Tuesday, September 22, 2015

Where in the world is........?

The cook down the street is on walkabout, he's been taking a diving class on an island off Thailand and generally making a nuisance of himself by sending photos of beaches and food. He's also been travelling apparently.  He sent this one the other day, and it took me a bit to figure out that I have seen in before, in person. Any guesses? It's a place that has had thousands of photo's taken, most on a certain date in 1975.



Maybe adding one thing might help, a helicopter....


I had a chance to go back several years ago, to help start a cardiac center in Hue, and declined. 

Sunday, September 20, 2015

USS Kauffman

Does anyone else think that 30 years isn't a long time to keep a ship in commission?  Planes, sure, cars, ok. But shouldn't ships last longer than that?

Anyway, the oldest is back east this weekend, attending the decommissioning of the USS Kauffman, named after her grandfather and great-grandfather, Adm J. Kauffman and Adm D. Kauffman, father and son


Draper Kauffman is also known as the father of the UDT program, and the SEAL Navy special forces. I was lucky enough to have had hours of listening to his stories, everything from being captured by the Germans in WW2 while serving as a French Army ambulance driver, being commissioned in the Royal Navy to disarm unexploded bombs in England, to founding the underwater warfare program for the US Navy. 


I'm back in Montana, we have snow on the surrounding mountains, fall is at hand.  I leave in a couple weeks for Europe, will post pictures of that as it occurs.