R
R W
Guest
I'm posting this for "Rawknee" Curtis......those that have been on the boards for years know who he is. Marty might want to pass.
25 years ago, today, I marched in a parade
This parade was for the dedication of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. People
stood on the streets with their kids and welcomed us home with shouts of
"Thank You"
and smiles!! I was marching in the Maryland section of Vietnam Veterans. I
was
terrified of "The Wall" and although I later stood within 100 feet of it
back
then, I was too grief stricken to go near it. To this day I can not get near
it.....It is a very sacred place... and although I have tried twice more to
visit it....all I can do is stand at a distance and cry.
It was so strange to see and be a part of this parade in 1982, and it was so
different from the reception I remember in Oakland, California when I walked
off the
"freedom bird" and we got tomatoes and rocks thrown at us by the Students
for
a Democratic Society.....or the frowns of disgust from other passengers as I
walked into Chicago's O'Hara Airport to catch my next flight to
Baltimore and home.
When I sat down at that gate in O'Hara in my uniform two people on either
side
of me got up and walked to sit as far away from me as possible. I was used
to
it by now. I knew the drill, I had made the flight to and from Vietnam twice
before.
I sat there in silence, a skinny 21 year old kid that looked about 50 with
the
burned out "thousand yard stare" in my eyes.
Oh if those disgusted passengers could have gotten a glimpse of what I had
seen and done and been through to get the honor of being back in Ameria to
sit in that seat in that gate.
I had just flown out of the "jungle" one day, and signed out of the "green"
(the Army) the next day. I was so green and new to America, I was still
pissin' Vietnamese water!!!!
I was one happy "civilian" sitting in that chair reading Kurt Vonnegut's
"Cats
Cradle" wearing my khaki military uniform and the dirty flight jacket with
the
large patch of the ZigZag Man on one chest and a rare patch of the 1st
Aviation Brigade on my left shoulder. This one was rare because it said
"Vietnam veterans against the war" on it. I had thrown away any rank and
medals...I only wore my silver wings...WITH PRIDE!!!!
Here is a glimpse of just one simple day of a helicopter combat assault in a
faraway place into a remote little area of triple canopy jungle......many
kids
had it much, much worse than me, I was one of the lucky kids that made it
back........A SURVIVOR
To the memory and honor of the fallen youthful heroes that never got to step
off the "freedom bird" and walk back into America.......
It's 3:00am. The still air is cool and humid with a bit of hazy mist
floating
eerily in the light of flares popped up by the perimeter sentries looking
for
sappers trying to slither threw the razor wire to blow up choppers. As I
walk out
to the flight line there is only one guard on duty and he is working on
getting his slick ready for today's combat assault. I can see the three rows
of Huey's sitting in their revetments. In our Assault Helicopter Company
we have two slick (troop carrying Huey's) platoons and one gun platoon. Each
platoon is supposed to have 10 choppers each. Today there are 9 gun ships
and each slick platoon has 8 choppers each in their revetments.
We put many hours on our choppers and there are usually two or three in the
Witch Doctor's shed, our maintenance facility. Like bumble bee's, choppers
aren't supposed to fly. To fly they put tremendous stresses on their moving
parts and onto the airframe. For every hundred hours flying time a Huey gets
pulled into our maintenance shed and it's rotor pulled off and the whole
ship
gets a complete going over.
In two weeks time I will make this same walk and only see 5 choppers total
sitting in the thirty revetments. Today is our first day into what will
become
a very deadly attempt to run a very dug in and well supplied hardcore North
Vietnamese Army out of an area called the "Parrots Beak". It is actually an
area in eastern Cambodia and western South Vietnam that on a map the
dividing
line of the two countries looks like the head and the beak of a parrot.
We have reports that Charlie has set up camp and is ready to fight.
It will take us over an hour to fly out to our troop pickup location and
then
another 20-30 minutes to fly them to the LZ's (landing zones) inside
Cambodia.
Last night our company commander had a meeting with all of us pilots , crew
chiefs, and door gunners. He had the battalion flight surgeon brief the door
gunners on how to give first aid to each other and to us pilots in case we
get
shot. They were shown how to hold a cotton pack with a piece of plastic in
it
on a sucking chest wound, how to give a crude tracheotomy, and how to slow
the
flow of blood from an artery wound. The door gunners were also shown how to
pull the pilot's seats backwards so they can get a dead pilot to stop
slumping
down onto the flight controls. At the end they even have a chaplain come in
and say a prayer for us. I'd never seen so much commotion over a mission and
was too young and
too new in Vietnam to understand that the generals KNEW they were sending us
into the lion's den.
The company commander explained that we were going into Cambodia and that it
was to be in secret. We were not to write home and say that we were in
Cambodia, not to discuss with anyone from another company about our
missions.
At 20 years old and having already been shot down one time in my 2 months in
country It all seemed like a silly game to pretend that we weren't going
into
Cambodia. Silliness like this is how American Presidents and their Generals
run wars I was to find out.
We are to take off at 4:30 and fly an hour up to Tay Ninh to pick up young
grunts from the 25th Infantry to insert into Cambodia. Today we will have 8
slicks, 4 gun ships, and a command and control ship flying high over head to
vector us in with compass headings into our LZ's. We will be flying in a
tight
formation and will be flying so close to the treetops of the triple canopy
rainforest that our chin bubbles and skids will be hit by stray high
reaching
branches. With the weapons Charlie is known to have down there in the jungle
we call the airspace between 50 feet off the treetops and 2,500 feet "the
deadman zone".
I never eat breakfast and am usually the first pilot on the flight line on
the
days that I'm flying. I like to take a lot of time pre-lighting my ship for
the
day so I skip breakfast. The lead ball of apprehension in the pit of my
stomach doesn't leave any room for food anyhow.
I have only been an aircraft commander for 2 days. You are supposed to
have 600 hours and 6 months in country to become an A/C. My company didn't
have any new guys come to them for over 6 months and I was one of two that
came in together a few weeks back. I only have less than 200 hours and just
broke 2 months in country. I am so green I can't even pronounce the
Vietnamese
names of most of the places that I'm flying into. As one veteran A/C put it
to
me "you're so new, you're still pissin' stateside water".
I had seen a little combat so far and my first time getting shot down hadn't
been too terrifying. I was afraid of going into Cambodia and into the teeth
of
a well supplied army that had already marched down a couple hundred miles of
the Ho Chi Minh Trail, then floated in sampans down the Mekong River at
night
and had dug themselves in and set up their crew served .51 caliber
anti-aircraft guns.
Little did I know that I was getting ready to lose my innocence, and youth
in
the next two weeks. A lesson in what it means to be a combat pilot fighting
for good ol' America was soon to be mine.
I climb into the rear seat of my assigned slick and pull out the log book to
check out the crew chief's entries from yesterday. Today I'm flying in a
chopper that an 18 year old kid nick named Marijuana Joe is the crew chief
and
left door gunner of. Joe knows his stuff about Huey's, he does like to party
a
bit also.
The right door gunner is another 18 year old we call Wino. Wino is a second
tour kid from the hills of Tennersee as he calls it. He is by far and away
the
best door gunner we have. His M-60 rarely ever seizes up on him in combat
and
it even sounds different, with the beefed up spring he had made for it, from
the other M-60s the other door gunners use. Wino has a dayglo blue painted
skull in his hootch that holds a candle on it's top. He picked this up on
his
first tour, up in Cambodia in a field of dead North Vietnamese soldiers that
got caught out in the open when the moon came out, and a Puff the Magic
Dragon saw them. Puff is a C-47 that has numerous mini-guns mounted on it's
left side. Mini-guns are electric machine guns with rotating barrels that
can fire 3,500 rounds per minute. Puff has so many mini-guns that it can put
a bullet in every 6 inches of ground in an area the size of a football field
in under a minute.
My peter pilot today is an administrative officer that hardly ever flies. It
was just his rotation and boy is he terrified. I sure wish I could be flying
with an older A/C who could teach me the ropes.
I finish checking out our ride for the day and make final radio check to
make
sure my four different band radios are working. The other crews are out and
the flight line is alive with aircrews getting ready.
At 4:15am we start cranking up and warming up the turbines and transmissions
while we check readings on their gauges. The smell of JP-4 exhaust soon
fills the morning air.
We start making radio checks to each other and then start to hover out of
the
revetments and set down facing the active (runway). It's hard to hover
smoothly out of a revetment with all the rotor wash from all the other Hueys
and
the door gunners are watching your every move with snickers on their faces.
Once everyone is out of their revetments we wait as our lead ship calls to
Phu
Loi tower for hover instructions to the active. We get the clearance and as
one 13 Hueys pick up to a three foot hover. The rotor wash is tremendous.
You
can see the swirling vortex off the blade tips as the mist gets sucked in
the
air stream of the ships around you. We hover out to the edge of the active
and set down to
await a couple of C-130's that are inbound.
Here we sit, 52 boys, mostly 18 and 19 year old kids, with some 20-27 year
old pilots
waiting to fly off to pick up over 240 other young kids that are sitting an
hour northwest of us, and we are to fly them out to LZ's in the jungle where
Charlie lies in wait. His fields of fire have been cleared, he is dug in, he
knows the terrain, he's powerful and strong.
My thoughts as we wait a couple of minutes for the 130's to land and taxi
off
are of my girl friend who is a senior in high school. She's probably still
asleep and as far from this hell as she could possibly be. I pray that I
won't
make any mistakes today, that I'll keep my cool no matter what. I say a
silent
prayer for all of us and for the poor grunts that we will have to ferry out
6
at a time to the jungle.
Lead ship gives us the word and we pick up to a three foot hover and again
as
one we nose over and the Huey's gracefully dip down as we pass into
translational lift and actually start to fly. A flight of Hueys is a
beautiful thing to see and hear as they
take off.
We make the slow turn northwest towards Nui Ba Dinh (Black Virgin Mountain)
which is a 3,500 foot prehistoric volcanic rock set out in the middle of
miles and miles of flat rice paddies. At 80 knots forward airspeed and an
altitude of 2,500 feet we slick platoons form two tight diamond formations
one behind the other and slightly higher than the
ships in front of you to get out of their rotorwash of disturbed air. The
four
gun ships are flying out beside us, two per side and two per platoon.
There is little small talk as we settle in for the flight. One of the
gunship pilots has a little box that makes a hilarious laugh and he puts the
box up to his mike and then keys his
mike so that we can all hear the laughter. The command and control ship with
its captains starts yelling to cut it off and cut out the crap, the gunny
gives it another go, just for the heck of it.
We can see the light on top of Nui Ba Dinh way off in the distance. I let
the
peter pilot fly a little in the formation and I start what has become a
ritual
for me, since I first got shot down and saw that I was not invincible, and
what will be even more important to me in the ensuing weeks. I start to
silently say my goodbyes......and my prayers........ to my family ,and my
girlfriend.
I start off thinking of my grandparents and parents and I pray that they
will
be okay and will deal with my death. I then think of my brother and sister
and
pray that they too will be okay and do good for themselves. Next I think of
my
girlfriend......I think of what it is like to hear her voice, and smell her
perfume, and hold her. I'm scared and I have to be brave, but I so
desperately
want to be with her. I pray that she too will be okay. She is young and so
beautiful, I know she will be fine.
Finally I pray for the guys that I am going to pick up and for the other
aircrews. I pray that if anyone in my crew has to die, that it please be me,
and that the peter pilot get himself and the door gunners back down safely
(there is a lot of responsibility in being an Aircraft commander). I finish
by
praying that if I do die that it is by a bullet in the face and not by being
trapped in the burning wreckage. I pray for forgiveness of my sins.
With my prayers and little ritual over I can now face the test of what I'll
later
encounter with a clearer mind.
We finally get up to an airstrip called Tay Ninh West. This is where the
troops are waiting for us. We hover down a straight line and set up next to
the troops that are waiting in evenly spaced groups of 6 for the choppers to
sit down by them. As they
climb on board I turn to look back and see their tension filled and drawn
faces.
We load up and are off, again in a diamond formation. Now we head south west
to the Parrot's Beak. We fly about twenty minutes at 2,500 feet and then
start
a pretty step descent down towards the deck.
At 2,500 feet 80 knots doesn't seem very fast. On the treetops it's like we
are racing along. You can see the yaw the front of the chopper makes as
small
power changes in the turbine make the nose turn left or right. And we are
moving slightly up and down at the same time. It is a struggle to stay lined
up and in perfect position with the other choppers in the formation. If you
are on the controls you spend every second straining to keep up with the
subtle changes that the ship is making. You can't take your eyes off of the
line that you hold to maintain your position with your wing man for even a
split second. This imaginary line is usually a line from the door gunner's
"Christmas tree"
(where his machine gun is mounted) and the opposite pilot's head. It is
imperative that you hold this position at all costs.
We are racing along with treetops banging into the skids and chin bubbles.
All
we can do is hold our position as the lead ship is being vectored in by the
high flying command and control ship up above. The gun ships have gone ahead
of
us to prep the landing zone (LZ) with rockets and mini-gun fire into the
tree
lines. As we near the LZ one of the gun-ship's door gunners throws out a
smoke
grenade into the LZ and the gunny's come back and fall in beside of us
again.
All of a sudden we hear the lead ship call out "Tomahawk six, this is
Tomahawk
one four, I've got a grape in sight, over". This means he sees purple smoke
in the LZ,
this has to be confirmed by the command and control ship before we land. CC
says back, "That's a roger one four, over."
Now we are on short final. The gun-ships are firing incredibly loud rockets
right beside us into the clearing of the LZ and I tell the peter pilot to
lock
our seat belts and shoulder harnesses down, in case one of us gets hit,
it'll
help keep our body from slumping over the controls. We are now over an open
area
with stumps and elephant grass and are going into a steep nose high flare as
we quickly lose our forward airspeed and level out to land. The door gunners
open up and the chopper shakes like crazy with the recoil of their machine
guns as red tracer rounds fly all over the LZ. The sound from both gunners
M-60's firing at the same time is so loud it seems to make the inside of the
chopper hot and it is very
distracting, but we are in the final stages of a critical maneuver and ever
ounce of focus on what you are doing is required to keep yourself and the
others alive.
As we start to land the door gunners start yelling "GET OUT GET OUT GET
OUT!!!!" The grunts start jumping out and running away from the choppers in
a
crouched position as they take cover. We bounce once off the ground, and I
pull an
armful of pitch and nose the Huey to it's forward stop on the cyclic as we
come out nose down tail high trying to desperately get airspeed as quickly
as
possible. Suddenly we are taking fire as we fly over the far corner of the
LZ.
Green and red tracer rounds are strafing our choppers from directly below as
we try to make our escape. We are still in a nose down attitude and a round
goes right between us pilots as it punches through my side of the windshield
and up through our overhead circuit breakers. It feels like I've been stung
by about twenty hornets as the tiny
slivers of the plexiglas windscreen hit my exposed neck and lower face.
Thank
God I had my visor down.
I key the intercom mike and ask if everyone is okay. The crew is unscathed.
Now we are back on the tree tops flying back north east to Tay Ninh to
refuel
and pick up another load of grunts. Behind us the second platoon of slicks
is
landing and unloading their troops. The fire intensifies as they fly out .
All of our instruments read in the green and we don't have any caution
warning
lights on the panel. The crew is okay and we're still flying. We'll have
about
50 minutes of turn around to get into Tay Ninh for fuel for us all, and ammo
for the gunships. We're also gonna pick up a couple of cases of grenades to
throw down at Charlie as we fly over him on take off next time.
That's 50 minutes that the first troops we dropped off have to fend for
themselves and set up positions to help cover us as we bring in another load
of their buddies. That's also 50 minutes that your mind has to think about
what the heck you are going to fly back into....please let them keep Charlie
down next time.
We get immediate clearance into Tay Ninh for refuel and ammo as we are
flying
hot sorties. Out of re-arm we fly over to Tay Ninh West to pick up another
load. The grunts jump on and off we go.
Now inbound to the LZ we are getting "sit reps" (Situation reports from the
LZ). They aren't good. The grunts are struggling. We know we are going to
have
to go back into the teeth of a firefight. A quick glance behind you at the
grunts tells a volume of what these poor kids are thinking, it's all in
their
eyes and the tense faces.
It's easier to be the pilot that is flying when you have to go into a hot
LZ.
You don't have any time to think about anything but the flying. Everything
happens so fast you just have to keep reacting to the constant changes in
the
ship....and you have to train yourself to not get a death grip on the cyclic
and collective controls as your body tenses up. That's part of the reason
they
use kids to fight their wars, their reaction times are much faster.
Back in the treetops on close final back into the LZ the peter pilot is
starting to ask too many questions and his voice is up a couple of octaves.
I know that I can't afford to let him come apart on me so I tell him we'll
make it. Just stay on those gauges and tell me if the rotor rpm starts
dropping or if the EGT (exhaust gas temperature) starts rising when we take
off. Anything to try and keep him from looking outside and freaking out.
Now the clearing is in sight, tracer rounds are flying everywhere in the LZ,
Oh Christ!!!!! In we go!!!
Steep flare to get rid of forward airspeed, level out so the troops can
bolt,
bounce once off the ground and then face straight into the ground as I pull
all the pitch
into the main rotors I can grab with my left hand, at the same instant push
hard left pedal to keep us straight from the torque of the main rotor biting
so much air, and push the cyclic to it's forward stop (which tilts the rotor
disc forward giving us forward airspeed). The Huey is standing on it's nose
as
we oh so slowly struggle for airspeed and altitude. The engine and
transmission strain to respond to my input.
There is so much noise going on you can feel it as well as hear it. Suddenly
the chopper to my right has a door gunner hanging outside by his bungee
cord.
I have to line up his Christmas tree with the far pilots head to stay in
formation and ignore his flapping body. We are taking rounds all over the
ship. The radios are going crazy with voices. One ship has taken a B-40
rocket
propelled grenade in the nose and while the peter pilot is still flying the
ship his A/C (aircraft commander) is a bloody pile of smoking meat with
parts
of his body blown all over the chopper. The peter pilot is screaming
incoherently in his radio. It un-nerves everyone to hear that.
I key our intercom mike and ask again "everyone okay" as I dare a peek back
to
look at my boys. " Fine back here sir, but we've got holes everywhere" they
report. Our gauges are still in the green, and we're still flying. Behind us
second platoon has just lost two ships in the LZ, what is left of their
crews
runs to the other two ships and escapes. Charlie is strong, Charlie is well
dug in, Charlie is smart!!!!
Back to Tay Ninh West we race. The gun-ships stay on location this time to
soften up the area that we have to over fly on take off. They will have to
run
back to Tay Ninh to re-arm before joining back up with us.
Part of our flight goes right to the troops waiting to be picked up. The
poor
crew that lost it's A/C going to a mash unit on the opposite side of the
airfield. Dead and wounded crew members are going there also.
At the pickup point the door gunners and I get out and look over the ship as
it runs and can't see any leaks or problems that concerns us. We haven't
taken one
half of the troops in yet.....we are down a total of three slicks at this
point, and have wounded and dead door gunners from other slicks....but, we
have to go back in.....now they're are wounded grunts that need to get back
to
the aid station. While the guns are re-arming we regroup our crews.
Everything is at a fever pitch!!!!! We are gonna go back in a flight of five
slicks into the LZ. We'll also have to sit on the ground while the dead and
wounded are loaded onto the choppers!! We meet up with the gun-ships on the
way back to the LZ.
The battle in the LZ is still pitched. The guns race ahead to keep pounding
our in bound and departure route. The grunts are holding their own and maybe
taking a
little ground.
There is the clearing, in we go...steep flare, level out, touch down and
wait
as the fresh grunts unload and the torn and bleeding bodies of their buddies
are loaded on. Tracers reach all over the LZ.....we have to sit and watch as
they aim in on us....POP....POP....POP!! three rounds come through the
plexiglas as we sit there utterly hopeless and helpless.....the three rounds
slap into the heavy metal of the transmission between and behind us pilots
and
the door gunners. Grunts are running towards us with their buddies. The dead
and wounded, 8 kids, are loaded on our ship. Off we go!!!!
Nose down, main rotor tilted so far down it is almost digging dirt. My left
arm is pulled up into my armpit with the collective. Right arm outstretched
nosing the rotor disc over and left foot pushed forward making the tail
rotor
keep us straight. Out we race...like a VW Beetle on three of it's four
cylinders!!!
We take more fire. In other slicks one pilot is hit in the throat and
another
is hit in the leg. Two more door gunners are down. In the back of our
chopper
blood is spreading out all over the floor. Torn apart kids are screaming in
agony, the coppery smell of blood fills the air and mixes with the smell of
open intestines. Screams of "OH GOD!!!" shrieks of "MOMMY" shatter your
nerves. AND THE THOUGHT THAT WE'VE GOTTA GO BACK IN !!!
Four more slicks are on the way from our unit to fill in the holes in our
ranks. We've gotta refuel and re-arm again.
Now back at Tay Ninh West, we reload with another load of grunts and head
back
in for our fourth sortie. This time we are back in with our two flights of
four slicks. Again, it's a sharp flair, level out, unload and sit on the
ground and wait as more wounded
troops are loaded on. Meanwhile tracer rounds and bullets fill the LZ. Death
is everywhere.
The grunts we now carry in are taking in more ammo for their buddis but in
another sortie
or two we will start bringing in ammo and water and c-rats (food from WWII)
for them as we keep returning to finish bringing the last of their men and
continue hauling out their butchered buddies.
Finally loaded up with 8 more wounded we are airborne again......more
tracers
arch up at us but this time we all make it safely out.
Back to the mash unit to unload the gore that used to be healthy young kids
we
go, then back to pick up another load of healthy kids. We are getting
spattered with blood as we hover near the mash unit. There is so much blood
running off the deckof the ship, on both sides, that the rotorwash picks it
up and blows it
back inside the chopper. It covers us and the inside of the windshield. We
have to take rags to wipe it off the windshield so we can see better. You
can
see the blood splattering the nurses and docs as they run out to us. There
is
no time to think about it.....must get more
kids.
We make it back into the LZ and by now the fighting is dying down. Charlie
is
backing away as so many troops are arriving to fight him. We still take more
rounds going out but not as many. Charlie is smart, he knows when to cut you
to shreds and then when to cut and run to fight you in another place. He
knows
we will take this area for a few days, then the choppers will lift the
troops
out to another area and he can walk back in.
This time we only get four dead kids on our chopper. It is a very quiet
flight back to the mash unit, no one is screaming for God or mom, or begging
their buddy to not die on them.
Our ship makes two more trips in to pick up any remaining casualties and
haul
in the three basics....food, water, and ammo. It is past 6:30pm and we have
been flying over 13 hours of consecutive sorties into an intensely hot LZ.
My
mind and body ache with fatigue from all the horrific stimuli and stress of
being on the edge of insanity, yet having to force myself to stay cool and
focused in the midst of it all.
We finally fly to Phu Loi for a shower to get the blood off of me, and to
listen to Joe Walsh and James Gang's Thirds turned up real loud. By the time
we
get back at 8:00pm we have flown 15 and one half hours. We will do the
same thing tomorrow morning. My roommate made it back today also.
Back in Phu Loi and parked in the revetment I have to sit in the chopper
until
the tension leaves my legs. It's a funny thing.....I train my arms and hands
to stay limber but the tension seems to go to my legs. I literally have to
sit
in the back of the chopper and sometimes lay in the dried blood back there
to
get my legs to relax enough so that I can walk back to my hootch. Most days
I'm in agony laying back there reading a book for an hour or so, but I'm
still
alive.....I think. Sometimes I help the crew chief and other door gunner
wash
the day's blood out of the chopper. Some days I am so brain dead I can only
walk like a zombie back to my hootch.
Today was just another day in paradise.......tomorrow we will be back , more
troops to be inserted into another LZ in the Parrots Beak. We do this
everyday
for just over two weeks, each day there will be fewer of us. My girlfriend
couldn't understand why she only got short or no letters during this period.
I
never told her the truth why, it was much better for her and my family to
not
know what "the kid " was up to.
In the two weeks of this operation I will no longer be the same fresh pink
faced kid that I came over here as. My eyes will sink back in my head, I
will
gaze at the horizon in a thousand yard stare at times.
To enable me to face each day my mind will pull in my thoughts of love and
tenderness and bury them in a deep hidden recess.
I will become a feral animal called a combat assault pilot, I will become a
survivor.....9 years later...it'll take tons of serious therapy with a
fellow
named John Stewart and other hardcore combat veterans to unwind me......
Rawknee
25 years ago, today, I marched in a parade
This parade was for the dedication of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. People
stood on the streets with their kids and welcomed us home with shouts of
"Thank You"
and smiles!! I was marching in the Maryland section of Vietnam Veterans. I
was
terrified of "The Wall" and although I later stood within 100 feet of it
back
then, I was too grief stricken to go near it. To this day I can not get near
it.....It is a very sacred place... and although I have tried twice more to
visit it....all I can do is stand at a distance and cry.
It was so strange to see and be a part of this parade in 1982, and it was so
different from the reception I remember in Oakland, California when I walked
off the
"freedom bird" and we got tomatoes and rocks thrown at us by the Students
for
a Democratic Society.....or the frowns of disgust from other passengers as I
walked into Chicago's O'Hara Airport to catch my next flight to
Baltimore and home.
When I sat down at that gate in O'Hara in my uniform two people on either
side
of me got up and walked to sit as far away from me as possible. I was used
to
it by now. I knew the drill, I had made the flight to and from Vietnam twice
before.
I sat there in silence, a skinny 21 year old kid that looked about 50 with
the
burned out "thousand yard stare" in my eyes.
Oh if those disgusted passengers could have gotten a glimpse of what I had
seen and done and been through to get the honor of being back in Ameria to
sit in that seat in that gate.
I had just flown out of the "jungle" one day, and signed out of the "green"
(the Army) the next day. I was so green and new to America, I was still
pissin' Vietnamese water!!!!
I was one happy "civilian" sitting in that chair reading Kurt Vonnegut's
"Cats
Cradle" wearing my khaki military uniform and the dirty flight jacket with
the
large patch of the ZigZag Man on one chest and a rare patch of the 1st
Aviation Brigade on my left shoulder. This one was rare because it said
"Vietnam veterans against the war" on it. I had thrown away any rank and
medals...I only wore my silver wings...WITH PRIDE!!!!
Here is a glimpse of just one simple day of a helicopter combat assault in a
faraway place into a remote little area of triple canopy jungle......many
kids
had it much, much worse than me, I was one of the lucky kids that made it
back........A SURVIVOR
To the memory and honor of the fallen youthful heroes that never got to step
off the "freedom bird" and walk back into America.......
It's 3:00am. The still air is cool and humid with a bit of hazy mist
floating
eerily in the light of flares popped up by the perimeter sentries looking
for
sappers trying to slither threw the razor wire to blow up choppers. As I
walk out
to the flight line there is only one guard on duty and he is working on
getting his slick ready for today's combat assault. I can see the three rows
of Huey's sitting in their revetments. In our Assault Helicopter Company
we have two slick (troop carrying Huey's) platoons and one gun platoon. Each
platoon is supposed to have 10 choppers each. Today there are 9 gun ships
and each slick platoon has 8 choppers each in their revetments.
We put many hours on our choppers and there are usually two or three in the
Witch Doctor's shed, our maintenance facility. Like bumble bee's, choppers
aren't supposed to fly. To fly they put tremendous stresses on their moving
parts and onto the airframe. For every hundred hours flying time a Huey gets
pulled into our maintenance shed and it's rotor pulled off and the whole
ship
gets a complete going over.
In two weeks time I will make this same walk and only see 5 choppers total
sitting in the thirty revetments. Today is our first day into what will
become
a very deadly attempt to run a very dug in and well supplied hardcore North
Vietnamese Army out of an area called the "Parrots Beak". It is actually an
area in eastern Cambodia and western South Vietnam that on a map the
dividing
line of the two countries looks like the head and the beak of a parrot.
We have reports that Charlie has set up camp and is ready to fight.
It will take us over an hour to fly out to our troop pickup location and
then
another 20-30 minutes to fly them to the LZ's (landing zones) inside
Cambodia.
Last night our company commander had a meeting with all of us pilots , crew
chiefs, and door gunners. He had the battalion flight surgeon brief the door
gunners on how to give first aid to each other and to us pilots in case we
get
shot. They were shown how to hold a cotton pack with a piece of plastic in
it
on a sucking chest wound, how to give a crude tracheotomy, and how to slow
the
flow of blood from an artery wound. The door gunners were also shown how to
pull the pilot's seats backwards so they can get a dead pilot to stop
slumping
down onto the flight controls. At the end they even have a chaplain come in
and say a prayer for us. I'd never seen so much commotion over a mission and
was too young and
too new in Vietnam to understand that the generals KNEW they were sending us
into the lion's den.
The company commander explained that we were going into Cambodia and that it
was to be in secret. We were not to write home and say that we were in
Cambodia, not to discuss with anyone from another company about our
missions.
At 20 years old and having already been shot down one time in my 2 months in
country It all seemed like a silly game to pretend that we weren't going
into
Cambodia. Silliness like this is how American Presidents and their Generals
run wars I was to find out.
We are to take off at 4:30 and fly an hour up to Tay Ninh to pick up young
grunts from the 25th Infantry to insert into Cambodia. Today we will have 8
slicks, 4 gun ships, and a command and control ship flying high over head to
vector us in with compass headings into our LZ's. We will be flying in a
tight
formation and will be flying so close to the treetops of the triple canopy
rainforest that our chin bubbles and skids will be hit by stray high
reaching
branches. With the weapons Charlie is known to have down there in the jungle
we call the airspace between 50 feet off the treetops and 2,500 feet "the
deadman zone".
I never eat breakfast and am usually the first pilot on the flight line on
the
days that I'm flying. I like to take a lot of time pre-lighting my ship for
the
day so I skip breakfast. The lead ball of apprehension in the pit of my
stomach doesn't leave any room for food anyhow.
I have only been an aircraft commander for 2 days. You are supposed to
have 600 hours and 6 months in country to become an A/C. My company didn't
have any new guys come to them for over 6 months and I was one of two that
came in together a few weeks back. I only have less than 200 hours and just
broke 2 months in country. I am so green I can't even pronounce the
Vietnamese
names of most of the places that I'm flying into. As one veteran A/C put it
to
me "you're so new, you're still pissin' stateside water".
I had seen a little combat so far and my first time getting shot down hadn't
been too terrifying. I was afraid of going into Cambodia and into the teeth
of
a well supplied army that had already marched down a couple hundred miles of
the Ho Chi Minh Trail, then floated in sampans down the Mekong River at
night
and had dug themselves in and set up their crew served .51 caliber
anti-aircraft guns.
Little did I know that I was getting ready to lose my innocence, and youth
in
the next two weeks. A lesson in what it means to be a combat pilot fighting
for good ol' America was soon to be mine.
I climb into the rear seat of my assigned slick and pull out the log book to
check out the crew chief's entries from yesterday. Today I'm flying in a
chopper that an 18 year old kid nick named Marijuana Joe is the crew chief
and
left door gunner of. Joe knows his stuff about Huey's, he does like to party
a
bit also.
The right door gunner is another 18 year old we call Wino. Wino is a second
tour kid from the hills of Tennersee as he calls it. He is by far and away
the
best door gunner we have. His M-60 rarely ever seizes up on him in combat
and
it even sounds different, with the beefed up spring he had made for it, from
the other M-60s the other door gunners use. Wino has a dayglo blue painted
skull in his hootch that holds a candle on it's top. He picked this up on
his
first tour, up in Cambodia in a field of dead North Vietnamese soldiers that
got caught out in the open when the moon came out, and a Puff the Magic
Dragon saw them. Puff is a C-47 that has numerous mini-guns mounted on it's
left side. Mini-guns are electric machine guns with rotating barrels that
can fire 3,500 rounds per minute. Puff has so many mini-guns that it can put
a bullet in every 6 inches of ground in an area the size of a football field
in under a minute.
My peter pilot today is an administrative officer that hardly ever flies. It
was just his rotation and boy is he terrified. I sure wish I could be flying
with an older A/C who could teach me the ropes.
I finish checking out our ride for the day and make final radio check to
make
sure my four different band radios are working. The other crews are out and
the flight line is alive with aircrews getting ready.
At 4:15am we start cranking up and warming up the turbines and transmissions
while we check readings on their gauges. The smell of JP-4 exhaust soon
fills the morning air.
We start making radio checks to each other and then start to hover out of
the
revetments and set down facing the active (runway). It's hard to hover
smoothly out of a revetment with all the rotor wash from all the other Hueys
and
the door gunners are watching your every move with snickers on their faces.
Once everyone is out of their revetments we wait as our lead ship calls to
Phu
Loi tower for hover instructions to the active. We get the clearance and as
one 13 Hueys pick up to a three foot hover. The rotor wash is tremendous.
You
can see the swirling vortex off the blade tips as the mist gets sucked in
the
air stream of the ships around you. We hover out to the edge of the active
and set down to
await a couple of C-130's that are inbound.
Here we sit, 52 boys, mostly 18 and 19 year old kids, with some 20-27 year
old pilots
waiting to fly off to pick up over 240 other young kids that are sitting an
hour northwest of us, and we are to fly them out to LZ's in the jungle where
Charlie lies in wait. His fields of fire have been cleared, he is dug in, he
knows the terrain, he's powerful and strong.
My thoughts as we wait a couple of minutes for the 130's to land and taxi
off
are of my girl friend who is a senior in high school. She's probably still
asleep and as far from this hell as she could possibly be. I pray that I
won't
make any mistakes today, that I'll keep my cool no matter what. I say a
silent
prayer for all of us and for the poor grunts that we will have to ferry out
6
at a time to the jungle.
Lead ship gives us the word and we pick up to a three foot hover and again
as
one we nose over and the Huey's gracefully dip down as we pass into
translational lift and actually start to fly. A flight of Hueys is a
beautiful thing to see and hear as they
take off.
We make the slow turn northwest towards Nui Ba Dinh (Black Virgin Mountain)
which is a 3,500 foot prehistoric volcanic rock set out in the middle of
miles and miles of flat rice paddies. At 80 knots forward airspeed and an
altitude of 2,500 feet we slick platoons form two tight diamond formations
one behind the other and slightly higher than the
ships in front of you to get out of their rotorwash of disturbed air. The
four
gun ships are flying out beside us, two per side and two per platoon.
There is little small talk as we settle in for the flight. One of the
gunship pilots has a little box that makes a hilarious laugh and he puts the
box up to his mike and then keys his
mike so that we can all hear the laughter. The command and control ship with
its captains starts yelling to cut it off and cut out the crap, the gunny
gives it another go, just for the heck of it.
We can see the light on top of Nui Ba Dinh way off in the distance. I let
the
peter pilot fly a little in the formation and I start what has become a
ritual
for me, since I first got shot down and saw that I was not invincible, and
what will be even more important to me in the ensuing weeks. I start to
silently say my goodbyes......and my prayers........ to my family ,and my
girlfriend.
I start off thinking of my grandparents and parents and I pray that they
will
be okay and will deal with my death. I then think of my brother and sister
and
pray that they too will be okay and do good for themselves. Next I think of
my
girlfriend......I think of what it is like to hear her voice, and smell her
perfume, and hold her. I'm scared and I have to be brave, but I so
desperately
want to be with her. I pray that she too will be okay. She is young and so
beautiful, I know she will be fine.
Finally I pray for the guys that I am going to pick up and for the other
aircrews. I pray that if anyone in my crew has to die, that it please be me,
and that the peter pilot get himself and the door gunners back down safely
(there is a lot of responsibility in being an Aircraft commander). I finish
by
praying that if I do die that it is by a bullet in the face and not by being
trapped in the burning wreckage. I pray for forgiveness of my sins.
With my prayers and little ritual over I can now face the test of what I'll
later
encounter with a clearer mind.
We finally get up to an airstrip called Tay Ninh West. This is where the
troops are waiting for us. We hover down a straight line and set up next to
the troops that are waiting in evenly spaced groups of 6 for the choppers to
sit down by them. As they
climb on board I turn to look back and see their tension filled and drawn
faces.
We load up and are off, again in a diamond formation. Now we head south west
to the Parrot's Beak. We fly about twenty minutes at 2,500 feet and then
start
a pretty step descent down towards the deck.
At 2,500 feet 80 knots doesn't seem very fast. On the treetops it's like we
are racing along. You can see the yaw the front of the chopper makes as
small
power changes in the turbine make the nose turn left or right. And we are
moving slightly up and down at the same time. It is a struggle to stay lined
up and in perfect position with the other choppers in the formation. If you
are on the controls you spend every second straining to keep up with the
subtle changes that the ship is making. You can't take your eyes off of the
line that you hold to maintain your position with your wing man for even a
split second. This imaginary line is usually a line from the door gunner's
"Christmas tree"
(where his machine gun is mounted) and the opposite pilot's head. It is
imperative that you hold this position at all costs.
We are racing along with treetops banging into the skids and chin bubbles.
All
we can do is hold our position as the lead ship is being vectored in by the
high flying command and control ship up above. The gun ships have gone ahead
of
us to prep the landing zone (LZ) with rockets and mini-gun fire into the
tree
lines. As we near the LZ one of the gun-ship's door gunners throws out a
smoke
grenade into the LZ and the gunny's come back and fall in beside of us
again.
All of a sudden we hear the lead ship call out "Tomahawk six, this is
Tomahawk
one four, I've got a grape in sight, over". This means he sees purple smoke
in the LZ,
this has to be confirmed by the command and control ship before we land. CC
says back, "That's a roger one four, over."
Now we are on short final. The gun-ships are firing incredibly loud rockets
right beside us into the clearing of the LZ and I tell the peter pilot to
lock
our seat belts and shoulder harnesses down, in case one of us gets hit,
it'll
help keep our body from slumping over the controls. We are now over an open
area
with stumps and elephant grass and are going into a steep nose high flare as
we quickly lose our forward airspeed and level out to land. The door gunners
open up and the chopper shakes like crazy with the recoil of their machine
guns as red tracer rounds fly all over the LZ. The sound from both gunners
M-60's firing at the same time is so loud it seems to make the inside of the
chopper hot and it is very
distracting, but we are in the final stages of a critical maneuver and ever
ounce of focus on what you are doing is required to keep yourself and the
others alive.
As we start to land the door gunners start yelling "GET OUT GET OUT GET
OUT!!!!" The grunts start jumping out and running away from the choppers in
a
crouched position as they take cover. We bounce once off the ground, and I
pull an
armful of pitch and nose the Huey to it's forward stop on the cyclic as we
come out nose down tail high trying to desperately get airspeed as quickly
as
possible. Suddenly we are taking fire as we fly over the far corner of the
LZ.
Green and red tracer rounds are strafing our choppers from directly below as
we try to make our escape. We are still in a nose down attitude and a round
goes right between us pilots as it punches through my side of the windshield
and up through our overhead circuit breakers. It feels like I've been stung
by about twenty hornets as the tiny
slivers of the plexiglas windscreen hit my exposed neck and lower face.
Thank
God I had my visor down.
I key the intercom mike and ask if everyone is okay. The crew is unscathed.
Now we are back on the tree tops flying back north east to Tay Ninh to
refuel
and pick up another load of grunts. Behind us the second platoon of slicks
is
landing and unloading their troops. The fire intensifies as they fly out .
All of our instruments read in the green and we don't have any caution
warning
lights on the panel. The crew is okay and we're still flying. We'll have
about
50 minutes of turn around to get into Tay Ninh for fuel for us all, and ammo
for the gunships. We're also gonna pick up a couple of cases of grenades to
throw down at Charlie as we fly over him on take off next time.
That's 50 minutes that the first troops we dropped off have to fend for
themselves and set up positions to help cover us as we bring in another load
of their buddies. That's also 50 minutes that your mind has to think about
what the heck you are going to fly back into....please let them keep Charlie
down next time.
We get immediate clearance into Tay Ninh for refuel and ammo as we are
flying
hot sorties. Out of re-arm we fly over to Tay Ninh West to pick up another
load. The grunts jump on and off we go.
Now inbound to the LZ we are getting "sit reps" (Situation reports from the
LZ). They aren't good. The grunts are struggling. We know we are going to
have
to go back into the teeth of a firefight. A quick glance behind you at the
grunts tells a volume of what these poor kids are thinking, it's all in
their
eyes and the tense faces.
It's easier to be the pilot that is flying when you have to go into a hot
LZ.
You don't have any time to think about anything but the flying. Everything
happens so fast you just have to keep reacting to the constant changes in
the
ship....and you have to train yourself to not get a death grip on the cyclic
and collective controls as your body tenses up. That's part of the reason
they
use kids to fight their wars, their reaction times are much faster.
Back in the treetops on close final back into the LZ the peter pilot is
starting to ask too many questions and his voice is up a couple of octaves.
I know that I can't afford to let him come apart on me so I tell him we'll
make it. Just stay on those gauges and tell me if the rotor rpm starts
dropping or if the EGT (exhaust gas temperature) starts rising when we take
off. Anything to try and keep him from looking outside and freaking out.
Now the clearing is in sight, tracer rounds are flying everywhere in the LZ,
Oh Christ!!!!! In we go!!!
Steep flare to get rid of forward airspeed, level out so the troops can
bolt,
bounce once off the ground and then face straight into the ground as I pull
all the pitch
into the main rotors I can grab with my left hand, at the same instant push
hard left pedal to keep us straight from the torque of the main rotor biting
so much air, and push the cyclic to it's forward stop (which tilts the rotor
disc forward giving us forward airspeed). The Huey is standing on it's nose
as
we oh so slowly struggle for airspeed and altitude. The engine and
transmission strain to respond to my input.
There is so much noise going on you can feel it as well as hear it. Suddenly
the chopper to my right has a door gunner hanging outside by his bungee
cord.
I have to line up his Christmas tree with the far pilots head to stay in
formation and ignore his flapping body. We are taking rounds all over the
ship. The radios are going crazy with voices. One ship has taken a B-40
rocket
propelled grenade in the nose and while the peter pilot is still flying the
ship his A/C (aircraft commander) is a bloody pile of smoking meat with
parts
of his body blown all over the chopper. The peter pilot is screaming
incoherently in his radio. It un-nerves everyone to hear that.
I key our intercom mike and ask again "everyone okay" as I dare a peek back
to
look at my boys. " Fine back here sir, but we've got holes everywhere" they
report. Our gauges are still in the green, and we're still flying. Behind us
second platoon has just lost two ships in the LZ, what is left of their
crews
runs to the other two ships and escapes. Charlie is strong, Charlie is well
dug in, Charlie is smart!!!!
Back to Tay Ninh West we race. The gun-ships stay on location this time to
soften up the area that we have to over fly on take off. They will have to
run
back to Tay Ninh to re-arm before joining back up with us.
Part of our flight goes right to the troops waiting to be picked up. The
poor
crew that lost it's A/C going to a mash unit on the opposite side of the
airfield. Dead and wounded crew members are going there also.
At the pickup point the door gunners and I get out and look over the ship as
it runs and can't see any leaks or problems that concerns us. We haven't
taken one
half of the troops in yet.....we are down a total of three slicks at this
point, and have wounded and dead door gunners from other slicks....but, we
have to go back in.....now they're are wounded grunts that need to get back
to
the aid station. While the guns are re-arming we regroup our crews.
Everything is at a fever pitch!!!!! We are gonna go back in a flight of five
slicks into the LZ. We'll also have to sit on the ground while the dead and
wounded are loaded onto the choppers!! We meet up with the gun-ships on the
way back to the LZ.
The battle in the LZ is still pitched. The guns race ahead to keep pounding
our in bound and departure route. The grunts are holding their own and maybe
taking a
little ground.
There is the clearing, in we go...steep flare, level out, touch down and
wait
as the fresh grunts unload and the torn and bleeding bodies of their buddies
are loaded on. Tracers reach all over the LZ.....we have to sit and watch as
they aim in on us....POP....POP....POP!! three rounds come through the
plexiglas as we sit there utterly hopeless and helpless.....the three rounds
slap into the heavy metal of the transmission between and behind us pilots
and
the door gunners. Grunts are running towards us with their buddies. The dead
and wounded, 8 kids, are loaded on our ship. Off we go!!!!
Nose down, main rotor tilted so far down it is almost digging dirt. My left
arm is pulled up into my armpit with the collective. Right arm outstretched
nosing the rotor disc over and left foot pushed forward making the tail
rotor
keep us straight. Out we race...like a VW Beetle on three of it's four
cylinders!!!
We take more fire. In other slicks one pilot is hit in the throat and
another
is hit in the leg. Two more door gunners are down. In the back of our
chopper
blood is spreading out all over the floor. Torn apart kids are screaming in
agony, the coppery smell of blood fills the air and mixes with the smell of
open intestines. Screams of "OH GOD!!!" shrieks of "MOMMY" shatter your
nerves. AND THE THOUGHT THAT WE'VE GOTTA GO BACK IN !!!
Four more slicks are on the way from our unit to fill in the holes in our
ranks. We've gotta refuel and re-arm again.
Now back at Tay Ninh West, we reload with another load of grunts and head
back
in for our fourth sortie. This time we are back in with our two flights of
four slicks. Again, it's a sharp flair, level out, unload and sit on the
ground and wait as more wounded
troops are loaded on. Meanwhile tracer rounds and bullets fill the LZ. Death
is everywhere.
The grunts we now carry in are taking in more ammo for their buddis but in
another sortie
or two we will start bringing in ammo and water and c-rats (food from WWII)
for them as we keep returning to finish bringing the last of their men and
continue hauling out their butchered buddies.
Finally loaded up with 8 more wounded we are airborne again......more
tracers
arch up at us but this time we all make it safely out.
Back to the mash unit to unload the gore that used to be healthy young kids
we
go, then back to pick up another load of healthy kids. We are getting
spattered with blood as we hover near the mash unit. There is so much blood
running off the deckof the ship, on both sides, that the rotorwash picks it
up and blows it
back inside the chopper. It covers us and the inside of the windshield. We
have to take rags to wipe it off the windshield so we can see better. You
can
see the blood splattering the nurses and docs as they run out to us. There
is
no time to think about it.....must get more
kids.
We make it back into the LZ and by now the fighting is dying down. Charlie
is
backing away as so many troops are arriving to fight him. We still take more
rounds going out but not as many. Charlie is smart, he knows when to cut you
to shreds and then when to cut and run to fight you in another place. He
knows
we will take this area for a few days, then the choppers will lift the
troops
out to another area and he can walk back in.
This time we only get four dead kids on our chopper. It is a very quiet
flight back to the mash unit, no one is screaming for God or mom, or begging
their buddy to not die on them.
Our ship makes two more trips in to pick up any remaining casualties and
haul
in the three basics....food, water, and ammo. It is past 6:30pm and we have
been flying over 13 hours of consecutive sorties into an intensely hot LZ.
My
mind and body ache with fatigue from all the horrific stimuli and stress of
being on the edge of insanity, yet having to force myself to stay cool and
focused in the midst of it all.
We finally fly to Phu Loi for a shower to get the blood off of me, and to
listen to Joe Walsh and James Gang's Thirds turned up real loud. By the time
we
get back at 8:00pm we have flown 15 and one half hours. We will do the
same thing tomorrow morning. My roommate made it back today also.
Back in Phu Loi and parked in the revetment I have to sit in the chopper
until
the tension leaves my legs. It's a funny thing.....I train my arms and hands
to stay limber but the tension seems to go to my legs. I literally have to
sit
in the back of the chopper and sometimes lay in the dried blood back there
to
get my legs to relax enough so that I can walk back to my hootch. Most days
I'm in agony laying back there reading a book for an hour or so, but I'm
still
alive.....I think. Sometimes I help the crew chief and other door gunner
wash
the day's blood out of the chopper. Some days I am so brain dead I can only
walk like a zombie back to my hootch.
Today was just another day in paradise.......tomorrow we will be back , more
troops to be inserted into another LZ in the Parrots Beak. We do this
everyday
for just over two weeks, each day there will be fewer of us. My girlfriend
couldn't understand why she only got short or no letters during this period.
I
never told her the truth why, it was much better for her and my family to
not
know what "the kid " was up to.
In the two weeks of this operation I will no longer be the same fresh pink
faced kid that I came over here as. My eyes will sink back in my head, I
will
gaze at the horizon in a thousand yard stare at times.
To enable me to face each day my mind will pull in my thoughts of love and
tenderness and bury them in a deep hidden recess.
I will become a feral animal called a combat assault pilot, I will become a
survivor.....9 years later...it'll take tons of serious therapy with a
fellow
named John Stewart and other hardcore combat veterans to unwind me......
Rawknee
