40 years ago this weekend. Grace Slick at daybreak, Sunday August 17, 1969.

All right friends you have seen the heavy groups.
Now you will see morning maniac music.
Believe me. Yeah.
It’s a new dawn.
Yeah. The regular guys. And Mickey Hawkins.
GOOD MORNING PEOPLE!

Grace again.

good morning from beautiful downtown Pittsburgh!

OOH! Good morning. Hope we stay-at-home pups will get lots of updates!

Did you find a roommate (it was you who was looking for one, correct)? I would have loved to attend, and Pittsburg is do-able from NW Indiana, but I’m in the midst of a kitchen remodel project and couldn’t get away. SIGH.

I’ll try.

I remember waking to those words.

Forty years,you say!?!? Where has it gone?

If you remember it, you weren’t really there.

I remember waking to, “20 days and a wake-up” while sitting on top on Hon Tre Island sparkin one up for my generation!

I’ve seen Grace do White Rabbit with Great Society at the Matrix and with the Airplane at numerous venues over the years. You ain’t lived until you’ve been able to party backstage with the Airplane. Marty Balin lives in the area and Jorma comes to town for concerts quite frequently. Always able to get some kind of Airplane fix.

I was cruisin’ the tributaries above My Tho, lookin’ for Charlie.

Must a drove right by you on the way to Sa Dec the next week. We hauled creosote railroad ties in duece-and-a-half’s to build commo bunkers. It says in our unit history that we opened the road from Vihn Long to Sa Dec, whatever that meant!

Sure is a beautiful country. I’ve always wondered what it’d be like drivin’ or cruisin’ around and not have to be lookin’ for somebody waitin’ to smoke me.

How come we had to ride across on these damn things?

You mean like 7 mountains?

The LST motherships coulda done it but not as easy as a ferry. Not a lot of ramps on the Soi Rap.

Yeah, helo trips at sunrise were like something out of a travelogue.

I remember lookin at those big mothas think, damn what a target!

Damn near sunk WESTCHESTER COUNTY with a limpet mine while she was anchored just off My Tho. Killed every E-6 on board. Caused the LSTs and BENEWAH to shift to battle berthing.

“The tank landing ship resumed duty with the Mobile Riverine Forces on 22 September. Tragedy struck on 1 November while Westchester County lay anchored in the vicinity of My Tho, Vietnam. Two giant underwater explosions ripped Westchester County, killing 25 men. The enemy mines had been attached to the hull about mid ship on the starboard side causing ruptured berthing compartments as well as fuel and storage tanks. The day following the explosion, the entire Mobile Riverine Force moved from My Tho to Dong Tam.”

From WESTCHESTER COUNTY’s official site

She was beached at Dong Tam, a coffer dam welded over the holes and set sail to the Philippines for repairs.

One more and I’ll stop.

Right on, bro. We hijacked this thread a long time ago.

USS WESTCHESTER COUNTY (LST 1167)

Ah, a fairly new craft! Here’s my old man’s ship after conversion from DD to APD. She was commissioned in 1917! USS Crosby

Upon completion of refresher training and up keep, the ship got underway on 10 March 1969 for operation “Market Time” off the Vietnam coast. From 5 July through 23 August, Westchester County joined in the first phase of Vietnam troop withdrawal.

That’s when they took guys out of the 9th and shifted them to other units while sending their colors home. They ain’t withdrawed zip!

He Rev, Hungry?

Market Time was the operation out of An Thoi on Phu Quoc Island. Home of the Swift boats. Lot of operations up the river between Viet Nam and Cambodia. Charlie let the boats go up and hammered ‘em on the way back. Almost caused a mutiny in Coastal Division 11.

Good morning everybody! Im glad that guy from Newsweek got it right about Keith olbermann not being able to talk about or criticize Bill O or fox. The last twol nights he has been on fire!

Wasn’t that the shit head that was a big SBVT dude, the admiral who wanted bodies? Hoffman?

If killer conservatives in jail such as the killer of Dr. Tiller and Ok. Bomber Terry Nichols have singlepayer, why not us?

Mention that when talking to conservatives and talk show hosts.

http://bit.ly/HR676

To withdraw early…consult a Catholic Priest.

Yep. Him and CD 11’s commander, LCDR George Elliott. ADM was always an asshole. Elliott grew into it I guess.

it feels like we’re mining the depths of our own stupidity and we’re just free falling. nowhere near rock bottom.

“We have half the number of agents we need, but requests for more agents have fallen on deaf ears at headquarters,” a Secret Service agent told Kessler.

Hire more the Left will back you.

Rachel’s metaphor of pouring kerosene on a fire is an apt one. I don’t watch Glen Beck, but saw a clip of one of his performances when he poured ‘gasoline’ on a crew member and asked for a match, saying that Obama’s policies were the equivalent of his pouring gas on US citizens and tossing in a match. Fomenting violence against the president? Much?

Public Airways. Your public airways. Iz U Bein Servd?

Ya know, I’ll bet ridin’ that old tin can was a hoot.

ugh

For more protection…don’t consult a Catholic Priest.

I had the sense he was a real salt.

Jeez. I’m jealous. I missed all that stuff by a few years. I’m a little too young to have really lived through that. But I was the youngest in the family and the brothers sisters & cousins gave me more exposure to Airplane, etc. than most kids my age. (Major)riots took place in the next town. Grew up in a pretty aware, liberal family so all the “60’s stuff” was sorta part of my life as a kid. Except getting stoned. That had to wait a (little)bit, The politics, assassinations, student strikes. . But I came to love Hot Fuckin’ Tuna in the early 70’s. Jorma & Jack are great. I say the same thing myself, though. Where has the time gone?

Or, maybe some old lefty vets are itching for a little action?

Now at GBLT panel on marriage equality. SHould be interesting since CA decided to blow.

Pam Spalding, Julia Rosen, Michale Wilson, Monique Hoeflinger on the panel.

It was the old WWI destroyers that gave tin can sailors their reputation. WWII enhanced it. Now they’re like floating hotels with guns and missiles.

Not an old Lefty Vet though my friends are.

What the hell is wrong with the Dems in congress? First they are gobsmacked by the hate and violence of the Right, and now they are playing with a loaded gun by not providing adequate protection for the president.

There needs to be a serious, public and concerted effort to pressure what is left of the decent and reasonable conservative leadership to speak out loudly against this mob incitement. Now.

Christy is upstairs…

*g* Gettin’ a little long in the tooth for that kinda stuff. Hafta rely on memories.

What Just how nuts is Glen?

I get the impression that during Bush the threats weren’t that common or plausible.

I4 Year Old Girl Threatened with jail by Secret Service over Bush “Death Threat”/a>

The Secret Service had the time and resources to investigate threats from teenage girls who draw unicorns.

The Dems need a pair?

Cripes SnarkCassy must be on the list.

I’m sure you still have your chops. I was thinking yesterday that we should send you to NN to protect Jane. I really was.

Hi Things. Haven’t been here much, but have lurked some of your comments. Hope you’re doing well.

LOL Not me. I’m all peace, love and grits these days. There are plenty of young strapping dudes there to protect Jane, if anybody is dumb enough to try anything with her. After her flight gettin’ cancelled yesterday I know I wouldn’t want to get into any kind of pissin’ contest with her.

live blogging the session on marriage equality over at the Seminal. Anyone can join in.

Goin to see Steely this weekend, Reelin in the Years.

Did anyone else watch Lawrence O’Donnell politely quiz Katy Abram(the youngish woman who went to the ramparts at Specter’s townhall mtg.)? I think she has PTSD after being chewed out by her 7th grade teacher for not doing her work. There’s no other way to account for the willingness to go public with her ignorance and emotional disorder.

They’re showing the director’s cut of Woodstock (244 min) tomorrow night at the Beach Theatre and then on Saturday there’s a gig at Skipper’s Smokehouse from 2-midnight with a shitload of local bands doing Woodstock songs. Both are sold out. Every hippie in the area is goin’ nuts.

Yes. It makes you wonder why Lawrence O’Donnell doesn’t have his own show on MSNBC for starters, but it was evident that what this young woman really objects to what she sees as creeping socialism because Cash-for-Clunkers has worked to sell some new cars and get some older cars off the road, and because the TARP and other Treasury/federal Reserve programs kept the US economy from slipping into the abyss. Health care is just another sector of the economy that Katy feels should be hands off from reform until the average American can no longer afford health insurance and even then maybe nothing should be done because really our free market system is all about isolating the losers from the winners. Only losers cannot afford the premiums for private health care and winners can safely ignore losers according to Katy’s understanding of free market capitalism.

Basically, it’s all about survival of the fittest if I understood Katy’s replies correctly.

Too true, the difference between the can built in 1944 that I served on, USS McCard DD 822, and even the the ship built in 1968, USS Holt DE 1074, was pretty dramatic, but nothing like these new ones. They have carpeted! four man person staterooms with individually adjustable AC and their own heads. Positively luxurious.

Even on the Holt a sailor was allowed less personal room, your sleeping space and personal storage space than a Federal Prisoner-and they always failed that on the Habitability Inspection.

I’ve been on WWII class cans, both 2100 and 2150s, (HOPEWELL, GEORGE K MACKINZIE) the 945 class (MORTON et al) and some of the DDGs and DLGs. Lurvs me some tin cans.

I live in a town wherein there’s a FLETC. There’s too many Secret Service guys here. PLEASE, telephone your congressman and ask that they be relocated to Washington! The best part, they’re already on the payroll.

.
Is it time to start kicking Repukelickin ass, yet?
.

I was in awe of Lawrence, he really played it cool. Played her like a Stradivarius, not that she was the sharpest knife in the drawer to begin with… I had thoughts of trying to do a video mash up of Katy and Miss South Carolina.

A very telling eight minutes. Showed exactly what’s up with these “outraged town hall citizens”. The lights are on, but nobody’s home. How can you have an honest discussion if the other party has absolutely no facts, or can’t admit they are upset because they lost to a black man?

I think Congress should eliminate Harry Reid’s bullet train from LA to Las Vegas and use those funds to better protect the president.

I also thought Lawrence nailed it in a deft and noble way.
Sure would prefer seeing him instead of Mr Rant before Keith.

O’Donnell asks intelligent questions and listens to the answers. After the guest answers, he responds to the answer and not his reflection.

What a concept!

Wow, sounds like you are really pissed that Obama got 52% of the vote – and they actually counted all of them this election! A real election – without supreme court intervention or electronic voting “irregularities” in major swing states, courtesy of partisan secretaries of state…

SUCK on it, sore loserman! There’s a BLACK MAN in the white house, and the MAJORITY of REAL americans voted for CHANGE.

We want change, you’re getting it because you LOST.

Silly me, typo alert! 53% of the country voted for OBAMA and OBAMACare.

Also, Obama won 365 electoral votes to McCain’s 173 AND turned states Blue that hadn’t voted for a Democrat in decades like Virginia, North Carolina and Florida.

Your side might have hate talk radio and rupert murdoch, so you SOUND big, but really you are a tiny, ever-shrinking MINORITY. Deal with it!

Have a nice day. YES, we Can!