Learning to Fly

This photo is a tight echelon right formation. Photo was taken from the right seat of the fourth aircraft

Now I am through with in-country processing. I’ve got 3 sets of jungle fatigues with the cool pockets in the shirt and what we now call “cargo pants”, olive drab underwear and socks, 2 very cool pairs of jungle boots with olive drab fabric tops and farm tractor aggressive treads. Also, some pilot stuff like a Smith & Wesson Model 10 in .38 Special (with a very hokey shoulder holster) and a brand new APH-5 flight helmet in olive drab. Two of my flight school classmates and I left An Khe assigned to B Company; one of 4 companies that made up the 229th Assault Helicopter Battalion of the 1st Cavalry Division.

 

An aircraft from our unit at LZ English was sent down to pick us up and deliver us to the Commanding Officer, Major Varner, to report for duty. I was assigned to the 1st Flight Platoon Commanded by Captain Kenneth (Kenny Hardcore) Hamburger and my two classmates were assigned to the 2nd flight platoon. After almost 14 months in the Army I was finally at work in a real aviation company and ready to fly for a living. My first real boss, Cpt. Hamburger showed me my quarters in a section of a GP Medium tent and took me to Operations where all aviation activities are assigned.

 

After a couple of days orienting to company policies, fixing up my AO (area of operation) in my tent and getting checked off with the Company Standardization Pilot, I was officially in the REAL flight school, flying real missions from the right seat and part of a real 4 man flight crew. Nothing was simulated. Every time I went into the air, there was a real combat reason to do so and the hazards of combat to accompany it.

 

I'm not a particularly brave man and I was very inexperienced, in a real war, flying an armed war machine in areas where other people want to hurt me. The excitement of the adventure was starting to wane. The arrogance that I took with me from flight school was also waning. No, in fact, it was crashing down. I was among the best helicopter pilots in the world and next to them I was just an FNG. Every day that I saw my name on the mission board in operations, I was put with a senior, very experienced AC (Aircraft Commander) who refined the skills I learned in flight school. Formation flying was based on the mission. The tightness of the formation and its style were determined by the size and shape of the LZ (landing zone). For multi ship operations called combat assaults, the LZs could be single ship size where we used trail formation with spacing based on how long the flight leader thought it would take to drop the troops and get out of the way of the following ship. In flight school they were always loose with very large fields for landing. In combat we were fully loaded with 6 or 7 troops heavily equipped. If we had a full load of fuel, we were heavy - in the ballpark of maximum gross weight. In flight school, no troops. In flight school we trained landing on pinnacles, and in confined areas. In Vietnam most of our single ship operations were confined areas not much larger than the rotor disc. We also negotiated slopes and pinnacles that were also confined areas, fully loaded with supplies for the infantry or artillery unit we were supporting. Loading and unloading the aircraft were often done at a hover because of stumps and severe slopes. Holding an aircraft still at a hover while loading was not covered in flight school. Conservation of engine power while very heavy, required a very smooth stick. A 200-hour pilot out of flight school was typically very abrupt on the controls. We learned to imperceptibly pressure the stick where a casual observer couldn’t see it move. Long story short, the REAL flight school began with flying missions in combat, and I flew under the tutelage of the best helicopter pilots in the world. That was just part of the adventure fading and growing into a competent adult who people could count on when all the chips were in.

 

Every evening after work and after dinner, most of the 1st Platoon pilots would gather in our bunker/Officers club and tell war stories, play poker and sip on adult beverages.  A lot of good things came out of these informal gatherings. One was our pledge to infantry soldiers to NEVER let them down. It did not matter the weather, the time of day or night, or the heat of battle; if they call, we come. Before I arrived, there had been some intense battles where my unit was involved in supporting the infantry under intense fire. Many of these war stories, and their related songs sung by our resident musicians, reinforced the code. We also learned the merit and skills of all the senior ACs in our platoon. I learned to stay out of poker games and to avoid alcohol. We also learned to hate the enemy and strip them of their humanity by assigning them names like gook, dink, slope, charley and so on. It’s difficult to kill or participate in killing people you don’t hate. When I left Vietnam the final time while in the Army, I pledged to myself to NEVER hate again.

 

In those first 2 months in the field, my sense of awareness was awakened and after awakened, continually sharpened. One day on a routine single ship logistical resupply mission, I was flying along skinny, dumb and happy at about 1500 feet above the ground. Suddenly the AC grabbed the controls and made a very sharp and steep left turn as an evasive maneuver. He claimed we got shot at and explained the popping noise he heard. It wasn’t long after that that my ears and mind became aware of the sound of ground fire through my helmet, through the ambient noise of the helicopter (rotor blades and engine), through those little pink plastic earplugs, and through radio noise. Amazing and true. The feel of the controls through flight gloves and thick soles of combat boots was totally lacking any sensation or feedback from the aircraft. Huey controls were all about hydraulic assist and dampened all feedback from the flight surfaces they controlled. Slowly as my hours and experience grew, I started feeling the aircraft talking to me. I felt the pedals under my thick soled combat boots talk to me about wind gusts, loading and vibrations. I felt feedback from the main rotor system. My hearing picked up airframe and engine noises. I became what is now called hyper-aware of my helicopter and its environment. By the time I had 500 hours (300 hours in country), I started strapping the Huey to my back and wore it like it was plugged in to my brain, not like being strapped to a runaway horse as before.

 

The months of September, October and part of November were the most important to me than the rest of that first year and somewhat quiet from the perspective of enemy activity where I flew. That allowed me to learn to fly, build my situational awareness and gain the confidence that I could make my aircraft do whatever I wanted it to and accomplish any mission given to me. I could have joined the unit on the eve of a great and ferocious battle like many of my associates did later that year, but God was working on my behalf, undeservedly, and I am forever grateful!

Why?

Two friends of mine, one I’ve known since Jr. High and the other of two years or so have asked me questions about this blog. After considerable thought I have provided the reasons below which are not necessarily in order of importance.

The first question from my photography mentor, an American living in Dublin was: Why? That question has many answers, some more important than others. Most of my friends are my age and lived during the Vietnam War. Some as observers and a few as participants who also observed. All of the history that I’m aware of was framed around big events like battles, movies and stories about individual bravery and scandals, or political commentary and analysis. All of which formed the positions we hold today on the legitimacy of the War. There are quite a few interesting  autobiographies out there, but once again not widely read except by the families friends, or veterans from their unit. This blog is my autobiography without the fuss of writing a book. Also it is living document in that it is a two way street addressing comments and questions. My blog is about my individual experience during 365 days of relative monotony punctuated by minutes of terror and my growth from a carefree teen to a responsible hardened combat flying soldier. It is not political, nor is it about the morality of our culture. It will contain some immoral aspects and events of war that I participated in, which the negative still walks with me most days of my life.

One of the interesting things about my children and grandchildren is that when the Vietnam War comes up in school they don’t hesitate to ask me questions about my participation as soon as they find out I was there. As soon as they write their assignment their interest wanes as they go back to their lives. I was the same about my uncles and fathers in laws who participated in WWII. All are dead now and I’ve lost the window to ask and they left no memories. No photos, no war stories, no letters home, nothing. This blog may answer questions about what Dad or Papa did in the war.

Among my friends are many I served with driven to inform people about our unit or their lives on the line through a web-site they manage or in other ways like Facebook. I’m guilty, at least in the social activities available through Facebook, Instagram or Twitter. I wrote my first “War Story” by request of the owner of the website for my first tour unit. I wrote the story and in spite of not caring so much about writing in general, I felt good about it. It even provided a little closure. Apparently many others did as well. I even got a call from one of the Crew Chiefs of the lethal Cobra crash that was part of the story. I get some relief about telling and writing some of the more interesting events in my life.

The last reason for “why” I’ll write about is my path to God. In a way my tours in Vietnam were a list of coincidences and events which should have ended my life, but didn’t. So this blog will be the long version of what Christians call my testimony. Vietnam wasn’t the whole path but certainly was the rockiest. Our spiritual lives are very important and if this helps someone else find God then I’m in.

The second question came from someone I’ve known since Jr. High. She was someone I’d admired then and now. Her question was, - Are your memories of so long ago as vivid as they read? I told her yes. The stories are about events in my life that involve minutes or a very few hours that really were about fear, or other feelings. However, there are other things in the stories that are not about vividness. Standard procedures, organizations, knowledge of physics, aerodynamics, radio procedures and other things that stitch the stories together are definitely not vivid. For example in one of my unpublished stories I had to do research within my unit to find the names of the crew members participating. My vividness was the story and I had to fill in some of the details from research.

The next episode after this will cram a couple of months into a paragraph which will be anything but vivid but important in my development as a pilot and soldier from a teenager setting foot into a combat zone.

PS: I’ve updated the blog to include a Follow  button. This gives you a notification when I post. If you want to continue with the real war stories please Follow.

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.