctronation breifing they told
us that they had a lot of "down-time" due to motorcycle accidents
off-base and that they had a new base-reg that anyone caught riding a
motorcycle during our tour at Udorn would get an automatic summary
court-martial. Well guess what, that sounded like a challenge to me.
I'll write the story of my experiences in Thailand later.
bobs......
Charles R. Galbach
Hi bobs,
I've been reading your accounts about the PI with interest. Seems I was driving
C-141's in and out of Clark during part of your tour there (parts of 1965 thru1969).
I also attended the jungle survival school run out of Clark in May of 67 prior to a
tour at Danang flying O-1's and O-2s as a FAC. First thing I've wondered is how you
swung such a regular military job that you could be involved in a mc club? I thought
during those years everyone was working 16 hours a day, 7 days a week. Guess not!
:>)
I had a broad range of experiences at Clark. On the one hand, theft at the base
seemed sort of bad - I had some small amounts of money, a watch, a school ring
stolen. There were also the frequent stories about GI's being rolled in Angeles
City. Also, my attempts to drink that san magoo resulted in several pretty bad
headaches. Some folks liked it, but I couldn't handle it. There were several PI
stories that sound like urban legends that I'll ask you about later.
I found the Philippine people to be very talented, intelligent, well mannered,
attractive and otherwise very nice, which kind of clashes with my previous stated
experience. Before I go on, I should mention that 3 of my grandchildren are half
Philippino, and fit this latter description - the 2 that are in school are straight
A students and very well mannered and polite (hope that survives the peer pressure).
The littlest one will start kindergarten next year and can read quite well already,
can count to a hundred and knows how to add simple numbers. Anyway, I suspect there
are good and bad elements in any society, but I found the Philippinos with whom I
personally had contact to be wonderful people. I got a big kick out of the Negritos
that assisted with the survival training. They were also extremely polite, talented
and intelligent, which I found somewhat surprising among a people that haven't
figured out what to do with clothing - well they sure didn't wear much anyway.
As a pilot, I was certainly aware of Huk Mountain, although the mountains and ridge
line closer to the base were more of a flight hazard than Huk Mt. I think those must
have been the mountains we went to for the field portion of our survival school.
I've never eaten so much in my life as I did in that jungle. If I ever have to
survive in the wild somewhere, I want it to be a place like the PI jungles - lots to
eat and drink, no poisonous snakes (plenty of rats though) or other dangerous
wildlife. I found it somewhat hard to sleep in the jungle because of the rats
running around making noise - although, they didn't seem to bother anyone directly.
I also discovered there are little mushrooms in the PI that glow in the dark. I
thought there were 2 eyes looking at me at one point when I was trying to sleep, but
they turned out to be tiny mushrooms that glow in the dark.
The jungle survival was a very "pleasant" experience compared to other survival
schools I've attended. The Negritos were very good instructors too - of course they
were mostly teaching us about their "backyard". I thought that the technique of
cooking in sections of bamboo stalks was a real neat trick. I hadn't realized that
disposable cookware and dinnerware have been around for thousands of years. The
foraged stuff was very tasty too. I suppose where we were was either on or near
Pinatubo and is "gone" now. I know the CH-34's had trouble hovering where they
dropped us off, so we were fairly high up for a while. There was a major mudslide
not too long after I attended that school in which some US military were either
killed or injured. I don't recall much about the accounts.
Now the urban legend stuff. Have you heard the one about the AF guy that sold his
car to the mayor of a nearby town and got a bum check in payment? He supposedly
stole the car back and with some help from friends, painted it a different color in
the hobby shop and shipped it back to the states, while the city police searched all
over the base for it. The story always seemed fishy to me.
How about the fire truck that was stolen at Clark and turned up in the Manilla fire
dept? It was supposedly driven right off the base with the lights and sirens
blaring, was painted yellow to match the Manilla dept equipment, and sold to them.
Another fish tale?
How about ILS (instrument landing system) equipment being stolen from the runway
area, and being sold back to the Air Force at a price cheaper than acquiring a new
one from the states?
Here's one I know is true. An Air Force Air Police horse threw it's rider and ran
across a runway in front of a C-141 that had just landed. The 141 was still doing
about 100 knots. I saw the damage to the left main gear - tore it up pretty badly,
but the horse fared much worse.
One final story. Supposedly a new base commander didn't trust the Negrito perimeter
guards and essentially fired them all from perimeter guard duty. The morning after
they were fired, the US guards all came in from perimeter guard duty with a white X
painted on their boot(s?). So the Negritos were then supposedly re-hired. Although
the story may not be true, I've know a couple base commanders that might have been
capable of such a thing.
What was the little club annex up the hill from the main O club? I ate there several
times and seem to recall the food was pretty good there. We used to stage C-141's
thru Clark. There was a lot of C-141 traffic then, so we rarely stayed more than 15
hours. But I was getting in there 4 to 6 times a month for a while. Once in a while
the VOQ was full and we stayed in town in a hotel that had a high wall, a gate and a
guard with an automatic weapon. I recall that the water there was not potable; we
ate and drank on the base. I don't recall eating anywhere in town.
I never rode in one of the jeepneys, (sp?) but I saw plenty of them. I was real
surprised to see, in one case at least, that the chrome ornamentation was done on a
piece of a tin can. I guess you can chrome almost anything. I also recall that the
singer in one of the little bands at the O Club spoke english with a strong
tagalog(?) accent, but sang american songs with perfect diction. He was very good at
imitating records, but didn't seem to transfer the accent to his speech. Seemed odd
to me. You mentioned paintings and other art. I still have a large oil painting,
supposedly of Cebu, hanging here. It was cheap (maybe $20?), but I still think it is
great. It's just a picture of the ocean breaking over a rocky coast. Very soothing.
I also have lots of wood carvings and a few other smaller paintings.
That's enough rambling for now. It was enjoyable to try to recall some odds and ends
from 40 years ago.
Chuck
Bob Saville wrote:
> PigIron wrote:
> >
> > On Thu, 14 May 1998 12:33:03 -0700, Bob Saville <bo...@efn.org> wrote:
> >
> Snipped to save electrons.