Text 4629, 53 rader
Skriven 2010-02-05 06:24:36 av Bob Ackley (1:300/3)
   Kommentar till text 4488 av Ward Dossche (2:292/854)
Ärende: Britain -- England -- UK
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Replying to a message of Ward Dossche to Robert Bashe:

 RB>> I think I'd be a little more cautions in replying to
 RB>> someone who has actually been in Iraq and doesn't speak
 RB>> from heresay, as you do.

 WD> My barber has been on a trip to New York in 1975 ... he went
 WD> beyond Manhattan but not more than 100km.

 WD> To this day he showers me with his expert advice about
 WD> America though he has only been there once, in 1975 and
 WD> never left the state mentioned.

 WD> During that stay however, he most likely ventured further
 WD> away from his hotel-room than most US service-people will
 WD> ever get from their baracks in Iraq.

 WD> Is my barber therefore a credible source of information
 WD> since he's actually been in the US?

Interesting, I spent four months at Clark AB, Philippines, and went to
Angeles City precisely once, I spent less than two hours there.

I spent six years on Okinawa, and spent most of that time on US military
installations.  At the time being on Okinawa was almost like being in the
US, as it was owned by the US government.

I spent another year at Nakhon Phanom RTAFB in Thailand, and I left the base
precisely once, for perhaps four hours (other than the aircraft missions I flew
and
one 3-day TDY trip over to Udorn).  I don't count the (3) trips through
Bangkok,
although I spent a total of about four days in Bangkok, most of that time in
the
hotel I was staying in.

When I passed through Tokyo in 1969 (enroute back to Okinawa, layover in Tokyo
due to a typhoon near/on Okinawa itself) I spent the whole time (2+ days) in my
hotel room except for one walk around the block.  That walk was when I noticed
that one could not see the sun at high noon on a cloudless day, that the sky
was
a yellowish color and that my eyes burned the whole time I was outside the
hotel
building; the air pollution there was fierce.  I also noted that the AM radio
in the
hotel room had a button set to the AFRTS station at Yokota AB <g>.

I was a 'base rat,' and didn't live off-base until I got here in 1972 (and my
trailer
lot backed up against the base fence, so I wasn't that far off the base <g>).

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 * Origin: Bob's Boneyard, Emerson, Iowa (1:300/3)