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[bleep] me raw. Damn. Just damn. Keep 'em coming please.


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Ch 13: Peace Through Firepower

I had picked up the trail very early in the morning on the east side of the Valley and began following it in a southwesterly direction. Looked to be squad size activity that had gone down in the predawn hours. Sun at my back and I began crisscrossing the trail in broad sweeps. Whether over jungle or open country with elephant grass, following trails be risky business. On one part the dudes leaving the sign will be fairly aware that you are following them. On the other, recall that this puts them in a posture of having to protect themselves against Snakes by dropping the LOH in their lap. It's a dicey game and there's no second place. We knew it and they knew it. Snakes can and often did deliver suppressive fire or close support within 10 yards of friendly forces...they are that good with guns and sometimes rockets. "In their lap" did not mean nearby.....

The Valley floor is a mishmash of crossing creeks and elephant grass. The trail I followed was one of many but the fresh activity was easy enough to see. It might surprise you that we were able, with consistent accuracy to look at scuff marks on dirt in the AM and ascertain within hours how fresh it was. Late afternoon in hot weather, not so good, but morning time, absolutely. Given heavy activity even the afternoon couldn't throw us far off track. Anyway, this was fresh stuff and I dodged and weaved my way along the trail, crossing over the dirt road that ran the length of the Valley N-S and then the A Loui airstrip, one of two on the valley floor. The other was the A Shau airstrip just west of Rendezvous, and both were the scenes of epic battles and great heroism during their active periods as Special Forces Camps earlier in the war. Passing the airstrip the signs of haste became abundant. Long strides and finally, muddy water swirling in the footprints. Ahead was the little knob I mentioned earlier and a stark earthen bluff about 75 meters beyond. It was several hundred feet high and had a foot path cutting across the face laterally. Now I gotta tell you that my stubby military hair was on end because it was a certain thing that a hot welcome awaited. I did a few didoes to the east, chatted with the crew and then cut in to the knob from the north, off trail and very low...and fast as my little Allison could peddle.

Here's the logic. You set a pattern, just like the enemy you trail. When you track somebody for 7-8 klicks they expect you to keep following the trail they took and they will so present their defenses. If you KNOW they are waiting it is insane to step through door numba 1. Ergo, here comes Dan from the north at about 100 knots and dragging skids through the elephant grass. What they can't see, they can't shoot. Visibility works both ways in this scenario and if that makes no sense, next time you're out in the woods, look up through the forest canopy and get an eye full of just how much sky you can't see. Add hills and ridges and you'll realize we were not without defensive tactics. So, we came smoking up on the knob and I pulled back sharply on the cyclic to do a "cyclic climb", or zoom climb if that makes more sense. You trade speed for altitude and it is a common maneuver used for many purposes in mountainous terrain. Two things happened as we topped the knob. First, I looked up on the bluff I mentioned earlier and saw a dink standing in the entrance of a small cave, looking down on me. Man oh man, I did NOT like that. Secondly, there were not dinks visible on the ground, but their packs were stacked at the crest and we were right...a squad. I saw this at the apex of the climb as I rolled into a 90* left bank to follow the off side terrain features back down and minimize our exposure. Quick call to the Snake lead and I'd like to claim a calm debonair demeanor by it weren't the case. By odd chance the Snakes SAW the guy standing in the cave entrance as I squealed like a pig....I rolled back level and headed back up trail toward the air strip as guns rolled in.

I told you earlier that "Twinkle Toes" was the best I ever saw at dispensing rockets and this was an example why. He fired 1....one rocket at the cave and as I looked over my shoulder in climb out I saw that solitary rocket vanish into the cave as Nguyen van Dink scrambled for cover. It did him no good. Belch of gray smoke, puff of dust and then a very large secondary explosion. Lead broke out to the left and wing started hitting the knob with rationed rocket fire and a barrage of mini-gun. The smoke cleared and the cave had totally collapsed. I was up to altitude within a few more moments and joined up in orbit with the Snakes just as Bilk came up on frequency. "Bilk" was the tactical call sign for a USAF O-2 unit that ranged over the I Corps area and though they used artillery often, their primary focus was FAC for tac air. I liked those guys, I really did. He was calm and debonair....inquired as what kind of chitt we were stirring up and got a brief from Lead. As was often the case when they called, he had a flight returning from aborted missions up north or in Laos with full ordinance loads and no place to drop. We always had solutions for such vexing problems. I don't think we were 5 minutes post strike when he put a WP rocket on the knob and we sat back with ring side seats for about 5 minutes while two F4s unloaded their 750# bombs and flew off to the O'club at DaNang. Their call sign was Gunfighter. Their O'Club was the DaNang Open Officer's Mess, or DOOM Club. They even had a DOOM Pussy on a mantle piece there. When a mission was underway the Pussy was turned to face the wall. When everybody was home, it faced the frivolity.

I never liked going back to an area where Snakes had fired up the bad guys, especially where there were bunkers, and there were bunkers on the knob. I had absolutely no compunction about doing that after a TAC air strike. Situations like that do not require direct hits or shrapnel to kill folks. Close proximity was enough to kill people with just concussion, or at least make them respectful. This was to be an exception to that rule I so faithfully believed. I came in with the rising sun at my back, did the cyclic climb and roll routine again, this time to the right...it happens so much faster than it takes to describe and your mind takes the snapshot images and digests them quick enough. Clothing and personal effects hanging from the tree limbs that remained, couple of craters just off the military crest of the hill, an open pit in the middle of the bunker complex with .....8 dinks laying curled up on the floor......fresh green uniforms.....all looking up at me.

You all remember that old Chuck Norris movie where he stands up in the middle of a river with an M-60 and starts shooting in slow motion? Well, that was all BS and we know it, but the slow motion part ain't. I experienced that many times over there, and in this case it was my gunner in back that was quick on the trigger...dull spaced flat blasts, links and cases flying out into the slipstream...splashes in the dirt that focused quickly on fresh green uniforms in the bottom of the pit. Tom was a very experienced gunner and let there be no doubt there were many like him over there that could and did shoot an M-60 as a point fire weapon. I know with certainty that he hit at least five of them in that very brief span of time that lasted a long minute or two in my mind. The target fell behind, time went back to normal speed and we rolled out under the collapsed cave northbound. I told the Snakes what we'd seen and we elected to call it good enough. There are very few OLD bold scout pilots. We wandered off to another recon grid and worked it without event until our relief showed up. Just another day at the beach....

Semper Worm Food.


I am..........disturbed.

Concerning the difference between man and the jackass: some observers hold that there isn't any. But this wrongs the jackass. -Twain


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I made it through Ch 8 Dan but it is taking me to a place I don't want to go, I'll bookmark it and maybe come back.


George Orwell was a Prophet, not a novelist. Read 1984 and then look around you!

Old cat turd!

"Some men just need killing." ~ Clay Allison.

I am too old to fight but I can still pull a trigger. ~ Me


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Fantastic Dan, just a fantastic story....

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Terry, I understand that, truly.
___________________________

Ch 14: Comedy Hour

Before I carry on in the time line previously faithful, I think it appropriate to dispense some of the humorous things that happen, no matter where you are or what you're doing.

Tam Ky, 1969:

We were burning every hooch we found and going back for a second dose when they were rebuilt. Supply shortages made us creative as our appetite for Willy Pete was voracious. If we didn't get at least 3 hooches with a grenade we didn't do it. Sometimes we'd use alternative means for single structures, such as the 37mm Very Pistol. Single star rounds didn't work well, but the star clusters were the tens. Plus, nobody really used them much so there was a big supply...until we started using them a lot. Out of clusters one day and training another pilot...M-16 across my lap, Very pistol in my right hand and smoke grenade in my other, pin pulled. That's what we tossed if we took fire and we carried them in a 1/2 grenade canister which held the spoon down if we had to scratch our balls or something else. Anyway, we were out of clusters and I had a red star round. Did I mention that we shot livestock too? Well, we did. Sherman understood the tactic.

We had just torched a hooch when this pot bellied pig went scurrying down this dirt path, about as fast as a pig will go....I thought. My hands were full, my attitude fairly sporting....left handed, computing lead (its movement) and lag (our movement) and drop...blam! Nice red fire ball arched down thru the hole in the canopy ahead of where the pig was....what was that Disney pig's name....Charlotte?...the meteor arched toward red dirt and the pig appeared, unity was looking good except for trajectory...bit low. The flare hit the dirt, bounced up and immediately hit Charlotte in the left ham. You know what? I'll bet any one of you would lose the bet on how fast a pot bellied pig can run! I was still laughin' when we started taking fire....

My gunner was gonna shoot a water buffalo one day and asked if he could use the M-79, or what we called the chunk gun, or sometimes "thump gun". They sound like that when they shoot. Have a really vicious tearing sound when they detonate down range though. I said "sure" and he picked up the gun, loaded it and well, I figured he had enough horse sense to let me back off a bit.....nope. Thump, ker-rrrip! Buffalo hauled ass and I saw him jerk his hand....a piece of shrapnel had hit him in the thumb and another hit the belly of the LOH and pierced the fuel cell. To this day he can feel nothing in the thumb and still has the shrapnel buried in next to the first joint. My ass is still stinging from the azz chewing Gary gave me. I think the buff survived.

My platoon leader, a captain, was trying to clear a mini-gun jam one day and it was pretty hot weather. He dismounted the gun and was sitting in a Huey fiddling with it when it went off, grazing two crewmen and mortally wounding an adjacent Huey. I always thought the Captain was OK after that, 'cause Gary forgot about the buffalo thing pretty quick.

Hue, 1969:

-Chickens can't glide through more than about 5,000' or so of air before their wings give out. They lose a lot of feathers before they hit the ground. This amuses slick pilots a lot.

-I once snagged 3 kites in my rotor system flying over Hue' one breezy afternoon. It wasn't much problem cleaning the string out of the rotorhead so it became a sport practiced by LOHs, slicks and guns alike. My friend Johnny from Texas...he got 14 one day and the crew chief liked to fragged him after he finally got all the string out of that one. Maintenance issued an edict that said we weren't supposed to do that anymore. We tried but the legend had spread. Every time you just flew near Hue', all the kites started going down, sorta like WWI barrage balloons in reverse.

-We all got drunk one night (nothing new there) and on the way back to the troop area I started doing close order drill cadence and chitt. 5 pilot buddies played along and I thought it would be funny to right flank them while they were right next to about an 8' drop into a ditch...never dreaming they would actually follow my direction. They did. One guy was grounded for a week until they determined he hadn't broken his ankle.

-We used immersion heaters to heat water in big elevated bladders for hot shower water in the monsoon weather. They use a little gas tank that drips gas on sand and burns it up...heating the water pretty well. Somebody always had to light it and sometimes didn't know it had been lit and gone out...gas dripping in the sand and not burning. Remember Al Jolson? I saw a guy do that to himself one day just wearing his skivvies. Didn't hurt any more than his pride 'cause the whole troop saw it happen. Jesus, we laughed until we cried! Wasn't long after I did it too, but had enough judgment to not have an audience, plus it was really windy and rainy. Ya know what? Standing inside a fireball in your skivvies is a really odd experience. Illuminating is probably the right work. Made my skin tingle a lot and I didn't have any hair on the front half of my body 'cept for where my skivvies were.

-We had this slick platoon leader from Argentina named Suggs-Pierre. Curious fellow but well liked. Didn't understand English perfectly but did OK most of the time. He was out near the Valley one day doing a weather recon and operations asked if the weather was deteriorating. He replied:

"Thees es-a foura-seex, say again?"
"I say again, is the weather deteriorating?"
Long pause.
"Thees is foura-seex. Negative, eet es geeting worse!"

He retired from the Army as a Lt. Colonel. He is also the guy that almost dropped 3 guys on McGuire rigs on top of a tiger but that's another story.

-One of the grunts picked up a litter of puppies in Phu Bai one day. Standard issue mutts with the cockeyed half curl common to the country. He spread them around to all the platoons and they were named, "Slick, Scout, Snake and Blue." I never cared much for the filthy things so I didn't toy around with them. About November one of them started foaming at the mouth one day....we had something like 80 guys in the unit getting rabies shot schedules for 2 weeks, mostly pilots. Not me.

-I had a Winchester Model 12 riot gun I carried with me for monkeys and when I was Officer of the Guard. It hung on the wall by my bed and I had the only bed that commanded the front door. We always latched the door at night when we turned the light out to keep pesky frags out of the room. Johnny came home late on night from the club, Texas drunk. He crawled (literally) up the steps and was clawing at the door in a really odd way and I did not have a clue WTF was going on. I pulled "Da Judge" off the wall and racked the slide crisply. Johnny screamed "Don't shoot Dan! Don't shoot! Please God, don't shoot!" I think by the time I unlatched the door he was stone sober.

We're going back out in the Valley in the next chapter 'cause we left some Force Recon out there in indian country.


I am..........disturbed.

Concerning the difference between man and the jackass: some observers hold that there isn't any. But this wrongs the jackass. -Twain


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Good stuff DD, keep it coming. Did you read the book "Chicken
Hawk" ?

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Ch 15: The Darkness

A very curious coincidence went down about that time, my direct participation with the Recon boys ended by random chance. My last mission working with them was the time they sprang the previously mentioned double ambush up in the north end of the valley. My distraction wasn�t planned, it just happened. I�d be off doing something really important like chasing monkeys through the tree tops and get back to find some other chitt had gone down.

We had begun working double teams on rotation and it was a period when we really didn�t see much of each other save for evening chow or at the club. Anyway, one day I came back with a couple of monkey scalps and found out that one of the Recon teams had been hit in their NDP. Couple of dead and a couple wounded. One of our slicks had extracted them and the pilot said there were a lot of dead Sons of Ho scattered about the perimeter, maybe 12-18 or so. We were philosophical about it for the most part, but sure did hate to see these guys get hurt. General consensus was that the dinks paid a dear price for what they did and we were pretty damn sure it wouldn�t happen again.

A really perceptive person would have known otherwise. The mission surge we were pulling wasn�t done to amuse the brass. In point of fact we were seeing increased activity. The usual flight hour schedule for a Scout normally ran around 60-80 hours per month, but it had ramped up to near 100 very abruptly. We had a �new� platoon leader, and I was training him out in the woods like everybody else. An ROTC 1st Lt. named Hector C. Scrawny little fug, egotistical and full of himself. Well, a fella needn�t worry much about that sort in that environment since attitude is the first casualty of any war. Now I didn�t think much of Hector�s skill as an aviator and that was going to be a problem. He had a tendency to fixate on things to the exclusion of more important stuff like dead trees looming ahead, or gauges past the red line.
I think there is a sidebar due here: The LOH was powdered by the Allison C250 turbine. It had an N1(compressor) redline expressed in percent, 100% being 60,000 rpm. The N2 or turbine was redlined at 6000 rpm but we didn�t bother with that since it was governed and was always superimposed on the rotor RPM (redline 540 rpm; operating speed was 520. The engine was rated at 317 SHP by Allison and was PILOT de-rated to 250 SHP due to gauge limits. Most of the time. Now this fella Hector, he had this issue with the LOH that you either learned to avoid or you picked up your Combat Infantry Badge.

It was called the Hughes Tailspin and what it amounted to was a loss of anti-torque command authority (tail rotor)due to high torque loads on the main rotor while hovering out of ground effect. In simple terms, too much torque in the main rotor could not be controlled by the tail rotor in certain circumstances and the result was an abrupt and rather violent yaw to the right which continued until one reduced power to the system or hit the mud, whichever came first. We lost two LOHs to that maneuver during my first tour as I recall and that�s fairly remarkable since we were doing the silk and goggles thing up in the high country most of the time where it is much more likely to occur. Hector, he just didn�t get it. He was just an FNG that wanted to be a platoon leader. Me, well I was the aircraft-fuggin�-commander. He was in charge of me (legally) and I were in charge of him when we was in my office. He had issues with that, so I always ended my tirades with ��sir.� Nobody else that ever flew in a LOH used that word over the intercom system in the history of the war. Me, I did, just to sooth his ruffled feathers. Like �Ya [bleep]� idiot! Don�t hit that [bleep]� tree�.sir!� I had a floor mic switch and most of the time I was stompin� it like I was keeping time to bongo drums or something. It makes the LOH shake a little when you hit it hard. My gunner one day asked me to take it easy on the floor switch and I asked if he thought I was being too hard on the LT. �No sir, he�s a fuggin� moron. It�s just we can�t get those switches through supply all that quick.�

The other stunt he liked to pull was the �let�s see just how quick Dan�s reflexes are!� maneuver. That was the tail spin thing. We�we the grizzled experienced survivors, we never began to hover early in a mission, regardless of configuration. We burned off fuel and ordinance before any of that foolishness went down. Not Hector. He was�in his mind�invincible and not beholden to the laws of physics or preachings of the Wright Brothers. �L-T, keep it above translational lift, don�t hover here.���.�L-T!� �IGOTITYOUCRAZYMOTHERPHUCKERSIR!!� One day I thought my gunner was gonna jump. It weren�t but about 20� down� We got to about 40 hours of dual in a world where 20 usually was sufficient and I had to go to the XO for a chat. Now this isn�t the kind of chat you want to have with anybody but I was firmly convinced that Hector was dangerous in the wrong direction and I liked the boys that would be flying with him. I hated laying this on Dave the XO but it had to be done. Next day after the fireside chat Dave took him out on a mission to the Valley. I liked Dave and still do. He had to do what he did, and since he was one of the odd guys that drove a desk and maintained proficiency with the Group W Bench�.I flew off to chase monkeys on my own.

Another team got hit that evening, and it weren�t good. One survivor out of 6 and there were, to hear it told, dinks stacked up around their perimeter like cord wood. The story I heard later on is that Hector hoovered down into a very confined LZ and landed after the decision was made to expedite extraction with the LOH. Our Blues were on the ground as well but it would have been a major undertaking to carry the dead down to a Huey sized LZ, so it was one at a time in the LOH. They got the wounded survivor out and it was the second or third guy that forever ruined Hector. The jarhead had died spread eagle and rigor had set in. There was no way he was going to fit in the cargo compartment of the LOH, so right there in front of Hector�s tender sensibilities the grunts go the fella properly oriented and broke a couple limbs to make him a bit more flexible. Now that ain�t pretty and my apologies to the family and all that, but after they put him in the LOH ol� Hector quit workin�. I mean it was zombie time for him. Dunno if he drooled or not, never asked. Dave took the controls and finished the mission�..and he had one helluva problem on his hands.

I�m not going to belabor the Hector story a lot longer and I want you to know his tale was an anomaly. The last day we flew together we were sent on a battle damage assessment (BDA) where a Spectre had jumped a convoy on the western fringe of the Valley. I stitched 2 dinks hiding in a 48� culvert as we flew by and Hector schized out and tried to kill us again. He had already been assigned as the Platoon Leader and about 30 days later when flight hour summaries were posted I mentioned to Dave that most of the Scouts had flown anywhere from 90-130 hours in the last month except Hector. He had eeked (not a typo) out 17 hours doing ash and trash flights when he could hook them, some as a slick co-pilot. That chitt didn't fly then and probably doesn't fly today. Hector had taken over the scheduling from me for obvious reasons and thus greased his way out of the unit into the Brigade liaison position. He never looked any of us in the eye after that.

Another team got hit a few days later and they had one survivor. This time the firefight was on when the Cavalry came over the horizon and the guy on the ground did a Hal Moore and called fire on his position. It worked and he got a purple heart from a piece of rocket shrapnel that ricocheted off the radio and nicked his dick. Don�t call for close air support from Guns unless you�re sincere.

The dinks had brought dogs in to track them down and in their world it was a new experience for which they were not prepared. 5 teams got hit in a period of about 3 weeks and the losses were too high to continue. We pulled the Recon boys out and had only minor interaction with them afterwards.

One thing they did for us I�ll never be able to repay is give us all their C4�all 1,800 pounds of it. We traded them pen flare sets for the C4. I was the platoon ordinance officer. ARRRRGH! They did not make LZs for extraction. If they needed a lift they either came out in Maguire Rigs or humped to someplace we could snatch them without a lot of fuss. They never brought us into a hot LZ and that by God is a good thing.

To this day I remember those boys and the missions they ran like it was yesterday. I never in my life presumed to be the meanest SOB in the Valley after I got to know them. I weren�t. Most twisted, maybe, but I was a wuss next to those fellas.

SEMPER FI!


I am..........disturbed.

Concerning the difference between man and the jackass: some observers hold that there isn't any. But this wrongs the jackass. -Twain


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Chapter 16: Sport in the Rolling Hills

Like the old war melody says, "Down collective, pedal right, hope I am alive tonight...spin, crash and burn!"(to the tune of Bye Bye blackbird)........

I always had that thought whilst plying my trade as one of Nixon's Hired Guns. Always wondered who coined those lyrics too. Anyway, When I flew Scouts with the various Cav units across the minor length and breadth of S. Vietnam, we flew as hunter-killer teams, which is another misnomer because the Cobra Guns did the killing for the most part, I was just bait. Those sick bastids in their air conditioned Snakes would joke about reeling Scouts up every once in awhile to see if they'd had any nibbles...

I was out in the A Shau Valley one day, only a few klicks from Hamburger Hill(Dong Ap Bia) with a heavy pink team, doing a visual recon east of THE HILL, and south of Tiger Mountain, a flat top massif that always appeared ominous to me. I never flew over it once in 2.5 years. Boogie Men lived there! We flew out at altitude and once in the general area I made a brief look-see for obvious signs of the enemy, like flak, or formations doing close order drill, then hummed my opening line as I started descent in a typically erratic spiral. No, not a Death Spiral, an erratic spiral. Yes, they look alike, that's the idea. The Dead Man Zone for small arms fire against choppers lies between 100' and 1500' AGL, the less time spent there the better.

As the rolling hills rushed up I added power, rolled back to the left, and began ferreting out the small game. Low, slow, cock-eyed out of trim, three shades hotter than Hades, and the smell of green. It was my world. My crewman, a Spec. 4 serving as an armed observer sat beside me in the left seat, M16 laying across his lap, red smoke grenade in his hand that was to be tossed in the event we took fire. That was a highly likely prospect out in the Valley.

Over the river and thru the dale, to Uncle Ho's Hoards we flew! Up a hill, negative G push to keep the altitude down, transmission pressure light glowing red as it always did when the oil floated in the casing during those maneuvers. Turn left, turn right, up the hill! They were all covered with scattered scrubby trees and lots of elephant grass, which can reach 12' in height and is a wonderful world for hiding things from people like me. Things like 12.7mm guns for one. Whoops! there goes one out the right side, well, not a gun, but the pit they build for them with the little bunker on one side. Freshly dug I might add.

The little vermin are sneaky bastids, I give them that. They found out early on that a flight of two Cobras could pretty much tap dance all over one of their 12.7mm positions and never even worry about it. Soooo, they started grouping them in twos and threes. "Okay', sez I, 'Hey Mr. Guns, there's a .50 pit 5 o,clock and 100 meters or so, fresh.' In our way, we called that gathering intel back then. Problem was they never deployed just one in the A Shau Valley. They had stuff they were proud of, and liked to take pot shots at interlopers. So, if one was on 'Hill A", there was likely to be another on "Hill B". Usually within a couple of hundred meters, terrain permitting, and also at the same elevation. This tactic permits "Mutually supportive fire", and changes the equation greatly in regards to the Cobras. It takes 3 Snakes to deal with 2 guns. I had two Snakes.

Low stayed, slow was out the window. 80-100 knots(that's faster than a buzzard) now, down the hill, up the hill, and about 250 meters away there lies a freshly dug pit for another 12.7mm. Entrenching tool still laying on the bottom of the pit. Whoops again, call the lead Snake and babble about stock picks, real estate, and cat hunting for a few seconds while I think "Whoa" to my trusty steed and get it turned around for another quick pass back to Hill A. Much to my chagrin as I fly over Hill B, the entrenching tool is gone, and I reported that before telling them that there was now a tripod set up at Hill A and my stuff is getting decidedly weak. Yes, Cobras can duke it out with .50's, the LOH cannot, and .50's will chew a new anal orifice in a chopper...chop chop!

As I went over the position I broke left toward Tiger Mountain and the guns rolled in on Hill A. A tactically awkward situation for me as they were my cover and life line, yet the gun had to be hammered, pure and simple. I knew full well that Hill B probably was set up or very close to it, I was pinned between the Snake's GT line and the mountain, the only path out being over Hill B. Yuckee-poo. The good news was that I had a brand new, never been fired GE Mini-gun hangin' on the left side, and a full load of ammo. I was also below their line of sight for the moment. Any attempt to climb to altitude would have put me in their sights sure as sunrise and voided any advantage I held at the moment. To paraphrase the old Indian saying, 'It was a good day to wet your pants'. I had long since learned that the best defense is truly a good offense, and since I was in the Cav, and certifiably insane since I'd volunteered for this crap, I did the only thing I could do. Charge! I have a long history of being offensive.

Not only can choppers do what planes do, they can do more. And less. A lot of less. Their advantage is that you can literally drag your skids through the grass and even at a leisurely 120 knots you go by pretty quick to a ground based observation. We were almost up to that speed when Hill B reared up a couple of hundred feet above us, a saddle on either side that blocked earthbound view of low level ingress. I used one of those "little less" tricks, called a cyclic climb, or simply pulling back on the stick to trade speed for altitude. Zoom Zoom! The Mini-gun on the LOH was flexible in elevation only, azimuth controlled with the foot pedals, and in the circumstance I'd fully depressed it as I expected to be looking at them through the chin bubble when they came into view. Further, I planed to go negative over the top and hopefully keep the gun on target until nearly overhead at which point I woud dive once again for the safety of lower elevations. Up the hill! Time for one of those famous "time standing still" moments.

The gunner was waiting, his azimuth about 20* off to my left, the other varmint was crouched low with an ammo can at the ready. He fired as he began to swing the gun, and as I replied.

Couple of points on this: 1) The 12.7 has a cyclic rate of fire in the range of 500-700 rounds per minute, it also has a huge hour glass shaped muzzle flash, visible even on bright sunny days. One in five rounds is a tracer, and if anyone asks what they look like, just give 'em your best steely eyed stare and say "basketballs". Big round red basketballs. Every time one goes by you hear a deep sonic crack, then you get 4 more audibles before the next light show. It is REALLY impressive. Tracers don't seem to move really fast when they are heading right at you BTW. At least not until they go past, ZIP-CRACK! They do not go "whoosh" or "whiz" like in the movies. 2) Mini-guns in US Army versions, have a selective fire rate of 2000 or 4000 RPM. At that time they were noted for jamming often when fired at 2000rpm, so that mode was seldom used. Both rates had a 3 second burst limiter, meaning that you got to shoot for 3 seconds, then your water hose shut down. Again, 1 in 5 was a tracer, crackety-crack, I'm sure it looked impressive from the wrong end too, but I never saw that. Effective range was touted at 1100 meters, mostly because the splash of bullets was visible at that range.

Up close they churn the earth, creating a rooster tail effect of earth as the rounds sought their target, usually a serpentine path of mauled dirt, trees, whatever got in it's way. Inside of 100 yards it is impossible to shoot somebody less that 6 times with one that is on low rate fire. God, what a beast!

My first rounds impacted about 20 yards low and left, a bit of back pressure on the stick, a bit of right pedal, and the dirt dragon began it's journey to the pit. Range at this point was about 60 meters. It was the OK Corral. High Noon. I was Matt Dillon, they were the guys in black. And only because the sound of my chopper had distorted in the hills and they didn't know precisely where I was going to show up, my vomit of lead got to them about 1/2 second before theirs got to us. I was able to hold on target for most of the remaining 2 seconds of burst, flew on over them and down the hill as planned.

Though I seldom reconned a .50 position that had been engaged by Snakes, I knew for certain the condition of this one. I went back, did one u-turn overflight then ran back down the hill, built up speed and then climbed out to higher altitude. The gun was mangled almost beyond recognition, and that was enough for me. Enough was enough. Neither the Oscar or me could talk for about 5 minutes afterward, and when I finally told the team lead I got a bad case of the shakes. Back at the club that night I got a really bad headache with a 6 hour delay fuse. Best thing I know of to cure a hangover is adrenaline. Down collective, pedal right, hope I am alive tonight...

If you do a Google Earth view of the Valley it's kind of hinky and bears little resemblance of what it was then. The valley is settled, agriculture well developed and it is difficult to imagine the moonscape it once was. It is a better place today than then. Gone are the dragons and terror. Maybe the spirits remain.


I am..........disturbed.

Concerning the difference between man and the jackass: some observers hold that there isn't any. But this wrongs the jackass. -Twain


Joined: May 2004
Posts: 55,886
Campfire Kahuna
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Campfire Kahuna
Joined: May 2004
Posts: 55,886
Chapter 17: Highlights in the Fog

The fog I refer to is not the familiar "Fog of War" where everyone's plans are irrelevant 5 minutes after the battle starts. Nope. I refer to that interminable time found between the day you last know visceral fear and the flight home, or the endless days of repetition, the crackle of small arms blending with the whine of the chopper, the Ka-rump of HE and whooshing rockets. Sometimes the drunken Knights, on the darkest nights, would pause as they left the O'club and listen to the distant moan of a Vulcan Cannon, silently hoping the little ferret destined to kill them had in fact just been obliterated by the hail of a thousand small bombs delivered by a crimson tongue. We had our superstitions and closely protected dreams.

I pulled out my diary and taken a stroll through memory lane. Memories flood back like a dark ocean wave, their foundation mostly adrenaline. The little notes on a 3x5" notebook are cryptic but speak volumes to me, each brief accounting a day in the life of and properly rendered, each worthy of a book...if one could only choreograph the myriad of coordinated activities necessary to allow events to unfold in such fashion that the reader would quite literally soil their shorts...there would be no more war, no more warriors and no more people such as me trying vainly to impart such first person knowledge.

I cannot instill the terror, or the numbness to that which is acquired. I cannot give you the scent of jungle, the enemy cook fire and fragrant sauces which leads the hunter to rain hell on their breakfast. I cannot explain the emotional conflict of seeing great beauty in a land and people devastated in one instant, and in the next, transforming into one of the Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Of detaching from one reality and coldly ignoring the mothers and brothers and sisters in the distant background whose worlds will be altered indelibly by the twitch of a finger. Yin and yang.

There are five tales to be told in this chapter. They are disparate in nature and setting. I cannot state you will be amazed by the telling, but they are moments that linger, bubbling to the top whenever I recall those days.

25 December 1969 - Camp Eagle, RVN

Bob Hope was there doing his annual USO tour with all the pretty gals. The Gold Diggers and a select few starlets. I was by that time very senior in the platoon and opted to let one of our other pilots see the show while I did standby duty. Odds of me flying were nil since the camp was essentially a no fly zone during the show so it would not be disturbed by the beat of rotors and other obnoxious sounds. We had two teams out on rocket belt patrol and they would refuel/rearm at Phu Bai as necessary. Me, well, I figured to have the day to myself, maybe do a little reading. Such expectations were rendered unto smoldering rubble not long after the show was set to begin. I was in operations when the call came in from Division HQ. It seemed that a company unit was engaged down south in the foothills near the Bach Ma and we were to do what the Cavalry does...ride over the ridge with sabers high and save the day. Humbug.

There was the necessary back and forth Q&A: Why could not the rocket belt patrol deal with it, they were airborne and no doubt bored witless? Such logic does not conform to "The Plan", so the air horn was activated and we scurried to our steeds, certain this was another goat roping contest which would be the stuff of much laughter later on.

As you fly down QL1 from Camp Eagle the vista is one of great contrast. On the left is the coastal flat lands interlaced with the myriad of channels and waterways that are part of the coastal estuary. It is not broad, perhaps 5-8 kilometers before coming to the white sandy beaches on the shore of the South China Sea. On the right, foothills quickly give way to soaring escarpments, very shear slopes only a mountain goat could like. Beautiful yet always foreboding. There were steep walled canyons interspersed along the run of the rising gradient, some quite small, some very large and scenic. They were not the scenes of pitched battles in the main, mostly because access was not possible from the west and infiltrating large units into these features required passage through lands firmly under control of friendly forces. We did not expect to find what we found at all.

Fifteen minutes out of Eagle and we established two way voice with the unit commander who reported heavy casualties. This was one of those epiphany moments for several reasons. The commander was a fellow named Allen. Captain Allen, who had only a few months previous forsaken his position as Weapons Platoon Leader (Guns) in our unit for a ground command. Allen was second or third tour, previously a Green Beret, and was absolutely fearless. Most of the time. When he heard our call sign he knew who we were of course and made sure we knew who he was. Geesh, a real Xmas reunion! He seemed disheartened to hear we only had one Snake, or what was called a light pink team. On the other hand, he knew me and was somewhat pleased that I had a bird with a mini-gun. We were briefed, smoke was popped to verify position and I did a low speed overflight. I found his forward position on the first pass, saw a couple of friendly KIA's on the ground, and about 20 meters forward a large heavily reinforced bunker. Beyond that a series of heavy fortifications on the steeply pitched slope, straddling a trail network that led to the west. His forward position was pinned down by light machine gun fire....could we help?

I conversed with the Snake briefly. Due to canopy coverage and his mix of nails and HE Quick fusing, rocket fire was not the best approach. The canopy would cause the rockets to detonate in airburst form, likely causing casualties to our side and no harm to the dinks. I talked directly to Cpt. Allen and suggested I could keep the dinks occupied and allow the forward elements to withdraw under cover of mini gun fire and he agreed. I asked him to advise his folks that hot brass would rain on them as I would be hovering directly over their heads..and he should tell me when to go.... He coordinated this with his folks and I settled into a stable hover over the friendlies...they were all looking up at me for that brief moment...the firing slits in the bunker did not provide sufficient elevation for the bad guys to see me as I was about 20' above the canopy, or 125' above the ground. Cpt. Allen gave the go and the mini gun roared for a full 3 second burst. Most of it centered on the firing slits in the front of the bunker and as soon as the gun stopped firing I gave it another full burst for good measure. I looked down and the dozen or so troopers that had been below me were gone, as were the bodies I'd seen with them. Nothing like the heat of battle to mobilize a man. I peeled off the slope and took up a low orbit over the small valley to the north. Once a series of rice paddies, the terraced structures had long since be abandoned due to the war. Very pastoral....disarming....it did not seem like a place of death.

More pow wow with the Dai oui'...say it "Die We", or dink for captain. His position was consolidated at that point and he said his closest position to the bunker was about 80 meters east...could we put some rockets on the position? Why sure we could, no problem. Wasn't going to accomplish anything but boost the trooper's morale, but we could and did. Guns wasn't bashful on his run, did a salvo fire of all of his HE in one pass. Bravo, good show and all that chitt...but hey, Dai oui', what now? He needed Medivac and resupply. 8 dead and low on blah blah blah... Problem was, we were up in this valley and had no radio contact with anyone. His relay which brought us to his position was sent thru a passing chopper and was a fluke. We would have to exit the valley to bring help, pure and simple. Did he need anything prior to breaking station? Well, he understood the situation and asked if I could evac some bodies. Merry fuggin' Christmas.....

I wandered back over to the area of the bunker where the initial ambush had occurred and expended the balance of my mini gun ammo, mostly to shed weight. My gunner kept his ammo in reserve. A smoke popped to the east and I hovered over to an improvised LZ just big enough for a LOH. Vertical hover down to churned earth and stumps and the boys brought me one of their brothers for his ride to the 85th Evac Hospital. He was wrapped in a poncho and had no head. They loaded him in the cargo bay beside the mini gun ammo tray, backed away and I saw Cpt. Allen to my front...dirty, haggard but still with that fire in his eye. He nodded to me as I pulled pitch, I returned the favor and a few seconds later peeled off down slope to exit the area. I climbed to altitude with the Snake off my left side, that peculiar smell of death all pervasive. Guns asked if we were OK and I said yes. We exited the valley and he started talking to operations to explain what was going on. We were about to enter the twilight zone....

Guns called for a Medevac and air support as soon as contact was established. The message was relayed to Division Operations and our request was.....DENIED. WTF?

Say what? I guess Guns did all he could do and later I heard he came close to insubordination over the affair. I asked the obvious questions, like what's the matter with our sister troop at Phu Bai, the USAF, etc. etc....etc. He said "They have shut off all missions due to the show." Well, fug me gently. I dialed up operations and was no doubt more caustic than Guns had been but received some consideration because I was one of those insane Scout pilots who just didn't have the Big Picture. WTF? They wouldn't give me the Division Frequency either. You see, the likelihood of Scouts getting shot down was high so we never were issued the SOI or secret code and frequency book, cause it might fall into enemy hands. Like I gave a rat's ass. This was one of those pivotal moments in my life when I was introduced to the concept of cynicism. No amount of ranting or swearing on the frequency brought relief or courts marshal. Truly vexing....I didn't even have any ammo to shoot the bastids with!

I commensurated with Guns and we flew on to Phu Bai. He went to our sister Troop's rearm pad while I dropped off the kilo. Met him over at POL...put two squirts in the tank and we stole some ammo for the mini before heading south again. I gotta tell ya, between Guns and Me and Capt. Allen, we probably coulda cleared out the REMFs at Division HQ bare handed. It was a bad situation all the way around. What we did was a repeat of the first mission. We unloaded ordinance, picked up dead and went back to Phu Bai for the drop off, rearmed and repeated the cycle. 6 times.

On my last pickup I had a wounded fellow on board and that was an improvement of sorts. We landed in darkness, absolutely disgusted with anything having to do with our command structure. In one of those rare moments of contrition, we were met on the flight line by our CO and issued a half dozen mea culpas, a few WTFs? and a "I don't fuggin' get it either." Now I know with certainty Bob Hope would have chitt if he'd known what was going on, and I never held any of this against him. The responsibility for this debacle rests on the command staff, 101st Airborne, then under the leadership of one Major General John Wright. Azzhole.

The next morning there was a combat assault of battalion strength posited on Captain Allen's position. It was dispatched to relieve them and clean up this little untidy mess. The operation lasted for over a week and led to the effective destruction of an NVA battalion. Captain Allen's boys suffered something around a dozen dead and overall, 85% casualties in the brief period of Christmas day and night. They were probed and assaulted throughout the period, virtually ran out of ammo and were pretty much up the creek with no paddle when help arrived. The boys that relieved them were either not briefed on the situation or failed to take it seriously, for they had some pieces of their asses handed to them as well...before Tac Air was brought in and the complex leveled. Never saw the Captain after that but recall he made it out alive and back to the states. He was a war lover though, and I'd be surprised if he didn't find his way back before the war ended.

It was the Christmas that the Grinch stole and it took me a great many years to get over that day. I flew 11 hours that seemed like minutes. The show was over and gone long before I shut down and helped the gunner rearm. I did manage to get pie eyed drunk though....doubtless I never found an answer for what pained me in the bottom of a bottle. The only antidote for such poison is time my friends. It won't cure you but it will make you a better shot.


6 Jan 1970 - Khe Sahn

We were staging out of Quang Tri, working the Khe Sahn Plain. The weather was mostly suckish as is routine during the monsoon. Our recon grid, or "kill box" as they say these days, was west and south of the scene of the siege of Khe Sahn by about 15 klicks. The country is highly variable in I Corps...flat...majestic mountains, flat....up and down...etc. We flew along an old supply road which paralleled a river bed on the way out, slipping under soggy clouds and drizzle. A Heavy pink team with an extra LOH. What we called a white team with heavy cover. Theory was that if somebody got shot down maybe the second LOH could extract them. That my friends is a questionable theory, but we weren't deep thinkers when it came to safety. A LOH can heft two additional troops at sea level, but the odds of doing it within normal operational parameters in the high country is a long bet.

When we got to the end of the valley where the old base was we simply did not have the ceilings to climb so we slithered under the deck and between dead trees until we broke out into blazing clear skies just west of Khe Sahn. We worked west mostly and didn't find much to write home about. The time enroute was long, the recon mission short. An hour later we were on the way home. Our relief team passed us about 10 klicks east of Khe Sahn and we gave them a short debrief and went about our way. About 10 minutes later one of the LOHs in the relief team had a mechanical and had to abort. Now this is where is gets a bit weird and it illustrates the usefulness of sticking to a plan.

There was no one else available to provide backup so we scurried home to refuel. One of the Guns and me were to go out and provide backup...or complete the team. You see, when the scout had the mechanical, one of the other Snakes escorted him home. We had a single LOH and Snake on station, deep in Indian Country and a long way from help. We pulled pitch and headed west. Made it almost to the end of the valley when the team lead on station went bananas on the radio. His LOH was down and on fire. Guns was making runs on a .50 cal position single handed and his mini guns were jammed. We got to the valley's end and were met with a solid wall of clouds, right down to ground level. My friends, this is one of those real no chitt moments when only one word fits. Fug. I mean, just plain ol' fug. There ain't no depression know to this fella that exceeds that one. Sittin' there with your mil-spec thumb up your azz and nobody to pull it out for you. We're flying around in circles listening to our buddy taking all manner of fire, two guys are on the ground and we're about as useless as tits on a boar hog. I don't really recall how long we did that circular thing but about the time our buddy ran out of rockets and kept makin' dry runs on the dinks, me an Guns got to talkin'. I said something about like, "Well, you know I can hover from one dead tree to another, can you?" Hardly had the thought been uttered when Guns rolled out of his turn and headed for the juncture of trees and clouds. I gotta tell you earth bound boys, that is some seriously risky business. For me, in the LOH, it really wasn't that tough because I could get real slow. A loaded Snake can't do that, and when visibility is squat^2 and you don't have a windshield wiper, it is extraordinarily courageous. I was fairly convinced I was gonna see him fireball that thing on a dead tree. We were that low.

Even when you're a Cav Pilot and God's gift to the defiance of gravity, it is possible to forget just exactly how fuggin' good you are. We slithered out of the clouds just about where we had found sunshine on the previous mission and almost immediately saw the pillar of black smoke to our southwest. Guns went to altitude and accelerated, leaving me in the dust. I didn't bother climbing or zig zagging as I dragged skids thru the elephant grass at red line speed. We was headed for a serious piece of hell and I didn't have a clue where anything was 'cept my friend Rich the pilot and the gunner, Gerry. Their place was obvious for miles around.

As I mentioned earlier, guns had VHF radios and we didn't. They talked a lot on that one, so I didn't always hear what was going on...right away. The crash site was about 12 klicks from Khe Sahn, not a great distance actually. By the time they had briefed and my Snake had taken a few pot shots on the low ridge NE of the downed bird I was pretty much on the scene. I flew over the low ridge then down slope over the burning LOH. Rich had Gerry pulled off to one side of the chopper. Both were bloody and half of Rich's fatigues were burned away. Ooops! Dead trees, 12 o'clock! Breaking right, down into the gully, whoop-dee-fuggin'-doo....more dead trees, more violent turns, high gee yanks on the cyclic and then a looping return to the crash site. Guns asks if I can snatch them and I said I could but needed to dump ordinance. Chitt goes flying out the door, grenades, ammo, everything but the essentials. I was doing about 100 knots...we were seriously exposed and taking a load of fire from the ridge....two dead trees, violent jerk on the cyclic to the right and I roll to about 90* bank, sneaking my 22' rotor diameter through a 10' hole. That probably left about 2' top and bottom. My observer wet his pants. Thru the trees I did a reversal on the controls and put down the pitch, entering a speed reduction flare while in a steep bank left turn. About 50 meters out and we started taking intense fire from the ridge and my gun bird flew only a few feet above me a long ripple of rockets whooshing overhead as he did. It was, even by my standards, about time to crap my shorts. As if that weren't enough, suddenly the Snake that had been on station loomed into view from my right front quarter in a way nose high flare. He slowed, almost zeroed out on speed, jammed his pedals and did a little pirouette...like he thought he was some kind of acrobatic champ or something....then settled down to a very low hover right next to Rich and Gerry. Me...I was suddenly transformed into a gun bird...we started flying circles around the Snake (only time in history) and laying down M-60 fire on the ridge and surrounding real estate. I don't think my gunner let off the trigger once before the snatch was completed.

I saw something truly amazing when I came around on the second orbit. My friend Rich, all 160# of him, had Gerry, all 240# of him, over his shoulder as he reached up to unlatch the ammo bay door. The door came down and he sat Gerry on the door as gentle as if he was a little baby. Put his legs under the restraining cables, then laid Gerry on his side. He walked under the turret of the Snake and up on the downslope skid, opened that ammo bay door and climbed on. We did the infamous "di-di-mau" maneuver, heading out in the general direction of Laos. My gun bird held a high in trail position to cover us as we slowly climbed and turned back toward Khe Sahn.

I knew Gerry well. Despite both us being big we had flown a lot together. Flying along the river that defined the border of Vietnam and Laos he looked over at me and pointed down to Mother Earth. I waved to him to acknowledge his message and called Guns to tell him what was going on. Gerry's arm dropped beside him on the bay door and his head lolled down too. We broke right and scurried on to Khe Sahn strip where the Blues were waiting. I'm asking myself how that 3.2 seconds we'd just lived through allowed enough time for them to organize and launch the Blues to recover our boys. Time warp......

We landed next to a Medevac bird and the medics carried Gerry quickly away. Rich climbed on with them and we retreated homeward. I would never see Gerry again and he never regained consciousness. He had been shot through the soft tissue behind the left knee and bled profusely. He died 2-3 days later from what is known as a fat embolism to the brain. It's something that kills a lot of creatures when they are struck by high velocity rounds in or very near bone structure. Rich, well, I did see him again, many years later down at a camp ground on Bahia Honda Key not far from Key West. He was a pilot with US Air, had the family with him for a camp out adventure. His wife sat quietly to the side while we talked after the initial "how the fug are you's!" were out of the way.

He had gone ahead with the mission because he was, as many are, invincible. He crossed the ridge about the same place I had and seen a .50 pit with Chicoms manning the gun. He tried to do a reverse to engage them but had overlooked the possibility of there being another gun, and that one got him, along with a barrage of small arms. He had no recollection of putting Gerry on the ammo bay doors, or having ridden back to Khe Sahn on the other side. He knew what had happened up until the time he got shot down and had a recollection of seeing me fly over the first time. Other than that, bupkis. He had an enormous load of guilt over Gerry's death and we talked about that for over an hour. I think in the end it was a good thing for him I drove down that day to meet him, probably good for both of us. We still exchange Xmas cards and the occasional note about this or that. I got a long letter from his wife not long after we met, thanking me for talking to him about what had happened. Now and then, when I worked at Miami ARTCC he'd check in on frequency and say "Is that you 1-2?" "Yeah, it's me 1-5, howzit?" It was always clear and smooth, even when it weren't.

Feb/March 1970 - the "Z"

I don't recall the date precisely but it doesn't matter much. Again, out of Quang Tri, I was off on a recon with my good friend "2-2", the drafted Eastern pilot. We were a light pink team, though I don't know why. Probably the logic went something like, "well , we have no hostile intel out there so let's send somebody to look."

We flew past Khe Sahn to the northwest. Me, not caring particularly where we were going...after awhile, I sez to '2-2', "We gonna refuel in Peking?" Well, we had our grid and we was damn well going to take a look. It was right up in the extreme NW part of S. Vietnam, right square on the DMZ next to Laos. Craggy rock pinnacles amidst rolling elephant grass plains....perfect places for twelve gazillion guns..."Why don't you go down and have a look 1-2" Well, maybe not. I was looking at track trails in the grass. Tread tracks. Lots of them. Placed looked like a training course for tanks at Ft. Hood. Tanks and self propelled AAA guns, that sort of chitt. I asked '2-2' if that looked like track trails it him and he said...."uh...yeah. Let's get out of here." That's one of the reasons I like him. Sensible fellow AND really fuggin' good with rockets. They didn't believe us when we turned in the reports. Me and Bob, we just laughed and said we weren't going back to take pictures.

April 1970: One of my last Scout missions, "Flight of the Epiphany"

It was simple. Bait a .50 cal. It was one of those things I knew better than to do, yet did it anyway. My brother had told a tale about one of his college room mates that had died doing just that while flying C Model guns in the Delta. I knew it was risky but this dink azzhat had been plinking at us from the vicinity of FSB Rendezvous for several weeks and it was getting very annoying inasmuch as that was our preferred route into the Valley due to the availability of forced landing areas (roads). We went out, two Snakes and me. Simple and to the point. Get this guy to pop a few rounds at us, determine his position and take him out.

I descended over Rendezvous and started working up the ridge to the north. It was my opinion that the gun was on the top of the little knob about 200 meters up the ridge. Meandering over the ridge, whistling in the dark as it were, I did not overfly the hilltop. Instead I was teasing, hoping he would pop a few caps in circumstance favorable to my case and thus expose his position. As I passed the knob headed north I flew over the beginnings of a valley, the head of it actually. Trees defoliated, ground covered with leaves, little sign of note. Now I have to say that I never liked that kind of country, simply because it was too difficult to discern activity. It was something we did, this defoliation, but it was never to our benefit in truth. Certainly not from a Scout's perspective. Very abruptly I was surrounded by the most incredible hail of small arms fire I experienced in the course of 2.5 years in Nam. A curtain of tracers in all quadrants. It was one of those moments again, this one being the single time in Nam when I knew with certainty that I was going to die. Slow motion time...my gunner, a fellow named Mathews, was leaning out of the cargo cabin behind me, M-60 thumping away. As we accelerated I followed his fire and watched him stitch one dink after another, like ducks in a shooting gallery. Totally surreal. I yelled "Taking heavy fire" to the guns, they peppered the area with rockets and to my utter disbelief we flew over the low ridge to the left and out of their field of view intact, and without a single hit. File that under "Abso-fugging-lutely amazing." I don't think either of us could do anything more than sit there confounded by the idea that we were still alive. We certainly didn't say anything for awhile. Guns called and asked if we were OK. Told him we were but I wasn't likely to go back for a second round, and anyway.....

The FACs monitored our frequencies a lot and had heard the exchange. I don't recall if it was a Bilk FAC or one of the others, doesn't matter much. He offered to put some iron on target if only we would show him where it was. Well, I was not going back in to mark it, but the site was easy enough to ID simply by visual cues, so the Gun lead told him where to put the HE and we sat back to watch.

These Air Force boys, they had so many rules about when and where they could drop iron. A flight of 4 F-4s out of DaNang had aborted a Sky Spot in Laos due to cloud cover and were either going to drop their bombs for us or in the South China Sea for they were RTB DaNang with bingo fuel. I didn't know this and didn't care. The FAC called fighters inbound and movement caught my eye. It was the flight, in a diamond formation worthy of the Thunderbirds, dropping out of the sky as one toward the hilltop. Now I thought that was curious because I'd never seen such operational practice before. I watch closely and to my eternal amusement they all pickled ALL of their bombs at the same time and began their pullout, straight ahead to DaNang. There followed, the single largest explosion I have ever witnessed anywhere in my life. It took on the characteristics of a nuclear detonation.....the vast shock wave, the fireball, and the mushroom cloud. It was ASTOUNDING! And yes Virginia, I was very comfortable going back in for a review of the carnage. Even Mathews thought it was OK.

There was a lot of churned dirt and mangled stumps. A lot of clothing hanging from limbs from ruptured back packs. There was nothing recognizable in context of parts or pieces. We took not a single round of fire as I hovered over the scene and inhaled the smell of victory. It smells a lot like expended HE sometimes, napalm on others. We never took another round of fire from our .50 gunner over Rendezvous. Either he was taken out or decided he needed a less violent venue for his trade. It lends credence to the old saying, "Peace through superior firepower".

17 Apr 1970 A Shau Valley. Where common men did uncommon things and sometimes fools prevailed.

During the last 30 days of my first tour I spent about 2 weeks flying C&C and equal time in the front end of Cobras. The former was, for the most part, dreadfully boring. The latter was small retribution for being one of the unit's targets for those many months. It were fair fun, no doubt about it. It was also air conditioned. laugh

There were two events during the C&C era worthy of recounting. The first occurred during an operation based out of Quang Tri. I have no recollection of the purpose of our brief deployment en masse to that dreadful little berg but to the first point, we departed Eagle early AM and went directly to the AO, flew an endless series of orbits while the new CO, Maj. David Larcomb directed operations involving air and ground assets in Happy Valley. Who has a clue why it was named so?

We entered into a cycle of refueling and missions that went on and on and on and....we finally parked after dark near the C Troop area. I went to sleep on top of a rappelling tower laying on hard timbers after a lousy meal. Reason for going up the tower? 'Skeeters down at ground level. I used a piece of armor plate for a pillow and was roused by someone about 5 AM to continue the mission next morning. What was noteworthy? Well, the dink overseeing water treatment for the base ran out of chlorine and apparently didn't think it all that important. Everybody who consumed anything uncooked that had used water, including bar drinks, came down with a raging case of the trots. Bad enough that they had to fly in a C-130 loaded with nothing but toilet paper for the base. Story I heard was that life inside a buttoned up Snake was not all that enjoyable as several of the crews had unscheduled evacuations as a result. Me, well, I'd taken a canteen and was one of the few not affected. We flew on that day, and on and on and on. The second part that stands in my memory was that we flew 26 hours in approximately a 30 something hour time frame. I had to be helped out of the cockpit at Eagle upon our return. The crew was depressed since the bird had come out of one recurrent maintenance cycle just prior to our departure, and it needed doing again, not even 48 hours later. Fug, you don't ever want to be strapped to one of those seats that long...unless you enjoy not feeling your legs for awhile.

On another day we were operating in the A Shau, early one morning. Our strategy for survival had taken a new twist by then, that being that pink teams operating out in Indian Country also were escorted by a slick. The purpose was simple, to snatch down crews if necessary. So it was that fine morning that we orbited above the old A Shau special forces camp at about 3000' AGL while the two Snakes orbited over WO1 "Pappy" Price and his gunner Sp/4 Dalton. He had dropped down on the west side of the strip and had not been buzzing around very long at all when the Snake lead blurted over the radio that the "white bird is down!". I was on the off side and did not see the shoot down. My diary states he was downed by an RPG but memory does not serve one way or the other. Pappy had been on a northwesterly track when he was shot down and when we finally orbited to a position where I could see the crash site there was a long string of debris through the elephant grass and one of the Snakes doing a low high speed pass over the site. The pilot called out that the crew was alive...Pappy shaved his head and it's white glow showed brightly against the grassy background. The old (30 +/-) fart was way ahead of his time!

Well, therein is found the seed of much discussion in the C&C cockpit. Maj. Larcomb inquired of me what I thought we should do. Obviously, in my mind, we held a superior tactical position. "Launch the Blues and kick ass" or something to that effect. We had the adjacent airstrip to use as an LZ and could, in short course land entire 101st if necessary. However, we were in an era where we did not engage in set piece battles if it could be avoided. It was a posture that grated on me, but it was official strategy nonetheless. Maj. Larcomb elected to snatch the crew and in retrospect I do not fault the decision, if for no other reason than we pulled it off and avoided a lot of casualties in the bargain.

The Major took the controls for the snatch....and after he did, ol'....no, make that young Dan began hunkering down. Seat belt inertia harness locked, check. Sliding armor panel locked, check. Seat all the way down, check. Visor down, check (see, I remembered). The Major told the Snakes we were going in to grab the crew and they should protect us from all evil etc....he lowered the pitch and we began our descent.

Credit where it's due, he took us in on an opposite ground track from the shoot down and with a high descent rate. At about 300 meters we were nearing dirt and whopping along at about 100 knots. Scattered AK fire followed us to the PZ as he flared and did a pedal turn to an easterly heading. We parked about 30 yards from Pappy and Dalton and when we went down below the tops of the grass the ground fire abated. Pappy's face was covered in blood from a big gash across his brow line and he had to hold his face on to keep the skin from falling down over his eyes. There was a brief moment when nothing happened, everybody simply sat their immobile. Maybe it was my survival imperative in high gear, but it seemed to last forever. I keyed the mic and told the gunner on my side to go help them get to the bird...apparently both gunners took it to heart and they got to Pappy and Dalton quickly.

Dalton had something wrong with one of his feet or legs, not certain which, but with helping hands hopped and/or was dragged to the Huey along side Pappy. After about 3 days they got to the bird and scrambled in. As soon as they were on board the gunners began strapping in and I yelled to Maj. Larcomb that we should go. Whew! That was close! It never, in all my days, crossed my mind that the good Major would do anything other than pick up, do a peddle turn and depart the same proven path we had flown inbound on. So he'p me Gawd.

I say this somewhat with tongue in cheek, but what seemed painfully obvious to me apparently was not to the Major. Airplanes go forward and so were we.... Holy Mother of Pearl! He had rotated and begun accelerating directly over the inbound path that Pappy had flown....I hunkered down as much as I could, even raised my feet off the floor onto the seat, and that's neat trick from one of 6'2" stature. I went into one of those time warp thingies where the world went to slow motion....looked at David, saw him focused on the task at hand, sun glaring on his face, jaw set...scanned back to see a dink swiveling a .50 cal on us, about 30 yards out the right cargo door....our gunner, sadly I cannot recall his name...swinging the M-60 and the slow, slow motion of his gun firing, cases shucking out the far side, the .50 gunner's spastic reflex as a half dozen or so 7.62 bullets stitched his torso...he melted to the ground and Dan thought "Holy Chitt" or perhaps some other eloquent expression. Memory is foggy on that point.

It was about that time, as later learned from the Snakes, that the elephant grass around us was fair enough lit up with sparkling muzzle flashes. Lead was already inbound and began firing very close suppressive rocket fire, and I do mean close. I could feel the bird "bump" with each detonation, hear the rattle of shrapnel on its belly. I felt the 'thunks' of AK rounds hitting us while the door gunners kept pounding away with their M-60s. I watched the dash disintegrate before my eyes and tufts of bandages from first aid kits wafting in the breeze after they were hit too. I looked back briefly at Pappy...he was sitting there stoically holding his face on and the irony of being not his savior, but executioner crossed my mind. I'm not certain to this day what was crossing his mind but he had a most detached expression.

Somehow, and I will never quite know how, we flew out of that mess into the morning sun with the engine running and rotors turning. We had few instruments working and most of the overhead electrical console was shot to hell. We had no intercom or radios up front. I raised up and did a quick check in back. Unbelievably, none had been hit in back. Our left gunner's ICS circuit was still functional so I took his mic cord and between us and a lot of hand waving managed to establish com with Guns. I looked to the left and in the plexiglas on my left was the most perfect cloverleaf of .30 cal holes with about a 1" spread...right where my temple would have been if I'd been sitting upright. They came in from the left, I never saw the gunner.

We flew back, mostly in silence. Dodging fate was part of our job description but everyone on board knew we had just graduated Magna Cum Laude. There was not much to say about it. We won, they lost and chitt happens. We dropped off Pappy and Dalton at the 85th Evac and to my consternation Maj. Larcomb elected to fly the bird back to the Troop area prior to shut down. I was pretty sure that was a mistake. Not because I thought we'd fall out of the sky, but because I doubted we would ever fly that bird again. After shut down I did a post flight inspection, a very meticulous inspection. I do not recall that I ever differentiated between bullet holes and shrapnel holes, but in aggregate there were 176 perforations in the Huey. A great many were from bullets. I was right, the bird went to the bone yard. I commented to one of the Gun pilots later about his expertise in close air support and he sheepishly admitted he was a little close with his rockets. As I recall my response was something like, it obviously wasn't too close and he shook his head....said something to the effect "I was sure I'd shot you out of the air with one pair. They went off right under you."

Chitt happens.


I am..........disturbed.

Concerning the difference between man and the jackass: some observers hold that there isn't any. But this wrongs the jackass. -Twain


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Good review.


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Chapter 18: End of Tour

There are so many little anecdotal tales to tell I could go on and on and on. Most folks have perhaps one or two major life threatening situations to resolve in their lives and are thereafter coy about exposing themselves to such risk. Totally understandable. I have written about some of the crystalline moments during my period of training and subsequent deployment to SE Asia. There are quite a few other moments that might evoke laughter or lessor emotions but for the sake of brevity they will lay in the locker for future reference. Some of the topics are listed below:

1. How I almost got shot down by a rubber ball.
2. How I almost got blasted out of the air by 8"artillery.
3. How I almost got laid in Australia on R&R and how half my platoon married Aussie gals doing the same.
4. The day we had 24" of rain in 20 hours.
5. Chasing monkeys thru the tree tops with a Winchester Model 12 and a case of 00 Buck.
6. Fishing with Frags.
7. Flying with "real" pilots and making them puke.
8. You won't know quite what to say to the cute little blond you used to know, when she asks with breathless anticipation, "Did you kill anybody over there?"
9. You will know how to body block a flock of Hare Krishnas and put their sorry azzes on the deck at Oakland upon return...without breaking sweat.

...............like I said, on and on and on.....

There were some characters in my unit that deserve special consideration and recognition.

-Rich Ashton, who was the finest rocket shot I've known, and he does one helluva dance in potato salad!
-Moon Mullins, the polite and mildly aloof Scout pilot killer who quite methodically racked up a phenomenal body count w/o ever getting shot down.
-Johnny Sprott, who was a Texan's Texan and taught me how to do a flat 360* spin in a LOH at 50 knots while laughing hysterically. He also made me look brilliant every time I picked his ass up out of the woods.
-Bob Donnely, another Scout dubbed the baby killer. I don't know to this day if he's ever shaved but the boy was the Terminator out in the woods. There was the day after I left that Bob located a ZSU-23-2 out in the Valley and was crafty enough to take it out. The receiver and barrel assemblies were set in a concrete pad in front of Squadron Ops after they were recovered.
-Guns....God bless 'em all!
-All of our crew chiefs and gunners, without whom none of this would have happened. They deserve more recognition than can be said.

-My platoon buddy Ron Edwards took it upon himself to engage a .50 cal out in the valley not long after I left. He, like my friend Rich, did not factor supporting fires and was put in the dirt by an RPG that separated his main rotor. Guns said it landed somewhere in Laos...I dunno, those guys tell tall tales sometimes. Ron and his gunner survived with Ron having the only injuries. They were extracted by a C&C after the showing of ALL of the Snake inventory to the dinks....I mean the entire inventory of the 101st Airborne. Three Cav Troops(27) and a battalion of ARA, however many that is. I can't imagine seeing that many Snakes in the air at one time, but when they went in to pick up Ron, where they had previously taken heavy fire, not a round was fired. Like I said, Peace thru Superior Firepower.

-Our platoon leader, John Sensing was killed not long after I left near FSB Ripcord up in the tall mountains. John was about as hard drivin' as a guy can be and totally fearless. The guys liked him a lot and testimony to that is found in the final act of SP/4 Staton, a blond Swede from up Michigan way, who covered John with his own body after the crash. They were both shot to death where they lay.

My unit lost 44 LOH's in my year there, either destroyed or sent back to Depot for rebuild, plus 3 Slicks and 2 Snakes destroyed. My platoon had 27 Purple Hearts spread between 19 guys as I recall, all within the first 2 weeks of our deployment to Chu Lai. I quit counting after that but the flow continued largely unabated thru the end. Our respite was the 2-3 months after returning to the Valley but all things are relative, for we still took losses. Unlike most units, most of our losses were combat related. Not all, but an overwhelming majority. I'd been there for over 9 months before our maintenance took a LOH thru an Periodic Maintenance check, a 300 flight hour recurrent procedure.....unless you're flying in the Air Cav. This is how the Army went through about 1,500 LOHs before we left RVN. Very low maintenance aircraft they were.

As I was waiting to board a Herky Bird at Phu Bai for a ride to Saigon and a jet with long legs, I watched a bunch of newbies disembark in their clean new fatigues and lily white skin, sweat rings down to their belts. They passed 3 guys going the other way, walnut tans, faded fatigues dyed a little red from the iron in the local water, and 1,000 yard stares....grunts headed home. It was a perfect picture and I have it in storage...someday I'll scan it and post it here, for it tells more about that war than any words ever could. Fear.....and....loathing in Phu Bai. Yin and Yang. Hunter Thompson should have been there....

I saw stuff there nobody should see, as every combat warrior will, in every war we fight. It is my considered opinion that wars are fought by the brave and waged by the ignorant. We will certainly fight wars in the future and to those engaged in the Defense of the Country, you will know what I know. It is ugly, it is a ride you will never forget and it will make you wiser far beyond your years and your peers. It will activate your BS detector for all time. For those that have fought for it, Freedom has a taste the protected will never know.

So, to all the warriors, past, present and future, I salute your courage, commitment and fidelity.

Banshee 12, Out.


I am..........disturbed.

Concerning the difference between man and the jackass: some observers hold that there isn't any. But this wrongs the jackass. -Twain


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Dan, the beautiful thing about this is that this is a story that you needed to tell and it's a story that everyone needs to read. Thanks again.

Alan


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Powerful, and very well written Dan. A wicked fun bunch you mob were, indeed. Sincere thanks for sharing.

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I'm... speechless...

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What can I say.....one helluva story!


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THANKS!


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Good read. How I still hate those three little letters, T A C.


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Great read Dan, thanks. You are gifted.


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Bump

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Wow! Just wow!




The beatings will continue until morale improves
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