I remember this day very well. It was my first day on R&R in Hong Kong, having arrived
the previous late afternoon from Phuoc Tuy Province, South Vietnam. I had purchased
my Nikon in the morning, and was then on a 'Junk' cruise. Frankly, I was in a daze. I was
about 48 hours removed from the Battle of Coral/Balmoral - a 26 day battle against
4000 determined North Vietnamese Regular soldiers. See Wikipedia. Our reinforced
two battalion group had lost 24 KIA, and had 100 WIA. 5 US soldiers were also KIA.
Although it was quite strange to bounce from war to peace so abruptly, that was
the way the R&R schedule had to be run, to be sure we all got a 5 day out-of-country break.
Such an odd feeling. My head was in one place. My body was in another. But at
least I had my new Nikon F Photomic. (BTW, the make-up case was not mine !!!)