www.marinecorpstimes.com
True story. The Colonel that I worked for at El Toro in the late 90's was a 46 pilot and had 2 tours in Vietnam in '68 and '72. I was helping him compile all of his flight records before he retired (which by the way were bleeding red from all of the combat flight hours) and we actually found the 46 he flew in country from his first tour. It was still part of an active duty squadron at New River. Freaking Marine Corps still flying a helicopter that was at least 30 years old.
HA! We were there same time frame (West Coast). I started out in Tustin and then El Toro. Deployed numerous times with different MEUs on an 18 month rotation seemed like every float some stuff was hitting the fan. Mogadishu, Somalia was one of the places I got to spend time just to paint a picture. Those PHROGS were awesome in my opinion. I believe the last one came off the line in early 70s. ALL of them had some kind of combat related repair done to them. Some of the most fun I ever had......
