Ron, I may have run across that Lt. Col. at Mary Lou myself... yes, quite a character. We had just gotten into a real shoot out with AA guns and everything, but for some reason our chase ship had the coordinates wrong. When we went back to Mary Lou for the debrief, the coordinates he showed were known to be our own troops so the Lt. Col. was just livid (understandably). He was asking me to point out on the map where we were and I told him I don't have a clue since I don't see much from on the deck.. I just call the marks and watch for bad guys.. I leave it to the chase ship to read the map. I just knew we were flying into a mess... I think the ships I was flying in were from the group that called themselves "the Buccaneers" and had skull and cross bones logos. They were known to be pretty fearless, but in the face of 12.5 mm guns from all sides decided to call in the big guns, if we could figure out where they were. The Lt. Col made us go out again and find the place by visual recconaisance. We did and discovered we were about a klick into Cambodia so couldn't bring in air strikes! Now that was maddening... a long day too.

Oh, and the next time I saw him was Christmas '68. We snooped around Khontum to uncover a pre-ceasefire attack on the city (we did, but that's another story)... my commanding officer (Capt. Ross) sent a Loach up to Mary Lou on Christmas Day to take me to Dak To so I wouldn't be with strangers on Christmas (I'd spent about 3mo in Dak To before I became the only Snoopy and started travelling a lot). Anyway, in those days Loaches were considered VIP transportation and the Lt. Col. was obviously envious that a mere Sp4 would get such treatment! I kind of enjoyed it. I didn't know at the time that my mission would evolve to be predominantly flown in Loaches soon after.