War Stories 45

[ikar]

I was talking to Mitch Mitchell before work one day and he asked me if I was going to show up at he Korat Kid's Karnival, a benefit they were putting on for the local orphanage. All, or most squadrons would be doing something there and he said I should look him up after work.

I grabbed some cassettes for my radio as usual and headed for the armory. All day long I was popping tapes into the radio and recording the event. At one point they started a contest of pay and listen to your song. When someone paid more than you, they could request a song until it was knocked off the air. All proceeds going to the kids. Before too long, the 16th S.O.S. requested "Riders in the Sky", their theme song. When another squadron knocked it out they would come back immediately with a different version. I have never heard so many different people do this song. At one point the 16th made a little speech about how they never have seamed to have ben accepted at Korat the way they were at Ubon and kept to themselves most of the time, and then dedicated a version to the crew of a Spectre that had been shot down.

I had felt that the attitude toward them by some squadrons was different somehow but didn't know what was going on. I had been sent to their barracks one day to do a report on some kind of an incident, but found them friendly enough, so up to that point I saw no problem with these guys as all.

As I'm listening to Mitch on the radio, he makes an announcement. He had just been informed that a gunship was on it's way back from Clark A.B. after some maintenance work and it was carrying some COORS beer. When it lands a armed escort will be bringing the beer to the Karnival where the bottles will be auctioned off one at a time with the money going to the orphanage.

A lot of money was taken it that day and the orphanage did well.

COORS, I believe, was on the banned list for some reason and ended up in a few cases going for almost 100.00 a bottle.

[Rich in name only]

Not banned--hard to get. Lots of planes had maintenance problems in the skys over Colorado back then. A few had flight plans that supported the idea that it was planned maintenance.

[Jinxter13]

COORS, I believe, was on the banned list for some reason and ended up in a few cases going for almost 100.00 a bottle.

If you could get your hands on a case or so of Coors, you could make a few dollars in "Thailand" .