An Assault Helicopter Unit in Vietnam (Undaunted Valor 1)

The pilots were a mixed bag. Most of the warrant officers fell into one of three categories—either high school graduates, college dropouts, or former NCOs that had gone to flight school. Most of the warrants were bachelors with girlfriends back in the States, except the old guys, who were married with wives and two kids back in the States. The commissioned officers, Real Live Officers (RLOs) as warrants referred to them, were all college graduates, but I didn’t notice any West Pointers in the unit. You could spot them by the large ring on their finger, hence the nickname, Ring Knockers. Although no one did PT, there were no overweight pilots. Most were attempting to grow mustaches, with limited success. We were all just too baby-faced.

Most of the crew chiefs and maintenance personnel were volunteers who had enlisted rather than waiting to be drafted. There were twenty-nine draftees, and most were door gunners who had volunteered to extend for door gunner duty to cut their draft time short or put more money in their pockets before going home. All were prior grunts. They were all good soldiers. There was an occasional drunk and disorderly and maybe an occasional pot case, but I couldn’t recall any specific cases of a lack of discipline. If pot was being smoked, it was kept pretty quiet and infrequent.

The unit at the time of my arrival had one major, the commanding officer, plus five captains, nine first lieutenants, and twenty-nine warrant officers. Enlisted strength was ninety-six enlisted at the time. There was no such thing as racial discrimination in the unit, from what I experienced. We were all OD green in color and all bled red blood. We had two black officers and several blacks in the enlisted ranks, but from what I could see and knew, everyone was treated with respect and equality.

Chapter 7

What Am I to Do?

People shuffling around woke me, but it was still dark. A flashlight in the face got me to close my eyes again, and a voice asked, “Are you Mr. Runnels?”

“Not me. What are you doing?”

“Sorry, sir. I’m waking flight crews for their missions. Who are you?” the voice asked.

“Cory.”

“Oh. Well, in that case, go back to sleep. You’re not flying today,” he said, and I followed his order.

The sound of turbine engines and beating rotor blades finally woke me again. I needed coffee, a shower and a shitter and not in that order. Showers were a four-post frame about seven feet tall with plywood sides in the middle two-thirds for privacy. The showers were mounted on wood pallets to keep your feet out of the mud that was created by the water flowing on the ground, and to keep you from stepping on a pit viper snake that liked to hang out under the showers looking for small frogs. Step lightly, my friend. Water was contained on top in a black-painted container that the maintenance shop made out of sheet metal or an old engine container box. Black absorbs heat, so during the day, the water would heat up, never hot enough to scald one, but warm enough to take a shower in the evening. Morning showers were just cold water, if there was any water. A soldier on work detail would fill the five-hundred-gallon water truck from the base water point and deliver it to the showers and mess hall. There was also a wash area for doing laundry and getting water to take back to our tents.

We also had three-hole latrines—shitters—that were designed by the Department for Defense in World War I and hadn’t changed in fifty years. These were also made out

of plywood, with a door positioned in front of the center hole. The top half of the sides was screened in and the roof was tin. Each hole had a toilet seat covering it. Underneath each hole was a quarter to a half of a fifty-five-gallon drum. The drum was lined with back issues of the Stars and Stripes newspaper, and about three inches of diesel fuel was added and then placed under the hole. Each morning, whatever soldier was on the first sergeant’s shit detail removed each can and burned the contents, which would require him to stir it with a large stick as it burned. There was no escaping the smoke or the odor. Then the can was lined with paper, filled with more diesel and placed back under the hole. The odor was permanently imprinted in every soldier’s senses, for their lifetime.

Breakfast proved to be rather uninviting. Powdered eggs, undercooked bacon, roast beef, bread that I had never seen before and coffee. Milk, cereal and pancakes were also offered. I started making a list of what I wanted family to send from home. Real white bread or rye was high on the list, along with a jar of peanut butter and a jar of jelly. Naturally, my Aunt Joanie’s pound cake was at the top of the list. With nothing to do after breakfast, I wandered over to Flight Operations to see what I was supposed to do. During the day, one of the pilots might be there acting as the assistant operations officer. Today it was just Sergeant First Class Robertson. His nickname was “Pops” as he took care of all the pilots.

“Good morning, Mr. Cory. What can I do you for?” he asked.

“Nothing, really. I just want to see what operations does and what our missions are.” I noticed that there was no assistant operations officer present.

“Well, come on back here and I’ll give you a briefing. Want some decent coffee?” he asked, holding up a coffeepot. This man knew the way to my heart.

“As long as it’s not from the mess hall, yes, please,” I answered. As he poured me a cup, I was taking in the activity or lack thereof at this time of the morning.

“We don’t have any cream, but we do have this if you want it.” He raised a can of Carnation condensed milk. I loved that stuff.

“Oh yeah,” I said too loud with a smile on my face.

“Boy, you must like it.”

“Before my dad was commissioned, he was a chief petty officer and would stand weekend watch aboard ship. He’d take me with him on Saturdays and let me drink coffee, and he always put some of that in my coffee,” I explained to him.

“So your dad’s a Mustang. Where’s he stationed now?”

“Morocco,” I replied. “He left Japan about the time I joined the Army. Mom wasn’t too happy that I quit college after two and a half worthless years, but Dad supported me on that move. Before you ask, I didn’t join the Navy because the Navy isn’t really in this fight unless you’re a pilot, and I wanted to do more than just sit on a ship. Did that already as a merchant sailor. Here I might be able to make a difference.”

For a moment, he just stared at me like maybe I was nuts. “Well, this here is Flight Ops,” he said as he waved his arms around, forgetting that he had given me a brief the day before of our area of operations. He went over it again.

“What’s to the northeast of us?” I asked.

“That’s War Zone C, and the only people there are not friendly. Don’t fly over there unless you must,” warned Pops. “Now here at Quan Loi is the First Brigade; Second Brigade is here at Long Binh, and Third Brigade is at Phuoc Vinh along with Division HQ. Right now, most of our missions are between Phuoc Vinh and Bien Hoa, especially as the Vietnamese holiday of Tet is in a week or so and they’re expecting it may be like last year. Bien Hoa would be the target, most likely. The Fifth NVA Division is operating around there.”

“What are most of our missions that we fly?” I asked.

“Sir, it’s a bit of everything. You may start the day off flying ash and trash, resupply, for a battalion, followed by being part of a six-two combat assault, followed by flying Night Hunter Killer or Chuck Chuck.”

“Chuck Chuck?” I asked.