I got to the Garden in June of '72, we had scraped out a flat spot with a dozer and

Started putting up tents. Our first shirt was a grunt and had no respect for us

"Flying Marines" he would work our fannies off. So we turn to all day and went flying

at night into early morning.

 

I'm sure you guys remember all the odd hours we would launch.... After an all day grind of tent building ,

we got called up to the flight line to get briefed for that nights mission. I didn't mind 

I was a 1st mech. on a tanker (KC-130-F) and the best part was the air condition cargo bay!

It was nice and crisp at 20,000 ft and I could catch some shut eye before we got busy.

This night should have been a typical 7-10 hour run but it turned into 28 hour adventure before we got back to Namphong.

Needless to say we were all beyond tired!

 

All I wanted to do is crash , we secured the bird, did a postflight and headed back to the tent.

We put the sides of the tent up during the day to get some much need air flow... it was hot!

I think somebody was burning some rope cause it sure did smell funny in there?

 

Anyway I sat down on  my rack to take off my boots. All of a sudden I heard this strange roar and

I looked out toward the road and couldn't believe my dead tried eyes

 

Four gray stumps with big ass toe nails, Yikes! I thought man I been awake way to long...

I think I'm hallucinating! I ran outside and there was a full-on elephant up close and personal.

The Thai riding the beast was just as  surprised to see me as I was to see him.

You could tell by the look on his face that he hadn't been in that part of  the bush in some time,

and was not ready for the changes he was seeing. He turned that big monster around and headed back to the jungle.

And then I went to sleep and didn't mention a thing about the Elephant until somebody else said they saw it too.