A PARTY TALE
Transcribed by Don Callison
(C) 1996

Unknown Crusader storyteller relates:

        We were all invited to the General’s officer’s mess (club) at Dong Tam for something we had done during the day. It may have been the day that we caught and killed all those VC out in the open and captured all that stuff.

    It was the General’s mess and it was really nice and plush. It was considered an honor and privilege to be requested to attend there.

    Ace and a couple of the other guys get all decked out in their circa 1860 Cavalry uniforms. We all go together the General’s mess and everybody is getting pretty drunk. We had a bunch of tables pushed together, we were in a group and singing Cav songs.

    Some of the Infantry officers were drunk too and they got a little ticked off. A couple of them thought that we were "just too uppity-up" with our fancy uniforms and all that crap. They also thought we were just a little too cheerful and having too much fun to be a serious combat Unit.

    One obnoxious grunt lieutenant up and says, "You guys don’t do a damned thing! All you guys do is fly around all day"!

    We could have shrugged it off as a joke but then he makes the mistake of continuing and saying, "You guys don’t get down in the mud with the troops! You don’t get face to face with Charlie! Why, you don’t even get dirty or sweaty up there riding around in your air-conditioned heli-contraptions"!

    Ace turned livid! He jumps up from his chair and draws his saber out! Never having faced a pissed off Cavalryman wielding a saber, the wide eyed grunt backs up a step but his buddies were on their feet! Ace chops the saber’s blade down with a loud, crashing SMACK! on that old wooden table amid the glasses and the dinnerware. The club was suddenly silent. He angrily shouts, "We do just as much God damned gut fighting as you do you son of a bitch"! He was ready to take on the Infantry. We were out of our chairs and ready to join him. A couple of high ranking officers came over and gently broke it up. We went back to our own club.

I’ll always remember that night. We almost had a 15 to 15, Infantry Officers versus Cavalry pilots, brawl in the General’s Mess.

I heard we got even sometime later after I had DEROSed.