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.
