Let's talk about beer

[pinboy3niner]

49. R.I.P. Don Chandler

Too bad the thread focused more on beer and double-downs.

I suspect Don spent most of his time doing bigger things than evac zones, unless he was only doing them in triple canopy jungle. In the field we did our own Landing Zones. A platoon of grunts with machetes and some C-4 and viola! There's your LZ in the jungle. Pop smoke, "I see Goofy Grape," "Roger Goofy Grape," and Bob's your uncle.

I had a friend years after the war who had been with the Air Force in Operation Ranch Hand, spraying Orange and the other color-coded agents. He handled the drums, splashed their contents on himself. Both of his daughters were born with birth defects related to parental exposure to dioxin, and 20 years after he got back he still had the worst case of chloracne I've seen.

Years ago I'd pick up my friend and take him to some of his VA appointments. He was part of the Ranch Hand study, and they kept taking tissue samples from him again and again, because every time he went through that they'd tell him they lost his samples...

R.I.P. Don Chandler and all the others we've lost.