19 comments/ 36575 views/ 7 favorites Tomorrow is Another Day Ch. 01 By: Dinsmore This is a Vietnam War helicopter pilot story, based in significant detail on an actual event. I had intended to expand it into something more but was concerned that it might lose its impact if I did so. In case I decide to continue on with it, it is labeled as Part One but I'm not promising subsequent episodes. At the very end is a short piece labeled "author unknown" called "The Man in the Doorway". It's been around for a few years; I received it from a man with whom I served in the RVN. I've researched it at length but after a year have come to the conclusion that it is truly anonymous. If the original author is still with us---hats off to him for this poignant little piece of prose. * June of 1970 "Clear?" "Clear!" "Fire in the hole!" He'd repeated this process at least a thousand times. He listened carefully to the whine of the starter and the rapid click of the igniters…the rotor began to turn in a lazy arc. This part always gave him a sense of trepidation, a perceptible tightening in his sphincter. RPM coming up…exhaust gas temperature---EGT---starting to rise…everything normal…coming up on forty seconds. Come on you piece of shit; don't fuck with me this morning. We're already running late; give us a fucking break. The last thing we need is a fucking cold start or worse a hot start…YES! That beautiful sound…kerosene coursing through the injectors…igniting…burning furiously at the rate of a pound every six seconds…the whine of the compressor blades gasping for air as the engine's revolutions climbed to 6,600 RPM…starter release…rotor coming up to speed. Everything was cool…no warning lights…all instruments in the green. Radio checks complete. Time to back this fifty foot turd out onto the taxiway from its tight confines. Hung over…hate backing up…no wind this morning, that's a relief…fuck you've done it almost every day for the last eleven months and haven't bent one yet. Time for some training, he thought turning to the young pilot to his right. Young…yeah. The right seat, the pilot often derisively called the "peter pilot" was nineteen, flying with the most senior aircraft commander in the unit---who had just turned twenty-one the day before. "You want to take us out of here?" "I haven't backed out of one of these revetments before; this one is a hell of a lot tighter than the ones back in flight school." The revetment consisted of double stacked fifty-five gallon drums filled with sand and concrete. "Don't over think it. Keep your eyes forward and watch the crew chief. Get it light, adjust the pedals, keep it low and straight." Not bad, not bad at all for a first timer; good control touch…smooth. "You fly the aircraft, I'll handle the radios. Keep it slow; turn left at the last revetment. Good job…easy on the pedals…hold for a minute…keep it at a hover…we're number two. Okay, hover out onto the active…hold…engine and rotor in the green…no warning lights…EGT is a little high but well within limits…no cowboy shit…give me a nice flight school takeoff…you're cleared. Watch the tail…through translational…climb straight ahead now…left turn before we get to the mountain. Good! Take a break…I have the aircraft." "You have the aircraft." "I have the aircraft." "Clear us left and below, Jake." "Clear left and below, sir." "Coming down." He loved flying South along the edge of the water; no bad guys out in the South China sea, below the tree line on the right and out of range of shoulder launched Strella missles and 51 caliber heavy machine guns...a difficult target for small arms fire. If the engine quit he was comfortable that he'd put it down on the sand without a scratch. Six feet off the beach? Maybe not quite…smooth…remember to complement the crew chief…no vibrations or at least no more than was typical at VNE or velocity not to exceed of 120 knots. Noise and vibration was a way of life in the complicated piece of trash manufactured by the lowest bidder. "Jake, lock and load. You're cleared to test fire on my command---keep it under a hundred rounds---aim at something." Good, the M60, 7.62 mm machine gun on his side of the aircraft purred like a contented kitten. A 180 degree turn now out over the clear blue water…test the right side. "Okay, Walter, same rules, keep it under a hundred rounds…you're clear to test fire." Good crew, good gunner…well maintained machine guns. Everything a-okay…so far. "Cease fire and clear both weapons. Weapons cold on approach." He intoned, completing his 180 and continuing to follow the coastline. What a beautiful fucking ocean! This place would make one hell of a vacation spot if it wasn't so completely fucked up. Right turn at the mouth of the river…slow it down to eighty knots but keep it low. The familiar reference points were ahead…hard climbing right turn…pop 'er up…there it was…the village to the left, the small steel planked runway to the right. No CIA Air America, Helio Courier or Porter on the runway…it was his runway. Hard right turn back into the wind…fuckin' perfect…lined up…watch the rotor RPM…bottom the collective…a little back in now…cyclic back…don't want to drag the tail stinger…that would be bad form…perfect! Take it to the ground…kiss it on…sight picture now…the crudely painted cross…yes! Rear skid contact simultaneously…no bobbling…full contact…flight idle on the throttle. The crew chief was at his side, opening his door as was expected procedure. His peter pilot in the right seat was grinning from ear to ear. Fuckin' A! It was a picture perfect landing even by his often overly critical standards. With over a thousand hours in country, the UH-1H wasn't an aircraft he flew…it was a suit of clothing he put on day in and day out. Everything shitty about the last eleven months in this God forsaken country vanished as did his hangover with an approach and landing like the one he had just accomplished. It was at moments like this that he even considered extending for six months for the thirty day paid vacation anywhere in the world, in country instructor pilot training---and an eighteen month early out from the friggin' Army when he completed it…assuming he survived it. Why not? He didn't have a wife or girl friend back in the states. There was no gaggle of friends from high school or college for him to miss. His dad was dead and his mother was wrapped up in her own life issues. He'd still have his full GI Bill benefits and could go back and complete his degree. He didn't hate the Army but he didn't see himself becoming a lifer. The right seat was looking over the mission sheet. Not much to read there…two words…food service. It sounded too damn civilized. "What's this mission like, sir?" "Rob, you don't have to call me sir; Ryan will do just fine. The only one you have to call sir in this platoon is the Captain. This is the best damn mission there is. We'll log ten hours today; we'll be lucky if we shut down more than once and that'll be for a maintenance check. No waiting around for some tight-ass colonel. We're going to deliver fresh food to the guys in the boonies. This afternoon we'll re-supply the Marine CAP teams because their 46s can't fit in most of the LZs---landing zones---and because they're a bunch of pussies. You'll get to see the mountains close up and they are quite spectacular. "We'll log more landings and takeoffs than you can count, most of the hours are combat support but a few will probably be combat---we'll get shot at. By the end of the day you'll know this province like the back of your hand. At the end of the day there's also always some fresh chow left over---sometimes even a case of steaks. It's the most coveted mission on the books." They refueled twice before noon, shutting down once to clean out the particle separator, check fluid levels and do a quick mini-daily inspection. By 1130 they had already logged four and a half hours. It had been uneventful; Ryan had given the new pilot as much stick times as was prudent. The kid was going to be a good pilot. Just before noon they heard the call. "Mayday, Mayday, Mayday, Eagle One-Nine, we've been hit…going down!" As always happened in these cases Ryan thought ruefully, every friggin' USMC and Army commissioned officer in a helicopter within twenty miles, anxious for a Distinguished Flying Cross or whatever, tried to transmit at once, squelching the poor bastard going down as he was attempting to report his location. It didn't really matter to Ryan; he always kept track of the other aircraft in the vicinity, particularly the Division birds since they were relatively new to this part of the Republic of Vietnam and often made dumb ass mistakes. "I have the aircraft." Ryan said and Rob responded appropriately as he relinquished control. Executing a hard right turn he flew parallel to, not toward the downed aircraft, much to his young pilot's chagrin. "Aren't we going to offer assistance?" "Listen to the radio, Rob. There are at least a dozen choppers offering assistance---many of whom aren't remotely in a position to do so. The rules are simple; the FAC on station is in command, in this case that grey, Air Force Oscar Deuce we've seen buzzing around all morning. He's got fast movers on call or in the air. If available and if they'll take the mission, Dustoff gets the job; if the bird on the ground is under fire---don't hold your breath on the Medivac boys. Let that Air Force LT in the Cessna sort it out. We're going to set down at Close Shave and stay the hell out of the way." Ryan came to a hover in the forward refueling point less than three minutes away from the downed aircraft, set down and reduced the throttle to idle. "Are we going to refuel, sir?" the crew chief inquired. "Negative; we've got a thousand pounds and I'd like to keep it that way. Rob, switch FM2---the backup FM radio---to the Junkyard. Don't touch FM1---it's on the closest friendlies on the ground." Ryan sat in silence for almost a minute, listening to three radios at once, silencing Rob's next question with a stern look and an open hand. "Junkyard ops, Dog double deuce; confirm the status of your alert fire team." "Junkyard one-five and a heavy team are off as of…four minutes ago." "Tasked or free lance?" "No call from Corps…just thought they ought to be up if needed. Are you in need of fire support?" "Don't know yet; the zoomie LT is sorting things out. I'm at Close Shave in case 1-5 wants to join me." "Roger that; I'll relay. He should be up on…button eight." "Roger out." "This guy's good---the FAC---the Forward Air Controller. He's taking control---ordering all the wannabes well clear. He's got his fast movers up---they'll be on station in under a minute. Seven souls, no KIAs…three wounded in action, two not ambulatory. Oh fuck! Code on board, that means at least a full bull colonel! Wish that dumb prick hadn't made that call in the clear; now the whole world knows. Division Dustoff took a pass…claims they're low on fuel…right. Here comes One-Five." Three nearly obsolete C model Huey helicopter gunships were on short final in a loose tactical formation. He knew one-five; one-five was almost as short as he was…first rate gunship aircraft commander and flight lead…big balls. They acknowledged each other with a simple double click of the mic switch. His own crew was gratefully silent as Ryan listened intently, now to four different radios. The call he expected came in on VHF. "Dog double deuce, Anteater 33, what's your status?" "On the ground at Close Shave along with a heavy fire team; we are available." "I'll send the jarhead Cobras home. Standby." "Jake, get that food service shit out of here. Tell the kid with it we'll come back and get him later. Seven round-eyes is a big load as it is---don't need any nonessentials." He turned to his pilot. "Marine Cobras are notoriously worthless; they break off their runs at 1,500 feet. Our guys start lower than that. " "Didn't we make a drop off right near where they went down an hour ago?" "Uh, huh. Low and hot. I'm betting they tried a high overhead and that fuckin' 51 that's been moving around that ridge line for the last month nailed them. Standby." "Double Duece, Anteater. I estimate your ETA (Estimated time of Arrival) would be under five once cleared?" "Roger that." "I'm going to work some arty on that ridge line and try to knock that 51 down; I'll hold the Phantoms for your extraction. The folks on the ground are reporting heavy small arms fire from the South and mortars from the East. I have friendlies moving in from the North but they're twenty to thirty minutes away. Standby." Five minutes elapsed. "Double deuce, Anteater; you and your fire team are cleared in; wind is out of the NNW at about five knots. Come in from the East, break hard right at the road and come in low like you always do. Kung Fu is the IP." Ryan spoke to his crew. "Kung Fu is an old Chinese temple---that's the Initial Point. Lock and load back there. Keep an eye on the gunships, keep your fire close in and remember there are friendlies to the North; Don't fire wildly---only if you have a target. Let's do it." Ryan coordinated quickly with his gunship escort and the FAC. The guns would be on his left; thanks to the third aircraft provided by the heavy team, they could switch sides almost instantly. In seconds they were skimming along the tops of the trees, occasionally even touching the foliage with their skids. In front of them they could see the flash of explosions on the ridge line as the artillery did its work. To their right front the first F4 Phantom came screaming out of the sky to deliver its deadly cargo of high explosives and jellied gasoline. The distinctive spire of the ancient temple loomed ahead of them…towered above them. "Deuce is IP," Ryan said into his boom mic, slowing his forward progress in anticipation of a delay. "Deuce, you are cleared in. Mortars have been stopped, no 51, sporadic small arms coming from three hundred meters at your two o'clock. I'm marking now." The twin engine push-pull, off-the-shelf prop plane went vertical, dispatching its final pair of 2.75 inch marking rockets. The C model guns with their twenty knot speed advantage quickly moved ahead of Ryan to suppress the enemy fire. "I bracketed the small arms, Junkyard." the young, all-alone Air Force Pilot intoned. "Taking fire, sir!" said the young enlisted machine gunner on the right side of the aircraft. "Hold your fire! It's not aimed---it's over us. They're shooting at what they hear---not what they see. Stay cool." In under ninety seconds the Huey skidded to a halt in the small clearing less than a thousand meters from the forward base which had been the downed helicopter's original destination. "Jake! Walter! Get 'em on!" He need not have spoken those words into his helmet microphone; his kids knew their job. Two being carried, one holding his arm, another limping, the other three appeared okay. One huge son of a bitch carrying the biggest WIA over his shoulder while the other two uninjured carried the other non-ambulatory. Not a lot of room back there…let's go…get 'em strapped in…we've been here too fucking long. "Clear left!" "Clear right, sir!" "Watch the gages, Rob; tell me at fifty pounds of torque---don't let me get past sixty-two." The UH-1H was "redlined" at fifty pounds per square inch of torque but the manual clearly said you could go to sixty-two thanks to the newer L13 turbine and all that was required afterwards was a visual inspection. Much beyond that and you essentially had to tear the whole thing down and rebuild it---assuming the rotor hadn't come off or the transmission exploded or some such nefarious shit like that. Eight hundred pounds of fuel…plenty to get where they needed to go. A couple of those guys were big fuckers. Ryan did a quick weight estimate in his head, wished he could magically lose a few hundred pounds but that wasn't an option. Time to go. "Anteater, double Deuce is ready to go." "Hold one, Deuce." Hold one? What the fuck was that all about? He heard the pop of the small arms fire; he felt the impact of the single round to his right rear. "You okay back there, Walter?" "Let me take a look, sir." "Keep your monkey strap on!" "It hit the edge of the door." "Rob! Instruments?" "All green." "Anteater, we're taking fire, we're hit…need to go!" "Roger, Deuce, my second fast mover is just breaking off his run. Your guns are coming back around…do it! Get the hell out of there!" "Clear?" "Clear, sir!" came the reply from three voices in his headset. "Instruments, Rob---instruments!" Ryan brought the Huey to a three foot hover; Rob called off the critical instrument parameters. Lowering back to a couple of inches off the ground Ryan eased the cyclic forward and began his takeoff run. Easing the bird through translational lift he accelerated forward, hurtling toward the tree line a few hundred meters in front of him. Clearing the trees by inches, he pushed the cyclic forward, pulled the collective pitch damn near into his arm pit and quickly achieved VNE. Breaking in the direction of the approaching friendly troops as previously planned, he listened intently for the distinctive popping of small arms fire; he heard it seemingly all around him. What he didn't hear or feel was the even more distinctive sound of rounds impacting his aircraft. "Sixty-two pounds, Ryan." "Roger that; Tell me when I'm back below fifty." "Roger…you're…you're at fifty." "Thanks." "Sir? One of the guys back here is a medic; he says this one guy is stable but in deep shit and a battalion aid station isn't going to do him a hell of a lot of good. He wants us to take him to the evac hospital." "Tell him that's twenty minutes versus five; is he okay with that?" Jake came back on the line in a matter of seconds. "Yeah, he says that would be the best." "Fuel, Rob?" "Seven hundred…give or take." "That puts us at under four hundred---possible twenty-minute fuel warning light at the hospital pad; I don't like it, but there's fuel a minute from there. Keep a sharp eye on it, Rob." "Wilco." "Anteater, Deuce. We need to take this one guy back to town. Vector me back to Route One and I'll take the highway." "Got you covered." They were at least five minutes into the twenty-minute fuel light when they landed at the hospital. "Sir, the big guy who seems to be in charge back here wants you to shut down so he can…thank you." "Tell him no thanks required, we're flying on fumes and we need to do an immediate inspection based on the over-torque. What's his rank, anyway?" "I can't tell; I think he removed it when they went down." "Smart man." "Rob, call company ops and---shit! We left that kid down at Close Shave!" "You were kind of busy; I called them and brought them up to speed. The old man---the Major---is going to go pick him up in his ship and finish the food run." "Good thinking, Rob. Hell, he loves that mission as much as the rest of us do. He's a damn third tour aviator and we're lucky to have him in command. Let's jump over and get some gas and head back to the barn for that over-torque check." In under twenty minutes, they were refueled and hovering back into the company area. "You have the aircraft, Rob, take her in. It's a hell of a lot easier going in than backing out." The maintenance officer came out to supervise the over-torque inspection which indicated no damage. "Ryan! Take a look at this!" There was a second bullet hole. It had missed the engine's compressor housing by an inch. Had it hit the compressor they would never have gotten off the ground after picking up the downed crew and their passengers. Tomorrow is Another Day Ch. 01 "Frenchie, I guess it just wasn't my time." "Tomorrow is another day, young Warrant Officer, tomorrow is another day." "Thanks for reminding me." *********** The work which follows (by an unknown author) is a tribute to all those brave kids I flew with in two tours flying Army helicopters in Vietnam. They cleared me left and right, got the shit and the bodies on and off, put down accurate suppressive fire with their M60s and made sure their guns didn't jam and their flying machines didn't fall out of the sky. Few of the "men in the doorway" were old enough to vote or buy a beer back in the states at the time they served. We lost over 6,000 helicopters in Vietnam; for an officer or warrant officer, being part of a helicopter crew was second only to being a 2LT Infantry or Marine Rifle platoon leader in terms of life expectancy. Of the 167 guys I graduated from flight school with---thirty-six didn't survive their first tour in Vietnam. We lost ten percent of our pilots on one day on a single mission in my unit on what was supposed to be a "cold" lift. Their names are clustered together on that black piece of granite on the mall. Our unit was lucky in retrospect; other units did far worse. I turned twenty-one in 1969 in I-Corps, Republic of Vietnam. I was the "old guy" a couple of years later when I went back for my second tour prior to my twenty-fourth birthday. The Man In the Doorway Extraction They came in low and hot, close to the trees and dropped their tail in a flare, rocked forward and we raced for the open doorways. This was always the worst for us, we couldn't hear anything and our backs were turned to the tree line. The best you could hope for was a sign on the face of the man in the doorway, leaning out waiting to help with a tug or to lay down some lead. Sometimes you could glance quickly at his face and pick up a clue as to what was about to happen. We would pitch ourselves in headfirst and tumble against the scuffed riveted aluminum, grab for a handhold and will that son-of-a-bitch into the air. Sometimes the deck was slick with blood or worse, sometimes something had been left in the shadows under the web seats, sometimes they landed in a shallow river to wash them out. Sometimes they were late, sometimes...they were parked in some other LZ with their rotors turning a lazy arc, a ghost crew strapped in once too often, motionless, waiting for their own lift, their own bags, once too often into the margins. The getting on and the getting off were the worst for us but this was all he knew, the man in the doorway, he was always standing there in the noise, watching, urging...swinging out with his gun, grabbing the black plastic and heaving, leaning out and spitting, spitting the taste away, as though it would go away... Resupply They came in low and hot, close to the trees and dropped their tail in a flare, rocked forward and began to kick the boxes out, bouncing against the skids, piling up on each other, food and water, and bullets...a thousand pounds of C's, warm water and rounds, 7.62mm, half a ton of life and death. And when the deck was clear, we would pile the bags, swing them against their weight and throw them through the doorway, his doorway, onto his deck and nod and he'd speak into that little mic and they'd go nose down and lift into their last flight, their last extraction. Sometimes he'd raise a thumb or perhaps a fist or sometimes just a sly, knowing smile, knowing we were staying and he was going but also knowing he'd be back, he'd be back in a blink, standing in the swirling noise and the rotor wash, back to let us rush through his door and skid across his deck and will that son-of-a-bitch into the air. Med-Evac They came in low and hot, close to the trees and dropped their tail in a flare, rocked forward, kicked out the boxes and slipped the litter across the deck and sometimes he'd lean down and hold the IV and brush the dirt off of a bloodless face, or hold back the flailing arms and the tears, a thumbs-up to the right seat and you're only minutes away from the white sheets and the saws and the plasma. Memories They came in low and hot, close to the trees and dropped their tail in a flare, rocked forward and we'd never hear that sound again without feeling our stomachs go just a bit weightless, listen just a bit closer for the gunfire and look up for the man in the doorway. Author Unknown Edited by Techsan. Tomorrow is Another Day Ch. 02 I've had a number of requests to add another chapter to Tomorrow is Another Day, Ch 1, a Vietnam helicopter story. In celebration of the DC Circuit Court's 2-1 opinion upholding the Second Amendment as an individual right, I went out the other morning and punched a few hundred holes in some corrugated with a .45 ACP 1911 much like the one I carried in a leather, chest mounted, tanker's holster thirty-five plus years ago. Only pussies carried .38 cal revolvers. On the way to and from the range, I remembered that the single scariest thing that happened to me in two tours in the RVN started out with someone shooting at me---which they did on occasion. The events of a dark, inclement night somewhere between Quang Ngai and Chu Lai are indelibly etched on my consciousness---because I was absolutely, positively sure I wasn't going to get out of that one alive. A little history is in order; please bear with me. It's easy for me to forget that many people today know less than nothing about the Vietnam War, so a long preamble seems to be in order. While writing stories with this subject matter is cathartic for me---and I hope for others---they are not easy stories to write. After thirty-five plus years, memories fade; if you were there and I've gotten some facts wrong, feel free to contact me with a correction. On another level, remembering lost friends can be very painful but also, oddly, extremely rewarding. Military service throws people together who might never have crossed paths otherwise. Serving in combat together adds a unique level of closeness. A case in point: My first platoon leader in Vietnam, an African American Captain, was a prior enlisted product of Officer Candidate School from Texas. On first meeting I am sure that, yours truly, a not-yet-twenty-one-year-old warrant officer and college drop out, thought to himself, 'oh, brother, this is going to be unpleasant.' He was a no nonsense guy who ran a very tight platoon. He quickly became almost a father figure to me and taught me more about what being an officer meant in a few weeks than anyone I'd ever met. It turns out he was a hell of a bridge player and we quickly settled in as bridge partners almost every night in the officers club while others watched the latest bad movie. He taught me a lot about the game of bridge. We were never on a first name basis...it just wouldn't have been right. Barely a month after my arrival in the unit, his helicopter was blown out of the sky during a combat assault that wasn't supposed to be hot; everyone on board died. At the last minute, he had scratched my name from that mission. When I asked why, since I was just dumb enough to want to, "see some action" he bluntly told me that I didn't have enough experience and wouldn't be an asset on the mission. I miss him to this day; he is someone I would have wanted to stay in touch with after the war. My first combat zone mentor, commander and father figure died at the ripe old age of twenty-nine. I went back to Vietnam for a second tour as an Army Aviator in 1972. I wasn't supposed to go back; I was supposed to go someplace else---Thailand had been mentioned---but not the RVN. I was fed some BS about an emergency requisition in view of my specific advanced training. When I got there I was not assigned based on those qualifications. The Army personnel system was always months behind the power curve. So halfway through my tour, Nixon finally bombs the shit out of the North during Linebacker II and I'm thinking, 'hell, I'll be home in a month!' Wrong again. My "experience in the area of operation" and my "maturity" made me the perfect candidate to stay after almost everyone else went home. I was assigned to work with the ill-fated peace keeping group—the International Control Commission---which accomplished absolutely nothing during their brief tenure---and simply walked off the job one day in frustration under the leadership of the Canadian contingent. Of course all R&R trips had long since ended so I didn't get to go anywhere cool and get laid. During the last three months I was the maintenance officer for a detachment of Hueys in support of the gaggle of Canadian, Hungarian, Indonesian and Polish members of the Commission, affectionately known as CHIPs. Most of my maintenance was performed by civilians who were nearly useless. I headed home with the last regular military folks on March 29, 1973. Some "big picture" history is in order. April of 1969 was the peak year and month with 542,000 uniformed Americans in country. I arrived in June of 1969. When I left the RVN at the end of my first tour in the middle of 1970, there were less than 300,000 troops in Vietnam. When I got back in 1972, there were fewer than 70,000 Americans left, primarily advisors and aviators, and that number dropped by a few thousand more each month as Nixon trickled us down. By the end of 1972 or the first two weeks of 1973 when the official hostilities supposedly ended (which is a crock because we still got shot at), it was less than 25,000 and by the end of the first quarter of 1973---when I flew home---no one remained other than embassy security---probably less than 100. The first thing I heard from my new CO (a semi-pro water skier) at the beginning of my second tour was: "don't be the last man to die or get someone killed in this shit hole." There weren't any American units left on the ground to save your butt if you went down. Since I went right back to the exact same locale I had flown during my first tour, I was given a short check ride and re-designated an Aircraft Commander. The NVA (North Vietnamese Army) had taken a significant portion of northern I Corps---all the way to the Thach Han River at Quang Tri. A Polish colonel I used to chat with---part of the peace keepers---commented that the city of Quang Tri looked like Dresden after WWII. There wasn't anything standing over three feet tall in what had once been a vibrant city of somewhere between a hundred and two hundred thousand. In the central and southern portions of the northern-most military region, the enemy had taken over major portions of the real estate; the AO or Area of Operations---or at least the relatively safe part of it to over fly---was a lot smaller than I remembered. Once the cease fire occurred and we were obviously leaving for good, even the South Vietnamese shot at us. During my second tour, literally hours before the cease fire, on January 8, 1973 an Army Huey, serial number 69-15619, with a crew of four and two passengers aboard inexplicably miscounted their rivers and flew across the Thach Han river into what was by then, enemy territory. I knew the crew, albeit not that well; they were in my unit. The passengers included two Americans, an officer and a sergeant, both advisors. Paraphrasing from official accounts and what I was told at the time, here is what appears to have occurred. While the helicopter was northwest of the river, it was seen to circle twice with its door guns blazing at an unknown ground target. Enemy automatic weapons fire was heard by friendly ground troops. They also reported seeing three SA-7 ground-to-air missiles fired at the helicopter. The first missile missed the Huey, but the second struck the helicopter's tail boom causing it to lose rudder control. A third missile impacted the Huey's fuselage prior to its crash. A search and rescue (SAR) operation was initiated and continued through 9 January. As SAR aircraft approached the area in which the Huey was downed, they were repeatedly driven off by small arms and automatic weapons fire as well as multiple SA-7 launches. Because the area was under total enemy control, no ground team was able to reach the crash site. Almost immediately US intelligence began receiving reports indicating that of the six men aboard the aircraft, four were seen alive on the ground. I heard this fact first hand from another pilot. The families of the men assumed their loved ones would be released with the other POWs, and some families were even so informed by their US military casualty officer. It didn't happen. In the middle 1990s during several recovery operations, bones and teeth were discovered in multiple burial sites that ultimately identified all of the men. It took until late 1999 to positively identify all of the fragments and ascertain that they belonged to the crew and passengers on 69-15619. They were buried in various locations near Quang Tri. There was evidence that their bodies had been dismembered post mortem and one of the burial sites was fourteen feet deep. Why were they killed when the war would be "over" in a day? They were too much trouble to deal with as live captives by a vicious, sadistic enemy that had no regard for human life. As I've already indicated, four of the six---according to eye witness accounts---survived the crash and were ambulatory. They were simply executed by the bastards---and then their body parts commingled to cause confusion in case they were ever exhumed---after attempting to smash their faces beyond recognition. Back to the story. My aviation unit provided support for the American advisors still on station. We flew the advisors around from place to place, often with their Vietnamese counterparts and kept them supplied with the basics. We had new rules of engagement (ROE). We couldn't shoot back if we were shot at---only if our aircraft actually took hits and we could get away without shooting. The Aircraft Commander (AC) had to personally sign off on how many rounds were on board when he left in the morning---and then count them again at the end of the day. Our quality of life---to include the complete lack of protective bunkers in case of mortar or 122mm rocket attacks---was dismal in comparison to what it had been a couple of years earlier. While my unit was based out of Danang, I was often living in Chu Lai about sixty miles south near the mouth of the Troung river. Chu Lai had once been the site of a massive American air base built by the US Navy which housed portions of the Americal Division, Marines, US Navy personnel and Marine air assets. It was a huge base with an 8,000 foot jet capable runway and a long parallel taxiway on one side. On my arrival in 1972, the Americans were all gone and the base was deserted except for a small contingent of American advisors. The forward element of the advisor group was still farther south in a provincial capital called Quang Ngai. It wasn't bad duty; in addition to the four of us in the aircrew, there were maybe three officers and a handful of NCOs. They had a WATS line you could call home on. The booze was free and the food better than average. The full colonel who was the senior advisor was a bigger than life character---God love him. I seem to recall that I must have made a favorable impression on him. For whatever reason he requested me by name---again, after thirty-five years some of the details have faded. He and I butted heads a few times but I would have followed that son of a bitch to hell and back---which is what damn near got me killed. I believe he went on to garner a couple of stars and command a division before his death in the eighties from non-hostile causes but don't quote me. He certainly deserved to be a general officer. He was absolutely fearless, that's for damn sure. I was sleeping on a cot covered with mosquito netting in a small room in the operations center along with my pilot. I wouldn't say he and we were close; I'm pretty sure I irritated him and vice versa but that's another story. He was a competent first tour pilot and a good officer. The events of that night probably helped improve our relationship. I don't remember why we had elected to spend the night down there in Quang Ngai; we'd never done so before. The colonel came in and woke us up. Evidently a large number of Vietnamese Army soldiers riding in a huge personnel carrier had hit a mine that by all estimates was the size of a 55 gallon drum. It blew the hell out of them. The Vietnamese never seemed to be in a rush to tend to their wounded. There were ambulances supposedly on the way but they were not expected to arrive in time to do much good. The Vietnamese Air Force---VNAF---had no intention of launching a Medivac mission at night in bad weather. There were brand new VNAF Hueys parked all over Vietnam; if they had a mechanical problem or ran low on fuel, they just parked their aircraft and left it there to rot. I knew that flying a Medivac for Vietnamese personnel was not something he could "order" me to do---and he knew it also but he was a persuasive SOB. He played on my compassion, indicated that he and the Major would man the door guns if I didn't want to ask my enlisted crew to go on the mission. I looked over at my pilot, a relatively new first tour aviator who outranked me but was not in command of the aircraft---I was---and somehow wordlessly we agreed to go do it. I gave my crew chief and gunner the option of saying no but they said yes. The Colonel grabbed an M16 and elected to go with us. He figured we'd need some help getting the wounded on---and keeping the walking wounded from rushing the aircraft. The weather was shitty; the ceiling was less than 100 feet but under the cloud cover the visibility was decent. We headed North along Route One and in less than ten minutes found the site. It was bedlam and confusion. The colonel jumped out and started picking up wounded and tossing 'em in the door. We ended up with more bodies or "souls" than we were supposed to carry, but they were little and light compared to the average American soldier. Those who weren't seriously injured tried to get on but the colonel and the crew chief pushed 'em back. We came to a hover, made a power check, decided we could fly and headed back south along the highway. We got to the Vietnamese hospital and it took them ten minutes to come out with stretchers and attend to the wounded. It looked like an episode of the Keystone Cops. I like the Vietnamese people; I've had several good friends from that country over the years. For the most part, however, their government, their bureaucrats and their military were all useless and incompetent. Most of their officers were corrupt and received their rank thanks to family status or politics. I trained their pilots back in the states and they were universally incapable of thinking strategically or planning and executing a mission. With few exceptions they would have lost every battle they fought without US support. Some more history is in order. In 1971 there was a campaign known as Lam Son 719---30 Jan - 24 Mar 1971---in which the Vietnamese Army with the support of American air power and helicopters was supposed to take the battle to the NVA and show their mettle---proof that "Vietnamization" was a success. It was a crushing defeat and the South Vietnamese military never recovered from it. A very good friend of mine was a young Captain with the 101st Airborne Division and he has never recovered completely from his involvement in that cluster-fuck. If the battle in the Ia Drang valley immortalized in, We Were Soldiers Once and Young was the opening bookend of American military ground involvement in Vietnam, Lam Son 719 was the closing one. A number of guys who were just arriving in my first tour unit when I left in 1970 got caught up in Lam Son 719 and a lot of them got zapped. The objective of Lam Son 719 was to disrupt an ongoing North Vietnamese Army supply buildup at Tchepone, Laos. American helicopter units supported and provided all transportation of ARVN troops/supplies into and out of Laos during this operation---because their own air force was unwilling and/or incapable of doing so in spite of the fact that they had ample equipment and sufficient pilots. Over 2,000 American aircraft were involved. The US helicopter crews went against the heaviest anti-aircraft barrage incurred in the War. The US helicopters that supported Lam Son 719 received fire from rocket propelled grenades, enemy tanks, mortars and small arms fire. The US helicopters were regularly opposed by NVA 23mm, 37mm, and 57mm anti-aircraft weapons along with .51 caliber machine guns arranged to provide mutually supporting anti-aircraft fire. The enemy opposition comprised a permanent logistical force of engineers, transportation, and anti-aircraft troops, together with elements of five divisions that included 12 North Vietnamese infantry regiments, an NVA tank regiment, an NVA artillery regiment, and 19 NVA anti-aircraft battalions. The South Vietnamese government claimed that 13,341 NVA had been killed against 5,000 ARVN KIA/WIA. Total bullshit! American estimates put the ARVN losses at 10,000---an entire division---which amounted to half of ARVN forces committed to the operation. In general terms if you lose half your army, you are no longer combat effective---you lost. Sadly, during my first tour in Vietnam I worked extensively with the two Vietnamese ground divisions later deployed in Lam Son 719. They were probably the best two infantry divisions in the ARVN and they got their clocks cleaned. The losses to US Helicopter Forces were 65 Helicopter Crewmen KIA (Killed in Action), 818 WIA(Wounded in Action), and 42 MIA(Missing in Action), 618 US Helicopters were damaged, including 106 totally destroyed, from 30 Jan - 24 Mar 1971. Back to the setup for the story. We finally got all the wounded off at the hospital in Quang Ngai. Our fuel was a little iffy but we figured we had enough to go make another run---round trip twenty minutes---and get to a refueling point with an adequate reserve. The ceiling was dropping; we figured we'd only be able to get in one more time and would need to take on as many as was humanly possible, so keeping our weight down made sense. We headed back up Route One low level---just as I had done countless times before. Quang Ngai province had always been an enemy stronghold but generally if you stayed low and fast over the highway you were okay. My Lai is just north of the city of Quang Ngai. Quang Ngai is about 100 miles south of Danang. We had just crossed the Tra Khuc River estuary when we started taking heavy automatic weapons fire. Initially we figured we'd "fly out of it." Then we heard the distinctive rumble of a .51 caliber heavy machine gun and saw green tracers all around us. I think I was at the controls. I also recall that we both---my first tour pilot and I---made the same decision simultaneously---climb into the soup to get away from the enemy fire. I had a standard instrument ticket and significantly more AI (Actual Instrument, or real weather) time than most of my peers and my pilot had a civilian license and a standard instrument ticket and was an accomplished instrument pilot in his own right. Neither of us were afraid of flying in the clouds nor did we doubt our capability to do so. We climbed through the cloud layer; I seem to recall that we broke out somewhere above three to five thousand feet. The reality quickly hit both of us that we were not in a good situation. The only air facility with a radar, ground controlled approach was 100 miles North---Danang. Chu Lai still had an old ADF beacon---notoriously inaccurate---and the minimums for that approach---if we'd had an approach chart---were well above the current ceiling. There was nothing South within range---nor had either of us flown very far south of Quang Ngai. The colonel had a headset on and listened in as the pilot and I chatted; he was mercifully silent. I don't remember every word we exchanged, so the fictional part of this story is the reconstruction of the dialogue as I recall it, based on events as I remember them. I've also changed the names. There are probably only a handful of people that remember exactly what happened that night, to include the five us on that UH-1H and some nameless U.S. Air Force air traffic controller that I never got to meet---but I'd like to. I'll begin the story after we climbed through the cloud cover. We probably didn't speak in complete sentences or with the level of detail I have portrayed but I felt it was necessary to give the reader a clearer picture of the events. Tomorrow is Another Day Ch. 02 "Frank! I've got the aircraft. Grab your wiz wheel (sort of like a circular slide rule used by pilots for decades to navigate by dead reckoning) and see if you can calculate our ground speed, fuel consumption and ETA (Estimated time of Arrival) to Danang." "I'll give it my best shot." The pilot replied, fumbling through his flight bag for the desired item. A couple of minutes later he responded. "Rick, I can't really get enough of a fix on anything to be remotely accurate...a sextant would be nice since its clear as a fucking bell up here...if I knew how to use it. We took off to the North with a ten to fifteen knot headwind. I punched the clock when we went in the soup---maybe a mile north of the river? Based on our current fuel consumption and the fact that it will increase when we descend and based on what we left Quang Ngai with...and assuming an approximate ground speed of...something less than 80 knots? Maybe not even that at an airspeed that is remotely economical fuel-wise. Danang is about an hour, give or take...and we don't have an hour of fuel left...maybe forty-five or fifty minutes tops." "Chu Lai?" "Fifteen...twenty minutes more or less...but it's got no tower...no radar...an unreliable ADF for which we have no approach chart and it's well below minimums. I mean we can find it---or at least the ADF transmitter which is not actually on the runway but...I guess we could try calling an aircraft carrier on guard but they're probably a hell of a lot farther out over open water than I want to fly in a single engine aircraft." "The tower at Danang is all Vietnamese personnel---can't even understand a word they say. What about approach control?" "Can't say I've chatted with them; let me look up the freq. What are you thinking?" "I'm not sure but a third head in this game seems to make some sense." "You're up on VHF." "Give me your best WAG (wild assed guess) of our distance from Danang and the approximate radial based on the VOR (another instrument landing aid, more reliable than ADF but nor remotely as reliable as TACAN or Tactical Air Navigation with DME or Distance Measuring Equipment or anything in commercial or military use today)." "You got it." The pilot said, rattling off the numbers. "Take the aircraft." "I've got the aircraft." "You've got the aircraft." "Danang approach control, Army helicopter 57789." "Go ahead 789." "We are an Army UH-1H approximately eighty nautical miles south of Danang on the 165 radial at four thousand feet, heading 350 squawking 5550, requesting assistance." "Roger, Army 789; turn right to a heading 070 to confirm. Turn back now to a heading of 350. I have positive radar contact 82 miles south southeast of Danang. You will be first in line for a straight in GCA(Ground Controlled Approach using radar) runway 35 right. I have no other IFR traffic in your vicinity." "We're low on fuel, Danang. Our estimate does not indicate that we have sufficient fuel to reach your facility." "Are you declaring an emergency, Army 789?" No pilot in his right mind ever declares an emergency unless he absolutely has to in view of the mountains of paperwork and the embarrassment. "Not at this time but we'll keep you advised. Danang, have you got some time to spend with us? We need a little help here." "You are my only aircraft...the only one I've had since I started my shift." "Danang, do you have a precise fix on your screen of the Chu Lai air base?" "Roger that." "How precise?" "Wait one; let me ask someone." A minute later the controller came back on the radio. "Plus or minus three to five hundred feet in terms of land area but be advised I can't give you any reliable altitude data at that distance." "Standby." "Frank! How big is Chu Lai in your estimation?" "There's 8,000 feet of runway plus overruns---two miles long give or take. Probably half a mile wide." "So, 10,000 feet---double the margin of error to a thousand feet and we're still looking at 8,000 feet plus and then a 1,500 or so east to west. We're in a helicopter for Christ's sake! If he can put us over the airfield, vectors us---box us down---turn us on final somewhere between the runway and the taxiway...we'll have seven or eight thousand feet to find the ground. If we roll out on final at five hundred feet or less, slow it down to fifty knots or less...enough forward airspeed to keep it under control...ease it down at fifty feet per minute or less..." "Worse case we slam into the runway without too much forward ground speed, hopefully with our skids aligned and a minimal sink rate and walk away from it?" "If our altimeter is remotely accurate since the only barometric pressure reading we're going to get is Danang not Chu Lai. Best case we break out before we run into anything and hover back to our tie down area with no one the wiser?" "It's as good as anything I can come up with. Sell it to Danang. By my calculations we're less than two minutes from needing to turn on that crosswind leg. For the record, our ground speed is not as good as I thought. It's Chu Lai or nowhere." Rick briefed the young Air Force controller on their plan. He had anticipated an argument or a request to check with a supervisor. He got neither. It was agreed that all turns would be inside a five-hundred foot margin for error. The ADF needle was fluctuating plus or minus fifteen degrees and would be of little value in finding the runway centerline. "Army 789, turn right to a heading of 090, begin descent." The helicopter was quickly back inside the cloud layer. Not long after, the next vector was received. "789, I show you approaching the eastern edge of the airfield, turn right to a heading of 180 and descend to one thousand." "Frank, your call but I'd rather have you on the instruments." "Yeah, me too. Assuming we break out in some unusual attitude you're the more experienced Huey pilot. We're just past the halfway mark on downwind." "Army 789, your base leg turn will commence in fifteen seconds...turn right to a heading of 270 degrees and continue your descent at your discretion." "Level off at 500." "Roger." "Slow to fifty knots, Frank." "Wilco." "789, begin a standard rate right turn now to a heading of 350...on final approach heading, approximately 1,000 feet from the landing threshold...coming up on the landing threshold." "Three hundred feet, Frank...slow it down a little more...thirty knots. I'm going to follow you on the controls; when you feel me take control, release---there may not be time for the normal transfer protocol." "Roger that." The seconds ticked away with no indication of where the ground was....but it was definitely down there somewhere. "789, you appear to be near the runway midpoint and I...I no longer have radar contact." "Altimeter says we're at 200 feet...maybe less...fuck." A few more seconds ticked by. "Altimeter says...nothing...where the fuck is that runway?" "I can't slow it down any more and keep it under control...it's starting to wobble on me." Suddenly in the swirling mist a red and white structure, probably a power junction container of some sort which Rick recalled was between the runway and the taxiway loomed in the windshield less than seventy-five feet in front of them. He grabbed the controls and his pilot quickly removed his hands and feet. "Got it! Shit!" Rick screamed, pulling the cyclic to the rear, flaring the aircraft and swinging the tail to his right. He felt the tail stinger scrape the ground. The aircraft came to a hover with the tips of its rotor over the roof of the low structure and the skid caps within ten feet of it. "Clear me to the rear! I need to back up!" "You're clear sir!" After backing up he slowly hovered over to the taxiway and set the fifty foot aircraft down. "Tell him...approach control... we're okay...down safely." "My pleasure." Frank replied, making the requested radio call. "Glad to be of service, Army 789. Have a nice evening." "Shall we go get some gas and put this mother to bed or do you just want to sit here and enjoy the scenery?" Frank quipped. "I'm just trying to rearranged the massive load in my pants for maximum comfort." "I thought I smelled something." Frank replied. Another voice came on the intercom; it was the colonel. "Hell, if you smell something it's probably me." The other two members of the crew added their own bits of black humor. No one said anything as they refueled and repositioned next to the advisor compound. After they shut down and secured the aircraft, the colonel spoke first. "Gentlemen, twenty-six years in this man's army, airborne, infantry, gung ho ranger and all that crap but that fucking scared the shit out of me." "That's because you were riding in the back sir and there wasn't a damn thing you could do. I may fly these things but I'd never ride in one," Rick retorted. "You're right...there wasn't a damn thing I could do." he paused. "Rick, Frank---was this as close to a near death experience as I think it was?" "Yeah...it was. We're sure as hell not going to write it up---no harm, no foul---and will deny it if asked but...yeah... it was as close as I've ever come to...buying the farm. With all due respect, sir---damn you to hell for sucking me into the fucking Medivac...and damn me to hell for saying yes." "I'll share in that...I didn't fight it...seemed like the right thing to do at the time." Frank said. "Did you ever learn---train for something like this---back in flight school?" "No, we were pretty much pulling it out of our ass as we went along. We thought about topping off in Quang Ngai but gross weight, declining weather, busted up ARVN soldiers and time dissuaded us from doing so. We'd already flown up that stretch of road and back down again once---just like we've done hundreds of times before. We thought we were one step ahead of the game...needed to have been two or three steps. We were damn lucky." "Luck my ass! You got yourself into some shit and fought---or thought---your way out of it. I don't know about you gentlemen, but I need a drink." "It's well after midnight. I think the bar is closed." "It's my bar; it's open when I say it is." "I knew there was something I liked about you colonel." "At ease, young warrant officer." "Yes, sir." Edited by Techsan Tomorrow is Another Day Ch. 03 I came home one day a few years back and my wife told me I had gotten a call from some guy who claimed to have flown with me in Vietnam. When she told me his name I recognized it instantly. He had been one of my crew chiefs on a UH-1H during the second half of my first tour. He was a bright and cheeky guy with a haircut and handlebar mustache that wasn't close to regulation. He was often insubordinate but also very amusing at times. I think he used to smoke a joint now and again sitting in the door gunner's well on long uneventful flights. He once jumped out of the helicopter in a hot landing zone---after I had specifically told him and the enlisted crew member (door gunner) on the other side not to do so. We were picking up one each ambulatory American officer. We were picking up a wounded American lieutenant who was part of an advisor team. His wounds weren't life threatening but he needed medical attention. Another time he jumped out and ran up to open the pilot's door---normal procedure in a secure area so that if the damn thing caught fire, the pilot had a chance of getting out. The only problem was we were in a hot LZ, picking up wounded and body bags and had no intention of sticking around. He just hadn't been paying attention. Back to the original story: I ended up leaving my crew chief in the LZ in my haste to get the hell back in the air. The young NCO on the ground came up on the radio to inform me of my error with a chuckle. He also said that the enemy contact had broken off and they'd keep my young Specialist Five safe until I came back for him. I took the American LT to the closest medical facility and then returned for my crew chief. I don't think he was very happy with me even though he knew he had screwed up---once again not paying attention. I've always believe he tried to toss a CS or tear gas grenade in my hooch one night to get back at me. I also had the suspicion that he had stolen a privately owned weapon I'd carelessly left behind the seat. He ended up failing a drug test for pot and getting sent to an in-country detox center down south. If there was any young soldier I ever met that I was sure would not make it past age twenty-one without being incarcerated---or killed---it would have been him. He was always mouthing off to someone in the enlisted club and getting decked. He called that day to reconnect but more importantly, he called to let me know that his life had not been the disaster that I had thought it would be. At some level he also called to thank me for being rough on him at times. Remembering back, when he wasn't smoking weed and was paying attention, he was a damn good crew chief. I don't remember disliking him---just being frustrated with him. I called him back as soon as I got home that day. He'd gotten a college education and risen to a high level in a very respected federal agency and even gotten a commercial pilot's license. He had a wife and several children and was by all accounts a pillar of the community. We chatted a few times over the phone, said the things we needed to say and then went back to our lives. I've elaborated about my erratic young crew chief as the prologue to another factual story about the exploits of an insanely young UH-1H Army Huey crew during a period very close to the end of our involvement in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN). The story which follows occurred some time in late 1972, in Quang Ngai province in southern I Corps. Somewhere in a box in my basement, or perhaps lost over thirty-five years of moving, is or was a very nice thank you letter from the commander of a U.S. Navy destroyer. No medals were ever awarded. The unit operations officers handed me the letter and apologized for the fact that in the rush to close out the unit, no one had gotten around to writing up and submitting any citations, even though I had written up my crew. While I certainly did one damn fine job of flying that morning---or at least my pilot told me so---it was the insane, above and beyond the call of duty heroism with no thought for his own personal safety of a young Specialist Five crew chief that I can recall as clearly as if it was yesterday. The U.S. Navy had a role in the Vietnam conflict that is less known than their "blue water" support of the war effort with aircraft carriers and naval gunfire. They also had a "brown water" mission patrolling and securing the inland and coastal waterways. They also had---along with the US Coast Guard-- an advisory effort aimed at training the fledgling Vietnamese navy to secure their own coastal regions and estuaries. One day in 1972, a U.S. Navy destroyer commander launched a small, motorized launch under the command of a young ensign with five or six Navy enlisted men on board to the Coastal Group 16 position just south of the mouth of the Tra Khuc. I can't recall the name of the Navy vessel nor why in the heck these kids were going ashore other than to ultimately be able to say they'd set foot on Vietnamese soil. In rough seas---four to six foot swells, rough seas for a small launch---the young ensign essentially lost his first command, or at least his first "ship." They got sideways in the surf and flooded up to the gunwales. The launch evidently was constructed such that it couldn't really sink. Essentially submerged, it was no longer able to proceed and the young navy personnel on board were repeatedly under water as the waves washed over them. My pilot was a young first tour first lieutenant; he was short and stocky but also as I recall an accomplished marital artist, one tough mother and an above average pilot. I recall that we roomed together for a while; he began each morning the same way. I would hear the distinctive flick of his Zippo as he reignited the previous night's cheap cigar, probably a White Owl. Then he'd down the remains of the flat Coke beside his bunk and then he would fart. I'd eyeball him; he'd grin. One morning as we were headed into the Quang Ngai advisors pad, the NCO in charge of the radio on the ground made me aware of what was going on with the Navy launch and asked if we could assist. Somehow we got the radio frequency for the Navy vessel, probably in the clear. Let me remind everyone that Army helicopters of the day---at least Hueys---were single engine; Navy and Marine Corps helicopters were almost exclusively two engine because they had to fly over open water. I made a number of trips out over open water to land on the hospital ships Hope and Repose, once landed on an aircraft carrier and recall landing more than once on a Navy frigate while supporting a Navy gunfire mission. I always felt a little queasy out of sight of land. The only time I damn near got sea sick was sitting in an Army UH-1H, shut down, on the deck of a ship. It hit us all at the same instant. As soon as we got out and stood on the deck, we were fine. So here we are, flying out over the ocean, trying to find a very small boat in a very big and rough ocean. I recall that the destroyer had intermittent radio contact with the launch but for whatever reason, we did not. The destroyer was steaming toward shore to recover their imperiled sailors but with the rough seas, the underwater hazards and the shallow coastal region, they were close to the point of having to stop. They were preparing to launch a second small boat but the rough seas were impeding that effort. The destroyer had an accurate fix on the location of their launch and could certainly see us on radar. It took some time to find them in the swells. We climbed up a few hundred feet and finally my crew chief or gunner yelled out on the intercom that he had them in sight. As we hovered over to their location we saw a boat full of pretty scared young sailors and one very concerned young ensign contemplating the end of his naval career. My fear at the time was that our rotor wash might cause them more problems. We could not simply hover over the boat and pull them all in at once due to the waves, so we had to make several passes. We did not have a winch. So, essentially, I would hover in with my skids three feet or less over the launch, my crazy crew chief would hang by his knees off the skids, tied to the helicopter by a nylon strap and harness known as a "money strap" and each guy in the boat would stand up, grab his hands and pull themselves in. More than one slipped and fell back. None of these guys were Marines or special ops types so I doubt that they were the most athletic in the world. At least one was pretty muscular and essentially hauled himself on board without too much assistance. The pilot and the gunner would watch the swells and alert me when another wave was coming and I'd have to raise to a higher hover or even circle around to make another extraction. On more than one occasion I didn't move fast enough---because my crew chief was in the process of trying to pull another guy on board---so that a wave actually washed over us, rendering the aircraft almost uncontrollable. Later that morning we landed in a fresh water river and attempted to flush out the salt water residue but I've got to believe that particular UH-1H airframe never fully recovered from its saltwater bath. When you talk on the radio to a commander, you aren't really talking to the commander, you're talking to his radio operator. So, if the call sign is, "Marauder Six", it's the commander's radio and radio operator. If the commander himself wants to talk on the radio---and let everyone know that he is doing so---he'll come up and announce himself as the actual or, "Marauder Six Actual." So at some point that morning, as we're flying out over the ocean in our one engine aircraft, still wondering if getting involved in this whole mess made good sense, talking to some young and overly excited enlisted radio operator on the destroyer, an older, calmer, deeper voice came on the line. One more note on military radio protocol. Ever thirty days a little book came out which you signed for and wore on a string around your neck. It was called the Signal Operating Instructions (SOI). It's called something different today, ECOI as I recall, for Electronic Communications Operating Instructions but with modern, secure, frequency hopping technology it is far less important. In any event, each month you got a new call sign that was suppose to fool the enemy. The call signs were made up of two randomly generated words, so one month you could be "Blue Spoon" and the next month "Flaccid Member." Most of us avoided these weird names like the plague and used our own unit call signs. I've made up the call signs for this story; I don't remember the one for the destroyer and don't wish to reveal my own for this forum. I'll begin just before we found the imperiled swabbies with our first exchange with the destroyer captain, at the point when he grabbed the microphone from his radioman and decides to communicate personally with me. I don't remember the dialogue in detail; I've done my best to reconstruct it from the events. "Smooth Rider 22, this is Blue Water Six actual." "This is double deuce, go ahead actual." "They should be in sight...we've got you on radar but we keep losing them." "No joy; we're going to climb up a little and see if we can find them." "Double Deuce, we are---or were---steaming toward their last location but we're still a good five miles out. We're stopped and attempting to launch a recovery vessel...ah, stand by." "Standing by." "Deuce, we're not going to be able to launch another boat...seas are too rough. And...wait one." "Roger." "Nor does it appear that we're going to be able to get any closer; we're going to have to circle out here. Do you have my people in sight?" "Negative...do they have smoke on board?" "Sir! Nine o'clock maybe a hundred meters!" "I don't see 'em, Dave.' "They're there! They just went back down in one of the swells. Come left ninety degrees---there! There! Do you see 'em, sir?" "Ah...yeah! I got 'em! Break-break---Blue Water Six, we have your personnel in sight...they all appear okay...very wet...filled to the brim. Standby." "Damn, Jeff, this is going to be a mother! We don't have a winch." "Sir, I've got my monkey strap on. Hover in close...I can pull 'em in." "Okay...let me think about this. Damn! The wind is all wrong. We're going to be hovering in a cross wind at ninety degrees. All the weight on one side...the upwind side so maybe that's not such a bad thing...Neil (the gunner on the other side of the helicopter) needs to move to the other side to help pull 'em in and get 'em strapped down..." "Jeff! You're thinking out loud again." "I know, Rick...that way if I'm really thinking dumb shit, one of you might decide to tell me. Okay! Here's the plan. Neil! Move over to the other side of the aircraft---snap your strap into the floor. Dave?" "I don't think he can hear you, sir. His mic cord came undone. He's hanging off the skid...upside down...by his knees." "Well...fuck...Rick! I need you to keep your eyes on the waves---and the instruments. Neil! If you can't get Dave hooked up, signal to him---one at a time! If they all try to climb on at once we're going to be way off balance and probably end up losing one or more of them." "Double deuce, this is Blue Water Six." "Stand by, Six! We're trying to conjure up a plan to get your sailors on board." "Roger." "Neil! Signal them---one at a time!" "I'll do my best, sir!" "Here we go." "Closer, sir...drop it down a little more...Dave can't reach 'em! Oh, shit! One of 'em fell down---he's in the water...okay, they got him...he's holding on to the side...lower now..." "Next wave in...maybe ten seconds, Jeff." "Okay...first one's on...damn another's trying to get on...holding on to the skid!" "Climb up, Jeff! We're going to get wet!" "I got him, sir! Two in---five to go." "Okay, coming back around...here we go." "That's good...damn! Your skids are in the water...okay...got another one." "Wave coming!" "Don't move, sir! This other guy just grabbed the skid...won't let go." "Got to move!" "Can't...fuck!" Seawater flooded across the deck, filling up the chin bubbles at the pilots' feet. The helicopter wobbled precariously. "Have you got him?" "Yeah...got him. That's four...three to go." "Okay, I'm going to hover off a few meters and get my shit together." "It looks like the officer plans to be the last one off." "He's going to be the hardest one to get, Jeff, with no one to help push him up. There's one really big guy...looks like Popeye...body builder type." "Okay...hold on...let me think. Break. Blue Water Six, Double Deuce." "Go ahead, Deuce." "Do you still have voice contact with your people?" "Roger...intermittent." "Good, look the last guy we take off is going to be a real bear---no one below him to help push him up. There's one really big, tall, built guy---he seems to be doing most of the heavy lifting...he's even grinning." "That would be the chief." "It would seem that your commander wants all of his crew off before he goes. Military protocol aside, he's a foot shorter than the Chief---I need him off next, then the last sailor who's taller than the ensign but skinny...then the chief." "Wait one." Thirty seconds passed. "They understand the order." "Roger that." Okay, let's go back in." "A little lower...to the right two feet...down... now...got him...got their LT...wave coming!" Sea water again flooded the deck of the helicopter. "Okay...two more...here we go." "Hold on, sir...this is a tall one...tall...shit! He slipped. No wait! Dave's still got him! Damn that big mother in the boat pretty much just threw him in the door! Wave coming!" "Okay, one to go. Coming around again. This one's going to be a bitch. Coming down now...we..." "He's on, sir! He pretty much just grabbed on to the skid and hoisted himself in...can't say we did much to help." "Okay, get Dave back in. Check seat belts...now let's see what blue Water Six wants us to do with 'em." "Blue Water Six, we have your folks on board---where do you want us to take 'em?" "We are probably not going to be able to launch another boat to recover them with the tide shift---can you bring 'em out to my location?" "How far out are you?" "Six nautical miles...we can vector you." "What do you think, Rick?" "Power's good...fuel's okay...as long as the engine doesn't quit..." "Yeah, right. What the fuck, let's do it." A nervous few minutes passed. "Rick---guys! Does anyone see anything that looks remotely like some kind of US Navy sea-going vessel?" "Not yet, sir." "Can anyone still see land?" "Not from where I sit." "Yeah, me neither." "Wait! There they are, five hundred meters at your one o'clock. Based on the naval recognition class I took back at Fort Sill...that is one each destroyer." "Do you see a landing pad?" "Not yet." "There's got to be one! He wouldn't have had us come all the way out here...I'm going to circle around again." "You know, Jeff, I bet if you circle round one more time...one might appear...a landing pad, I mean." "Right! Blue Water Six, you do not appear to have a landing pad." "There's clear area on the foredeck...can't you let 'em down there with your winch?" "Blue Water Six...unlike your birds, we don't have one of those. Give me a couple of minutes to sort this out." "Sir, that foredeck area he's talking about is bristling with wires and shit." "How close can we get?" "Maybe fifteen feet?" "Not close enough. If they jump out they're going to break some legs." "Rick, what about the gun turret?" "Not enough room to land on it." "I wasn't thinking landing...just plant a skid on the edge, hold it level...they can climb out onto the turret." "That boat's pitching quite a bit." "Neil, Dave! I'm going to hover in close, look for wires and shit." "Damn, we're getting buffeted by that cross wind." "Yeah, need him to turn it into the wind..." "Sir, if you come in parallel to the bow, plant the left skid...you've probably got ten or twenty feet of rotor clearance to the front, no obstacles to the rear as long as you don't swing your tail to the left." "Which is it, Dave---ten or twenty feet?" "Fifteen?" "You agree with that, Rick?" Sure." "Okay. Blue Water Six, can you turn into the wind for me?" "Wilco." "Are you going to be more stable with some forward speed?" "Definitely---and even more so if we can steam out to sea a mile or so. The waves you see are more the result of a strong outgoing tide than severe weather." "How long will that take?" "Five or ten minutes." "Okay, crank her up then. After you're underway, we're going to come back in, plant a skid on that gun turret and hopefully they can just step off." "Jeff, I've never landed on a boat before. Are you sure you want him moving?" "I've never landed on a ship before that wasn't moving. Usually they head it into the wind and then give you a quartering approach to a stern pad so that the super structure doesn't blank out the breeze and cause a drastic power loss on short final. We'll be to the right of most of their superstructure so the wind across the bow should help...he's a Navy guy, for Christ's sake, if he quarters into the wind a tad---which I shouldn't have to tell him--- I'll essentially have a strong headwind. We'll be flying forward---even though we'll be stationary relative to the deck---at the ship's speed plus wind speed. It ought to work." "You're thinking out loud again." "Same rules apply as every other time I think out loud." "Sounds like a plan to me." Ten minutes passed. "Okay, here goes nothing. Guys! Keep 'em in their seats until I get the skid planted and then try to get them off in an orderly fashion." Tomorrow is Another Day Ch. 03 "Blue Water Six, that gun turret isn't that big. It would help if you had some people standing by to grab 'em as they come off and get 'em clear." "Wilco." "Okay, we're coming in..." "Okay, sir...move forward about eight feet...that's good! Now down, six feet...four feet...three feet...two feet...deck's coming up!" "Damn! I guess the deck found us. Keep 'em seated...I'm not stable yet. Okay...that's about as stable as it's going to get...get 'em off!" "They're off, sir!" "So I noticed when the center of gravity so abruptly shifted! So much for an orderly dismount! They all look okay?" "Yes, sir, seven thumbs up and someone tossed a canvas bag on!" "Well, I doubt that it's a satchel charge---open it up!" "Cinnamon buns, sir...hot, sticky, right out of the oven cinnamon buns, sir!" "Well, I'll be damn! Let's get the fuck out of here and back over dry land!" "Roger that, sir." "Blue Water Six, Smooth Rider Double Deuce, sorry we can't stay for lunch but the breakfast snack is much appreciated." "The least we could do, Double Deuce. That was quite a piece of flying. Thanks for bringing my boys home." "Any time, Six, have a great day. Smooth Rider 22 out." "Sir, we need to wash this salt water out of here. There's a place in the river a few hundred yards from the advisor pad...kind of a sand bar." "If we must---hey! Before you stuff your faces, there is one each aircraft commander up here who would like his sticky bun." "That was some amazing flying, Jeff...fucking out of sight." "Thank you, trusty pilot---that must be why I make the big bucks." "I wonder what the Colonel has planned for the rest of our day?" "It sure as hell won't be as much fun as the way it started." "Tomorrow is always another day." "Don't remind me." Edited by Techsan