One problem that we had in troop lifts, is that the pilots' shoulder harness was a convenient hand hold. Of course, when someone grabbed the harness and pulled, this pinned the pilot to the back of his seat. I vividly remember Captain Wilson coming over the radio, saying: "Tigers will be coming out in 10. Get that son of a bitch off my strap before I kill him!" Of course, he did not mean that last sentence to go over the air. I hit on a solution to this one day while looking at an Air America UH-1B. Beside the pitot tube, where we had "No Hand Hold" stenceled, They had stenceled "Cam Man Tay". When we got back to Soc Trang that night, I went over to the paint shop and asked them if they would cut a stencil so that I could paint that on the back of the shoulder harness, just above the inertia reel. They produced one that had the largest letters that would fit in the available space, and I took it and a can of spray paint (I don't remember the color but it was probably white. For sure it was a high contrast with the strap) and stenceled the harnesses in my aircraft. I think that this was in XXXXX980, but am not sure 33 years later. It could have been XXX129 or XXX663. Any way, it was an immediate success, and the other crewchiefs in the 121st quickly applied the same treatment to their aircraft. This greatly improved relations with our allies, as some of the methods used prior to this involved rapping their helments with blunt instruments. I do not know if this was ever used by any other unit, or if it continued after we left the 121st.

       An example of how a lot of Americans viewed our allies seems appropriate here. One day, my ship was assigned to haul a chaplin to various MACV and SF outposts in the delta. At one, the chaplin was asked if he would let us make a medivac from a unit in contact with several wounded. He refused. I complained to his assistant, and he patiently explained to me that if he let us do this, that in the future anyone who had some wounded would want him to release his helicopter to medivac them. This would really mess up his schedule. I felt then, and feel now, that this was a good example of someone forgetting who was there to serve who.