HOM: Flying High

I finally got some airline memories sorted out. ---------- When I took the unexpected trip home from Vietnam for the basket leave & surprised my folks, I basically hitch-hiked the airways. It was too late to get reservations. I got a seat on a commercial flight from Cam Ranh to Honolulu. When I checked in there and asked about a flight to the states, the lady in Dispatch sent me off across the runways on a dead run to an Air Force cargo plane that was getting ready to take off for the States. They held the plane till I got aboard, and then I had the strangest flight of my life. It was an old prop-jet that lumbered along at low altitude. I rode in the cargo bay, sitting on the pipe-and-canvas benches that ran along the sides of the bay. You could look just about any place and see daylight through crevices and pinholes in the skin of the plane, and when it was bouncy, all you could do was hang on to the pipes. It was a long trip and I was glad when we landed. ---------- When I left the Crockett and flew out of Guam for the states it was on a commercial flight into San Francisco. Smitty, the Black storekeeper, was a fellow passenger. His tour was up. I always thought he was a stand-up guy, but at the airport in the states I had to run around a bit to get a flight to San Diego and asked him to watch my bags while I did. He said he would, but when I got my ticket and looked for him, he was long gone. Luckily, my bags were still there. When I checked them into the airline baggage for the next flight, my luck ran out. I didn't see my seabag again for close to a year. TBC (Me) (Home)