Cleaning Nylon Flight Wear

[Deacon211]

Yes, the cleanliness of the Army helos (though they’d call them choppers) is surprising to me as well.

Not that all the services wouldn’t be constantly trying to keep the aircraft “serviceable” which would include a certain amount of keeping it clean. But I’ve always found the aviation environment, particularly in expeditionary circumstances, to be difficult to keep up with.

As for make work, I never got the impression that it existed to keep one’s thumb on the troops. But it was always regarded as a poor idea to let a Marine get bored. Bored servicemen think of home, get lonely, get angry, find sometimes unhealthy outlets for their rage, fear, boredom.

And in the entropy of field conditions there is always something that needs cleaning/servicing; from rifles to keep them shooting to latrines to fend off the disease that follows large groups of people around.


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[Peacoat]

I just realized this the other day. I was always stationed in warm climates and really had no need to much wear my flight jacket. For primary I was in Texas during the spring and summer, and in advanced I was in southern Alabama. Next I was in Vietnam which is more than a warm climate. Although it would get a bit chilly at night in the Central Highlands. Seldom if ever wore my flight jacket during flight.

After VN I was in Savannah GA, which is another warm climate. I remember wearing my jacket to the flight line in the mornings during the winter, but probably took it off before climbing aboard as the cockpit would heat up during the day.

So one good reason why my flight jacket never got dirty is that I seldom wore it while flying. I just looked at my L2-B and it is as clean as the day I got it. It logged more miles traveling to and from duty stations than it did while I was wearing it in the cockpit.

 

[Doctor Damage]

I just realized this the other day. I was always stationed in warm climates and really had no need to much wear my flight jacket. For primary I was in Texas during the spring and summer, and in advanced I was in southern Alabama. Next I was in Vietnam which is more than a warm climate. Although it would get a bit chilly at night in the Central Highlands. Seldom if ever wore my flight jacket during flight.

After VN I was in Savannah GA, which is another warm climate. I remember wearing my jacket to the flight line in the mornings during the winter, but probably took it off before climbing aboard as the cockpit would heat up during the day.

So one good reason why my flight jacket never got dirty is that I seldom wore it while flying. I just looked at my L2-B and it is as clean as the day I got it. It logged more miles traveling to and from duty stations than it did while I was wearing it in the cockpit.

You wore a flight suit, right? How often was that washed?

 

[Peacoat]

You wore a flight suit, right? How often was that washed?

Flight suits were washed frequently. Probably worn once and then washed. We had a bunch of flight suits. They wore out quickly. I think I have one or two of them left, both size 38.

 

[Big J]

When you took your jacket off before climbing aboard, where did you put it?

 

[Peacoat]

When I wrote the response, my first thought was exactly that; where did I put the jacket? Stateside, I think I draped it over the back of the seat so the body was facing the rear and out of my way. The top of the seat was narrow enough that it would fit over the seat back.

In VN I always had my M-16 with me when I flew. I slung it over the side of the armor plated seats next to the center console. If I wore the jacket, I may have put it over the barrel of the M-16, but I have no memory of doing that.

There was a small area between the base of the seat and the center console where the jacket would fit, but I have no recollection of putting it there either. I do remember putting my hood (used for simulated instrument flight) in that space. I have no memory of wearing the jacket in flight, or putting it anywhere, while in VN. I do remember wearing it some at night on the way to the O Club during the rainy season when it would get cool at night. My memory of wearing it back from the O Club is non existent, probably because, well . . . we had been to the O Club.

That was a long time ago, and time dims all memory. Unfortunately, my memory of those days is dimming.

De Oppresso Liber

 

[Big J]

@Peacoat, thank you for your answer.
These kinds of everyday details of life in the Vietnam war are important I think. It was the first airmobile war and people at all levels were figuring out how to do this stuff for the first time ever (kind of like the whole Wild Weasel program).
The helicopter pilots of the Army and Marines played a pivotal role and their stories and sacrifices don't get nearly as much attention as they deserve (the whole war doesn't really, beyond a couple of brat pack movies about being a grunt).
There are some good accounts of the experience, especially the extraordinary efforts made by Army pilots during Lam Son, but they are far fewer than accounts of (say) F-105 pilots.
There's a risk that a lack of interest in the era will mean that a lot of information will be lost as the Vietnam generation ages.

 

[Ernest P Shackleton]

I don't think there is a lack of interest. The massive Ken Burns' documentary of last year was very well received throughout the world. PBS simultaneously aired it in Vietnam with substantial viewership. There were people who didn't care for it, but generally speaking, it was a success in bringing light to the war through education about the war. Speaking of Burns, I would love to see him dig deep into the world in which you fellas are speaking. Or someone else who really knows how to dig while telling a story. Someone who can engage the audience rather than clinically dropping information.

 

[Peacoat]

I found the Ken Burns' documentary fascinating, especially the early parts of the war and the section covering 1967 - 1968 (when I was there). For those who think the Tet offensive was a major loss for the US, it wasn't. We were caught by surprise, but recovered quickly and easily won the battles after the first day or so. The two exceptions I am aware of are the Battle of Saigon and the battle for the Citadel at Hue/Phu Bai. They were tough fights, but we eventually prevailed.

The interesting thing to many is that the NVA soldiers had been led to believe the people in the South would rise up in arms and join the ranks of the NVA. They didn't.

While it was a tactical loss for the North, Tet proved to be a psychological victory for them. Most people in this country were shocked that the North could mount such an attack after being told that the NVA were on the ropes, and victory was just over the horizon. The horizon was much farther away than everyone had been led to believe.

In the opinion of many, Tet was the turning point of the war as support for it back home had eroded. Walter Cronkite's hour long report on February 27, 1968 did nothing to bolster support for the war. I left for home the next day.

Another good reference on the war is Barnard Fall's Street Without Joy. For some reason I haven't read it yet, but intend to do so in the near future. Unfortunately, Fall was killed in I Corps in early February 1968 by a land mine as he was researching another book.

 

[Big J]

You know, I've just remembered that Mel Gibson film about the AirCav. I know it takes some liberties with the facts, but I think it gets across the nature of airmobility way better than Aoocalypse Now.

 

[fish70]

Thud Ridge is a great book about F-105 operations during the Vietnam War and Chicken Hawk is a great first person account by a UH-1 pilot.

 

[Peacoat]

Thud Ridge is a great book about F-105 operations during the Vietnam War and Chicken Hawk is a great first person account by a UH-1 pilot.

I know Bob Mason, who wrote Chicken Hawk, or at least I used to know him. Haven't seen him in years.

Thanks for the heads up on Thud Ridge. Just ordered it on Amazon. I know little abut their operations as we worked mostly with F-4s, A1-Es and the Coveys. I hope one day to meet up with Covey 24 or Covey 26.

I preferred the A1-Es (Spads) to the F-4a as they were slower and more accurate. The VNAF pilots flew the A1-Es, and they were a brave bunch. Not sure about the call sign of the Spads that supported us, but it may have been "Sandy." The VANF helicopter pilots were also a brave lot. I believe their call sign in our area was "King Bee." If the ARVN Army had fought 1/2 as well as their Air Force, we would never have gone over there to begin with.

De Oppresso Liber

 

[Deacon211]

Chickenhawk was a great book. I remember reading it in OCS.

Feet Wet is also highly recommended.

I also just got finished watching the Burns documentary. There was actually quite a bit I had learned about the war that I don’t think I ever fully realized. I really felt particularly for those guys who were there when hope seemed to have been lost after Tet. Had to be tough, when you thought no one back home had your back anymore.

As for jackets, having reread the thread it occurs to me that we aren’t really saying anything too different.

I recall my jacket being dirty, yet I rarely washed it. So it couldn’t have been that dirty. Certainly not filthy, though it did collect all the fluids and soot I mentioned previously. I seem to recall throwing it in the washing machine, the more I think back all those years.

Bear in mind of course that I was issued Nomex, which I think fared a little better in the wash than nylon would. My WEP jacket got more than a little beat up when I tried to wash it.


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[Big J]

Yeah, Chickenhawk is a great book. Remember reading it about 30 years ago.
I haven't seen the Burns documentary yet, but I've heard good things about it.
Vietnam is an interesting war on many levels. One of these is perceptions of fighting a losing war after TET, and yet historically US troop numbers peaked in 69, and the VC were a spent force after TET making the South much more peaceful until May 72 Easter Offensive by main force northern units. Peacoat is correct; TET *should* have been seen as the turnaround moment at which the US decisively crushed the insurgency in the South, and decimated NVA units for the next 5 years. The public didn't understand this, and seeing Westy in the embassy garden surrounded by dead VC bodies revolted uninformed US viewers in the same way the massacre of fleeing Iraqi units on the road to Basra during the first Gulf War did (even the ancient Greeks understood that you do most of your killing when the enemy turns and runs).
I think that in the far past, most people didn't have direct experience of war, and the sudden invention of TV and live TV brought a bit of a shock to US citizens who had normally been removed from the reality of war to a great extent, and they didn't know how to rationalize that brutal reality with their modern Christian based social values. I guess other veterans would have got it though.
But even then there's some differences. Apart from generals and the like who wrote memoirs and histories of wars that no one but history students read, whereas WWI and WWII and Korea vets were often famous for NOT talking about their experiences, Vietnam soldiers had TV reporters up in their faces on TV while they were in the field. I think that was a new experience for civilians back home, and contributed to the public perception that we were losing the war (even when we were winning it). The experience of ordinary foot soldiers was never so graphically, directly, rawly and widely recorded before. Maybe it was no different to the experience of grunts in any other war, but until Vietnam it was never so well reported to people back home.
I think that's the reason that reporters are 'embedded' these days.
The first Gulf War is an excellent study of what the US military learned from Vietnam. Shock and Awe was the absolute opposite of Rolling Thunder for example.