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A FOLLOW ON TO BOB MITCHELL'S 2004 BIRTHDAY REMEMBRANCE
by
Jeff Murray
Bandit & Wolf Pack 33
10/68 - 10/69

In mid 1969 Wolf Pack was once again assigned a Delta mission, this time to the garden spot of An Hoa.  The Bandits were to accompany us on this particular mission, but it was a 2 month Delta and Rat Pack had a turn as well.  I remember this one because it was the one where Phread gave a bunch of us a ride on a McGuire Rig, making sure he dunked us all in some river off the end of our "runway."  The Bandits were always fun to deploy with because they had one RLO who would have fit right in with the WOPA crowd, and that was Dave Mitchell.  He was always ready with a joke, was the first to the bar, taught me to drink CC & wa-wa (his words, not mine), and eventually ended up in my wedding.  Also on this particular An Hoa rotation I was introduced to another Mitchell, a real WO, but not anything like the original.  This one was rounder, a bit more somber, not near as agitatedly, and for some reason I did not see him in the bar as often.  He also was not in my wedding.  Zoom forward to 2004 and the somber one is one of the leaders of our august organization, always ready to lay in with an opinion designed to defuse a potentially volatile situation, and the vociferous one has retreated to somewhere in the bowels of Kansas, seldom venturing out despite the efforts of many.  Had you asked me years ago who would have been an instigator in resurrecting the camaraderie of the 281st some 35 years later I would not have mentioned MOP, but may have brought up Dave Mitchell's name.  Ain't it funny how time travels along, isn't it?

Jeff

From: Jeffrey Murray <tamu73@sbcglobal.net>

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