My Story – 19,220 words

Latest edit: June 2021

My daughter said, “If you ever want to talk about the war, I’d be interested.” I finally realized that my kids weren’t around till a bit later, so I thought I’d put down some of the stuff they missed out on.

Chapter 1

My Roots

I was born in 1947. That would make the fifties my formative years (I remember “I like Ike”). When I recall our move to Calabasas in ’55 I remember it as a move to the country. I would “hunt” snakes, tarantulas and any type of raptor to keep as pets. Among the “pets” I had were a weasel, a vulture, a civet cat (see skunk) and numerous snakes, scorpions, and birds. It was paradise for a young boy. I don’t remember Mom or Dad ever spanking us. I do remember one time when my dad started to take off his belt and threaten to use it on me. I also remember that gesture was quite effective on me and he never had to use it.

Mom was a very middle class mom working her butt off to make a perfect home for her three men. Breakfast and dinner were always family affairs and the house was warm and loving as well as clean.

Dad had the silversmith shop right next to the house, so I got lots of one on one time learning to use metal working tools and silversmithing. We even built a go cart of sorts. That was my first taste of engineering and I’ve never gotten it out of my system.

I remember Dad was, at some point, president of the Chamber of Commerce. He was also a member of the John Birch Society. He kept a M1 carbine with 3000 rounds of ammo in the closet (our only weapon in the house, if you don’t count our arsenal of BB guns, pellet rifles, bows and sling shots). This was to be prepared for the day the Ruskies landed on our beaches. Later, I joined the NRA and shot competition 22. We only went fishing when we were on vacation in the mountains and we only went on one real hunting trip. It was with John Good Sr and a few other guys and we went to a cabin in the foothills of the Sierras. I don’t remember anyone shooting anything. The food was good.

I was raised in a white middle class environment. I met my first black person when a black family (the first) moved into our school district and they had a boy my age.  He was the only black person I knew until I was drafted and joined the infantry. My basic training company was composed entirely of white boys from the San Fernando Valley. A few months later, when I went to Infantry AIT at Ft Polk LA, I was one of five white boys in our entire company (welcome to the real world). But I digress.

My point here was to tell a story about my dad. Here I am, growing up sheltered from the real world in a ultra right wing family. We had a poor white trash family about 1/4 mile from our house. I rode the bus to school with them and they were generally considered the uncouth lower class. I’d yet to hear the term “poor white trash” but they were. Baths must have been weekly or biweekly events for the kids. They always smelled of stale bacon grease or worse and their clothes were usually pretty dirty. I did my best to avoid the whole family. They were quick to violence and best left alone.

One day they had a small fire in their house and I made some stupid remark to my dad intimating that it was too bad the house didn’t burn down. He didn’t reprimand me but he did say, “you’d better be glad that it didn’t, because if that happened they’d be moving in with us”. I was flabbergasted; “What?” was all I could manage to say.

It was then that he explained to me what community meant. Basically, you don’t turn your back on your neighbors when they are down. We were their closest neighbors, who else should they turn to? It was not something I had considered. I was too immature to understand and unfortunately, it was all too long before I did. I think it is safe to say that maturity came late to me.

Yes, dad was a bigot, so was just about everyone else in our little corner of society. We were afraid of everything that we didn’t understand or know personally. Something we still see a lot today. But he understood that we are all in the same boat in this life. He had difficulty expressing his feelings, but towards the end of his life he told me many things that showed me he may have been bigoted but he didn’t hate.  He was just afraid. Fear can be a great motivator or a tool for controlling others. It has always been a favorite tool of the right wing.

I grew up with the same fears and prejudices. I was afraid of blacks and left wing commie sympathizers. I knew that there were good black people and most liberals were just misguided communist dupes. So, like many of “conservative persuasion” today, I didn’t consider myself a racist. I bounced around different ideologies as I grew up, working for both Barry Goldwater’s and George McGovern’s campaigns. I finally ended up embracing the left during my military career.

My transformation began at the hands of my hooch mate when I was flying in Vietnam, Harvey Tritt.  Harv (actually, William J Tritt, Harv was the tag we gave him on the day he joined our unit) began my reeducation one day when we were reading about the black panthers after the assignation of Dr Martin Luther King Jr. I remember him saying, “I don’t blame them. If I was a young black man in America today, I’d be blowing up things and shooting people.” I was so shocked by that statement, I was speechless. Good thing; I’m sure I had nothing intelligent to add to the conversation. So I just numbly nodded assent.

You see, Harv was one of the few people I respected as much as my dad. He had a broad bushy mustache, matching blond eyebrows and would have looked quite at home in tweed jacket with leather elbow patches and a pipe. He opened my eyes to many of the inequities and prejudices in our USA. My first tour had already taught me that jungles were nothing like the movies and John Wayne was an asshole; so, much of what he had to say fit right in to my changing worldview. As a person who was to save my life some 40+ years later would say, “What is the first casualty in war; the truth”. And my worldview was changing; a process that has been ongoing ever since. I finally discovered my grand unifying theory when I realized that most of the bad things in this world can be attributed directly to religion. My belief system has evolved to one simple statement. If our species cannot completely reject religion and soon, then we are doomed to extinction and rather quickly on an evolutionary scale. 

So I guess this is my story of evolution. When I retired a few years ago, I didn’t do well. After a few months we “resettled” in Redmond, OR and I connected with the local VA clinic for my healthcare (being on the agent orange registry qualifies me for VA healthcare with some copay). Teri and I agreed that we could benefit from couples therapy  so we went to the Vet Center in Bend. The Vet Centers are a part of the VA but concentrate on the mission of helping the combat vet to reintegrate into civilian life. Had this not happened, I would most surely be dead or incarcerated by now. But this is the story of how I got to this point, so I’ll go back to the beginning.

Chapter 2

The Education begins

I open my blog with the statement “after high school, life begins”. At least that is how it was for me. I remember all too well how I felt leaving high school. I couldn’t wait to show the world what a fucking genius I was and basically dazzle everyone with my uncanny ability to take charge and make everything work out right. I was Calvin from the comic strip (yet to be written, but he knew me); Spaceman Spiff, invincible protector of the free world. Headed for Oregon State with a sweet Navy ROTC scholarship, I was destined for great things. I was going to fly jets for the Navy.

Within a few years I would realize that I was a bit off there and perhaps some hard work was actually necessary to succeed. One of the problems was that I had no idea what hard work was. Oh, I knew how to work hard, but that was way different that having to work hard every day just to survive.

I am just now, 50 years later, beginning to understand some of the misconceptions I had and the way the world works. I don’t want to do it over because it would take me a few more half centuries of life to begin to think I could do it right. I do see my kids doing better than I, so my only desire for hanging around that long would be to appreciate the improvements yet to come.

Note to my kids: Feel free to download me to whatever extent possible at the end. I don’t care to live again, but I’m dying to see how it turns out.

Digressing again.

Like I said, I left high school in 1964 for Oregon State with the world on a string. My oyster, so to speak. My NROTC scholarship covered tuition, books and $100 per month for housing & expenses; pretty good for those days. My first indication that things weren’t going to be as simple as I thought would come from my classes. The NROTC classes were not a problem. I found it quite easy to be a good little midshipman, learn the military way and study naval history. The other classes were actually hard! I was carrying 18 units in a math/science major. High school had required little or no work on my part, so I figured I’d dazzle them at University. I pledged a frat and was impressed by the BMOCs that never seemed to study but carried respectable GPAs. Science and math came so easily for me in high school so I never developed a good study discipline. It turned out that college was a little different, you actually had to study, read the text book and do the homework. Every day! It soon became apparent that I wasn’t going to drink my way through college unless I was the school janitor.

By the end of the first year I had a solid 1.9 GPA. If I returned next year it would be on probation. More importantly, my summers were to be spent on training cruises with the Navy. Once I went on that first summer cruise I would have a four year obligation to serve (as an enlisted man) in the event that I had to leave school, whatever the reason. The one thing that I had learned after leaving high school was that I wasn’t going to make it through college on this try.

Dropping out of the program before the summer cruise would leave me with no obligation to the Navy. It did guarantee that my draft status would immediately change to 1A. So I could count on maybe a year of freedom before getting drafted; but the draft only carried a two year commitment.  

Faced with the options of going on the cruise and then really buckling down to academics or dropping out, getting a job at a gas station and surfing until the draft caught up with me; what did I do? I was 18, wax up the board. There was always Canada wasn’t there? It was June 1965.

So life began with my first real failure. My folks hid their disappointment well and continued to support whatever decision I made. Actually, Canada was never an option. I was too insecure and I had no support group up there. I also couldn’t imagine facing my folks if I ran off to Canada to escape the draft. Of course, I had done no research other than to ask my folks if we knew anyone in Canada. I had made my choice and I was resolved to take the consequences. So I got a job pumping gas for Standard Stations because they paid $2.50/hr, almost twice the minimum wage at that time. Then I moved onto my grandfathers boat in Alamitos Bay Harbor, Long Beach. The slip fees were $0.85/ft which worked out to a monthly rent of around $30 and that included water & electricity. I paid the slip fees and kept the boat in good shape. It was set up for single handed sailing and deck hands were easy to find. Life was good and it lasted until August 1966.

This brings me to my illustrious military career. I came out of the military with one thing in mind. To not let my military experience define who I was. That was one of a long string of stupid decisions that began way back in June 1965. Now, in Jan 2014, I realize that my military (and subsequent VA) experience totally redefined who I was. It wasn’t until I experienced a dramatic (insert whatever psychologic label you wish, PTSD episode, depression, ect.) crash followed by rescue at the Vet Center in Bend that I was able to begin to come to terms with that fact. If it hadn’t been for their efforts, I’d be dead, institutionalized or incarcerated by now. I know I’ve already said this but it bears repeating. The Vet Center gets it; they have the knowledge needed to help and they actually care.

Chapter 3

THE FUCKING MILITARY

TIMELINE

Action                               Rank                      Date                         Service #

Drafted:                            Pvt E1               Aug 24, 1966                US56694209

Reenlisted:                       Sp4 E4              Aug 24, 1967                RA56694209

Promoted:                        Sgt E5               Dec 5, 1967

Graduated WORWAC    WO1                 April 7, 1969                W3162869

Returned to Vietnam     WO1                 May 5, 1969

DEROS and ETS              CW2                  Dec 15, 1970                CIVILIAN

One of the things you will notice when a group of vets get together with no non vets present is the use of the word fuck. Much has been written about this word. It’s amazing ability to be almost any part of speech, and express feelings otherwise indescribable have been the basis for many a comedic bit. For vets it’s code. We used the word as an adjective for nearly every noun we spoke. We realized that it was not acceptable (this was the 60’s) in the presence of civilians or the brass so it became the preferred way to express just how pissed off you were. The more times you could put it into a sentence, the greater your pissedofftitude. In an infantry outfit consisting of over 90% draftees, there was plenty of need to express your pissedofftitude, I mean, which has more impact? “This is just wrong”, or, “This is just fucking wrong”. Nowadays, once it comes out in conversation and we realize that it’s just us here, we can suddenly communicate completely. There is a huge psychological sigh of relief as we can begin to really express what we feel and know that here is someone that will understand what we are saying. I remember one time after returning from my first tour, when I had recently had a flashback. I was having dinner with the family and caught myself in mid sentence saying, “Please pass the fucking salt”. Much has changed in todays military; now the brass use it too.

I’ve heard the comment, “He never wants to talk about his Vietnam experience” so many times. The truth is, he wants to talk about it but to communicate what he has to say would require a lengthy educational exercise for his listener first. It is sad to say, but it really is true that, “you weren’t there man”.

Bear with me for a short rant:

What astounds me today is how we throw away the combat veteran after his service is over. No one, I mean absolutely no one, could be subjected to the combat experience of our last two wars and not be drastically changed. In my war we knew the exact date we would go home. Each individual had his own schedule and the unit was there for the duration.

Now we send these men into a nightmare and if they make it back, we do it again, and again. They become part of a unit that does everything together. Train, deploy, fight and return to train until they deploy again. The men in that unit form a bond stronger than anything they have known before. The military method of striping you of any previous identity then rebuilding an identity with the unit as your family builds strong military fighting units. But what happens when you go through hell with your new family and then are separated.

My first exposure to this new phenomena was when Bill Toppa’s son-in-law lost a leg in Afghanistan. We watched on line as he recovered in Walter Reed. His wife and two kids were put up nearby and they even set her up with a web site that would keep all of us up to date with his progress. Which was long and hard. We all saw his recovery, which was heroic and heartwarming.

It wasn’t until much later, when I started to work with other Iraq and Afghanistan vets that I realized what he was going through. First there’s the survivors guilt. Your friend and team member sitting next to you died and you didn’t. Everyone felt that they had a responsibility for the safety of the rest of the team. To survive when others didn’t was a failure. Second is the separation from the unit. You have your injuries to deal with but they must go on without you; and some of them will die. If that isn’t enough to deal with; wait, there’s more.

The military takes care of their wounded. The goal is to rehabilitate them well enough to return to duty. That desire to get back to your new family is strong, the soldier needs to get back to the guys and prove himself all over again. He needs to know that they trust him again and don’t blame him for the past. There are double amputees that lost limbs in two separate deployments. Yes, you have what we called a million dollar wound (because it sent you home) and they send you back again. When I heard that, I felt like I was reading Catch 22 part 2.

If you can’t be rehabilitated back into your old job, the military graciously gives you a medical discharge. To cover our asses we have them fill out a questionnaire asking them if they have PTSD before we send them back. What a fucking joke.

Their lives will never be the same. Their shortened life expectancy will be filled with pain and frustration. You think we have a hard time with aging, try walking a mile in their prosthetics.

WE OWE THEM! They should have a Mercedes and a mansion on the river if that is what they want. We have the resources; what we lack is the proper amount of guilt for what we have done to them. I get extremely pissed off when I see the TV ad begging for donations to wounded warriors. I assume that those organizations are preforming noble acts helping our wounded warriors, but they shouldn’t exist. The fact they do shows how badly our society has failed them. If you think we are doing all we can, Google veteran suicide rate.

There should be a seamless transition from military duty and the VA. But instead, when you are discharged you are handed a booklet telling you all about your rights as a vet. No one explains what you have to do to get benefits. For example, if I were to go into the VA and be diagnosed with type II diabetes (a diagnosis which would automatically quality me for benefits since I’m on the Agent Orange Registry), you’d think that would automatically trigger a claim for compensation. The problem is that in order to provide patient privacy, the medical services part of the VA doesn’t share patient information with the Compensation and Benefits section. You must file a claim before any consideration can be made. There are plenty of vets out there receiving medical treatment for conditions qualifying them for compensation and they don’t realize it.

Benefits are awarded only after the VA’s Compensation and Benefits section makes their own determination. You must go through another diagnosing process with their own doctors. And I guarantee it will be a long and frustrating process. If you had PTSD it will ramp it up to new heights, I can guarantee that!

The VA seems to think their primary mission is to prevent fraudulent claims. While I agree, that is important, their approach alienates the already pissed off vet. Understand that it is very very hard for the vet to ask for help. It is an admission of failure in their eyes, and everyone of them will say “There are lots of guys worse off than me and I don’t want to take away from them”.  The VA has developed a system that is so complicated that you must have an advocate to navigate it. Those advocates are registered with the VA as VSOs (Veterans Service Officers); some work for other government agencies, in Oregon it is the county Veterans Services office. The DAV provides free VSO services to any qualified vet. There are many independent VSOs who are qualified professionals that donate their services. The VSOs are the unsung heroes here. They usually have an overwhelming case load and spend their time dealing with stressed out vets and the VA bureaucracy. Talk to any vet that currently receives benefits and they will tell you that they could never have done it without their VSO. Since the Civil War the politicians have turned their backs on our veterans. I don’t understand it but it continues today. 

August, 2020 edit: I don’t think I cried once between August 1966 and sometime around 2013 when I admitted that I have PTSD and began therapy. Now tears come easily. I prefer the latter, it lets you know you are alive.

Digressing again, but I will get back to this, as it is what this is all about.

Back to the military.

GRUNTS

At the induction center they had us fill out all the forms (ala Alice’s Restaurant), then swore us in and put us on a plane to Ft Bliss Texas (it was August 1966). At one point they asked us if anyone had prior military service. No one raised their hand, we weren’t stupid, we’d all been told “never volunteer”. Then they asked, “ anyone been in ROTC?”. I raised my hand, fearing the worst. Turned out that they just wanted someone to carry the folder with all our paperwork in it to the corporal that would meet our plane. Guess they felt secure that no one would jump out of the plane on the way. If only I had the balls to flush it all down the toilet, I could have begun my Army career fucking with them instead of the other way around. The thought of doing that flush didn’t occur to me until just the other day. I’m pretty sure that it wouldn’t have worked out well for me in any case. I had yet to develop the attitude of, “fuck it, what can they do to me, send me to Vietnam?” That would come soon enough, both the sending and the attitude.

Everyone in my group thought that I was some dude with “prior military experience” because I was carrying everyone’s paperwork. One guy later told me that he thought I was a corporal. We were all pretty naive, and stupid.

During our first days in the Army we filled out every kind of form you could imagine. When we got to the personal history, I remember listing among my hobbies, hunting, camping and hiking. Later, when asked what the fuck I was thinking, I confirmed that I hadn’t; been thinking that is. We also took aptitude tests and psychological exams. After which I was told I could go to OCS or Warrant Officer Candidate (helicopter flight) school. Knowing that I was the Red Baron in a former life, I said “hell yes, sign me up for that helicopter flight school.” So they drew up the papers and said “Sign here, you’ll go directly to flight school after basic and then be obligated for about three and one half years after that.” It was deja vu all over again. Seems like every time this happens, they want me to commit for a longer stretch. So, I said, “No thanks, I’ll wait an see what MOS (Military Occupational Specialty otherwise known as your job for the rest of your military career) I get assigned after basic.” Obviously, I hadn’t figured out the system yet.

To shorten a long and sad story, naturally, I got assigned 11B (the basic grunt MOS) and was sent on to AIT (Advanced Infantry Training) at FT Polk, LA. It was at this moment that I said,”I changed my mind, I’d like to sign up for that helicopter flight school.” To which they said, “Sure, sign here and we’ll get you a class date. Meanwhile, you’ll have to follow the orders to attend AIT but don’t worry, we’ll get you a class date right away.” So I signed and packed for Ft Polk. Obviously, I hadn’t figured out the system yet.

Ft Polk was where I began to get a glimpse of the real world. Our basic training company was completely comprised of 18 and 19 year old boys from the San Fernando Valley. My company at Ft Polk was almost completely comprised of boys from MOTOWN. I was one of about five white boys in a company of 120 plus. I wasn’t in the San Fernando Valley any more. We were not the elite. We were  pure cannon fodder; ours was to shut up and take orders.

There were other ways in which I began to suspect that I was being had. By the time we finished AIT and had our orders to Vietnam, I was being told, “Don’t worry, they’ll get you a class date right away. They really need helicopter pilots; they’ll pull you right out of Nam and get you back here to flight school.” Obviously, I hadn’t figured out the system yet.

As I look back on my growth from spoiled school boy to whatever it is that I am now, I can’t help but wonder how in the hell I survived so long with my head so far up my ass. I most certainly should have died and taken a bunch of good men with me during this period of my life. I moped around with my head down, feeling sorry for myself and constantly bemoaning the fact that I shouldn’t have been there. This at a time requiring complete concentration and your head in the game to survive. There are a few stories that I’d like to relate, again mostly for my wife and kids as I didn’t share much with either and I think it’s time. It won’t be a complete tale of my time over there but it might help.

An infantry company was organized into four or five platoons. In four of the  platoons there were four squads consisting of two fire teams of three to four men. Each platoon had a platoon leader and platoon sergeant. The fifth platoon was the mortar platoon. They carried the mortars and set up in the middle of the perimeter each night. Some times the fifth platoon stayed back in the fire base and set up there. This put the ideal company manning level at about 150 plus the CP (command post) with the CO, XO, Artillery Officer, Platoon Leaders & Sergeants and their RTOs (Radio/Telephone Operators). We were never at full strength.

To this point I had been a model soldier, got my promotions as soon as allowed and had been in various leadership positions since getting off the plane at Ft Bliss. As soon as I got to Vietnam I developed an attitude problem. A short description of a day in my life as a grunt in Vietnam would go something like this.

At dawn we’d collect all the claymores and trip wire flares we had set up out in front of our positions, grab a delicious breakfast of C rations and get ready to move out. Sometimes we’d wait for a morning Huey if we needed resupply or someone needed to go back in to the rear base. It was always best to move after you got a Huey because that showed the whole world your position.

At this stage in the war a lot of our units had been hit hard in ambushes. As a result, we had learned how not to travel through the boonies. The basic rules were:

1. Spread out; don’t offer a group of targets close together. My sergeant’s favorite phrase was, “Spread out, one punji stake would get all of you.”

2. Move slow; don’t advance until you have checked out all the possible places they could be hiding and waiting for you to step into a nice killing zone. Be vigilant, watch out for booby traps.

3. Move slow; best way to get caught in an ambush is to chase after one guy that just shot at you.

4. When you took fire from a village, return fire and hunker down while the CO called in artillery. After the shooting stops, move into the village and count bodies. When we’d leave such a village we’d leave a matchbook with a cigarette burning in it on every thatched roof. It was war, if they shot at us, we’d burn down their village.

5. Move fast; when you took fire and then mortar rounds started coming in, you’d just stumbled into an ambush. Return fire and move fast, get the hell out of there.

We’d hump for most of the day. Once in a while the CO would call for a halt and announce that we’d be taking a 20 minute break. We would keep half of us on guard and the other half could grab a quick snack. Then after 10 minutes we’d switch. The amount of ground we would cover varied with the mission that day. We’d usually get some idea of what we were going to try and accomplish that day but it had to trickle down and you could never be sure how accurate the rumor was.

Usually, we’d stop a few hours before dusk and get resupplied by Huey. Some times this would be a hot meal and mail. Then we’d saddle up and move off a few klicks to set up for the night. Occasionally, we’d drop a few guys while we were moving through an area and they’d set up an ambush for anyone that might be following us. Sometime before dusk we’d find a place to set up for the night. First, our sergeant would come around and tell us where he wanted our position and what sector we would be responsible for during the night. We’d dig a fox hole for each three men. The method was one guy digs fast until he gets tired, then the next guy jumps in and continues. We’d keep that up until it was big enough for all three of us to get into if we needed. Then we’d set up claymores and trip wire flares out in front of us.

Our Artillery Officer would call in registering artillery rounds as soon as we were set for the night. These firing settings were kept ready at the gun locations (a fire base within 22K of our location) so we could call in defensive rounds quickly if we were attacked in the middle of the night. Open attack was rare (I never saw it) but we were often probed by individuals to locate our exact foxhole positions or sneak inside the perimeter. To keep from giving away our exact position, we would try to refrain from shooting our weapons especially the machine guns. When those opened up they became a priority target for the enemy so they had strict orders to hold fire until necessary for defense or multiple targets. The gun (M60 machine gun) crew consisted of four guys, the most experienced guy carried the gun with about 200 rounds, the other three carrying M16s and several 100 round bands of M60 ammo. Several of the rest of us grunts would carry extra bands of M60 ammo as well, you could never have too much. At least one of the gun crew also carried an extra barrel for the M60. They could be switched quickly during a firefight to prevent them from warping from the heat of prolonged firing.

If we thought we saw or heard the enemy outside the perimeter at night, we would throw a grenade or shoot the M79 (grenade launcher) to try and flush them out. In our unit we had three ways of illuminating the night.

First and worst was a hand launched parachute flare. About the size of a five cell flashlight, you would remove the cap and put it on the other end of the flare. The cap had a firing pin on the inside so when you smacked it with your hand, a parachute flare would rocket out the other end, shoot up a hundred feet or so then burn suspended from a parachute for way too short a time. If you forgot to warn your buddies next to you or close your eyes the result was that you gave away your position and ruined everyones night vision. So they were rarely used.

Second was artillery flares. Better, but it kept the artillery busy illuminating instead of pounding the enemy. Sometimes we would be within range of more that one firebase so it would be a good option. One good thing was that  it could be called up quickly

Third was a Huey flare mission. Scrambled from The LZ where our supporting aviation battalion was based, they could be on station quickly and provide over an hour of daylight like illumination. They could remain above 3000’ AGL and throw out 1,000,000 candle power magnesium parachute flares that would burn for three minutes. Side note: this worked well for us Huey drivers as pilot training included lots of practice flying three minute holding patterns.  The flares we used were the same ones the Navy jets used. When they thought they were being tracked by heat seeking missiles, they would drop one of these. They would light up immediately and provide a brighter target than their exhaust for the missile.

There were firefights and that kinda upset the routine. They’d usually go like this. We’d take fire and everyone would take what cover they could find; those that could determine where the fire was coming from would return the fire.  If we could maneuver troops not under fire to flank the enemy we would; usually we couldn’t, so we would just call in artillery as close as we dared until we stopped taking fire. Then we’d break cover and try to advance, usually we’d find their shooting positions and hopefully some wounded or dead enemy. It was rare to actually see them but there were occasions where we got clear shots. Next priority was to call for medivac or resupply as needed.

The companies that got hit bad would get pulled out to our base camp for a few days to get resupplied. Replacements arrived whenever, usually on the resupply bird. Most of our time was spent walking and wondering who was watching us. But like I said, I had an attitude problem. It was a common attitude, some of us had it worse than the rest. We would spend every possible moment being pissed off at being here and trying to figure out how to not be here. The simplest way was to get a “million dollar wound”, one that wouldn’t ruin the rest of your life but was serious enough to require medivac back to the states. Some of the more desperate would actually shoot themselves which was risky, both physically and legally. My fear of the pain involved and the possibility of prosecution kept me from considering this route. Besides, I was leaving soon for flight school, right?

Combat assaults were my favorite thing. It was our main way of moving around the AO (Area of Operation). We would get to an area with room for Hueys to pick us up, then take off and fly around while artillery would pound the site we were about to assault. Then we would land with gunships and door guns blazing. It was all quite fun until they took off and then we had to get our “shit together” fast and secure a perimeter. Once we were pretty sure that we were in control, we’d move out because pretty much everyone in the vicinity knew exactly where we were.

A WALK ON THE BEACH

One combat assault stands out in my memory as one of the best days ever as a grunt. We were humping the boonies and the word came down that we were headed to a large open space for pick up and then assaulting a major enemy force. When we got to the LZ we were told to put on full camouflage and secure anything that might make noise; we were headed for a serious encounter.

The flight consisted of six Hueys and they all fit into the LZ at once. We loaded up and flew up to altitude to circle around while they coordinated the assault. The usual sequence was for ground based artillery to work over the LZ and other sites nearby so it wouldn’t be obvious where we were going to land. This continued until we were on final approach and three minutes out. Then the aerial rocket artillery (ARA) Hueys, who were flanking us and a little behind in the formation, would open up and cover the approaches and perimeter of the LZ with rockets. Then, at one minute out, our gunships would take over and rake the same area with mini-guns and rockets. On short final they would break off and take up orbits keeping them in position for instant response if we took fire. When the guns broke off our door gunners would open up with the M60s. The door guns had a tray holding 600 rounds; they would use over half of it on approach and save the rest in case they took fire after lifting off.

That was how it usually went. Not this time. We orbited at altitude for a lot longer than usual and began to wonder what was happening. It is never good when the plan is obviously not being followed. Finally we headed for the coast and lined up for landing in the dunes around a small, totally isolated village. It was just a small dot in a long stretch of barren coastline with nothing but dunes inland. Anyone trying to run away would have to cover over a mile of dunes.

There was no artillery, no ARA and no firing by the guns or door guns. Just a peaceful slow approach to the dunes. We must have looked ridiculous, a bunch of bushes getting out of the Hueys and walking across the dunes to the village.

Turns out, the major operation got cancelled so they gave us the day off at the beach. The village got thoroughly searched and we found nothing. The word came down to stand down, set a 50% guard and the rest could go swimming and eat or sleep. After a while the other half of us would get their turn. We spent the rest of the day totally relaxed; no one could sneak up on us across those dunes. We got picked up later that day and it was back to normal with a combat assault inland that went off without a hitch.

Most of the time it went off as planned. But it was war and the bad guys were constantly trying to make us die for our country. Sometimes it went horribly bad. The bad guys knew when we were most vulnerable and they could be very disciplined. They knew that if they could shoot down a Huey we’d bust our asses to rescue or recover the crew and secure the wreckage. So, as much as they enjoyed shooting at us, they loved to shoot at helicopters. Especially the last one out on an extraction. There wouldn’t be any troops left on the ground so they could get a little more brazen. That was where the gunships would be lifesavers. They would hose down the whole area to cover that last sortie. Like all of our tactics over there, lives were lost learning what not to do. Unfortunately, we have to relearn all too often. I was astounded to hear about Blackhawks being shot down by RPGs in the Gulf Wars. We had worked out tactics to avoid that. But when I think about it, I can see it happening; we occasionally lost a Huey to RPGs and guys got shot down even when they were doing everything right. But back to the ground pounding.

I was in the game when required; dodging bullets and holding my own offensively. I even participated when we trussed up the body of one of the enemy on a giant bamboo pole (like the trophy tiger in a safari movie) and paraded him through the village to show them what happened when you crossed us. Like they didn’t know what war was all about? Some of the guys carried a deck of cards with a back that said “Death From Above” over the airborne insignia. When they found an enemy body they would use a bullet to nail one card to the head. The brass frowned on the practice because they didn’t want us leaving live ammo around for the enemy. I guess it would have been OK to use real nails. I can guarantee no one would have gotten in trouble for pissing on the body of a VC or NVA. Like Guantanamo for Al Qaeda, we were quite the recruitment force for the VC.  The incident that was my turning point was that night on LP.

We established LPs (listening points) most of the nights after we had finished moving for the day and set up our perimeter. Right after sunset three men would take a radio and walk, crawl and sneak out from the perimeter about 100 yards or less, depending on terrain. There we would lie down and just listen for signs of the enemy sneaking up on us. Sometimes we’d take a starlight scope with us. We weren’t to engage, just give advance warning. The CP (command point) radio operator would call periodically for a “sit-rep”. We did not talk as that would give away our position. We would just click the mic; twice for everything ok and once for enemy activity. If we saw or heard significant activity, we would break radio silence and let them  know we were coming back in. This would hopefully prevent our being shot by our own guys.

I don’t even remember who was with me but it was always guys from the same squad. We never made a defensive position; we would just find a rice paddy dike or something to give us a little cover and lie down behind it. We got into position and I said I’d take the first watch. The next thing I knew it was pitch dark and I heard my squad leader, Sgt. Ivey, calling my name as he crawled out to where he thought we might be. I’d fallen asleep.  To put it mildly, he was pissed. He had just crawled through jungle and rice paddy, knowing that our throats were slit and he was he was crawling right up to the enemy, giving away his position all the way by calling out for us. I’m sure it took a great deal of restraint to not shoot me on the spot. You could fuck up in so many ways out there, but nothing was worse than falling asleep on guard. I spent the next day trying to disappear; it seemed the whole Army was looking down at me. The fuck up from the first platoon with his head up his ass.

Our CO was a hard ass. Captain Villaronga just wanted to kill gooks. He would turn down our monthly rotation in the rear base camp, LZ English, to stay in the field chasing gooks. He would drive us all day and then some more if he thought it would flush out more gooks. I just knew he was going to throw the book at me; and I wouldn’t have blamed him. What he did was hold a formal article 15 proceeding right there in the boonies. At the end of the day when we stopped to set our perimeter, he held court. I was told to report with a salute, so I went up to the CP, waited for the XO to call me over and reported like we were in a stateside office. “Sir, private Wise reporting as ordered”. I think it was the only time I saw anyone salute in the field. He let me stand at attention while he told me how this was going down.

First he explained the seriousness of the situation, about which I had no doubts. Then he told me his options, none of which sounded too good to me. Then he told me what he was going to do, which blew my mind. He knew about my plans to go to helicopter flight school and said he didn’t want to take that away from me. I was to be on probation, sort of. He filled out an article 15 and I signed it, accepting his determination (guilty as charged). If I pulled my head out of my ass (his words) and started soldering, he would tear it up when I left the unit and it would never have existed. I could still go to flight school. I still don’t know, or care, whether he could actually file the article 15 that long after the fact. His actions had the desired effect.

I knew I had just dogged a serious bullet and vowed to make that my last fuck up. I was still quite young, just 20 tender years old. Obviously, I hadn’t a good appreciation of my ability to fuck up. I managed to do all right for the rest of my time as a grunt. A couple of related war stories and I’ll move on.

NIGHTIME

I’ve never been diagnosed as suffering from achluophobia or nyctophobia or any phobias as far as I know.  That could be because I’ve never given a physiologist enough time to reach a diagnosis (still dodging and weaving).  I don’t believe that I fear the night these days; but there have been times when the night totally terrorized me.  And yes, all of those times took place in Vietnam.

The night belonged to the enemy. We didn’t move at night (with one exception but that is another story). We spent our days moving as fast as the tactical situation allowed, always trying to catch the enemy resting or find their supply caches. By nightfall we had set up our perimeter, dug fox holes and set up claymores and trip flares out in front of us. We usually had three or four men to a fighting position. That would be the foxhole that we could all get into and shoot from or duck into for cover depending on what was going on. Depending on how tired we were and what the digging was like, sometimes we would dig a personal foxhole just big enough to lie down and sleep in and be below the basic grade.

I remember one operation that still sits vividly in my personal archives. We had been humping for a few days and came upon a boulder strewn hill top. We surrounded it as we found quite a few tunnels that the CO wanted to check out.

We sent in the tunnel rats. These guys were simply the smallest and most gung ho guys in the unit. We had two. To call them gung ho was a disservice; they were just bat shit fucking crazy. They actually liked crawling down into the caves with a flashlight and a 45 pistol. I think one of them modified his position somewhat after this mission. Nick found lots of stuff; ammo, weapons, food and medical facilities. He also ran into the largest enemy soldier we had ever seen. They exchanged fire and Rick put the finest three round shot group in this guys chest (6” max) that you have ever seen. He swears that the guy didn’t go down but just stood there taking the rounds. Rick wasn’t hit and he didn’t stay around to see how the other guy did.  Aside from a bit of deftness, he was find but not anxious to go back in that cave for a while.

It was a large cave so after a bit we sent in a couple of guys to see if they could find the enemy soldier. They came out shortly with the body and we could see the shot group. I never did check out the other side to see if they went clear through but regardless, three shots in the chest from a 45 should knock you down. Later discussions theorized that the shots probably backed him up against the cave wall so it just seemed like they were ineffective. I’m sure that by the time we retold the story enough times, he was a dope crazed gook running at Nick who calmly put three in the chest to bring him down. Whatever, the experience would later on in my tour cause me to write home and have my dad buy and send me a Smith & Wesson Model 29, the 44 mag that Dirty Harry carried. But that is another story and all this is not what made that night so terrifying.

I was among  6’ boulders with the edge of the jungle about 20’ down the hill from me. There was no trees above me but to my right and left the perimeter went into the trees. I could see the guys to my left and right, each about 15 to 20 feet away but no one else. Our platoon sgt came around to brief each one of us and make sure we understood the rules of engagement. Nothing radically different except a reminder that reenforcing any part of the perimeter was going to be problematic due to the fucked up way we were deployed. We were pretty much on solid rock, there was plenty of boulders for cover but digging a foxhole was not an option. There was also no way to be sure that the enemy hadn’t sneaked up and was on the other side of the boulder you were using for cover. The whole hilltop looked like a giant had dropped 10’ boulders onto the top of the hill and they rolled down until coming to rest in the jungle. Then he had kept dropping more until they finally quit spreading out and built up the hill we could see. There was no time or place for setting up trip flares. We could put out some claymores but in a boulder field like that their effectiveness would be quite limited. Hence the decision to maintain the 50% watch all night.

We’d heard all the war stories about NVA popping up out of hidden tunnels inside a perimeter in the middle of the night, so we were thrilled at the prospects of the evening. There was no problem staying awake, no one slept. For a while we had Hueys overhead dropping flares. They had a two step timer; the first deployed the parachute and the second ignited the flare, which would burn for three minutes.  They could be safely dropped from 3000’ above the action and small arms fire. This worked perfectly for the Huey to fly a holding pattern over us and provide constant illumination. Out in the open, it was like day time. We didn’t have too much tree cover, so it worked pretty well for us.

The stark white of the flares light made the scene look like a black and white movie. At the tree line at the edge of the boulder field the shadows would creep slowly as the flares floated along on the winds aloft. It looked like every rock, bush and tree was an enemy soldier sneaking up on us. A few guys were tossing grenades at the shadows until our sergeant came around explaining that: A, we didn’t have enough grenades to keep that up all night and we might need them for more definitive targets before the night was through. B, all we were doing was drawing attention and giving away our position. C, and most importantly, if he had to walk the perimeter to tell us again, he would stuff our remaining grenades “up our collective asses without the pins”.

That night was the most terrified I have ever been without a single enemy round being fired. There were times when we wouldn’t have the flares from the hueys and that was worse. I even popped a hand launched parachute flare I carried one time when my paranoia convinced me that there was a gook behind one of the boulders. The moment I fired it off I knew it was a big mistake because when the flare went up it did so with a flash of light that gave away my position and blinded me for a good minute. Luckily, it was a bush and it wasn’t moving. It didn’t help when when, an eternity later, dawn finally came and we couldn’t find a trace of any enemy anywhere and not a single shout had been fired at us. I guess paranoia is not the right word. I’ve heard that you aren’t paranoid if they really are out to get you.

I know that what transpired next was probably something cooked up at the O club back at division HQ over lots of wonderfully cheap booze. We saddled up and moved out for the day. We paused after a few hundred meters as a CH 47 hovered a few hundred feet over the rocks and rolled out 55 gal drums of gasoline. These broke open and poured gas all over the place. On the next run out rolls more 55gal drums but these were full of napalm and detonators that lit them up right before impact. The result was spectacular but not very effective.

At this time I was carrying the M79 grenade launcher. Everyone carrying the M79 was also issued a 45 for close in protection. Seems that there had been incidents of guys accidentally shooting themselves with 45s. These “accidents” caused the brass to come up with a solution that could only be born in the military. They took away all the 45s from the guys carrying the M79 and said, “Here’s a new shotgun round for your M79, use that for close in combat.”

This typical military insanity prompted me to write my dad and ask that he send me a pistol. It had to be reliable and the biggest, ass kicking pistol available. So my dad bought a .44 magnum; a Smith & Wesson model 29 to be exact (Dirty Harry’s gun). He put it, ammo, a shoulder holster and some speed loaders into two packages and sent them to me by parcel post. It made it through the USPS without a hitch.

I carried it under my jungle fatigues for the rest of my tour. Since I didn’t bring it out except to clean and test fire, the chain of command could just pretend it didn’t exist. It did wonders for my peace of mind. I eventually swapped the M79 for an experimental over/under they offered me. It was an M16 with a grenade launcher mounted underneath. It was a heavier load than I had been carrying but now I had all the fire power I could ask for. I never fired the 44 at an enemy, but the over/under came in handy on a couple of occasions.

I kept my nose clean and humped the boonies with my fellow cannon fodder for six months, all the while expecting to get called back to the States to begin my true calling, flying. We were all constantly looking for that ticket out of the field. My desire to fly and aversion to pain kept me from seriously considering some of the more drastic alternatives, like blowing off your trigger finger during a firefight or shooting yourself in the leg as you jumped out of the helicopter on a combat assault. As I said before, “Obviously, I hadn’t figured out the system yet.” But I was starting to catch on. They were more desperate for grunts already humping the boonies than Warrant Officer Candidates. I was going to finish up my tour and THEN they would offer me a class date. Unacceptable.

THE PLAN

I had figured the only way I could get out of the field right now was to reenlist for a different job.  There were stories of guys getting thirty or forty thousand dollars in reenlistment bonuses. So my plan was to sign up for the maximum stretch (6 years), as the bonus was a certain amount for each year of reenlistment, and change my MOS to some rear echelon cushy job. It turned out that they wouldn’t let me change my MOS but I could get moved to a door gunner job. Perfect, I get to fly, now.

The plan was brilliant because I would only have to serve three and one half years after the day I finished flight school and became a Warrant Officer. Sounds like one of Calvin’s (of Calvin and Hobbs) well thought out plans. Actually, there was less risk involved than it seemed for two reasons:

1. I knew that I would have no problem finishing flight school as flying was my destiny (I was 20 years old, still basically invulnerable).
2. I would have no problem finishing flight school because if I flunked out, I would still have five plus years left to serve as a 11B. And that would guarantee at least one more tour in Vietnam. Remembering my college fiasco, I figured I could use some motivation. I could think of nothing more effective.

I went to my platoon sergeant and asked to go in on the next resupply bird so I could reenlist. After he recovered his composure, he said he’d set it up. He got back to me that night to inform me that I’d have to wait until I was in the Army one year before I could reenlist. Since that was still a couple of months off, he’d see that I got into the base camp at that time.

So it was that my first anniversary in the Army found me signing on the dotted line and promising to serve for another six years. In return, I got reassigned to “C” Co 227th AHB (assault helicopter battalion) 1st CAV DIV as a door gunner. Somewhere along the line I made buck sergeant E-5 (confirming that Captain Villaronga had kept his promise to keep my article 15 in his pocket) so I was put in charge of all the door gunners. This involved absolutely no additional duties or responsibilities, they just needed a chain of command. Additionally, I received a reenlistment bonus of somewhere around $2500. It seemed that each MOS had a different bonus depending on how “critical” that MOS was. That worked out to a little over $400 per year. Turns out, they needed 11B types but as long as they had the draft, they didn’t have to pay for them.

Obviously, I hadn’t figured out the system yet. I was learning but they were having no problems staying ahead of me. A fact I was to continue verifying throughout my career.

Medals

Medals are bullshit. They are given out like candy and the more the better. Every firefight had to be followed up with the medal recommendations for heroism. If we didn’t need heroic actions, then how could we justify what we were doing? The brass thoroughly bought into the hypothesis that troop morale improves when we award medals for bravery. Even if the action was based on fear or total pissed off anger at the dumb ass officer that got you into this mess. Even that would be ok. Until you get back to the base LZ and find out that some strap hanging, rear echelon puke had himself written up for a purple heart for the time he cut himself on a C ration can on the only meal he ever ate in the bush on the only day he ever rode out on the resupply bird. Here’s my Catch 22 medal story.

This happened when I was flying Hueys in B Co, 227th AHB, 1st CAV DIV out of our division base camp at Phouc Vinh. Our whole company was given a 24 hour stand down to preform maintenance on the aircraft. All the pilots pitched in and helped the crew chiefs do whatever was needed on our birds. Each aircraft commander was assigned to one Huey an flew it as much as scheduling would allow. We developed a team bond and that worked well on our missions. This day was designed to let us fix all those minor problems that wouldn’t ground the bird but needed fixing.

Most of our aircraft were in various states of disassembly when the operations officer came running out to the flight line shouting, “All ACs (aircraft commanders, the guy in the left seat) report to operations and everyone else get these aircraft ready to fly”. It seemed that the 1st CAV division commander, General Casey (father of the General Casey of Iraq war fame) was missing, presumed down somewhere between Bien Hoa and Cam Rahn Bay. We were the only large batch of aircraft available, so we were to conduct the search.

When we heard the details, we were all pretty sure what had happened. The general left Bien Hoa flying his own Huey, accompanied, as always, by his wing man. They started out below a solid overcast but the terrain soon rose up to force them into the clouds. The wingman executed the proper “inadvertent IFR” maneuver; clime and circle until you pop out on top. The two aircraft had been in radio contact at the beginning of the maneuver but the wingman lost contact with the general during his clime out. Instead of sounding the alarm at that point, the wing man flew on to Cam Rahn Bay, assuming the general was experiencing radio failure. When he got to Cam Rahn Bay and no general (embarrassing), he reported back to headquarters that he was missing.

The result was no one knew exactly where to search.

We got all the birds in the air and flew out to the last base that they had flown over and landed for a briefing. The Army really hates to lose generals. Seems that they not only know stuff the enemy would like to know, but they carry a bunch of decoder rings and secret stuff. We all knew that they were all at the bottom of a smoldering pile of wrecked Huey, but the brass had to assume that he had been captured and was being tortured “as we speak”. So it was up to us to find and rescue him.

We were organized into flights of three, each with cobra escort, and given sections on the map to systematically search. That meant low and slow with all the eyes we could spare scouring the country side below. We didn’t get shot at but it was on our mind every second. That and the dangerously slow speed at an altitude that guaranteed crashing into the trees if your engine hiccuped, made all of us slightly tense. We would find trees that were freshly broken off from artillery or lightning which made us orbit the other two aircraft while the one who found it hovered around the tree tops until we could confirm that this wasn’t a crash site.

Finally, I heard my door gunner say, “I have a crash site at 3 o’clock, looks like a Huey tail boom.” We sent the other birds up to altitude and hovered over the site. Sure enough, we were able to read enough numbers on the tail boom to confirm that it was the generals air craft. Turns out they had flown straight into the ground, making a very small, but deep, hole. They confirmed the generals identity from the pearl handled pistols he wore that they found at the bottom of the hole. At least that was what the general that pinned my Distinguished Flying Cross on me told us. He also said something about the families gratitude for providing closure but I wasn’t listening.

Catch 22 was my favorite book at the time. Having finished it after my fourth attempt, I had adopted Youssarian’s philosophy of flight; that was, dodge, weave, go like hell and basically run like a scared rabbit. It worked fine for me, if not for the others in my aircraft. When told that I would be getting the Distinguished Flying Cross I was astounded. “What the hell for”? Turns out that when a general fucks up, it is best to try and put a heroic spin on the whole mess. I got the DFC, I’m not sure what medal my copilot got, might have been the same; the crew chief and door gunner got Air Medals with a V device. I decided that I needed to go to the mandatory medal award ceremony/formation naked, ala Catch 22. Knowing that this would take lots of courage, I started drinking early; after all, I didn’t have to fly that day. I remember my CO visiting me in my hooch. There was no ordering, no shouting just a rational explanation of how the military needed this process as well as the family. He was such a damed nice guy about it all, I got dressed and went to take my medicine.

I have a similar story about the incident earning Warrant Officer Ferguson his Congressional Medal of Honor. I was door gunner in his wing man’s Huey. I don’t wish to denigrate Mr Ferguson or his heroism. I would like to comment that the Army needed a Warrant Officer pilot to receive the CMH for PR; he was in the right place at the right time.

The DD214 is the form you receive when you are discharged. Turns out it is what every agency from the VA to the DVM wants to see as proof of service. I have three, one for each serial number they issued me. It contains a lot of information for one sheet of paper.

DD214 line 24. Decorations, Medals, Badges, Commendations, Citations and Campaign Ribbons awarded or authorized:

NATIONAL DEFENSE SERVICE MEDAL, COMBAT INFANTRYMEN BADGE, AIR MEDAL W/OLC, FOUR OVERSEAS BARS, VIETNAM GALLANTRY CROSS, DISTINGUISHED FLYING CROSS, BRONZE STAR MEDAL, ARMY AVIATION BADGE

Note: W/OLC means “with oak leaf cluster” or you got more than one.

It took me many attempts to finish “Catch 22”. I should say that it took me many attempts and over two years at war to finish it. Using my “Youssarian mode”  towards the end of my last tour I finally worked out a couple of maneuvers to minimize our exposure to ground fire while getting into and out of a single ship LZ.  They all adhered to the dodge and weave principle of never giving them a long look at you. The place for straight and level flight was above 3000’ AGL. 

I actually flew the same missions as when I was a door gunner and never took a round as a pilot. In 6 months as door gunner I couldn’t count the number of rounds we took. The worst was one day as we were pulling out of some company’s position in the boonies and took a bunch of rounds as we flew right over some gooks. I remember seeing tracers going by and feeling the impacts, then I looked down and saw the muzzle flashes right below us. I put about 100 rounds right on the flashes and they stopped. It was quite easy at that range (about 50 yards) and using 100% tracers. As soon as the firing stopped my crew chief ( Gary Thornhill, from Torrance, Calif.) came over the intercom and said he’d been hit.

A quick inspection revealed the rounds had come up through the floor and broken up into shrapnel as they emerged right under him. He’d been sitting on a flack vest, so that helped. He still took a bunch of shrapnel in the back of his legs. It was painful but not life threatening. We flew back to our base camp medivac pad and dropped him off.  I didn’t find out until years later that they ended up leaving a lot of it in him as it “wasn’t worth digging it out”. At the time I thought that was pretty cool, walking around with shrapnel in you. Now, it doesn’t sound like a great idea.

Anyway, after18 months and 1600+ hours as a pilot, I went home with my cherry. Six months as a door gunner; not a scratch but lots of bullet holes. To be fair the door gunner gig covered the ’68 Tet offensive in and around the city of Hue. The pilot gig was out of the division base at Phouc Vinh, north of Bien Hoa but it did include the excursion into Cambodia. It also included lots of people shooting at us, but they all missed (insert loud raspberry).

CHRISTMAS 1969

It wasn’t all bullets and shrapnel. My best story is the one about the “Christmas Bird”.

I will always feel a need to atone for my failures as a grunt. Since no one died as a result of those failures, I don’t have that burden to to bear. But in a time of great stress and danger I put my own problems inappropriately ahead of all others. When I returned to Vietnam as a pilot I realized I had a unique perspective into the life and needs of the grunts. We could all see their physical hardships, but few of us had walked a mile in their combat boots. I resolved to always be there for them and do whatever I could to make their lives better and get them home.

The grunts lived on C rations. This was canned meals; every can was the same diameter just different heights.  We carried them in a pair of socks tied together at the top and slung over our shoulder.  You wouldn’t believe how long the standard issue OD green Army sock will stretch.  There were plastic packets of plastic utensils, salt, pepper and toilet paper, so you had everything you needed for a nice picnic in the jungle. Each case had several small paper packets containing a P38. Not a pistol or model of the famous WW II fighter but a tiny folding can opener. A lot of us would put one on our dog tag chains so we would never be without one. There was, however, no heat source, so the Army provided solid heat tabs. You could take a small can, perforate the sides with a church key and you would have a stove. We would also break open claymore mines to remove the plastic explosive that was the heart of the device. Called C4, it burned white hot and slowly enough for a 3/4” ball to do the job for most meals. When heat tabs were scarce the Army would give us blocks of C4 for cooking. These were about 2”x1”x12” blocks that the engineers used to blow things up. We would occasionally use them to knock down trees if we needed an emergency LZ for a Huey.

C rats were edible but just. We became quite resourceful chefs. You could mix in the cheese from the cheese and crackers can (the crackers were good only for keeping the ants busy while you ate) and you might then have an acceptable meal. The lucky ones used hot sauce sent from home.

Two things that grunts never got enough of were sleep and good food. I also remember thinking that I will never take a toilet seat for granted again. That was not something that I could give them, but I could do something about the food.

Christmas 1969 came somewhere around the first six months of my tour as a pilot, so I had plenty of time to stock pile goodies for the grunts. I wrote to my parents and asked them if they would solicit their community to send me goodies. I gave them specific list of things that they would really want. Summer sausages, canned and aerosol cheese, all kinds of hot sauce topped a long list. My folks had been sending me popped corn in a can from the Velvet Cream pop corn company. It was unbelievably good and survived a surprisingly long time in the super humid climate. So I asked for that too.

The response was fantastic; I received packages from all over and the goodies started to pile up. I could see that I was going to have a pretty full load for a Huey. I asked my CO if he could give me a bird on Christmas day to deliver it to all the troops and he made it happen. Memory fails me for the unit we were supporting during this time, I think it was the 2/12 Battalion in the 1st CAV. When I went to the battalion commander and told him what I had in mind, He was very supportive. He said they would pull in as many companies as they could to their base camp for a stand down day so I could deliver the goodies. He also arranged for the guys still humping the boonies to be in a position to receive stuff in the field.

They never wanted to pull everyone in to base as it would be quite likely that the gooks would pull off some sort of attack to spoil our Christmas.  Tactically, the situation around Christmas was always extra tense. The enemy would be busy positioning for an offensive during the annual Tet celebration but they still wanted to at least spoil any important day for us. Since every offensive on their part was always followed by a hasty retreat, any attack they would muster during Christmas would hamper the following Tet offensive. 

Author’s note: After returning to the states I found that many people thought that the only Tet offensive was the one in 1968. There was usually an offensive every tear during the Tet celebrations. I was there for the 1968 (wild) and the 1970 (not so) Tet offensives.

The exact events of the day also allude me but the gist of it was that I got a Huey for a day with no other mission but to deliver goodies to every company in that Battalion. I do remember it was a good day and no one got shot at nor were there any rocket/mortar attacks.

If nothing else, I was personally responsible for getting a bunch of grunts a day off in the rear with good food and no guard duty. You can never get too many of those. That was true for them and me.

THE MARINES

Ralph and I were both in flight training at the same time and our paths even crossed a couple of times. While he was flying the F9J Cougar for advanced training in Beeville, Texas, I was in holdover status at Ft Wolters, Texas. My flight physical expired in the middle of ground school, so I had to wait for a new physical to be processed. This gave me time to visit him in Beeville on a three day pass. By then I’d heard many stories of their drunken escapades. What I got was an introduction to Marine fighter pilots and the drinking culture in their units. This was before drinking was not cool; it was the era that produced Foster Brooks’s comedy routine. One of their favorite “jokes” they would pull on their friends was to call them in the wee hours of the morning. They would call collect and tell the operator that the caller was the mother of the sap receiving the call. This worked best when the recipient was several time zones east of them. Anyway, if the guy didn’t figure out who was really calling and accepted the call, he would be connected to several of his very drunk buddies who were also very pleased at pulling one over on their pal. They were most pleased if they had interrupted an intimate moment or awakened his wife at three in the morning.

Ralph was sharing a rented house with three other pilots. When I walked in the front door I was face to face with a mannequin dressed in a black neoprene wet suit pointing a speargun at my stomach, he was also wearing an arctic steel pot (military steel helmet) with ear flaps pointing straight up. The walls were covered with posters. The two I remember were LBJ sitting on a Harley and a naked Burt Reynolds. They had furnished the place with rented furniture and the store had the mannequin so they thought it would look good as a greeter. The refrigerator was nearly covered with quotes that visitors had written in black magic marker. The wall phone’s cradle was broken and the handset was hanging by it’s cord looped over the broken stub that was all that was left of the cradle.

There were several fist sized holes in the interior walls. When questioned Ralph explained that they would punch holes in the wall when they had been drinking and it seemed like fun. The fun part ended when he tried to punch through both sides of a wall with one punch and hit a stud. They next day he had to tape his right hand to the control stick and reach all the switches and levers with his left. Of course this was one of those flights he had to cut short because he ran out of oxygen. He ran out because he would strap on the oxygen mask and turn it on the moment he got in the cockpit to help with the hangover. The next day he went to the doctor and found out he had a “boxers fracture” in a few of the right metacarpals.

Another of their favorite “jokes” was to hide something very smelly inside someone’s car. I was able to participate in their fun before I left. While everyone was out flying I spent my time fishing in the Beeville area. I got some nice bass which I prepared that night for dinner. I also got one smallish catfish which I left in the outside air duct in one of their cars foolishly left unlocked in the driveway. Ralph said the guy didn’t notice the smell so much but he did remark that there were an awful lot of flies in his car. I was able to push the catfish far enough down the duct so that it was not visible from either end, so it was a long time before he figured it out and got rid of it.

Before I left I got to write one of my favorite lines from “Catch 22” on the refrigerator. “Clevinger was dead, that was the basic flaw in his philosophy”.

Sometime between August 1968, when Ralph got his wings and reported to his first duty assignment to a F4 Squadron (VMFA 531) at El Toro and June 1969, when I left for my second tour, I visited he and his buddies at a house they were renting. It was a nice place right on the beach between two huge estates. There was a huge hedge separating the house from the neighbor’s mansions on either side and they had their own cove all to themselves. It was a perfect chick magnet.

I managed to find a girl that was willing to go along and we spent the day at the beach and the night in the walk out basement that served as the beach house. His buddies said that they were going to entertain some hot babes upstairs. I remember hearing the phrase, “We are finally going to clean up our act”. The evening started out well enough, there was good Bar-B-Q and of course, plenty of booze. It started to fall apart when two of their buddies showed up totally tanked with what appeared to be hookers on one hand and a gallon of vegetable oil in the other. When they answered the door they just walked in and said, “Where’s the bathroom”. That was the last they saw of them for quite a while. Somehow, that turned the mood to some serious drinking.

My date and I decided it was a good time to exit to the beach house unnoticed. It didn’t take them long to figure out where we had gone, so they decided to drop in and invite us back upstairs. When they figured out that we weren’t going to open the door, they started to set off pen flares. These are small survival flares that are about the size of a ball point pen. Only thing was, they forgot that they were under the main deck off of the living room. The first two flares went about two feet up and slammed into the wood decking and stuck. Luckily, these flares burn out fairly quickly and the deck didn’t continue burning.

Eventually they lost interest and went back upstairs. Shortly, there was a lot of shouting and we could hear furniture getting kicked around. Soon the shouting turned into sort of a cheering chant and there was a tremendous crash accompanied by what sounded like a 200 pound wrecking ball slamming to the floor. This was repeated several times. I don’t know when their dates left but if not earlier, certainly now. Finally it got quiet, probably because everyone passed out. That was when we decided to leave, before the police arrived.

I got the story from Ralph a few days later. The girls left when it became apparent that the acts were not going to be cleaned up any time soon. The shouting, cheering and crashing was just some friendly wrestling. Which apparently ended with several attempts at airplane spins terminating with slamming the spinee down on the rattan furniture. The cops were not called until the next morning after they decided to get rid of the ruined furniture by throwing it over the hedge into the neighbors yard. It doesn’t surprise me that we lost the war.

Ralph, Roger and I were all flying in Vietnam at the same time. We attempted to get together once. At the time Ralph was assigned to VMFA115 flying F4s out of Chu Lai. Rog and I got a few days away from our units (he was with the VMA(AW) 225 flying A6s out of Da Nang and I was with the 227th in Phouc Vhin) and we both hitched rides to his unit.  According to Ralph that would have been just after the 5th of Jan, 1970. I know the date because he says that was the day he went out on his FAC tour with the grunts. When we showed up his buddies said that he just left for FAC duty and wouldn’t be back for a month.

The story they told was that two days earlier he got drunk at a USO show and tackled some brass that was dancing with a donut dolly. Guess he got pissed when she wouldn’t dance with him or let him cut in. The next morning he was called into the CO’s office for a little rug dance – their term for an ass chewing – and was told to pack his gear for the field because he was leaving the next day.

So Rog and I joined his buddies at their O club. It was already well into the night and the crowd was already half in the bag so we hurried to catch up; after all, it was only an hour or so util closing. Lucky for us, they had a tradition that if any of the squadron commanders on the base would hang by their heels from the roof trusses of the club, the club would stay open another hour. I don’t remember how many CO’s they had to hoist up and throw their legs over the trusses that night but if was more than two. Anyway, we caught up; we even passed more than a few.

I was the only Army puke there but I remember getting treated pretty well. I don’t think I impressed anyone with my ability to hold my liquor.

Seems like there was a common thread connecting all my visits with my brother when he was in the marines. They would always say they were going to “clean up their act and get laid”. I’ve yet to see it happen. For them, anyway; I actually went on to father children. An accomplishment for which the bar is set pretty low.

In my two and one half years in Vietnam I got four R&Rs. One to Japan, one to Australia and two to Hawaii. The last one was to Hawaii and I spent it at the Marine air base in  Kaneohe Bay. Ralph had been transferred to an F4 squadron that was returning to the states and they all flew their F4s to their new base at Kaneohe. I remember shopping for shorts at the base exchange and noticing that size 44 Bermuda shorts were wider that they were tall. That was when I decided to see the flight surgeon about a serious weight loss program when I got back to Nam. I had earned the nickname “Pig” but didn’t really want to embrace it once I returned to “the world”.

I remember we bought some cheap U control model planes and flew them around the parking lot and then hit the O club for happy hour. Booze was cheap there; drinks were $.25 a shot and Mai Tais were $.50, since they had two shots in them. We ordered drinks and snacks and started to roll dice for the next round. For some dumb-assed reason I started with Mai Tais and stuck with them. We were rolling five dice for poker hands with up to three rolls for your best hand. Everybody in the game would roll to eliminate one guy per round. When there was only one guy left, he bought the next round and we started over.

I thought I was doing pretty well until I noticed that there were three Mai Tais on the bar in front of me. There I was again, drinking with Marines and falling behind. I have no idea when we left the club but apparently the night was still young.

We went back to the BOQ to visit the slackers that hadn’t come to happy hour. I mentioned how a favorite game of theirs was to get completely tanked then call someone collect at zero dark thirty. Well, being able to pound on the door of someone trying to sleep because they have an early crank time, priceless!

One of his buddies was actually dumb enough to open his door and see what we wanted. We filed in, sat on the bed and proceeded to demand a good reason for not making happy hour. He mumbled something about having to get up in a few hours so Ralph offered to help him out. He snatched up his wind up alarm clock and threw it out the window. Unfortunately, the window wasn’t open. That was when we decided to leave before he could find his survival kit and the .38 special carried therein. But the night was still young.

Ralph decided it would be fun to pull a prank on one of his buddies that was away on a cross country flight. We were able to get into his room by going out onto the brick ledge just below the windows in Ralph’s room and carefully sliding over to his buddy’s room, where the window was not locked. The ledge must have been large for anyone as drunk as us to navigate. Once we got inside and closed the window behind us it was easy to set a red smoke survival kit flare on a table inside the room. Then we lit the flare and let ourselves out, locking the door behind us.

We all thought this was hilarious. If you hadn’t noticed, drunks have a warped sense of humor. I did feel a little bad when, later on, Ralph told me that the smoke permeated all of the fabric in the room as effectively as red dye. His “buddy” had to buy all new uniforms. I felt a little worse when, even later on, he told me that some friends of his saw the CID team dusting the windows for prints.

By then I was back in Nam and getting short. The flight surgeon grounded me while he put me on diet pills so the company made me the night duty officer on a permanent basis. I never heard any more of the smoke flare raid; except for the times when I would find myself, once again, drinking with Marines and reminiscing.

DRUGS

I had zero experience with any drugs other than booze prior to my induction. There were also none during basic and AIT. There would have been no place to hide or use them as we couldn’t even have a car on base at either. The first time I encountered anyone with pot was on the way over to Vietnam for the first tour. After AIT we got leave to go home and have a break before reporting to San Francisco for the flight to Vietnam. It was there, in the barracks before boarding a C141 that I met my first experienced pot head, Al Gingrich.

Al was determined to smuggle a good supply of dope into his first duty station. He was very proud of his efforts. He had taken a carton of Salem menthol cigarettes and carefully opened each pack, dumped out the tobacco and repacked each cigarette with marijuana. Then he replaced the cigarettes in the pack and painstakingly resealed each one. Then he resealed the carton. With the typical paranoia of pot heads at that time, he was sweating bullets at the prospect of getting caught.

What none of us knew at the time was there would be no customs or inspections of any kind on this trip. We also didn’t appreciate the irony. After arriving we soon learned that if you wanted dope just ask the Vietnamese barber or hooch maid and they could get you stronger pot than anyone had seen stateside. And, it was dirt cheap. Five dollars US got you about a gallon bag.

I didn’t partake during my first tour and I didn’t see a lot of use. No one smoked in the field and those that did in the rear were not that numerous. By the time I returned, a little over a year later, it was a much different story. I didn’t see how much was being used in the grunts but I could see a big difference in the aviation unit.

The Army had a funny (but not unique) attitude toward drugs. Alcohol was the accepted and preferred drug. This was probably because there were so many lifers who were alcoholics. Marijuana was verboten and not tolerated. The official line was that Marijuana was an evil gateway drug and it was responsible for all the hippie, commie, bedwetting sissies that were protesting the war and servicing all the sweet young flower child while the real men were off to war. The officers didn’t smoke as they all had careers to consider. But we were Warrant Officers not RFOs (real fucking officers) and we had a much stronger bond with the enlisted men than with the RFOs. Fraternizing with the enlisted men was not allowed but tolerated when it came to warrants. We would often hang out with them and smoke but the paranoia was rampant. To drink and be drunk was OK, so I would always carry a bottle of Seagrams 7 ($1.75 at the PX for an imperial quart) and make sure that I always had a fresh swig on my breath to explain my inebriation. We would also put a handful of weed into LRRP rations (freeze dried meals for Long Range Reconnaissance Patrols) but we always put in too much and would be stoned for way too long. We loved “fantasy LRRPs” but had to be sure that we wouldn’t have to fly for the next 24 hours before partaking.

We were flying long days and would often come back after the chow hall was closed. We would be mentally exhausted and emotionally drained. Knowing that it began again early the next morning, we would quickly drink ourselves into oblivion. There were many mornings that I could fly only because I had a good copilot to cover me. Why I am not an alcoholic, I can’t say.

June 2021 edit:

Drinking remained a large part of my life for many years but decreasingly so over time. I had trouble sleeping so I would rely on about four ounces of really good bourbon to get to sleep. Problem was I’d be up around 3 AM and had difficulties getting back to sleep. When Marijuana became legal I gradually switched to weed to get to sleep. That was better but I didn’t like its effect on my ability to function the next day. About two years ago (don’t hold me to that, time becomes more slippery and difficult to hold on to as I age) Melody suggested I try an evening cocktail, which has evolved into the following: 400mg of magnesium, 5mg of Melatonin, 50mg of Trazodone, about 3000mg Valerian Root, a soothing tea and Bach while I work Sudoku puzzles on my laptop. 

I try to start this routine around 8:30 and within an hour I notice that concentrating on the puzzle is getting hard so I go to bed. After about five minutes of breathing exercises I am asleep. I still have to get up to pee around 3:00 but I can usually go right back to sleep. The regular sleep has been a game changer. The next step is to gradually phase out the Trazodone.

OK, back to the military.

FLIGHT SCHOOL

I was ready for Flight school. I was a seasoned combat sergeant E5 with a CIB, door gunner experience and even a few hours instruction in the Huey with the pilots of “C” Company 227th Assault Helicopter Battalion during my first tour. While waiting for my WOC (Warrant Officer Candidate) class to begin I was assigned to the reception station at Ft. Polk, LA.

I had been stationed at Ft. Polk for my AIT (Advanced Infantry Training) after basic training at Ft. Bliss, Texas. Now I was in charge of a small group of soldiers whose job was to greet the newly inducted draftees from all over the states and guide them through their first three days in the US Army.

The draftees would arrive between midnight and 3:00 AM; blurry eyed from very little sleep on the plane after a long day at the induction center in their home town. One of our corporals would pick them up at the airport and escort them onto the base. I would greet them in the barracks, assign them a bunk and teach them how to make their beds. Then I’d tell them to hurry up and get to sleep because I’d be back to wake them up for their first day in the Army. We would come back at 5:00 AM and start their day. In the three days we had them we would shave off all their hair, issue them their uniforms for basic training and take three drops of blood for typing on their dog tags.

They were quite a sorry looking lot. Most still in shock and not believing this was really happening; some quite desperate to escape but like the rest of us when we were in the same boat, not willing to run and become a fugitive. I carried ammonia inhalers on my clip board to revive the ones that passed out when they got their finger pricked and gave up three drops of blood. There were always a couple in each batch. I wasn’t there more than a few months but I developed an empathy for them; it was hard to believe that I could have ever looked that miserable but I knew it had to be so.

I didn’t know it at the time but while there I processed someone through that was to become a very close friend to this day, Jack Washburne, or as we came to know him, Woofus. We would later become roommates at advanced training in Hunter Army Airfield in Savannah, Georgia. Another roommate, Chet Simmons, fell off the grid, so to speak; we had heard he got shot down and survived but none had heard from him since our group got back from Nam. Chet had always been on the edge of crazy. He had a Triumph Bonneville motorcycle which we put in my trailer (the English Ford van with no engine) for the trip from Ft Wolters to Hunter Army Airfield in Savannah, GA. Halfway there he had to unload it and drive for a few hours as he was getting stir crazy.

Then one day, around 1991, I was working at McGrath Flight Service in the middle of bush Alaska when a jet ranger lands and refuels. When they take off the pilot files a flight plan over the radio and the last item is the pilots name, “Simmons”. When he said the name I could feel the blood drain from my head and I broke out in a cold sweat.

Slowly I responded, “Roger flight plan, activated now. Does the name ‘Troy Wise’ mean anything to you?”

He responded, “No shit!”. Not wanting to violate radio protocol any more than we already had, I invited him to stop by the FSS (Flight Service Station) after he got back. When he came up the steps to the office it was old home week. We swapped quick stories about what we had been doing since flight school and I invited him to come to our house for a deep fried dinner.

That night he shows up with a bunch of stuff to deep fry, the weirdest of which was Thompson Seedless grapes; they were delicious. We spent the night eating, drinking and catching up. I’m not sure what my kids thought about the whole scene. I didn’t realize it at the time but I think it was their first exposure to wartime dad. I’m sure it was enlightening; watching us get drunk and tell war stories, some for the first time (for me anyway). Chet’s tour had been cut when he got shot down and wounded while flying scouts.Volunteering for scouts was another good deal that I had talked him into. For some reason, he didn’t hold it against me.

Chet had been experiencing some increasing vibrations in the Jet Ranger and determined that the swash plate needed replacing. The swash plate is a rather critical component of the flight control system and there aren’t too many helicopter mechanics, or Jet Ranger swash plates, in bush Alaska. So he was going to have to wait for both to be flown out from Anchorage. I think it was a very drunk few days; I’m not positive.

After the repairs were made, we took it for a brief test flight. Swash plate replacement requires removing the rotor head, so the test flight had to be complete with autorotations to verify that the controls were set properly. Chet offered to let me fly after the tests but since the Ranger didn’t have dual controls, that would involve us switching seats and him not having any controls. Since it had been over 20 years since I had flown a chopper and I had never flown the Jet Ranger, I declined. Over ten years later I got to fly a Huey that did have dual controls when I was in Illiamna. That was interesting but uneventful. The pilot was a young lad from Canada who offered to let me sit in the left seat on a resupply run out to a drilling site. While climbing into the seat I remarked to him, “You know, I haven’t flown a helicopter since before you were born”. I don’t think I scared him too much but techniques had changed in those 30+ years.

One thing about military flying. During times of war and peace, a number of your friends are going to die before middle age. The first one was during flight school, shortly after we had started soloing. We trained at staging fields in the Texas countryside around Ft Wolters. These were mini airports with six paved and parallel runways (three on each side of a control tower) just long enough to do 180 degree and low level auto rotations over the pavement.

Two TH55s (our basic trainer) got lined up on final, one above the other. Neither one could see the other and the air traffic controller couldn’t tell that they were lined up wrong. They collided with the rotor blades of the lower aircraft hitting the landing gear (skids) of the aircraft above. The result was an instant plunge to a fatal crash for the lower aircraft and the removal of the skids on the upper aircraft. Which was piloted by a student that had just soloed a few days earlier. He kept control of the aircraft and established an orbit while ATC got rid of all other traffic and coordinated crash/rescue.

In no time they built a sand bag cradle for the crippled TH55 to set down on. I can’t imagine the bullets he must have been sweating; our hovering technique was barely adequate to set down on working skids, let alone a stack of sand bags. The opportunity to roll it up into a burning ball (while there was smoking wreckage just yards away) was abundant. I wasn’t there to observe, those that were said he did a great job and planted it the first time.

Flight school was organized into preflight, primary and advanced phases. In preflight we studied all the ground school courses and underwent a accelerated version of OCS at the same time. Every moment not spent in class was basic OCS harassment. The only time we didn’t have to run everywhere we went was for 30 minutes after we had eaten a meal. That didn’t prevent doing pushups for those 30 minutes. It was nothing I didn’t expect and I had a relatively smooth time getting through it.

After we completed preflight we moved into the primary or basic phase of flight training. We noticed a slight change in the harassment level as now there were more serious demands on our attention. There were WOCs (warrant officer candidates) and commissioned officer students training together. We had civilian contractor flight instructors. These guys were ex Army pilots whose job was to get us through solo to learning how to land in designated remote areas which were placed all around the Texas countryside. They were marked by brightly painted tires placed in the middle of the clearing. The tires were painted green, orange or red to designate the degree of difficulty involved in landing there. You had to demonstrate your competence at each level before your instructor would allow you to land there on a solo flight.

We were supposed to land and throttle down to idle, then we were supposed to lock the collective down and get out to inspect the area before taking off. The idea was to make sure that we didn’t stick the tail rotor into a tree when maneuvering to take off. This phase had the most accidents of the whole program.

Another exciting element in our training was autorotations. Autorotations, or simulated engine failure, was more thoroughly covered in the Army flight school than anywhere else. Other flight schools taught autorotations with power recovery about 50 feet above the ground and terminated at a hover. Our instructors would use a power recovery when they would spring a surprise engine failure on you somewhere out in the boonies. The object of a surprise engine failure was to see if you had been paying attention to the wind direction and availability of possible forced landing sites during the flight.

Several things have to happen to survive an engine failure in a helicopter. First you have to enter autorotation. You do that by rapidly lowering the collective to the bottom of it’s range of movement. This puts a slightly negative pitch on the rotor blades and reverses the air flow through the rotor disk. The air is now flowing up through the rotor blades and sustaining their rotation. If you fail to do this quick enough the rotors rapidly slow down and you are now nothing more than a streamlined bunch of parts going straight down.

If you have successfully entered autorotation you will settle into a controlled descent at about 2500 feet per minute and can execute the next step; FIND A PLACE TO LAND THIS SUCKER. You’ll be traveling at 60 knots with a steep angle of descent. You can do the math but it is different for each helicopter, usually 17-20 degrees. The key to making a successful autorotation is maintaining rotor RPM until a few feet above the ground and then finally pull up on the collective to cushion the landing. Depending on the headwind you’ll hopefully have you can touch down with from 0 to 20 knots speed over the ground. Personally, if I have to land an aircraft with an engine failure, I’d much prefer  it was a helicopter.

We did three autos in training, straight in from pattern altitude, 180 degree from pattern altitude and straight in from 100 ft altitude; all were practiced to the ground with no power. As a result we had more accidents in training but statistics showed that we had a much better survivability rate when we encountered a real engine failure than any other group of pilots. I never had to find out. Praise be the reliability of the turbine engine!

As we approached the latter days of our training at Ft Wolters we we found that we had enough spare time for other activities. I had always built model airplanes, so I decided to move up to radio controlled models. The officer student that flew with the same instructor as me had similar interests so we both decided to build Heathkit remote control units. We both figured that since we were both accomplished pilots, the flying part would be a snap.

We both finished our kits and bought ready made planes to put them in. Mine was a basic trainer type like a piper cub. My radio set worked perfectly so the whole rig was ready to go. The officer student’s radio kit had a problem that he couldn’t diagnose so he had to send it back to Heathkit for repair. No problem we still had one flying rig ready to go. The next weekend we all went out to an empty stage field to try it out.

The first flight lasted about 15 seconds; enough time to take off and stall it out at about 20 feet of altitude. The ensuing crash wasn’t fatal for the electronics but the rest of the aircraft was a mess. It was at this point that the officer student came up with a plan to continue flying, as the day was young.

He wanted to put my radio gear in his plane and try again. He insisted that I do the flying because the radio gear was the biggest investment we would be risking if it crashed. His plane was what we called a profile model. The fuselage was just a slab of foam cut out in the profile of a P51. It had cutouts for the radio gear and was powered by a McCoy 35 radio control engine with throttle control. The wings were also molded foam with cutouts for servos. This was going to be one hot airplane, almost impossible to stall with so much power. I was reluctant to try to fly it but he insisted saying, “Your only problem with your plane was it stalled due to lack of power”. I couldn’t argue with that, his plane could probably accelerate going straight up. I was leery, but agreed to make the first flight.

We started it up and I taxied out on the asphalt to line up into the wind. I pushed the throttle all the way open and I think it used about three feet of runway before leaping into the air. I managed to keep it sort of under control while it climbed up to about tree top height, maybe 50 feet. Throttling back probably would have been a good idea but I had my hands full over controlling this still accelerating rocket as I tried to keep it circling around us so it wouldn’t get beyond radio range.

Finally I decided to bring it back to us so I could cut back the throttle and get it down. This was when I learned a very basic lesson that a little flight instruction would undoubtedly covered in page one, had I ever thought to seek instruction. But I already knew how to fly, right? Anyway, I get it turned around and headed straight back to me at about 30 feet high still at full throttle.

As best as I can reconstruct what followed, given the ability to replay it dozens of times in my slow motion mind, here is what happened in the next 1.3 seconds. One wing dipped a little and i put in a correcting control movement. Which, since it was coming towards me and I made no compensation for that, immediately flipped the plane upside down. Horrified panic set in and made me yank back on the stick. With more altitude, a perfect split S maneuver could have been accomplished. What was accomplished was a perfectly vertical dive into the asphalt, accelerating all the way.

We all stood there, paralyzed in the silence that replaced the death scream of the McCoy 35 as it tried to break the lowest altitude flight record. Alas, it was just another tie for the record. We walked the few yards to the crash site and I could see most of my radio gear scattered around the tarmac. At the impact point we found the McCoy 35 with it’s drive shaft sticking out of the back of the engine. Barely recognizable foam parts were everywhere. I walked up to my radio receiver and saw that it was still connected to the battery pack and one servo. When I worked the controls on the transmitter, the servo still moved. Once back in the shop, I found the only thing broken was the antenna wire and a few other connecting wires. Once again, I had found a way to defy the odds and destroy the plane but not the radio gear.

PTSD

We used to think PTSD was an excuse for failure. My rational was officially, “if you were messed up before you went over there, then you’d be more messed up when you got back. But most of us weren’t messed up before so we still weren’t.”  I see that now as an attempt to say to the world that “I’m strong, so strong and together that even the insanity of war couldn’t break me.” It only took me 40 years to emerge from this denial. Our (me and my fellow vets) mistake was we figured that if we weren’t “broken” in the typical “shell shocked” manner. then we were ok.

The fact is no one can be trained enough to be subjected to combat and not be affected. Depending on your individual experiences, the effects can be profound. I know from the news accounts and public stories that the vets that I’ve talked to. That the vets that saw combat in our middle east wars had experienced far more horrendous conditions than we Vietnam vets. After meeting and talking to them, I’ve learned it was much worse than I had imagined.

We (the infantry) are the “point of the spear.” For each soldier in combat there are 10 to 12 support personnel. For every hour of flight time there were bazillions of hours of maintenance being preformed by rear echelon support. It is very true that everyone has a different story, how much you were affected depends on your story. You didn’t have to experience hand to hand combat or be wounded to be terrified. We were so young; many of the wounds were invisible and very deep.

I knew that the fault for my failing at the two things that life had thrown at me so far was all mine. But I also knew that (or refused to accept that) these failings weren’t the real me. This didn’t fit with the swashbuckling hero that I had planned to be. I and the people back home were expecting great things from me, and it wasn’t happening. So it was that I embarked on a long path of over compensating as I sought redemption.

I know that doesn’t explain my PTSD but I doubt that I will ever fully understand it. I’ve learned how to recognize it and some mitigating techniques for dealing with it. But it has been with me for so long that I know it will always be a part of me. I’m not going to let it take charge of the rest of my life.

The only people from whom I wish forgiveness are my fellow grunts that I let down. That will remain on my bucket list till I deal with it or die. Ironically, they are the only ones who really understand.

Chapter 4

What’s Next

December 17, 2015. Almost 45 years to the day since I left the Army. One year and 17 days since I moved out.

I started this as an informational narrative for my kids. I’m not sure if that is what it is but it has been good for me. I’ll keep adding to the first three chapters as I move along and remember more.

Right now I’m back to the present which puts me still waiting for my wife to come to the table and talk to a financial mediator. I’ve gotten her to agree to work with the mediator so we can divide our assets and income. I feel that is necessary to move on. I don’t care what form our future relationship takes; I just want to move on, without her. That was in September; we both have submitted our figures but she has yet to meet with the mediator to work out her proposal. I can’t help but think this is just her way of motioning the status quo and controlling the process.

I’m still figuring out what I’ll be able to do with the rest of my life and I can’t do that until I know what is possible. I do know that I am capable of living without a lot of the “stuff” I used to consider important. I don’t really want most of that stuff, it just makes life more complicated.

What I do want is a dog. I won’t take that step until I have some more permanence and a base of operations. For now I am walking the dogs at the animal shelter in Branson, hoping I don’t get too attached to any one dog. The ones I really feel bad for are the old ones, The puppies will find a home but the old ones are just putting in their time; without a lot of enthusiasm. Sounds familiar. I’m sure that when I’m ready for a traveling companion, I’ll have no problem.

The only reason I’m thriving and holding it together is because of the help and support I’ve gotten so far from my family and friends. Thank you everyone.

February 15, 2016

Turned 69 a few days ago. Had to file for divorce last week as I felt we weren’t making any progress. This may not speed up the process, but it will does force the issue.

 If you got to this point, you have my undying gratitude and sympathy. You have suffered through over nineteen thousand words. The story moves to my posts from this point on.