Nam was raging The carrier sat off shore lobbing volkswagens at precise targets targets selected by trained photo surveillance analysts of which my friend was one.

We kept in close touch me in the states him on that floating city A lot of the time he played baseball with the crew on the massive hanger deck went for a fly ball one afternoon ran off the deck backwards and somehow managed to grab a guard rope.

The jets on their elevator pad were a long way down It would have been messy.

Shore leave kept the boys in Thai stick but risky firing up on board Small observation balconies let you slip out keep the door propped open with your boot watch the sea go by the sun set over the jungle the roach burn down Damn Thai was Strong! Easy to get lost in the … reverie

He happened to glance to the bow one eve just as a huge wave was sweeping the starboard beam cresting maybe a dozen feet over his head Jerked back inside the wave hit the door the door slammed shut and tossed him back like a tackle burying a quarterback.

Day after day week on week for a couple three months looking at high-res black and white images searching for jungle trails clearings huts anything out of the ordinary Occasionally something of actual military interest Equipment! Squads!

Then he spotted his first anti-aircraft placement when the winds had blown their camo off and the plane’s camera picked up glare off the metal Out came the stamp and that numbered photo with its little red circle went over in that pile to be collected by targeting specialists and translated into bombing coordinates.

Recon was sweeping south to north shore to mountains. The enemy gunnery installations and guerilla troop movements got more frequent as did the numbered photos with their little red circles But a dozen hours a day peering through a stereoscope got Borrr-ring! and a guy had to struggle hard just to stay awake much less alert.

The job naturally evolved into a competition who on their watch could spot and file the most photo targets Eventually boredom won and the competition became a game Soon anything other than flat jungle was fair game for planting another little red circle.

He got good at the game his rep spread and The Powers that Be promoted him from pre-bombing surveillance to post-bombing analysis Then for the next couple months he got to read the very detailed and quite often gory reports of in-field damage assessments.

And match the post photos with pre photos. Some of which he had personally filed Many of which showed blown-apart target areas with absolutely nothing military about them Clusters of huts A small school What was once a town’s medical service Remnants of gardens and planted fields of dismembered livestock.

Bodies of people or what was left of them Men and women And children.

As the carnage grew the direct linkages of his own playful gaming to the resultant collateral damage became all too frequent When he asked his pastor assured him that what looked like simple villages were instead where the enemy fighters hid Those people that appeared to be farmers and school children were carrying automatic rifles and setting explosives along trails After all all’s fair …

He said it was the constant replay of high-res B&Ws on his brainpan that did it Then about two years into his term of service he broke.