I Was a Vietnam War Pilot

Résumé du livre

This book is also dedicated to the memory of John Stahl whom I attended Beavercreek High School with. John served in the United States Marine Corps and was killed in the Vietnam War. John's Dad who served in the United States Marine Corps in WWII and John's Mother both are faithful members and attendees of the Vietnam Veterans Of America Miami Valley Chapter 97. We will never forget John Stahl and all those who gave their all in the service of our United States of America. God Bless You John Stahl and Semper Fi Marine...December 24, 1968 I received my "Greetings, from The Office of The President of The United States!" What a Christmas present! At that time I was working as a civilian employee at Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio. I went off to boot camp at Fort Dix in New Jersey. While in testing... 6 of us out of some 300 were chosen to go to flight school. At 2:00 AM they woke us from sleep and sent us to Fort Polk, Louisiana.There we went through the usual training except for sending the 6 of us to specialized training... We would form a squad or flight and march to the theater to watch films to indoctrinate us to become pilots! They did not have to do that, as I really wanted to fly! After boot camp, flight school was a delight. We first learned the basics of flight in a little Hiller OH-23D. We learned to take off and land. Fly cross-country and learned how to navigate with landmarks, maps and weather.Next we learned to fly on instruments in a Bell OH-13T. Suffered my first turbo failure and immediately turned around and landed to safety.Then on to the Huey... My happiest days were flying the UH-1H Huey. We learned to carry heavy loads with a big tank full of water in the back. Sometimes the instructor would land and drain half of it out... He would say: "... No use'en over stressing the old gal!" At graduation from flight school... I got to fly "Old Smoky" Yep... that's me flying the smoke ship in this formation.This is me in my Huey 174 after preflight inspection and ready to crank up and take off for a day of fun in the sun! Really... 110 degrees in the shade... Who would have guessed? We wore Nomex Flight suits, two-piece not the one-piece zip up. We were very grateful cause we could leave our shirttails hang out of our trousers... It was a little cooler!Little did we know that our days would be 12 -14 hours long, in and out of LZ's (Landing Zones) under fire from Charlie or VC (Viet Cong) and the NVA (North Vietnamese Army). Who am I to complain!The guys we carried suffered 24 hours of danger in combat each day... We only had a 20 second survival rate to worry about. Once we off loaded the troops, supplies or ammunitions, we were up again and into the cool of the sky!I was assigned to live at the "Wobbly Inn" with 7 of the best and most courageous pilots I ever knew! This Wobbly Inn was at Dau Tieng, close to Cu Chie in Tay Ninh Province.From there we supported many unites like the Big Red One, the 25TH Infantry, 1/9TH, 1/7TH and many, many more. Being part of the 1ST CAV we were expected to do much as an Air Mobile, Air Assault support unit. When General Casey went down in II-Corps, we were called out with some 6 thousand other aircraft to search for him. Two days later his crash site was discovered. We were dispatched out after we had already served a 12-hour day.We almost crashed IFR while rendezvousing with a Cobra Gun Ship in the soup or clouds under radar control! I will never forget that night.We were assigned to fly with B Company, 229TH Aviation Assault Helicopter Battalion, 1ST CAV Division Air Mobile. We in B Company were the "Killer Spades."With my helmet in hand, my CAR 15 over my shoulder, bullet proof vest and survival vest on, I was ready to go fly my Huey.Notice the ammo boxes... They were filled with dirt to help protect us while we were sleeping in our bunks when the usual mortars and 122 rockets would come in...