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Thanks to all for the positive comments. My second tour experience spanned 19 months and included the Spring '72 offensive. As indicated earlier, I may get around to that one of these days, or maybe not. It was a far darker experience in more ways than can be explained. Triple 'A' and SAMs take all humor out of the equation.

I'm rather inclined to think the missing part to this is that my experience was not unique. Over 3 million service members served over the course of the war and I imagine a great trove of history could be found locked in those memories.

This may surprise, but I have not thought the Vietnam War was necessary, or well conceived. It was foisted upon us by the Truman Administration, fertilized by JFK and ultimately went south under the command of LBJ and his toad McNamara. Of the lot of them, I hold the latter in great contempt for a myriad of reasons largely unimportant these days. With any luck I'll meet them in Hell and we can have a little chat.

A lesson learned and applied during the first Gulf War was to use overwhelming force to affect a clear objective in the shortest time possible. That was forgotten in the second iteration and this pains me greatly.

War is not pretty. It is not amusing even though the participants cling to gallows humor as a defense mechanism. IT IS NOT A GAME TO BE PURSUED BY AMATEURS OR USED FOR DOMESTIC POLITICAL GAIN.

To draw it out, to inflict gross suffering without end on our own or the enemy is grotesquely sick. If it is decided that war must be fought, end it decisively, quickly and with profound finality. To do otherwise is tantamount to treason.

My dad was a Korean vet and didn't want to share a great deal. I told him that he should at least write it all down, even if he did not want to share it. Maybe you would consider same.

Dan, I wasn't there and so can never fully understand but at least this sheds some light. Thank you for your service and thank you for sharing this.

Fantastic read!

Every war has its own characteristics but there is a strange comfort in reading your story and seeing that the more things change the more the stay the same. There are some aspects of the military and war in general that every new generation of warrior shares with the old.

Thank You........


MY Friend

Dan I lived in Mineral Wells for the last 6 years, and although i work in west Texas now I am based out of a shop that is on the base. I spend every free moment I have at PK. In fact my next set of days off will be spent floating around at Hells Gate. Do you remember a bar right outside of the front gate and back towards town that is a big rounded building? Its called Woodys now and i hear it got pretty rowdy back in the day.

The base is pretty run down and its mostly industrial businesses now. Excuse my terminology but the "on base houses" are now a run down neighborhood full of crime and drugs. The hospital is abandoned and last year there was an arsonist burning down a bunch of buildings. Turned out to be a cop setting the fires. What I assume was the main barracks is now a prison.

When you go in the gate if you go all the way to the back left (north west corner) of the base, that is our shop. Do you remember what it was used for? It has a tall roof, with a paint booth and a big ramp out back. Im assuming the ramp was used for auto maintenance.

Smithwr, sorry I have no recollection of the building you're referring to. Our movement within Ft. Wolters was restricted and I don't recall having ever been to that part of the Post. Classrooms were between the heliport and barracks and that was pretty much our world.

Funny, I sort of thought the barracks were a prison back then as well. Don't recall the bar but I'm certain the "real live officers" from that era would. They ran those fellas thru flight school as well but we had little interaction with them.

Ten 4. After looking at the link you provided I recognized a couple of stage fields. I used to maintain oil wells at the Bennett and the Bronco. The fella that owns the Bronco maintains it very well and has made his grandkids a pretty swanky playhouse out of the control tower, and he runs a business out of the place refurbishing airplane parts. The Dempsey is still very well maintained but i dont know what its used for besides community functions. I have to get to work now so ill read the rest later. Thanks for the story.

DD,
First, thank you for your service. I hold that in the highest esteem. As to your reference to the 1st Recon Bn., I can associate with their mind set as I was a member of that group; however some time before Nam. As you said, they are indeed crazy folks.
Secondly, Please, Please, Please write that book!!! Write about it ALL. Don't omit anything!! I have a good friend who was a Medevac pilot in Nam and he can tell stories that will curl your hair. This is the only way future generations can appreciate what you guys gave to this country, instead of the crap they're told in school by the liberal socialists. Your "book" is as good as any of the many others I've read about the same era.

Bravo Zulu, my friend and thanks again.
Semper Fidelis, Jim

SemperFi 57, my humble appreciation to you. I had occasion to work with a lot of ground forces over there. None cast a shadow so large as the 1st Marine Recon. Not even in the same time zone.

I don't mean to sound disrespectful of the others because I don't feel that way, but sometimes folks go above and beyond the call. That was Recon's norm.

Would be honored to share a bottle or a foxhole with you any day!

Dan

A small addendum: I have been stunned by the responses to this, both in the posts and via PMs. Thanks to all for that!

Have also found thru this a number of us with paths that crossed in the past, from Nam to the swamps in south Florida near Everglades City. Some of your words had me laughing so hard I might have blown a gasket once or twice.

Looks like I've some typing to do...

A few shots of some of the birds DD might be familiar with at the link below:

http://www.militaryphotos.net/forum...War-Helicopter-Aviation-OH-6A-and-OH-58A

Well Sir, I have finished your excellent little treatise at last, to say it brought back some uncomfortable emotions is minimizing. I shook, laughed and even had a tear or two.

Funny how close that can feel after all these years.

Ten Hut!, Hand Salute. Iceman 3, out.

Keep writing, man, keep it going. This is part of why I come here at all.

So are you - and I for one understand it, and it goes something like this:



If heeded by every idiot politican who has failed to employ LeMay's strategies, the US could have, no should have ended that war -- and every one fought since the Japanese empire succumbed to LeMay's strategy -- without you having to experience what you so perfectly put into words.

Great read, just unfortunate that it had to be.

^^^ !

Thank you very much !

I love this. I love being an American.

OK, after rereading now I'm into the disection mode, and have to know, what does it mean to fly "cross controll"?

Everytime I read the term, bad things seem to be happening, or are being avoided.

"Coordinated" flight means an aircraft is in trim, that being a balance of forces including aerodynamic loads and power.

"Cross control" means the opposite, ie not in trim.

Trim is represented on the turn and slip indicator by the ball position as indicated in this image:



When the ball is centered between the two vertical wires the aircraft is in a trimmed state.

Cross control application is commonly used in fixed wing aircraft during landing in cross winds to align the aircraft with the runway on touchdown to avoid excessive lateral loads on the landing gear. Simply put, an aircraft is crabbing on final (flying cockeyed but trimmed) and then aligns by "slipping" or cross controlling. An aircraft is "cross controlled" when the rudder or in the case of helicopters, tail rotor control pedals, and ailerons/cyclic are deflected in opposite directions.

My reference to this in the previous chapters goes to the point that LOH pilots and gunners both typically sat on the same side and to provide the best view and field of fire, we typically flew sideways in various degrees depending on airspeed. Our operating speed while on missions ranged from a hover to 120 knots, but typically we were somewhere between 20 and 40 knots. 30-40 degrees of yaw to the axis of flight was fairly routine. It makes new guys puke fairly quick.