Flaming Dart Remembered

Forty five years ago on 6 February while I was on temporary duty at Clark Air Base in the Philippines, I was hurriedly tagged as part detail to go unload a C-130 that had just taxied up. By the time we got to the aircraft, ambulances started screaming in and we were assigned to help carry litters of bloody bodies to the ambulances. Afterwards, we were told to grab our gear and boarded a C-130 (I don't think it was the same one we unloaded). Somewhere in the process we were told that the bodies were from Camp Holloway, Pleiku, Vietnam and that we were in route to Danang Vietnam. It was late that night or early the next day (didn't really know what time it was except dark) when we landed and were dumped out on the taxiway.
The next day we would launch our first airstrikes against North Vietnam as part of Operation Flaming Dart.


That was a long time ago in a place far away only the vague memories and the lost innocence of youth persist.