Few clouds shaded the sun and the temperature was over 100 degrees. Fire Support Base Washington was an inferno inside a dust cloud of suspended fine dust particles. Each howitzer round sucked up more particles into this cloud and only wind was going to move it away; some time in our future. A UH-1B helicopter lands ( adding dust to our cloud) with what appeared to be a blond haired American woman. Joey Bishop jumps out in jungle fatigues and behind him is Tippi Hedren; not in fatigues thankfully. (Tippi is the mother of Melanie Griffith) They must be lost; this FSB is close to the end of the world and not safe. I wondered if they had any idea where they were going when they loaded into that Huey.

Officers from the chopper escorted them into the infantry command center tent. Men were running from their bunkers, the infantry returning from the day’s operation added to the mob surrounding the tent. The sides of the tent were rolled up three feet so we could see the blond hair and smell her. Joey looked under the rolled up tent wall a couple of times and decided he better come outside before we came in. He was so great; he let men hold him like a baby, he held them or posed however requested. He kidded with men and told jokes.

Tippi was more formal but signed her autograph and posed for everyone that asked. I got both their autographs on a small piece of paper from a spiral top note pad. The autographs are shown below. We had about an hour with them before they departed and added to our dust haze.

Click the image above to view full size.