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WELCOME TO MY SITE "ALWAYSAWARRIOR"







USAF Combat Vietnam Veteran
"U.S. Air Force - Combat Veteran - Vietnam"



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"My three new Commemorative Medals for the 50Th Anniversary of The Vietnam War".


The Warrior
"ALWAYSAWARRIOR"
You have a very strong personality with your courage and bravery. But, you have
a sensitive side which you keep hidden under your strong exterior. Only a few
special ones close to you, witness this sensitive and warm side of you. You
stand up to any wrong going on around you and always respect people.


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Terry at Binh Thuy Air Base, Vietnam 1968


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My very hard earned degree in survival in the real world


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The Airman Creed


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The Security Police Augmentee Patch Auggie Doggie
designed by Howard G. Yates The Kilted Cop


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In honor of all veterans who have fought for freedom in our world
regardless whether it was in the past, present or in any of the
future wars or conflicts we may face. I've always supported brave
young men and women who defended freedom and who keep us all safe
from harm that lurks in this world of ours. I had served our nation
from Feb.1968 through Feb.1974 and also had served one combat tour
of duty in South Vietnam, I served at a remote South Vietnamese air
base called Binh-Thuy, I served my first two months of my 12 month
tour of duty there with the 632 Security Police Squadron helping to
defend our airbase from any VC attacks from Nov.1968-Jan.1969, that
experience of having served with all these very brave and dedicated
Security Policemen changed my life forever and I will never forget
them or the bond we all shared with each other and knowing that we
all would have died to protect our fellow airmen at Binh-Thuy AB. It
was an honor and also a great privilege to have served with them, I
have dedicated my site here to honor all of them and also to honor
all veterans who have served our nation whether in war or peace time
service. This is my small way of honoring those I served with over in
Vietnam, it's because of them that I had survived that experience in
my own life. I had spent the remaining time of my combat tour of duty
maintaining all of our crash-fire and crash-rescue trucks which would
answer the call each time a battle damaged aircraft returned to our
airbase and there was any chance there would be a crash landing or a
fire as a result of any battle damage to their own aircraft. The men
who served on the crash-fire & crash-rescue trucks and those firemen
who had flown on the HH-43 rescue helicopters and operated their fire
supression bottle systems as they would hover over any aircraft making
an emergency landing, they were another bunch of the very dedicated and
brave men who risked their lives every single day to save the lives of
the pilots and aircrews of these aircraft regardless of whether they'd
been an American or a South Vietnamese plane who were coming in with
battle damage. I have put pictures of both groups up here on my site
and have also put a couple pictures of our own U.S. Air Force heroes
who had served at other bases in South Vietnam and who had carried out
some very amazing feats of courage while they had served their tours
of duty in South Vietnam.


SSGT. Pete Piazza & SSGT. Jackie Kays who is also a poet here. They
were both extremely courageous men and were very brave men too who
were both highly respected Non-Commissioned Officers and they were
great leaders of young airman. They both had by their own personal
acts of great bravery and courage had brought both of them the great
honor & respect upon themselves as they also had shown and maintained
the highest traditions and standards of the U.S. Air Force as well.
They are both extremely humble men and they will tell you that they
were just doing their jobs and that is all, but those of us who had
served over there in Vietnam we know better and will always have the
greatest of respect for both of them for what they had done to save
the lives of others. They were our own heroes who not only talked
the talk, but when it got real bad out there they also walked the
walk and they led their men by example!


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SSGT. Pete Piazza awarded the Silver Star for Gallantry in halting a
major VC attack on his own base, he had taken over the defense of a
defensive bunker when the officer in charge was killed and he called
in air strikes on the VC forces and had held out against great odds
as those enemy forces kept attacking his own defensive bunker over &
over again throughout the night. SSGT Piazza had saved his base and
countless lives by keeping the enemy forces from getting past his own
defensive bunker and from getting onto his base trying to destroy the
aircraft and personnel assigned there.


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Jackie Kays book tells some of the stories about those of us
who had defended our bases in Vietnam & Thailand during the
war, some are very serious, some were funny stories and some
had dealt with the everyday things that we all had faced over
there during the war. I was extremely honored to have some of
my own stories included by Jackie Kays along with those of our
fellow Security Police warriors own stories.


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Our Vietnam & Thailand stories were compiled and published
by SSgt. Jackie R. Kays (Medically Retired)


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SSGT. Jackie Kays was the NCOIC (Non Commissioned Officer in Charge)
of a four man perimeter patrol team at the south end of the runway at
Danang Air Base when a C-123 flareship was trying to make it back to
the air base and it ran out of fuel because it having to stay to long
over an on going battle dropping flares to light up the area for their
defenders to see the movements of enemy VC troops. As it was getting
close to the air base it was rapidly losing altitude and could no longer
stay in the air and crash landed outside the bases perimeter wire. His
patrol was right near the crash site and he responded immediately and
ran out through the airbases minefield to reach the aircraft to rescue
it's crew members who were injured and were unable to get out from the
wreakage of their own aircraft by themselves. He himself was injured
when he fell from off of the wreakage as he was climbing back out and
hit his back. It was an injury that would put an early end to his U.S.
Air Force career as a Security Policeman and was medically discharged
from the service. There's been an ongoing effort to get the U.S. Air
Force to review the facts in that incident that night and the members
of the aircraft's crew have said that he had saved them all and they
too have made a request that SSGT. Kays be decorated for his selfless
and courageous act that night. It is still being considered by the U.S.
Air Force, I not only personally feel that SSGT.Kays was a hero on that
night, but I truly believe his feet had been guided with each step as he
ran out through that minefield to those crew members. I think it was a
complete miracle in and of itself that he even made it through the base
minefield, let alone that he was able to rescue that aircrew that night,
I do hope that some day very soon that the U.S. Air Force will finally
award SSGT. Jackie Kays for his courage and his extremely brave acts
and that they will give him his rightful honor and his rightful place
among all of those other U.S. Air Forces heroes who also went above and
beyond the call of duty and that at long last he will be recognized for
his heroic actions that he had carried out that night to save the aircrew.


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A1/C Chester Bland


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Huey Helicopter taking off on patrol


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7th Air Force Patch


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Security Alert Team in one of our V-100 Armored Personnel Carriers
Al Warr, Sgt. Ray Kirkpatrick and Paul Puryear 1969


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Guard tower on the perimeter road at Binh-Thuy


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.50 caliber heavy machine gun defensive position


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H-34 helicopters on the flightline at Binh-Thuy Air Base


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Perimeter road near the Paddy Control Position


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My guard tower at the Hilton Annex Compound off base next to
the Bassic River, right across that river were the Viet-Cong


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Binh-Thuy South Vietnamese Air Base 1968


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Binh-Thuy Hilton Compound sign, at the bottom it
says "A government sponsored ghetto"


Water Bufffalo - Vietnam
Water buffalo wandering through the rice paddy


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AC-47 Spooky Gunship up close


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One of three General electric mini-guns on Spooky,
(it fires up to 6,000 rounds per minute per gun)


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AC-47 Spooky gunship firing at a ground target


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This is the Security Police Statue located at
Wright-Patterson AFB in in Dayton, Ohio


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U.S. Air Force Security Police Badge


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U.S. Air Force Fire Protection Badge


I want to recognize and also honor the extremely brave airmen who
served with us and at other air bases in Vietnam during the war and
whose courage and gallantry fighting the fires caused by mortar and
rocket attacks on our bases and the aircraft fires caused by battle
damage received while pilots flew their combat missions. The pilots
knew they would be rescued from their own battle damaged or burning
planes after making an emergency landing at our own air base and many
of those aircrews owe their lives to these dedicated firemen. I have
pictured below some photo's of these very brave men and crash-fire
rescue trucks they used in the war, some are from Chanute AFB, down
in Illinois where I took my training to learn how to maintain and to
repair these Special Purpose Vehicles, others are from Binh-Thuy AB,
Vietnam and Can-Tho Army Airfield, Vietnam, Bien-Hoa AB, Vietnam and
a several photos are from Danang AB, Vietnam during my tour of duty
from Nov.1968 thru Nov.1969. Also there are photos of brave firemen
in action during mortar & rocket attacks on their bases and some
are from many of the crash landings that were caused by battle damage
while pilots and their crews flew on missions in the war.


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This is me repairing shrapnel holes in an 0-11A crash-fire truck
from the previous nights mortar attack


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Fireman sitting on a 530 pumper fire truck taking a break


Command Trucks
Two Dodge Pickup fire trucks are a P-6 on the left and a P-10 on the
right by the taxiway as a U.S. Navy P-3 Orion aircraft passes by them.


011-A  /  P-2  /  0-10A
Two P-2 crash-fire trucks and an Oshkosh P-4 crash-fire truck
on a training exercise


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An 0-10 crash-fire truck putting out a training fire


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An 0-11A training


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An 0-11A crash-fire truck at Logan County Airport in Lincoln, Illinois


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A P-2 crash-fire truck, it was the biggest and best crash-fire truck in 1968


010-A
An 0-10 pumping water


HH-43 & 0-10 Crash Fire Truck
An 0-10 crash-fire truck with a HH-43 Pedro helicopter over a crash site


HH-43
Two 0-11A crash-fire trucks along with a HH-43 Pedro helicopter washing
down an RF-4 photo recon aircraft that came in leaking fuel caused by
enemy anti-aircraft fire during it's mission that day.


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A P-2 pumping a mix of fire retarding foam & water


Don't forget to bookmark this page and thank you for visiting my site,
I would ask that anyone reading my poems here to please not enter any
of my poems into the poem contest, the poems I have written here are
my way of saluting my fellow warriors who have served in our nation's
Armed Forces defending all of us and our Freedoms and Rights under the
Constitution and the Bill of Rights of the United States of America.


The poems posted here are not posted for any type of self promotion,
for glorification or for any egotistical reasons in life, they are simply
my way of showing my respect and honor to all of the brave young men
and women who are now serving or have served our nation and citizens.


Please visit my other site here.
www.poetrypoem.com/terryscorner


Please visit my mother's site here
She passed on August 11, 2014 and
she was an excellent poet here.
www.poetrypoem.com/kittyscorner




























































Poet: alwaysawarrior

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