Monday, September 13, 2021

Situation Awareness---Act on it!

 Murph has posted a couple of post-Ida stories over the last few days.  He's always had pretty good posts over the last several years, (even if they have been getting fewer and farther between-hint, hint) with a lot of good thoughts and stories.  If you haven't read him, you should.

In any case, his last few posts have been about the situation in the New Orleans area after the hurricane.  He made the decision early to ride the storm out and then proceeded to act on that decision, procuring the  necessary supplies (food, water, fuel, protection (not that he needed much of the latter) etc.) before the crowd went berserk.  As such, he successfully rode out the storm and was in a position post storm to help others not so lucky or not so ready.

Good on ya', Murph!  This post is about another couple of examples of good SA, if for no other reason than the participants are still alive and kickin'.

For purposes of this post, let's use Wikipedia's definition of Situational Awareness.

"Situational awareness or situation awareness is the perception of environmental elements and events with respect to time or space, the comprehension of their meaning, and the projection of their future status." Emphasis mine.

 

As many of you know, Mrs Juvat and I have a couple of guest houses on our property.  One is being used by our DIL to quarantine their dog Tex in preparation for a move to Hong Kong. The other we advertise on AirBnB and VRBO for short term rental.  It has been fairly regularly occupied so far this year, in the 70-80% range. Yay us!

But, because school has started back up in Texas (Yay, Gov Abbott!), during the week occupancies have slowed a bit.

In any case, it's Sunday, Aug 29th and we're stripping the beds and washing sheets, when Mrs J's phone gives the VRBO ding.  She looks at it and it's a reservation request.  She opens it up and it's for that night.  We've done quick turns before, but we've always known about it before that day.  In the request, the people said they were evacuating New Orleans and wouldn't be arriving until 10PM.

Ahh, No Sweat, plenty of time.  Usually, it only takes us an hour or so to turn it.  We approved the request.  Get up the next morning and take the dogs for a walk, happen to notice our guests on the porch, so we go over and introduce ourselves and ask if they need anything.  We get to chatting and I asked what time they'd gotten in. (We didn't see their vehicle parked when we hit the rack at about 10.)  They said about 2AM, I asked when they'd left New Orleans. About 7AM.  

19 hours!

Source


They were a younger couple, early 30's I'd say. Very nice.  He had EMT plates on his car and I asked him about that. He said that an EMT certification was required for what he did.  He's a Dive Medic for an oil company and works on the drill rigs in the gulf, providing medical assistance if needed to divers in the water.  They were an interesting and friendly couple and we talked for quite a while.  

I finally asked what prompted them to leave and why relatively late in the process.  He said they had originally planned to wait it out and had all the supplies and stuff they were likely to need to do so.  However, the last few hours before they left, they started getting an uneasy feeling about "things".  Nothing they could actually put a finger on, but things were different.  Different people in the neighborhood, strange phone calls with people hanging up when they answered, just strange.  Both of them had picked up the same vibes separately. Somehow it came up in conversation and they both said they thought the neighborhood was being cased for looting.

And that my friends, is a very good "real life" definition of Situation Awareness. That's the first part of the process. The second is acting on it.

So they loaded up their valuables, supplies, extra gas and food and their pets and left.  Took them awhile, but...they made it to safety.

Did they need to leave?  Who knows?  Could they have stayed? Again, who knows.  The only thing that matters is they're alive and safe now.

They stayed for the 3 nights we had open. Rented a climate controlled storage unit in town, parked much of their good stuff and a car in it and are going to spend the next week or two touring the west until things calm down and recover in New Orleans.

Sounds like a plan.

So...There I was* (and I may have told this story before, but that was pre-Beans, so here goes)

I'm a newly qualified Eagle Driver stationed at Kadena.  We've deployed down to Clark for Cope Thunder.  I'm only a wingman, so my duties are pretty easy. Fly formation, stay off the radio (except for "two", "Mayday" or "Lead you're on fire") so I don't have a lot of mission prep planning to do for the next day's morning go.

I decide I'm going to go shopping in downtown Angeles City.  Mrs J had given me a long list of items that she'd like me to pick up for her as well as gifts for the family, and the PI was the place to do that.

It's Oct 29, 1987, I take a taxi from Chamber's Hall (the visiting officers quarters (VOQ) for Clark) to the main gate.  The shopping district starts on the other side of the street.  Start making my way down the street and it's the usual PI routine.  Vendors coming up asking what I'm looking for, promising the lowest prices for the highest quality.  I work my way through them fairly quickly as the shop I want to get to is on the other end of the road, probably a quarter mile.  Lots of traffic on the streets and sidewalks.

AKA normal Angeles City activity.

Substitute Day for dusk and this is essentially what it looked like
Source

I get to the shop, say hello to the proprietor, and spend some time looking at the things she's showing me from Mrs J's list, haggling a bit, buying most.  Maybe half an hour has past.  Done shopping with a large bag of goodies in hand, I step back outside and start heading for the main gate.  I've gone about half a block when I get a nagging feeling that something's very wrong.  There are not anywhere near the same amount of people or traffic on the street as there was when I left the base. Also, the people that I did see seemed to be in a very big hurry to get somewhere.

It didn't take me a second to realize that I needed to be elsewhere. I ducked into the next store, walked to the back of the store, and sat down on the floor.  It was a Ladies Lingerie store.  Sat there for about 10 minutes then heard some sirens and the sound of a tracked vehicle going down the street, another 5 minutes or so, the Lady who owned the shop came to where I was seated and said "You can go now, the police have secured the area." I thanked her, dropped a $20 on the counter (for taking up valuable floor space), and hot footed it back to the base.

Asked the Security Policemen what had happened, after he VERY carefully checked my ID before letting me in.  He said that three Americans had been killed less than a half mile from where I'd done my shopping.

That night, at the Club whilst sipping on a medicinal Scotch, I came to believe that my Guardian Angel didn't want to go through Eternity being heckled by the other Angels as the one that didn't protect his assigned Fighter Pilot from being assassinated in a Lady's Lingerie store, so gave me a little heads up.  

I whispered a "Thank You!"

Turns out that one of the guys that had been in my squadron from Moody and now assigned to Clark, had been driving home from Clark and approached the normal checkpoint for his housing area when his SA alarms started going off.  He recognized none of the armed guards and their uniforms were "not quite right." He decided that discretion was the better part of valor and that it would be better to apologize the next day for being wrong than to be dead.  (Simple and inarguable logic there.) So, he floored his Camaro and leaned over into the passenger seat and ran the gate.  Turns out his instincts were right.  A communist "sparrow" (hit squad) had killed the guards and were going to kill any Americans that came through the check point.

He was the captain mentioned in the article I linked to a couple of paragraphs above.

Situational Awareness, if something doesn't seem right, act as if it isn't right. The worst that can happen is you act slightly foolish. Failure to act can be much worse.

Peace out, y'all.



53 comments:

  1. Ya....that gut feeling, pay attention to it and keep your eyes open with 360 degree scanning. My AO features tornadoes and blizzards though the latter will bog down movement as well as utility restoration. Good heads up there juvat, you're still around to impart your accumulated knowledge/wisdom to the rest of us...........:)

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    1. Thanks, Nylon. Haven't experienced a tornado lately, but a blizzard this year knocked us on our butt. Managed to fumble through without too much trouble though. Not a big fan of Ranch Style Beans as much any more though. ;-)

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  2. Juvat - I would think that for many people they have let this aspect of their lives/brains/spirit atrophy, if for no other reason than "we live in a modern world now", and that kind of thing is not needed (much more useful when we were primitives, of course).

    In Iai - as in other material arts - we spend a fair amount of time discussing zanshin, awareness and alertness of your surroundings and potential adversaries (Iaijutsu being the art of drawing the sword quickly, we are effectively to always be ready).

    It is true of many things as well - most dramatically and significantly in those of yourself and your guests, but even in mundane things like job security or sudden changes in how things work in people groups. I do not wonder if part of it is related to the fact that over time, our relationships and interactions build up patterns. Changes are usually preceded by subtle (or not so subtle) changes in the pattern; most will simply ignore it or not even notice it. Too often people just put it too the side; only a few pay attention and act on it.

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    1. TB,
      It may very well have atrophied, but I'm beginning to think it's going to be more and more important to hone those skills nowadays.

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  3. These days, the SA is best when applied to Official Government Personnel...

    Never forget President Reagan's immortal words!

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    1. MM,
      “I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.” No thanks, Joe, don't need your help, just stay out of my way.

      Oh and by the way...FJB!

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    2. That last? It's sweeping college campuses. The same ones that thought OMB was literally Hitler. Oh, the fickle winds of Fate.

      When you've lost the college crowd, you're doing socialism wrong...

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    3. Yeah, I've been feeling in the dumps for a while, but there's been a lot of indicators lately that things aren't going as swimmingly as the asses (the formal name for donkeys and perfectly descriptive of FJB) were expecting. So, my optimistic side is perking back up a bit. We'll see.

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  4. If there is any doubt, there is no doubt. Trust your gut.

    I didn't have that kind of upbringing. But my wife did. She was raised in a demon's playground. She was tuned into everything. She taught me a lot.

    One night, in a rice field in La Feria about 2300 hrs, I was tuning a repeater, and verifying that it was running like it should. I got the skin crawls around my neck. Then my hair started standing on end. No reason that I could figure, it just did. I picked up about $20G's worth of equipment and dumped it in the seat, locked the bunker door, and beat feat out. I didn't lock the gate, I just blew away... Never found out why that happened, but I trusted the feeling. Four miles north of the Rio Grande, who knows....

    That hasn't been the only time I've had the gut warning and trusted it. But I'd rather be a little embarrassed about the stampede, than dead or injured.

    We even taught our kids that if uncle Zippo makes you feel uncomfortable, you don't have to hug him. I didn't want to blunt the gut by forcing them to override their warning system... YMMV

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    1. STxAR,
      Sounds like you made a good decision that night. The hard part is not second guessing yourself the following morning. But, you're right, better to be a tad embarrassed than other, worse, outcomes.

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  5. This is right on, done the same myself (in Italy, no less). BTW: At least in the USN, wingman can say:"Two's up, Leader you're on fire, and I'll take the fat broad". Cheers!!

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    1. Commies gotta commie, no matter where they are. PI, Italy, DC....Just sayin'

      I had heard that about the Navy wingmen though.
      ;-)

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  6. SA keeps me from drining in Chicago …or even near it, whenever possible.
    Now I am adding other places to the list.
    It is mostly due to the lack of SA on other’s parts that makes driving dangerous.
    I suppose I could crank on about it but nobody needs the grief.

    MySa goes up, too, whenever I see LE with long guns, or troops in a metro area.

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    1. Skip, I suppose your first sentence is all inclusive about things not to do in Chicago. Neither Driving, Dining, nor Drinking are advisable. 😁 The list of places where that is true is expanding at near light speed, unfortunately.

      Re: long guns...Yup!

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  7. I've got a "little voice" that occasionally talks to me. I've learned over the years to listen when it speaks. One of the times it spoke was when we were recovering a helo on the Forrestal in 87. Air Boss called "Red Lion LSE Spot 3". I came up the steps when the voice spoke and I stopped and blocked the guys behind me, just as an A-6 boltered passing through where we would have been.

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    1. Jim,
      Gotta trust the "little voice" when it speaks. Sometimes it speaks about little things, other times....

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  8. juvat/

    OT, but did you ever check w. your Doc about Tumeric as a no-side-effect anti-inflamatory post op? Inquiring minds and all that. Status report MISTER!! :)

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    1. I've got my regularly scheduled check up two weeks from today. Lab work next Monday. Gonna ask him then.

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  9. I remember that incident outside Clark, didn't know that there had been three killed.

    Two guys from Kunsan were also murdered outside Clark in 1990.

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    1. That happened shortly after I PCS'd, but I remember that also.

      I take it you made it back home safe and sound?

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    2. Yes, taking a day off to recover. A very long ten days!

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    3. Yeah, but it sounds like it was better than the last trip.

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  10. That's solid advice. If something with the situation doesn't feel right then it's not right and act accordingly.

    As to turmeric, my ortho doc basically said "I can't tell you it really works, can't say it doesn't, and YMMV so it's up to you to try it if you want". Tried the Quinol liquid turmeric (good stuff refined and has the black pepper extract already added) and I think it helped with inflammation and pain (or it was a placebo effect - YMMV) only side effect from usage was sweat that cause orange-ish stains sometimes. As always YMMV.

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    1. Sweating? In Texas? Nah!!!! And Orange Sweat? Somebodies (E.G. Little J, MBD, SIL, DIL) might take umbrage at that being A&M grads and all, thinking I went all UT fan on them. That having been said, I'll still talk it over with the Doc.

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    2. My mom overdosed on carrots and turned herself orange. Funny hahahaha but it can happen.

      Could be worse, you could OD on tumeric or carrots while using wode and you'd be rooting for the (hwack-sptoooi) Gators (shudder...)

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    3. Very slight orange stains, generally after a strenuous workout and hard to notice but if I wiped with a white towel hard, it would appear. Definitely talk it over with your Doc to make sure it doesn't interact with anything else and if he thinks its advisable or not. May your surgery be 100% successful and your recovery fast and as painless as possible.

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    4. Beans,
      Wode?
      Note to self, don't use Turmeric to season Carrots. Got It!

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    5. Aaron,
      Mrs J and I have been doing two-a-day's walking for several month's now. First thing in the morning with the dogs for about a mile. Later in the afternoon, for another mile to mile and a half or so. Get back home and it's at least a quart of water down the hatch. Clothes sopping wet, so a cool shower and change before dinner. Sweaty? Check!
      On the other hand, my Levi's are 4 sizes smaller and the scale doesn't scream (as much) when I step on it.

      Thanks.

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    6. Sorry, I forgot, not a lot of Celtic-loving weirdos here.

      Wode, also Woad - a blue pigment from plants that the ancient Celts used as warpaint.

      In the movie "Braveheart," it's the blue paint on Mel Gibson's face. Which, like the kilts, was historically inaccurate, wode being early and kilts too late. Other than that, and a whole lot more, it's still a good movie.

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    7. Ahhh, I see (said the blind man as he picked up his hammer and saw).

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  11. Always good to be reminded about "that little voice in the back of your head", it's real.

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  12. Ah, situational awareness. There are days when I get ready to go somewhere and either Mrs. Andrew or I say "Copulate it" and we don't go. Just, you know, you get that feeling. And due to the rather piss-poor reporting in the local scandal rag or on the local not-news channel, we rarely find out what happened between here and where we were planning on going.

    Though a couple times, look at the weather on-line, clear, open the door and look at the weather visually (because WEATHERGUESSERS SUCK,) clear, and still get that feeling. Say nope, or rush the dog through his walkies and get home and "BADABOOOOOM" and "WHOOOSH" and "SPLOOOSH" as God's Artillery opens up and God drops a chunk of water on us. It happens.

    Then there's the weird creepers in my new neighborhood. You get the feeling that the shadow over there isn't right, and so me and doggo go a different direction.

    Then there's the local child sexual predator (supposedly reformed, but Peter Grant over at Bayeau Renaissance Man and any other people who've worked in the criminal justice system will tell you, no, never reformed, they're wired just wrong) whom Kegan the wonder dog has taken a severe disliking to. This is a dog that gets along with the couple crazy women in the neighborhood, you know, the ones that have fried their brains using drugs, but are otherwise harmless. But creepy LCSP? Kegan will look at his door and start growling, and will actively bark and snarl if he sees the dude. This is a dog that just doesn't snarl and bark. Yeah, glad I don't have little kids.

    And I really wish Florida would finally go Constitutional Carry. Just saying. Be nice to be strapped when I'm walking the dog. Whether concealed or open, would be nice. But, no, the RINOS in the Broward and Miami area keep blocking that particular expression of freedom.

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    1. Well, one of the side benefits of being a pilot (other than it's funner than anything than most anything else on earth other tnan that C word you used above), is you learn a lot about weather. So, I don't much listen to weather reports. The Weather radar app and the weather data app on my phone as well as my Mk1 eyeball of current situation keeps me pretty well out of trouble weather wise.

      As I'm sure you're aware, Texas went Constitutional Carry recently. Surprisingly, I haven't noticed much difference in the number of people I see openly carrying. I have however, noticed an increase in people I'm reasonably certain are carrying concealed. Haven't seen any of those that looked like I needed to be concerned they were carrying though.

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  13. When I first read that you got a sudden reservation, I was worried that locusts were descending upon your land. Glad it didn't happen and they were good people. Always good to network with good people.

    As to Murphy, he made several critical mistakes that almost got him into a world of hurt. Biggest one was letting neighbors who were not part of his circle of total-trust use his genny to charge their cell phones. And the word got out around the neighborhood. And he kept a genny running while away from his house. Another no-no.

    Otherwise I like how he got some serious preps for the next rodeo. (which means go read his adventures, especially the last, and read the comments also.)

    If'n I had the money, as much as I don't like solar etc, I'd be putting a Tesla Powerwall up and some solars so I don't have to run a noisy gen set. Of course, if'n I had the money, I'd be living in the country probably in a fortified semi-burried bunker house (that I've been planning in my head for, what, 20 years? Partially made of box culverts with some custom concrete pieces... but concrete, 4' above the 100 year flood level at least, kind of like what Disney did at Disneyworld (built up the land, built a concrete basement, built the park on top of said huge concrete basement... No, really, and the basement is rated for a near hit by a nuke...)

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    1. Yeah, I think our next big purchase for the Rancho is a natural gas powered generator. Once that's in, Mrs J wants to go solar, so that's probably in the Next FY Budget. I would say we're pretty safe from flooding, unless the Lord sends another Noah-esque flood, of course. It's a little late for a basement, but we do have a couple of interior, no window rooms, so...

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    2. Always good to have multiple backups.

      As to a storm shelter, there are plans on the interwebs for using a box culvert with two end walls, one with a door, that make a decidedly great storm shelter. Or a 10' shipping container (if properly strapped down.)

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    3. It's off to the interwebs I go (Iago?)

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  14. SA is always a good idea, as is occasionally changing travel routes!

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    1. Yes, and it also allows for a change of scenery.

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  15. My wife has some sort of internal SA that just seems to come up sometimes. After she had a really weird feeling about a guy her sister was engaged to, I had a LEO friend check him out. Turns out he was a convicted felon who had beat up one witness and threatened another. Obviously, we listen to her SA alert system when it goes off.

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    1. With SA, it's ok to be wrong, so be subtle. However, act anyway. Glad that works out for your sister-in-law.

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    2. She married him anyway, then got beat up in week 2. Took 5 years to find him and get divorced.

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  16. And now SA has become a requirement for living in large cities here in the US. I'm always "Condition Yellow" when I step outside, but these days I listen carefully to my spidey sense when it says somethin' ain't right....

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    1. I'm thinking SA had been a requirement in large cities for quite a while. I have to travel to several large cities in Texas to visit family. The transition to condition yellow happens at Dripping Springs/Boerne depending it I'm going to Austin or San Antonio, fades a bit until I reach Houston, then it's orange-red.
      Which pretty much describes, why I don't visit those places very much.

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    2. Yeah, "that feeling" is a result of our brain subconsciously pattern matching what our senses are taking in while our conscious brain hasn't registered anything amisss yet. Part of that is evolutionary lessons learned that are stored in our "lizard brain", and some of it is a result of matching learned experiences that we haven't thought about directly but are still in the subconscious. Always, ALWAYS pay attention to those little voices. Don't rationalize them away in order to be polite - "Oh I'm sure those two gentlemen walking toward me on the dark street don't mean any harm". Read Gavin deBecker's "Gift of Fear" for a good discussion on all this.
      As far as the color codes go, here's a link to Col. Jeff Cooper giving a lecture about them - he's generally credited with popularizing the color codes and applying them to self protection applications. Note that he positions them as mental preparedness, not just situational awareness.
      https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=id6x3CP6SVE
      Keep up your mental preparedness and awareness to avoid as many fights as you can (optimal solution since you're guaranteed to win the fights you avoid) and if you can't avoid them, buy time to be as prepared as possible to win them.

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    3. Good points Tom and thanks for the vid. I think I'd reword your last. ...Optimal solution since you're guaranteed not to lose fights you avoid...

      Minor quibble.

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  17. I remember these events. Was on Okinawa from 83-90. Many trips down to the PI.
    A friend and I ran a "check point" between Subic and Clark in 86.
    Ah, yes. The good ol' days.

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    1. In spite of the commies, I always enjoyed deploying to the PI. Flying was good as was the weather (usually) and, except for the commies, the people were friendly. So...yes, the good ol' days.

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Just be polite... that's all I ask. (For Buck)
Can't be nice, go somewhere else...

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