Shrapnel Today - Vietnam Yesterday

Well I did it.
And it basically blew up.

I was working diligently at my computer in my man cave. I reached (had a spasm?) for something and knocked over a heavy, empty water glass.

B-52 flies over Vietnam during
Operation Linebacker - October 1966

When it hit the tile floor it sort of exploded. A piece of shrapnel hit my ankle and left a cut. It was small and I didn't even notice it until sometime later.

But when I did, it reminded me of me of my time in Vietnam, back in the day...
Way, way back in the day...

We had landed at Ton Son Nhut airbase outside Saigon. I was stationed at Utapao Air Base Thailand and headed for Kadena, Okinawa. At the Air Force base there, I was to go through  physiological (altitude) chamber training so I could fly on a B-52 bombing mission.  We needed this training so we could survive high-altitude oxygen issues that might occur.

I was working in Intelligence at the time, building strike chart maps and radar predictions for bomb runs. We were supposed to take a B-52 flight as a form of orientation or motivation or something.  I was never quite clear on that but it seemed like an adventure so I was pumped up.  You know when you are 23 you are immortal so "what the hell" right?!

We were on the ground for maybe an hour dropping off and taking on passengers.  I was in harm's way there (okay, okay I wasn't really) but got out safely.

"Shrapnel," a random thing that was the norm in the days of the Vietnam war and tragically remains so today in places like Afghanistan and Syria.  It's not really funny as I originally intended this post. It is strange though...to be wandering all over the world without a whole lot of thought to that sort of thing then get zapped while sitting in your office chair.

Note: I did get one month's combat pay for that flight...$45 thanks to you, the taxpayers of America.