I remember the day because April 22, 1970 was my 22nd birthday. Oh, and because it was the day I came home from the 12 months I spent in Cam Ranh Bay, Vietnam.
Even though my flight wasn’t leaving until about 2 P.M (that’s 1400 in Navy talk), I woke up the morning of April 22, 1970 at 2 a.m. I was so excited to be going home to my wife after 12 months that I couldn't sleep. Several of my fellow Navy Radiomen, who had arrived in Vietnam with me, were scheduled to leave on the same flight and several of them were, like me, up well before dawn.
It was a pretty uneventful day until we boarded our flight. My memory of walking up the ramp to the plane is like a high definition photo….etched in my memory. The flight left on time at about 2 p.m. and we were off. The next 17 hours or so are pretty boring so I will, mostly, skip over that part. We made a refueling stop at Yakota Air Force base in Japan at one point and we flew “the great circle route” because it’s shorter to go over the top of the Earth ... it’s smaller up there, no really (google it, or examine a basketball)
I’m gonna go with military time to make it easier from this point forward in the story. 2:00 p.m Vietnam time is 1400 hours. When it is 1400 hours in vietnam it is 00:00 (midnight the night before) in Seattle. So, that means you cross 14 time zones in the transit from Vietnam to Seattle. Oh, and by the way, you also cross the international date line.
So, we departed Cam Ranh Bay airport april 22 at 1400 local time or april 21 00:00 Seattle time. One thing I learned, having crossed the international date line several times both on a ship and on an airplane… if you are flying across the dateline and passing through that many time zones it is best if you just take your watch off and put it in your pocket because it is useless.
Since my watch was in my pocket I don’t know what time we were in Yakota, Japan but I remember that it was dark and I was having bacon and eggs in the passenger terminal while we were waiting to refuel, so seeing as how Japan is on the Eastern side of the international date line and we hadn’t yet crossed it (google it) it seems reasonable that when we landed in Yakota, it was past midnight Japan time and we had, therefore, leaked into the morning of the 23rd.. But, not to worry, we were only there long enough to refuel and have breakfast then we departed for Seattle.. a couple hours after we departed Yakota, we crossed the International date line back into the past and it was April 22/my birthday again so no harm done. Although, I have to wonder if the fact that I went forward into April 23rd 1970 and then drifted back into April 22nd 1970 means that I’m now 74 instead of 73. God, I hope not. But it IS true that I visited the day after my birthday (April 23rd) and then traveled backwards in time into April 22nd again by the simple act of crossing the international date line.. Wait, can I apply for an extra year of Social Security pay?
We finally landed at Mchord Air Force Base near Seattle at about 1700 local time on April 22… if you are keeping score, at this point it is 0700 on April 23rd in Vietnam but I was no longer in vietnam, I'm in Washington state and it's still my birthday. This means my birthday, so far, has lasted for 31 hours. At midnight I was sleeping safely in a Barracks at Naval Station Seattle when my birthday ended after a total of 38 hours. I think that’s right, you can check my math, I don’t care.
So….that’s my time travel story, or one of my time travel stories (I’ve crossed the international date line 12 times so far and I hope to do it at least once more).