Go Navy..no, really…Goooo Navy
It’s autumn and that means all kinds of good things depending on where you live. Some things are universal like Halloween, Thanksgiving, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur and the most famous of all FOOTBALL SATURDAYS. No matter what city or state you live in, crowds gather at the stadium, a favorite sports bar or a living room to watch The Game.
Watching the game is a ritual just as surely as preparing for any of the aforementioned holidays. Going to the game at the stadium? You have to put on a silly hat or other garment, paint your entire body the team’s colors and make a fool of yourself if the camera happens to catch you during the game. But wait. There’s more. What about the hours before the gates open for you to go to your seat? Did you drive your multi-gazillion dollar motor home to the parking lot, pull out your custom made gas grill that resembles a football, locomotive, team mascot or some other custom item that cost multi-dollars? Doesn’t matter if you went to the school or not. You are a rabid fan. The school, the vendors, the hat, tee-shirt, jersey, cap and banner salesmen love you.
But what about those who can’t attend the game or can’t even watch it live on television? I’m talking about the men and women in uniform. With apologies to those in boots now, I’m mostly talking about those of us who were in Viet Nam. We could occasionally hear a game on AFVN, the Armed Forces Viet Nam radio network, but they were mostly professional games. If you wanted to know a score or anything about your college it came the next day on a news broadcast. There was one exception and that was the annual Army/Navy football game.
In some of the more civilized places where the military was stationed, not only in Viet Nam but world-wide, it was broadcast live on the radio. Officer’s clubs throughout the world filled, depending on the local time zone. A note here. Nobody in uniform wanted to start drinking before the day began and always stopped at midnight so they would be ready for the next day, but I digress as I sometimes do.
When I think of autumn, I remember a particular Saturday when I was in Viet Nam. I was an Advisor to a local Vietnamese unit and lived on an outpost with my five man team. We were on an operation and heard the sound of a plane approaching. We looked up and saw what was known as a Black Pony. This was a type of aircraft that was used for bombing missions in our area. We usually knew when a mission was scheduled so I did not pay much attention to the plane until it began to fly lower over us. My fear was that the pilot thought we were the bad guys and would drop a bomb on us. If it was a planned mission they usually made a pass, dropped leaflets telling the locals to hunker down and giving the bad guy time to unass the area. They would then follow up in short order with bombs, not giving either group time to comply.
As he passed over us, it looked like a snowstorm as leaflets floated to the ground. We knew what was coming, so I told my sergeant to get on the radio and let them know we were friendlies…at least until he made the bombing run then we would take it personal.
While he was trying to reach the Navy who flew the Black Pony’s, I managed to grab one of the leaflets. Normally they were only printed in Vietnamese, but occasionally they also included an English translation. The one I held needed no translation. As I read it, the plane did a wing-waggle and flew away.
I was holding a leaflet that said GO NAVY! BEAT ARMY. The plane left before we could shoot it down.
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