It had changed an enormous amount since I got here in 2010. Probably wouldn't even recognize the place going back that far.
I ended up in the Philippines in 2009 with my Filipino husband and our 10 year old daughter. My husband was very ill with COPD and wanted to come "home" to live out the rest of his life surrounded by his family and friends in the Philippines. He loved it there. It was also one of the only ways for us to be able to afford for me to quit my 25 year career as a surgical nurse to care for him. While my daughter forged many new friendships and family relationships and feels the Philippines is as much home as the USA, we were forced to return to Oklahoma so that I could go back to work. I will always be grateful for the opportunity to have lived there and was treated, for the most part, wonderfully, and will always have fond memories.
I am certain that the people of the Philippines have fond memories of you also. That's the way it usually works.
They bounced us back and forth from the USS Peoria, LST-1183 and the USS Peleliu, LHA-5 that summer, some jumping to the beach on a Sea Stallion, some swimming to shore in an Amtrac. People think it is crazy jumping out of a perfectly good aircraft is crazy, try driving out of a perfectly good ship into the ocean in a 16 ton steel box!
Had a Filipino lad in one of my classes in the ME. A nicer, more polite soul you could not meet. At the time I was diving off every RIB I could find between The Andaman Islands and Mexico. He says "have you been to the Phils? Best diving in the world." So I dropped a line to a couple of University departments inviting myself to do a couple of pro bono days in Manila, Cebu and Siliman (it's good to give back) and they fair bit my hand off. On one of the lecture days they had me interviewed by a couple of journalists and a radio station. The tall, educated, hour glass figured radio journalist suggested a "more expanded feature" for a series she was writing and in the interests of good academic science I agreed. I didn't realise at the time this would lead to a life of bonded sexual servitude, but hey, most things come at a price. I commute via my academic world and the kids on Siquijor now and wouldn't exchange what I have for anything. As far as I am aware she still hasn't written that feature..... C
Sounds like you Fleet Marines had all the fun while on the "float". Yikes, I would be scared sh.tless if I had to be in those Amtracs out in the open ocean. Thank you for being one of the "Few The Proud" and serving our country.
