Does Sharing A Kodak Moment Work?

[Bigred122]

It's been one of those weeks. Ticker has been acting up and the thought that my claim may out live me ticks me off.So I thought I better try something different so that maybe my kid will be able to get what the system screwed me outta of. Since seeing it here and reading a couple of court cases where the Vet gave them tons of medical studies, articles and medical opinions from all over the world about their disability and to see the VA blow off the info. Example: Vet includes Einsteins Theory as evidence. The VA responds: " Although Einstein is well known for E= MC2, it is still ONLY a theory.And since the MC in his theory doesn't stand for Michael Curtis, we have to deny this theory as being evidence of your POSSIBLE disability." Even tho on their ebenefits website, they ask for such information to prove your disability association, they at the end just dismiss this information.

What I want to do is send them some copies of some pictures of me out in the field providing communications for such units as the 72nd Armour and the 32nd Calvary in South Korea. Both of these units are on the APPROVED for AO list. These pictures show us more in the weeds than these units are.lol They tear up alot of ground when they are out there playing and nothing grows there for quite sometime. These are just two of the units that our platoon has provided communications out on field manuevers. I've included a few pictures of us on the other Koreas side of the border and the 20' boat with the single beaver tail paddle we used to get to the other side of the river. They will be able to verify the pictures from their satelittes. I'm sure not to much has changed since 1972!! I've also included a picture of one of my buddies Headstone who I served with in Korea and is in the pictures with me. He passed away in 2003 of cancer. He was a Great friend and a Damn good soldier!! He re-entered the service and did 2 tours in the Persian gulf where he was presented a Bronze Star! The funny thing is, we both enlisted in the service in Oregon. Yet he is buried just 50 miles from where I live now. I was looking for my buddies I served with in Korea to get buddy letters for my claim when I found out about him. The rest of the platoon are still alive according to SSA but that is all that they would give me.I only hope that they are not dealing with all the health problems that Ron and I have dealt with. Ron and I loved what we did and was always the first to volunteer for field manuevers duty.Awwww the stories we shared. Anyway, has anyone tried telling their stories thru pictures. They show where I was, who we were with and the weeds we setup in. Duty rosters are often the type of things that come up missing.I was saving the idea of using pictures for if I got denied.But this weeks flareups has convinced me to include it now to maybe stop a denial on the claim. My AO claim is probably my weakest of my claims especially since seeing all these blowoffs by the VA with medical articles and other studies relating to Agent Orange. Hopefully these pictures will show the VA that these units could not do their jobs without us providing communications to them and Division Headquarters on what their mission was. Where they walked, we walked and etc. These pictures should show the correlation between the two units and what they were exsposed to we also was exposed to the same conditions. Veldrina, have you seen anyone use pictures as evidence??? Mike

[Bigred122]

I was in the 3rd platoon also. I will be willing to bet we know each other! Was you in the hippy hut, the one that everyone had partitions to separate their living areas? Was you the one that had a blacklight with Jimmy Hendrix posters hanging. If you are who I think you are, you know who I am. Did you have reddish hair and a mustache?

It sounds like your talking about the mail mans hut. He had posters and sorta had red hair and a moustache. I don't remember any posters in our hut. If you have a company yearbook, just look up Mike Johnson B Co 3rd Platoon and that be me. If you were in 3rd platoon, I'd know ya. We only had about 10 people in the platoon. I don't remember anyone from Nam in our platoon. We were a tight group.Mailmans hut was only one allowed to be partioned off and that was because of security reasons. Our Company commander who took over in March of 1972 was a stickler for the rules Once he took over I was only allowed to go into the field is if they used my MOS and that only happens when it is either a Division or I Corp excercise and that only happened once while I was there. My previous CO knew I was the best at what I did and he wanted me at every excercise no matter how big or small. That is why I was hardly a Camp Casey my first months, we were out in the field every chance we got. And when that changed, I had my own houch in the village.The only good thing about the new company commander was I learned to rapelle.Our new platoon leader who arrived at the same time as the Company Commander, was a gunhoe Green Beret/ Ranger.Fresh out of school.I left country the end of September 1972.Mike

[cooter]

It sounds like your talking about the mail mans hut. He had posters and sorta had red hair and a moustache. I don't remember any posters in our hut. If you have a company yearbook, just look up Mike Johnson B Co 3rd Platoon and that be me. If you were in 3rd platoon, I'd know ya. We only had about 10 people in the platoon. I don't remember anyone from Nam in our platoon. We were a tight group.Mailmans hut was only one allowed to be partioned off and that was because of security reasons. Our Company commander who took over in March of 1972 was a stickler for the rules Once he took over I was only allowed to go into the field is if they used my MOS and that only happens when it is either a Division or I Corp excercise and that only happened once while I was there. My previous CO knew I was the best at what I did and he wanted me at every excercise no matter how big or small. That is why I was hardly a Camp Casey my first months, we were out in the field every chance we got. And when that changed, I had my own houch in the village.The only good thing about the new company commander was I learned to rapelle.Our new platoon leader who arrived at the same time as the Company Commander, was a gunhoe Green Beret/ Ranger.Fresh out of school.I left country the end of September 1972.Mike

I don't have a Co. yearbook, if you do, my name is Gary Elliott. I wasn't in Nam, I received orders for Nam and just before being shipped out they changed them to Korea. At the time I believe Gen. Emerson, the pearl handled 45's he always wore. He actually paid out of his own pocket to have shower heads installed in the shower hut. He was relieved from command later on cause he was too gungho for the Pentagon. Bob Hope and his girls gave a USO show for the 2nd Div. You don't remember a Katusa in the Co. named Kim? There was a few of them but Kim spoke better english than the others. I also went to the rapelleing school and if my memory is correct, they only held one class. I also remember the Div. alert when I believe was the missle crises and nobody was allowed off base for a couple of days untill the alert was lifted. We had everything loaded up for deployment just in case. Like I said, if you have a yearbook check me out. If I'm not in it, it could be maybe I arrived shortly after the pics were taken.

[broncovet]

Yes, use pictures. I did and I think they helped. Since my MOS is not what is normally thought of as high risk for hearing loss, I sent the BVA a picture, from google maps, showing my barracks which was located right at the end of the airport runway. You dont have to be real close to a jet engine to suffer enough noise exposure to result in hearing loss.

[Pete53]

Sometimes its a small world even on Hadit

[Bigred122]

I don't have a Co. yearbook, if you do, my name is Gary Elliott. I wasn't in Nam, I received orders for Nam and just before being shipped out they changed them to Korea. At the time I believe Gen. Emerson, the pearl handled 45's he always wore. He actually paid out of his own pocket to have shower heads installed in the shower hut. He was relieved from command later on cause he was too gungho for the Pentagon. Bob Hope and his girls gave a USO show for the 2nd Div. You don't remember a Katusa in the Co. named Kim? There was a few of them but Kim spoke better english than the others. I also went to the rapelleing school and if my memory is correct, they only held one class. I also remember the Div. alert when I believe was the missle crises and nobody was allowed off base for a couple of days untill the alert was lifted. We had everything loaded up for deployment just in case. Like I said, if you have a yearbook check me out. If I'm not in it, it could be maybe I arrived shortly after the pics were taken.

Found you in the yearbook. You were in the first platoon. I vaguely remember you. We had a tight group.I remember Arnold Berry. The little shyt use to start fights in the bars and would sneak out for us to fight them. After about two months of that, we just sat there one night and didn't come to his rescue.He stop starting them after that. I remember Keyes and Robert Fry. All the korean girls use to call him Frenchie Fry, he loved it!! And then there was Guerra. We let him join us a few times. He was A-OK!! I attached a couple of pics of him for your amusement.I don't remember Gen Emerson. Gen Smith was in charge of division when I was there.Bob Hope must have came after I left. The time I was there was the first year him and his troop didn't come to korea. The Katusa in our little troop was named Park. In Korea, if you weren't a Kim, Park, Cho or Lee you weren't Korean.lol I remember a couple of alerts, but no missiles. But my memory is not the greatest anymore. I do remember being on the DMZ when 5 North Koreans tunneled in and shot up the camp and ruined one of our radio equipment with a couple rounds. They were just shooting wildly into tents. I never did understand why they gave us our M16's but never gave us any ammo. The guards were the only ones who had ammo. We were just suppose to point and yell BANG BANG!! To say the least those North Koreans went to the Happy Mound that night!! lol Yeppers it's a small world out there!! Enjoy the Pics!! Mike

[cooter]

Found you in the yearbook. You were in the first platoon. I vaguely remember you. We had a tight group.I remember Arnold Berry. The little shyt use to start fights in the bars and would sneak out for us to fight them. After about two months of that, we just sat there one night and didn't come to his rescue.He stop starting them after that. I remember Keyes and Robert Fry. All the korean girls use to call him Frenchie Fry, he loved it!! And then there was Guerra. We let him join us a few times. He was A-OK!! I attached a couple of pics of him for your amusement.I don't remember Gen Emerson. Gen Smith was in charge of division when I was there.Bob Hope must have came after I left. The time I was there was the first year him and his troop didn't come to korea. The Katusa in our little troop was named Park. In Korea, if you weren't a Kim, Park, Cho or Lee you weren't Korean.lol I remember a couple of alerts, but no missiles. But my memory is not the greatest anymore. I do remember being on the DMZ when 5 North Koreans tunneled in and shot up the camp and ruined one of our radio equipment with a couple rounds. They were just shooting wildly into tents. I never did understand why they gave us our M16's but never gave us any ammo. The guards were the only ones who had ammo. We were just suppose to point and yell BANG BANG!! To say the least those North Koreans went to the Happy Mound that night!! lol Yeppers it's a small world out there!! Enjoy the Pics!! Mike

I knew I had to know you! I would love to see that yearbook too! Can you PM me a pic of you so I can relate to whom you are? Yes I do remember Guerra from his pic. Seems like he never got mad and always had a smile on his face. Little chubby Berry, how can I forget him. I do remember the fights he got us into. I don't know why I thought I was in the 3rd platoon, but your right it was the first. Almost 40 years ago, wow. And your right about Park being his name. I knew it was one of them.lol. I don't remember if it was the same outing with the shooting but I remember being up on a antenna mast adjusting the radio antenna when I thought that bee's were flying around me and one of the guys yelled up at me to get down cause the north was shooting at us. lol, I thought it was bee's. Your right, young and dumb. You remember at night the load speakers from across the river would come on and, I can't remember what we called her, but she would say things like GI's go home before it's to late, and telling the blacks to cross over on their side and they'll take better care of them. Had a hard time sleeping those nights. ha. You know Mike I never ever thought I would run into one of the guy's in my unit, much less the same Co. After I left Korea, I decided to go Airbourne and got hurt on a jump, and thats what I'm SC for. I don't see you here on Hadit very much, did you just join us? Keep in touch Brother! Next time we'll talk more on the AO subject that started this post. LOL Don't forget to PM me a pic of you, or if you want, on a regular post, but I wouldn't.