1/35 UH-1H Huey By lmagna

[mtaylor]

Here's a thought about the Velociraptors and keeping them in place.   Nail one foot to floor and they'll just run around in small circles.  

[lmagna]

48 minutes ago, mtaylor said:

Nail one foot to floor and they'll just run around in small circles

That's what they call exercise these days. 

 

But I would still have to listen to their whining and sniveling about how they want some kind of food that somehow we didn't buy on the last shopping order! I was thinking that something like this would be better:

Edited April 29, 2020 by lmagna

[popeye the sailor]

in one of my bass books,  there is a bit of advice that could pertain to just about anything......even modeling.   it's quite simple:   learn all you can......then forget it an play   

[Old Collingwood]

45 minutes ago, popeye the sailor said:

in one of my bass books,  there is a bit of advice that could pertain to just about anything......even modeling.   it's quite simple:   learn all you can......then forget it an play   

A friend once told me   "Practice and practice till you can do it with your eyes shut"   wont work with modeling though....

 

OC.

[Canute]

Yep, it is a visual art form.

 

Me, I'm lucky I can tune a radio, let alone play an mp3 player. But, I am a music fan, mostly 60s to 80s stuff. Beatles, Dead, Creedence, Eagles, Zeppelin, Doors.

[lmagna]

I'm with you Ken.

My musical instrument skills extend to radios, record players, reel to reel players, four track, eight track, cassette, Cd, DVD, Flash card, Memory card, flash drives, and YouTube! I can't even play the drums!  

[popeye the sailor]

kinda funny.......as a kid,  I didn't care for music........  in my family,  I'm the only one who plays anything.    I might not be great......but I got a great sense of rythim.  

[Edwardkenway]

If I can have music playing while I'm doing anything I will. And I'll listen to almost any genre.

Both my daughters can play the keyboard but cant read music, don't know where they got it from because I don't play and the Admiral is tone deaf. 

[Jack12477]

You know, Lou, when you get done building this model you could pick up  a  4 inch x 8 inch board and make a nice rice paddy LZ  for the display.  <challenge> all you need is some water, white glue, paper towels, some grass clippings, a little dirt and gravel from the yard and voile ! 😁😁😁😁😁😁 

[Edwardkenway]

11 minutes ago, Jack12477 said:

You know, Lou, when you get done building this model you could pick up  a  4 inch x 8 inch board and make a nice rice paddy LZ  for the display.  <challenge> all you need is some water, white glue, paper towels, some grass clippings, a little dirt and gravel from the yard and voile ! 😁😁😁😁😁😁 

Yes diorama, great call Jack 😊

Sorry Lou but I badgered Jack so you got it too😁

[lmagna]

6 hours ago, popeye the sailor said:

but I got a great sense of rythim. 

At least you didn't do like two of my sons did to us. Two, (The oldest and the youngest) became interested in drumming in their last years of living at home. So of course we HAD to supply them with full drum sets. MANY afternoons followed filled with hours of drumming without benefit of music. For that they used headphones! I must admit they became pretty good, the they both ended up playing in bands at one point and the older one even cut a CD not long ago. Since the lock down started a neighbor across the street has started playing drums every day to what I am certain is delightful to our other neighbor who lives next door to him! Biggest difference is that he is not really that good!

 

OK Jack and Edward, now you went and done it! I was going to keep it a secret so that I could have wiggle room if by the end of the helicopter part all I had was a bunch of junk that needed to be hidden in a plain cardboard box in the back of the closet, but it was always my intent to do a diorama. I already bought much of what I would need to cover the picture in my minds eye. I have extra figures and ground cover and my wife doesn't know it yet but I have been having my eye on her supply of needle felting supplies for some time now. About the only things I don't have covered yet are the frame and probably talent. Like almost everything else about this build, it involves things I have never done and has probably a 50/50 chance of turning out like crap. 

 

I have been doing a little fuselage work that has not turned out quite like I expected and not really worth taking pictures yet but I suppose it could be called progress and I haven't bought that bottle of do over fluid, (Super Clean Degreaser) yet.

[Edwardkenway]

Good

5 minutes ago, lmagna said:

but it was always my intent to do a diorama. I

Good for you. I found good quality scrubbing brush bristles make excellent grasses and sedges.

Looking forward to seeing it, and trust me it'll look good😁

[Jack12477]

Ditto Good !

 

Hint: paper towels cut into 1-2 inch wide strips dipped in very watery soupy plaster mix can be use over crumpled newspaper to make a ground base or small hills.  

 

[mtaylor]

Go for it, Lou.  Looking forward to a diorama now.  Found the music for it with a video....  <evil grin> You can pick one.. or both.

 

 

 

[lmagna]

Apocalypse Now was the first and almost only Vietnam movie I ever went to see. (Some friends some how talked me into going to see it when it first came out)  I walked out hating the movie! The first half did bring back some memories even though it carried considerable Hollywood slant and the village attack was somewhat hokey, especially the rocket attacks. The second part about going up the river and the ending was a pure acid trip in my opinion. Never the less that night and the next I had the only dreams of my life that while not exactly flashbacks were uncomfortable dreams of being in the service and combat. I think that the Air assault impacted the most because it was mostly shot from the air.

 

Better footage was done in Mel Gibson's We Were Soldiers even though it has some issues as well and is shot more from the ground view. 

 

I don't think I have seen any other Vietnam movies to even use as a comparison.  I have a couple of the more famous ones set aside in my Netflix Que thinking that this may be the time to watch them but just can't seem to get around to clicking on them.

 

Jack and Edward, like I said you outed me. From the beginning I had a VERY definitive point in time diorama in mind. A couple of the shots in the above We Were Soldiers footage come close.

[Egilman]

Three movies I've always liked were The Deerslayer, The Siege of Firebase Gloria, and Hamburger Hill.....  they strike a chord with me....

 

I would highly recommend them.... But they all have their hollywag moments...

[lmagna]

I of course have heard of Deer Hunter and Hamburger Hill.  What little I know about the first always struck me as a "Vietnam vets are all wackos" and that all who served were damaged in a bad cause, typical of Hollywood for years after Vietnam. Therefore I doubt I will ever see it and will just have to take your word for it. Hamburger hill could be a possibility but I have never heard from a vet who has seen it and had any good comments. I do have it marked on my Netflix account but just can't seem to find the right time to be in a frame of mind to give it a try. I have never heard of The Siege of Firebase Gloria so I cannot comment on it at all and again will have to take your word. 

 

To be honest, I am probably a little too sensitive about Hollywood movies about Vietnam. But it seems that war movies involving other wars were much more forgiving and while still depicting war as hell in some cases not being so intent at denigrating the people who served or the effort they gave.

[Egilman]

2 hours ago, lmagna said:

I of course have heard of Deer Hunter and Hamburger Hill.  What little I know about the first always struck me as a "Vietnam vets are all wackos" and that all who served were damaged in a bad cause, typical of Hollywood for years after Vietnam. Therefore I doubt I will ever see it and will just have to take your word for it. Hamburger hill could be a possibility but I have never heard from a vet who has seen it and had any good comments. I do have it marked on my Netflix account but just can't seem to find the right time to be in a frame of mind to give it a try. I have never heard of The Siege of Firebase Gloria so I cannot comment on it at all and again will have to take your word. 

 

To be honest, I am probably a little too sensitive about Hollywood movies about Vietnam. But it seems that war movies involving other wars were much more forgiving and while still depicting war as hell in some cases not being so intent at denigrating the people who served or the effort they gave.

Fair enough, in my experience The Deer Hunter receives mixed reviews from vets, some see it as the struggle to regain what was lost and some see it as an accusation... What I"ve been told about Hamburger Hill depends on where you served, if you were there at Hill 937 during Operation Apache Snow it brings back too many memories of pure and utter waste and the uselessness of it all... If you weren't there it conjures up the images of winning the battles but losing the war... kinda the same thing....

 

So I can understand your reluctance, My Father in Law served two tours he refused to watch them also...

 

But he liked The Siege of Firebase Gloria... Not so anti war, anti american as some others and a little bit of hollywood in it but a decent representation of what happened, fiction of course, but well done... Besides you get to see gunny (R Lee Ermey) playing an all knowing all wise combat marine Sgt Major.....  It doesn't denigrate the troops nor even the enemy, but I think it is one of the closest depictions available of LRRP's and firebase warfare at the beginning of tet........

 

Be your own judge.... and thank you for your service... I know my father had a hard time with the opening sequence to Saving Private Ryan, probably the most seemingly real sequence of combat landing operations ever filmed... I always relied on his judgment since he went through five such landings during WWII.... It brought tears to his eyes.... (and the shakes, he tried to hide them but we saw)

 

Only you can know.....

 

Again thank you for your service.... 

[Edwardkenway]

8 minutes ago, Egilman said:

 

Be your own judge.... and thank you for your service... I know my father had a hard time with the opening sequence to Saving Private Ryan, probably the most seemingly real sequence of combat landing operations ever filmed... I always relied on his judgment since he went through five such landings during WWII.... It brought tears to his eyes.... (and the shakes, he tried to hide them but we saw)

 

8 minutes ago, Egilman said:

Only you can know.....

 

Again thank you for your service.... 

To someone who was not even born the first 15-20 minutes give me a sense of reality and I cant think what they felt, but still got up and pressed on. I for one will be forever grateful for the courage and sacrifice of the armed forces in ww1 and 2 and subsequent conflicts. 

So thankyou. 

[Canute]

I took my Dad to see Apocalypse Now. He asked me how much of that was real, after the movie ended. I said it was Hollyworst at it's bashingest. He was at a loss for words. I think I've seen most of the Nam movies, scratching my head over where they were going for a message. Not a fan of Oliver Stone.  I think I liked "We were Soldiers Once" the best. Seemed more evenhanded. The writer was there and Gibson didn't get carried away with the Hollyworst propaganda. As a combat vet, albeit from a speedy jet, I just want a fair shake. The antiwar folks from the Viet Nam time frame on, seem intent on their skewed version of things. But, no more politics from me.

[lmagna]

Thanks EQ and Edward for bearing with my admittedly prejudicial viewpoint. Especially as I have not seen almost any of the movies listed.  I apologize for my behavior and attitude but after decades of being branded as damaged goods, (Mostly generally rather than directly) I have a problem with subjecting my senses to more abuse from Hollywood for the sake of watching the tidbits of a movie that may be accurate or close to it.

 

My personal experience as I care to remember it was not all that bad looking back. I enjoyed my job and saw and did many things that others will never get to experience. I went from a naive teen, fresh out of high school, to a full grown adult able to be trusted with getting the job done and taking responsibility for others, and most of all able to think for myself. All this in a matter of just a few months. I saw how other people in the world lived and how good I had it by being born in the country I came from. There was no escape or short time calendar for millions who were born in that country and most just wanted to get up in the morning and live a peaceful day and safely go to sleep at night, just like all of the people in my home country were doing every day. There has been 67 or something other years in my life that didn't involve the military but it will still be the time I grew up for real.

 

My feelings exactly Ken, but as always better expressed! It was not so much about how real the movie was, but how evenhanded.  

Edited May 1, 2020 by lmagna

[popeye the sailor]

I've got the newer version of Hamburger Hill.........the older version I think was a bit more graphic  - my oldest son was pretty young when I showed him that movie {he was even more confused when I showed him Monty Python's Holy Grail  }.   don't think the first video Mark would fit........the second one was awesome!  I do have to thank you because in the video pick at the end was a  documentary on the B 17.......really liked it a lot!  I believe I have We were Soldiers.......I recently add the latest Midway to the collection  

 

worst one I've ever seen was the Expendables 

[Egilman]

39 minutes ago, lmagna said:

Thanks EQ and Edward for bearing with my admittedly prejudicial viewpoint.

You have every right to view it any way you wish my friend, you earned that right, not only for yourself but for everyone of the rest of us....

That's why I'm forever grateful to those who served.

 

Your NOT damaged goods! You are the best of the best.......

[Egilman]

17 minutes ago, popeye the sailor said:

.....worst one I've ever seen was the Expendables 

The Rambo's and the Chuck Norris films and all their derivatives are nothing but vehicles to separate kids from their money.....

With the Expendables they only added the govenator to the mix......

 

All they were is entertainment for those that think John Wayne was a pussy cat....

[popeye the sailor]

    well said........but tell that to Rooster Cogburn   

 

you have to look at it this way.........they make movies to draw crowds and make money.......if they told it like it was,  they would be called documentaries..........and who would want to go to the movies to see those     lucky for me I have my national geographics........

Edited May 1, 2020 by popeye the sailor

[mtaylor]

Viet war movies... Apocalypse Now, BAT 21.  Apocalypse Now was a farce for the most part and hadn't seen another one until Bat 21 hit cable.  Bat 21 was too real to me and I haven't watched any other Viet war flicks other than Good Morning, Vietnam (because the wife wanted to see it).  It hit me a bit hard too.  Most of the others, not going to watch them.

 

Old saying about there's no such thing as an unwounded soldier in war seems to apply.

[mtaylor]

4 hours ago, lmagna said:

Thanks EQ and Edward for bearing with my admittedly prejudicial viewpoint. Especially as I have not seen almost any of the movies listed.  I apologize for my behavior and attitude but after decades of being branded as damaged goods, (Mostly generally rather than directly) I have a problem with subjecting my senses to more abuse from Hollywood for the sake of watching the tidbits of a movie that may be accurate or close to it.

 

My personal experience as I care to remember it was not all that bad looking back. I enjoyed my job and saw and did many things that others will never get to experience. I went from a naive teen, fresh out of high school, to a full grown adult able to be trusted with getting the job done and taking responsibility for others, and most of all able to think for myself. All this in a matter of just a few months. I saw how other people in the world lived and how good I had it by being born in the country I came from. There was no escape or short time calendar for millions who were born in that country and most just wanted to get up in the morning and live a peaceful day and safely go to sleep at night, just like all of the people in my home country were doing every day. There has been 67 or something other years in my life that didn't involve the military but it will still be the time I grew up for real.

 

 

I think you're right about the branding, Lou.  We were evil bastards back then even into the 80's.    As for your experience, I still feel the same way for most part.  Up until about 25 years ago or so, I had a hard time being comfortable in my own skin due to certain people I was around.

 

Peace, my brothers.  We're home now.

[Canute]

Welcome home, my brothers.

[Edwardkenway]

3 hours ago, popeye the sailor said:

but tell that to Rooster Cogburn   

Now that was a good film! And I was surprised at how good the remake was! Jeff Bridges played the part brilliantly. 🤠

[lmagna]

I had forgotten about Bat 21. THAT was what a war movie should be. Just a story about one mans struggle against the circumstances he finds himself in and not critical statement about the morality or mental fitness of the people involved just a dramatic account of people doing what is right and trying to save one of their own.

 

I just added the new Cogburn to my to see list.

 

Peace and rest to you as well Ken and Mark and again as always, thanks for sharing your memories, it makes it a little less lonely place.

Edited May 2, 2020 by lmagna