Subject: Re: stuff
From: "Kay Price" <[email-masked]>
To: "Jim Kirchstein" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 31 May 2011 23:05:39 -0500

I can understand now why you are feeling you don't want to take that trip to D.C. Many of these memories are best forgotten. The worst is to realize that lives were lost that were due to mistakes made by our men. A reality of all wars but still very hard to digest. IF ONLY is a big factor in our psyche. 

I am off to take my 93 year old friend and a cousin to lunch and for a ride tomorrow. Then have mediation and a doctors appointment on Thursday. The days seem to rush by. May is over already! The first hint of a summer is arriving.
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Jim Kirchstein 
  To: Kay Price 
  Sent: Tuesday, May 31, 2011 12:33 PM
  Subject: stuff

  Dear Priceless (aka Greg's Ex)...

  Your email on the WW11 schedule was in my junk mail and lost when I transferred it to be accepted (nothing personal). Please resend.

  Thanks for the memorial day thanks...
      I am so pleased Jim Nelson got to go on the honor trip. He deserved it.  The guys on the ground took a real beating.
  (CONFIDENTIALLY)  I don't feel right about going myself. I was in VP 40 squadron, sub hunters (ASW). One of our planes was attacked by two MIGs in 1952 when our crew emptied their guns into the clouds which was procedure since the aircraft was getting ready to land and no ammo was to be in the guns. The MIGs thought they were being shot at and fired on one of our aircraft, hitting a battery which exploded and decapitated a crew member. I was not in that ship.  That's the closest I got to actual combat, but there were many accidents.  Another VP40 aircraft (skipper and crew) hit a mountain in the Philippines, killing all aboard. The guys that had to go up there and bring the bodies back were never the same. Another skipper tried to roll one of the aircraft and ended up upside-down in San Diego bay. killing all aboard.  The squadron VP40 relieved (VP 739) lost all but one aircraft (out of 12 in a squadron) by accidents without heavy loss of life. One of my best friends was killed accidentally just before getting mustard out.
  On no moon nights, flying night patrols was like flying in a black hole and one had to do all one could to keep from vertigo....believing in the instruments.  The average patrol was 10 hours and the food was good, a rarity for Navy food.  Aside of piloting, I did crew jobs such as operating the radio, the radar, and navigating.
  Although I signed up (and was accepted) as a NavCad, a 10 year required time, the Navy (after the truce was signed in 1953), let me out early so we could attend school under the GI bill. I was elated....to go to UW Madison with all morning classes so I could work for the folks in the afternoons...up at 5am...home at noon. I sat in the front roll to get as much info as possible since I had no study time except for an hour or so each evening. There were no parades and I didn't expect any..it was time to put those four years behind me. I wouldn't trade those years for any, but would not like to do them again. 
  At UW, I ended with a 3.0 grade point, straight A in four semesters of calculus, thanks to Ms. Beckerleg in high school, and had my BSEE in 3 1/2 years, allowing an extra six months in grad school with GI benefits which included $160/month, a tidy figure for those times. And thanks to Karl Ganzlin, who gave me a passing grade even tho I turned in the final exam after 5 minutes, telling him I didn't know what was being asked, I was accepted into the UW which required high school English.

  See ya'