The Adventure Begins

The beginning of Rook Week 3rd week in August 1967

I grabbed my duffel bag and headed to the 1st Cav group along with several of my flight school classmates.  As soon as the group stopped growing, we followed the sergeant to a waiting Deuce and a half. A few moments later we arrive on the flight line next to a C-130. We were herded toward the opening in the back end of the plane past a large pallet where we tossed our duffel bags. I wondered if the C-130 has the backwards facing airline seats like the C-141 had?

As I stepped through the man door.....“what the hell”!  They had cargo tie downs stretched left to right across the aircraft about 6” off the floor from the front of the aircraft every 3 feet or so to just short of the ramp. Wow! There were already several rows filled with soldiers sitting on the floor, facing backward with their legs under the tie down strap. At least I didn’t have to ask any dumb questions. So much for all the respect I’d been given as an Warrant Officer. Didn’t they know I was a Cav pilot?  These Air Force guys were having a little fun with us FNGs.

Once they got the cargo net across the pallet of duffel bags and miscellaneous cargo tied down and all of us were hanging on to shared seatbelt/cargo straps the pilots upstairs in their comfortable pilot seats started the engines; all four of them.  The ramp was closed and the aircraft started rolling. There were no windows, no air conditioning, no noise suppression, and no cushions on the floor. “You never get rich you son of a b****, you’re in the Army now”.

When the pilots got lined up on the runway they went full throttle and we all slid more than a few inches toward the rear on that slick aluminum floor until you could strum a tune on the tie down straps. They climbed out so steep we were hanging from those straps. Once they leveled off all was smooth and quiet enough you could talk to your neighbors without yelling. We spent most of the quiet time squirming around trying to get our skinny butts comfortable on that hard, slick aluminum floor.  Rumors had it that we were going to Pleiku first then to An Khe, our new home. Thinking about it gave me a few butterflies; checking in to a real combat unit like you find in the movies.

Just about the time we were getting comfortable the pilot pulled the engines back to idle and dumped the nose down into a steep dive.  We had to grab the strap in our lap to keep from sliding out toward the front. The pilot immediately went into a steep left turn. It felt like we were hanging upside down in a runaway elevator. I didn’t know wether we were shot down or all four engines failed. My stomach was in my throat and apparently I was holding my breath. After what seemed like an eternity the pilot leveled the wings, nosed up as the landing gear screeched on the runway and went to full reverse on the engines. Holy shit! I had been in Vietnam a couple of days, I already had a near death experience and I had yet to see my 20th birthday.  That little adventure was a combat style high overhead circling  approach in an airliner sized aircraft. Apparently those Air Force pilots like to mess with FNGs also. Welcome to Pleiku.

After dropping off some cargo and a few passengers we took to the sky again in typical military fashion. On to An Khe, home of the 1st. Cavalry Division (Air Mobile). The landing in An Khe was a lot less dramatic. A waiting Duece and a half took us to transient Batchelor Officer Quarters near where we will receive our “in country orientation” that we called Charm School and our field unit assignments.

229th Aviation Battalion (Assault Helicopter)

The 229th Aviation Batalion

The 229th was constituted 18 March 1964 into the Regular Army as the 229th Assault Helicopter Battalion and assigned to the 11th Air Assault Division at Fort Benning, Georgia.  The unit was reorganized and re-designated as the 229th Aviation Battalion on 1 July 1965 and was concurrently reassigned to the 1st Calvary Division (Airmobile) in preparation for deployment to Vietnam.  The 229th Aviation Battalion fought in Vietnam for seven years and distinguished itself in 16 major campaigns earning three Presidential Unit Citations, the Valorous Unit Award, a Meritorious Unit Commendation, four awards of the Republic of Vietnam Cross of Gallantry, and a Republic of Vietnam Civil Action Medal.  The unit returned from Vietnam as the most decorated aviation unit in the Army, but inactivated following the war on 22 August 1972 at Fort Hood, Texas. The 229th, less Company B was reactivated 21 September 1978 and was incorporated into the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) as the 229th Attack Helicopter Battalion at Fort Campbell, Kentucky.  On 16 September 1981, Company B, 229th Attack Helicopter Battalion was activated and organized at Fort Rucker, Alabama, under the operational control of the 1st Aviation Brigade to complement the Battalion's rapid deployment capability.

SNAFU

SNAFU

Flight School to August 1967

It was customary during the last stages of flight school to receive our orders to our next duty station. Most of us knew we were going to Vietnam but we still held out hope that we would be among the 1% assigned to Europe, South Korea or somewhere where no one would be shooting at us. If we were assigned to Vietnam then at least to a unit that was far to the rear, like a General's pilot. You can imagine what those discussions were like over a glass of beer or two at our Warrant Officer Candidate watering holes. We read the news and watched TV and we definitely didn't want to go to some unit making headlines like the 1st Cavalry Division as an example. We read about the Ia Drang Valley for instance as depicted in the movie "We Were Soldiers". It seems that if a battle made the news, somehow the 1st Cav was in the thick of it! Send us anywhere but the 1st Cav! Well as you are probably guessing about 35 of us from our flight class were assigned to the Cav. I can still remember feeling the butterflies in my stomach as I read the orders! I was as good as dead!

I spent the next couple of weeks just getting over the shock and uncertainty I felt. I got a form letter in the mail from Major General Tolson, Commanding General of the 1st Cavalry Division (Air Mobile) with a combat version of the famous yellow horse blanket patch to sew on the right shoulder of my flight suit stapled to it. He welcomed me to the "1st Team" and then went over the 1st Cavalry Division history from WW 2 and before, through Korea and on to Vietnam. Summing it up that I was the luckiest guy in the Army for being selected. I was comforted at first but as I watched the news and read the papers I started looking at the assignment much differently. I wrote home to my family and friends about the “ass kick'n unit” that I was assigned. I still had hopes of being assigned to one of the Generals or Colonels to fly them over the battlefield as opposed to being immersed in it, but I was really getting used to the idea and glory being a part of the Cav.

Two months later after graduation and a month leave, I am in processing for my trip to Vietnam at Oakland Army Base, in Oakland, CA. My first exposure to the Army as an officer and a gentleman. I was no longer being yelled at by Warrant Officer Candidate cadre or upper classmen. People were respectful, saluted when appropriate and in all cases treated me with respect. Nice...it was good to be an officer. They cut orders to the in country processing facility at Cam Rahn Bay and put me on a bus to Travis Air Force Base and then on to Vietnam in a C-141 cargo plane. In a few hours I would be kicking ass in the finest ass kicking unit in the Army! It was not easy getting sleep sitting backwards in a cold, noisy cargo plane dripping water from condensate appearing on the uninsulated aluminum fuselage!

I heard names being called as I slowly roused from my catnap, and then I heard my name. I looked to the source and this Air Force Sergeant handed me a set of orders. Reading them brought me out of the dreamworld. This set of orders assigned me to the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment. Who the hell was the 11th Armored Cav? What happened to the 1st Cav? Why did they need me? Did they get a bunch of pilots killed? What am I going to tell my friends? Who are these guys? I read the orders again, and again and again! I looked around in disbelief. Did this happen to any of my other classmates? Between that and our refueling landing at Wake Island, and our maintenance issue while landing at Clark AFB in the Philippines I did not get another wink of sleep. I studied the orders, compared them with my orders to the 1st Cav and I noticed something. The orders to the 11th Cav did not rescind my orders to the 1st Cav. I had two sets of valid orders! Now what?

I finished my in country processing, hanging out with my flight school friends, and waiting for transportation to my unit in the field. If I don't go to the 11th Cav, will the MP's come looking for me? The 11th Cav orders are the most current. Will I be AWOL if I go to the 1st Cav? The 1st Cav orders were valid. All of that was going through my mind as I stood waiting for transportation. "May I have your attention please" called out a processing unit Seargant. There are personnel over there as he pointed to an area about 50 feet away with unit signs. Grab your gear and go stand next to the soldier who's sign matches your unit orders. I had both copies of my orders, one in each hand. I looked up saw the 1st Cavalry sign, and in the first moment in my 19th year of life I acted rebelliously, wadded up my orders to the 11th Armored Cavalry, dropped them into the trash and headed over to the 1st Cav sign.

All next week I constantly looked over my shoulder while learning about boobie traps and such at the Cav's charm school, and my 20th birthday soirée to “Sin City” on the outskirts of our base in An Khe. A little less so at LZ English where they assigned me to B Company, 229th Assault Hellicopter Battalion and by the end of September forgot about MP's and being AWOL and instead getting used to getting shot at almost on a daily basis.