[Hal Copple]

Hah, i sorta wondered when I slipped in the Asahi thing if any other old guys would come back on that!! I bought mine out of the PACEX catalogue for $125, of course, it came with nice leather cases for the camera, each lens, and even the lens hoods. Bought several lenses too. I carried that camera everywhere with me in my first five years outside the USA, used to parachute with it hanging around my neck, so i could shoot coming down. I shot thousands of Kodachrome, which still look so stunningly vibrant. I was an MACV Advisor in the Delta for a year. I took it to Desert Storm, and shot a lot there, too. A manual camera can really teach one a lot. Eventually, acquired a lot of Pentax and Takumar stuff, which still renders good service. You can indeed get batteries now for them, and i have mine serviced occasionally by the pro's. I even have a rare 85mm 1.8 Takumar. I used it to take a sideline photo of the longest pass completion in the history of the Big 8, fabulous picture, ball just over the shoulder of the receiver, etc.

When i was a SF A Team Commander, we had two M3 Lica's in our Team Kit, but i always prefered to take my own Pentax, as i knew how it performed.

I like the 'Blad for stationary work, but now recently bought a Nikon pro system, based on a F100. What an incredible camera, for someone like me who doesn't see to focus so well or so quickly any more.

I came back from Vietnam to a wife who had sold/discarded every possession i had, so i only had my Pentax and my knives, that was all i owned when i got off the plane at Travis. So those two items are very precious to me. My Buck knife is in a wooden display case now. The Buck people lovingly and carefully restored it for me, for no charge.

As we get older, the memories of our past adventures and experiences are all the more important to us.