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April 3, 1966 My Darling: Today, I flew on one of our first operational missions. Nothing hard really, but after we had been gone only 5 hours I was whipped. It is a struggle to simply fly in the heat and the dust. The carrying of personnel, armor, survival gear, canteen, helmet, maps and etc. into the cockpit, over and around the "Iron Maiden" exhausts one completely. The "Iron Maiden" is an armor sheath that locks over the body after entrance into the seat. Opened, it makes cockpit entrance almost impossible. Once closed, it makes availability of circuit breakers (and we have hundreds above, below, on back on all sides) switches, levers and so on many times impossible. It would preclude the fast-- or even slow exit from the aircraft in the event of a crash. Yet, it is designed to protect the vital body organs from at least a .30 caliber round. I will wear it closed on a combat assault for sure, but the rest of the time, to hell with it. I fly with it open. Today was a typical ash & trash haul up to Lai Khe--only a short flight from here. We hauled Connex containers and our total haul today was 32,070 LBs, 13 passengers, 12 sorties and one internal load of lumber that damned near ruined the whole aircraft. At the end of the day we had 4 major write-ups in the log book for the maintenance people, had almost crushed our crew chief and were groggy from the radio noise. Radio! My God! There are so many radio transmissions going on all the time that my mind was reeling from them. Everywhere we fly we have to dodge our own artillery and the job of finding a landing zone becomes a major life-or-death matter trying to sneak through our own fire-- especially with radios that quit working at the most crucial moment. Since we have only now become operational, many things have to be ironed out--for months to come, before we can get things down pat. By the time we had shut down for the last time today, I had learned a lifetime of experience and was drenched with sweat and dust until it hurt to close my eyes--for the dirt in them. Yet, it remains a war of contrasts. I went to the mess tent and picked out two steaks to grill myself( a regular Sunday night affair) and had a dinner that would have cost $12.00 back in the States. I was too tired to eat it later and came here to the tent to watch the floor for an hour and smoke cigarettes.... You wrote and asked if there was a safe place at all in Vietnam. No darling, there isn't anywhere at all. I'm safer here than I am with 4 people in a jeep in Saigon. The men down in the motor pool are on the crucial edge of our perimeter and even though we get shot at on final approach into the airstrip, I would rather have that than sleep down by the trucks at night. Sweetheart, I'm too tired to write another line. I'll sleep this night.
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