Another piece of nostalgia... [PIC]

I don't know quite why I've been so nostalgic about my years in Thailand. After buying that EC-121 resurrected Lockheed Constellation I was so surprised to see in Khorat RTAFB in 1969, I also found these beautiful Hobby Master models of the shark-mouth F-105G "Wild Weasels" that I was in awe of their power and another F 100D Super Sabre given new life as a close air support craft. I just found this F4D Phantom ll "Mig Killer" that was based just northeast of the Bangkok city limits at Udorn RTAFB. I had a good friend I worked with in the mid '60s named Walter Kurznowski who was this gentle giant who couldn't hurt a fly. I always worried that after he got his PHD in, of all things, theoretical mathematics, he'd get drafted and God knows how that would work out. I couldn't see him surviving basic training. One day, I was sitting with my friend who was in charge of the 5th Field Hospital records when a roster list of incoming airmen to the Replacement Center at Udorn and to my delight, Walter managed to get into the Air Force. I was so relieved and decided to drive over there to meet him. At the northeast corner of Bangkok was Don Muang International Airport where our MAC flights would fly in and out of. In the very corner was a little compound that the CIA ran their missions in Laos (there's a whole story there). From there all the bus had to do was cross "Friendship Highway" (we built it), go over the railroad tracks and you're there. Before I could get to my car, the word came that the bus had stalled on the tracks and a train pretty much killed everyone on it. When I got out, I was consumed with the question of whether Walter's name would be on the Wall honoring the war dead. The other name was another friend of mine that the Army brass might has sent him to his death in Nam (a real tragic story). There were guys I knew that were sent to places we weren't supposed to be in that their deaths or severe combat injuries were glossed over or expunged from the records. We would get dead soldiers and CIA mercenaries at the hospital, put them in aluminum coffins with notations like "Traffic Accident - Remains Unviewable". I spent a drizzly afternoon at the Wall searching for their names... neither were on it. I felt bad for Walter... if it wasn't for that damned war, he'd be alive. The other guy... well, I hope he survived despite the odds. Here's the Hobby Master diecast Phantom ll. Their models are as good or better than any plastic kit I could build even at the height of my powers. I also got one of my favorite WWll aircraft, the SBD-3 Dauntless Dive Bomber in a rare 1/32 scale and it's just astounding in its detail. finish and operating parts... it's on the par with CMC. You can scroll down this forum to see the others.