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.
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.
