But one other person knew.    Just after we opened the cargo door to disembark with our gear, a 2nd lieutenant climbed up the steps and moved swiftly forward to the personal storage area just behind the co-pilot's seat. He took the one-burner Coleman stove, contained in two aluminum cooking pots, which screwed together as a tubular carton for the stove.  He was gone in a flash...down to the back door, down the steps and into a jeep. Vroom, vroom.

     It turns out that this nifty gasoline stove, contained as it is in its handy cylindrical cooking cans, would be the most precious single item for the primitive camp-out year which lay ahead.

     An innocent abroad, I had been deflowered without any romance at all.

     The next difficulty was upon us at once.  Our crew--Vaughn, Co-pilot; Truitt, Crew-chief; Milewski, Radio; and Nuckols, Navigator--as well as I--all had huge bundles of gear (including the electrically-heated flying suits) which we unloaded onto the ramp in anticipation of some vehicle or other taking us to our quarters.

     But nobody came, and so Vaughn and I walked perhaps 200 yards to the closest Basha and there, to be sure, were several offices.   I had our orders in hand, of course, and promptly found the Operations Officer.   He had a big desk and a bare chest: the temperature was circa 105 and so was the humidity.   How about the winter flying suits?

     On his desk was a name-plate: Major Walden.  On his chest was hair; he wore no shirt or tie in the wet and airless heat.  But I, new captain to the area, but a relative old-timer in the military, had been taught that the insignia of rank ought to be respected.

     "Sir," I said, as I sat down in a wicker chair without saluting, "I have a new airplane for the squadron...and I need to know where to put my men."

     It was obvious that he resented the fact that I, a captain with an insignia on the collar point of my shirt, had not given him a salute.  I did not salute his belly button nor either of his nipples, nor would I now.  Show me a gold oak leaf anywhere on his person and I will salute that escutcheon.

     "The barracks are up that road about a mile," he said with a flip of his thumb. 

     "You can use my jeep...how long will it take?"

     "I've got five men altogether," I said, "and it could take two trips."

     "Get the jeep back in half an hour," he said.

     I'll try," I said.

     We did it all in one trip.  And on the way back to the flight-line, there was a swirl of vultures over a rice paddy just to the left of the road.    Several birds knocked a running jackal to the ground, just as a falcon will dive on a bunny or a vole.  Within minutes two-score of black pouncing red-necked birds had reduced the unlucky jackal to a skeleton.

     What a welcome!