Jocko Podcast 275 w/ The Relentless Danger From The Air in Vietnam w/ Huey Pilot, Col. Matt Jackson

2021-04-01T10:50:59Z

Underground Premium Content: https://www.jockounderground.com/subscribe Join the conversation on Twitter/Instagram: @jockowillink @echocharles 0:00:00 - Opening 0:04:03 - Col. Matt Jackson - "Undaunted Valor" 3:31:37 - Final thoughts 3:37:02 - How to stay on THE PATH. JOCKO UNDERGROUND Exclusive Episodes: https://app.redcircle.com/shows/64a89f88-a245-4098-8d8d-496325ec4f74/exclusive-content Jocko Store https://www.jockostore.com/collections/menApparel: Jocko Fuel: https://www.jockofuel.com Origin Jeans and Clothes: https://originmaine.com/durable-goods/ Origin Gis: https://originmaine.com/bjj-mma-fit/ 3:53:03 - Closing Gratitude

AI summary of episode

but and west was gone he'd forgotten to put gloves on and his hands were paying for that mistake how am I going to get him out he said more to himself than anyone particular jameson you keep an eye on him and keep him covered captain boa shamp said to the door gunner dropping the 70 feet or so west sprinted to the pilot who is still unconscious and hanging in the tree only a few feet off the ground small tuffs of graft grass and dirt were being kicked up around west as small arms fire was directed in his direction damn parachute release won't release son of a bitch dammit come on west screamed hoping the pilot would wake and give him some assistance he did not got to get a knife pausing at a low crouch west waited a moment before he sprinted back to the aircraft which was still at a hover engaging the NVA position as he ran west made a cutting motion hoping the gunner or copilot would recognize the signal and drop a knife they did picking up the knife west didn't hesitate to sprint back to the hanging pilot cut him free and throw him over his shoulder just then an RPG round slammed into the tree the pilot had been hanging in with the pilot over his shoulder in a fireman carry position west ran for the aircraft and the dangling rope grabbing the rope he wrapped it around the pilot and himself and motion for the aircraft to take off west didn't have time to tie a knot but only had the rope wrapped around himself on the pilot because of his rope burned hands west couldn't climb the rope but prayed he could hold on long enough to get safely back to ground as the aircraft climbed out and built up some speed small arms fire continued captain boa shamp didn't fly couldn't fly with any speed as the drag on west in the pilot would be too great and pull them off the rope west was dangling about 70 feet below the aircraft which was flying over the jungle at two to 300 feet helicopter crews did not have parachutes as west cleared the trees captain boa shamp nose the aircraft over and began picking up speed all the wild praying west didn't fall everyone was well aware that if they had the an engine failure or any other emergency west in the pilot wouldn't survive arriving over a clearing captain boa shamp captain boa shamp lowered the aircraft to place west and the pilot on the ground and then the aircraft this was an unscured clearing only about 1500 meters from where they picked up the pilot detaching the rope west and jamison quickly loaded the pilot into the aircraft and departed for LZ Center where the unconscious pilot was quickly transferred to a meta-vac aircraft that had been requested west resumed his duties as crew chief west went on to receive it was put in for the metal of honor it was downgraded to the Stinger service cross and he spent 20 years in the army retired as a command sergeant major at the fort used as Virginia yeah picking it up here I was in the chalk to position and it just cleared the trees and was really paying no attention to chalk three who attempted to fly between two trees and caught a rotor blade on one yeah to everyone's hard the aircraft slowly rolled to the right where the damage rotor blade made contact with the ground when it did the rotor blades began to disintegrate with pieces flying everywhere soldiers in the back began falling out of the aircraft and they were fortunate and they were the fortunate ones as the aircraft was now descending toward the ground as the right side impacted the transmission was ripped from its mounts and tore through the cargo compartment as the aircraft came to stop the engine was still running now whatever increasing RPM as there was no rotor to turn or transmission connected fuel began to spill across the engine at this time the aircraft aircraft were not equipped with self-sealing fuel cells that would prevent a major fire the aircraft began to burn and burn rapidly as Bill had been waiting for chalk three and forward to take off he was only he was only light on his skids when the accident happened his crew chief door door gunner and captain head immediately jumped out and ran to pull people out of the aircraft soldiers on the ground also moved forward to assist lightning and that was a call sign of one of the guys was attempting to climb out but was days to and having difficulty moving quickly to assist lightning captain head was having difficulty as well as the fire was now in the cockpit and spreading rapidly the copilot was consumed in the flames as was the crew chief the gunner could not be seen as he was under the aircraft having occupied the right side of the aircraft that day finally lightning was extracted from the wreckage and fire Yes, they changed the policy because we're just we're so short of officers of We didn't have any experienced officers That were ready to take over flight lead position so the company commander he went to the brigade commander and say hey We got to start letting the experienced warrants, you know, he said I got I got two warrants that are over Over 12 months in the unit and these guys know what they're doing you got to you got to open the policy up in the brigade commander Colonel suit check really a good guy We were now on the ground with the grunts Peters was on his M60 machine gun and I told him to get down no need for him to sit in the gunners position and be a target to his credit He did and took his gun with him dragging ammo as well Specialist love lace was doing the same the code was were coming in around for a second pass and using the remaining rockets and 40 millimeter ammo That they had rattle or six was on the ground next to me and began calling for artillery support as the second flight crew Flight came into view the artillery silence and the anti aircraft gun that had worked us over as well as the small arms fire That was coming from the trees We remained in the LZ until the third lift and jumped on an aircraft to get out Already the battalion commander notified brigade that an aircraft was down in the LZ a recovery team was getting ready to come and get the aircraft and fly it Fly it back under our CH 47 a new engine would be installed that night and that aircraft would be flying in the morning hopefully Flying back love lace turned to me damn Mr. Corey your psychic with your feelings You just you you fly the normal missions just now you got really new guys flying with your right seat On May 4th 1969 two aircraft from our sister company company be joined information with the second aircraft in a right echelon To the first the second aircraft attempted to pass the first aircraft on his right side There was a miscommunication between the two aircraft resulting in a mid air collision all crew members on both aircraft were killed you know you mostly but right books about uh leadership so you know what what's this thing over here they're not gonna print enough they're not gonna print enough and then it'll come out you'll be mad because you got the third of the dish brutal shame just shame uh leadership strategy and tactics field manual the code the evaluation of protocols discipline equals freedom field manual way the warrior kid one two three and four mic in the dragons about face this is getting to be a long list this is just an in the the original books extreme ownership and the dichotomy of leadership that I wrote with my brother Dave Babin also we have echelon front which is our leadership consulting company we saw problems through leadership kota echelon front dot com if you want us to help inside your company we have eF online which is online training for leadership you can get your whole organization into the game go to eF online dot com for that muster our leadership events we are executing we didn't execute in 2020 there was the virus and whatnot we were about to execute one in 2020 and guess what happened I got the virus I got I had had had messroona and so when I had messroona I couldn't go spread it to everybody one per guy made it's officer two and later flight leaders he said gentlemen I can't tell you where we're going but we got a big lift tomorrow and the maintenance officer I've been real stingy about letting us take an aircraft and he turned to the maintenance officer is what's available at your mart made in substance sir we got 21 out of 21 he says good they turned to to me and he says you're chalked two tomorrow if I go down you take the flight in I'm thinking what the hell you turned to Reynolds and he says if Corey goes down you take the flight in okay sir he says now I want you to get everyone of your pilots and your crew chiefs up so we read that and I said you know Billy if they go into Kuwait we're gonna go to war and I think it was two weeks later it was in the Wall Street jobs in the New York Times and two weeks later he got the call and I turned to Billy I says let's get out of here so right away we got the West Point staff we planned out what we had to get done that week and to get out of there so when we got the call on a Friday night to get out of West Point we were gone the next morning and got back to Campbell had three weeks back at Campbell before we'd shipped out to to Iraq or out to Saudi Arabia well if Sedan had attacked we in the 80s second would have been speed bumps and thank God he didn't attack but we went up and sat about 60 miles from the border and we had a defensive position set up there and that's what we sat from August to February January to January Oh, they were in there all the time On May 1st 1970 at 07 10 hours company C 227 AHB inserted an Arvan airborne rifle company to secure landing zone just across the border inside Cambodia once the landing zone was secured 605 105 millimeter howitzers and three 155 millimeter howitzers which would support additional insertions throughout the area of operations were brought in by CH 47 helicopters later that day the second battalion 7th cavalry was inserted into landing zone X Ray marking the first American ground troops from the first cavalry division to enter Cambodia Throughout the day first battalion 9th cavalry flew reconnaissance missions while elements of the 227th and 229th helicopter assault helicopter battions provided lift support to Arvan grunts and the 228th assault support helicopter battalion provided CH 47 heavy lift capability for the movement of artillery and other heavy equipment the invasion of Cambodia didn't didn't know what was coming the night before I got called into the company commanders office me and Reynolds and a couple of the two leaders and he said he poured eight drinks Scotch we're all sitting there looking each other like what else is and how many of them was here there's about eight of us in the middle of the night so one per guy how can we help ourselves echo through supplementation jockel fuel you got problems with your joints or you don't want to ever worry about your joints anymore take super cruel oil and joint warfare boom you want vitamin D3 supplementation which is good for all aspects of health if you care about that which we do because we're on the path boom jockel is that that as well also you want some additional protein we got milk and it tastes good how about that true put a banana and that's what I did something also got discipline and discipline go which are at its core I like the fact that I tell you Dary and I tell you that everybody already knows all this and you still tell this stuff to me like I'm hearing it for the first time well you're looking at me like hearing it for the first time So the monkey's sitting there and the monkey's jumping on his seat and he jumped over to the aircraft commander She's sitting then he climbed up on the first aid kit behind the aircraft commander scurry of on over in the first aid kit troops jump on board going for a combat assault and they think this is funny watching the monkey run back and forth two minutes out Cobbers roll hot one minute out the door gunners open up and when they opened up that monkey opened up with his bowels and his Piss all over the pilot all over the aircraft commander Scream and it said I'll find the aircraft commander reached up and grabbed him grabbed it by the neck and we're about 200 feet up Toss that monkey out the window I don't know if he learned how to skydive, but that monkey was gone It says he says I noticed one thing different about Those air force pilots from you guys air force pilots seem to be outgoing and always in a positive mood Versus you guys who always seemed withdrawn and pensive he explained and then you replied dad and air force pilot is that way Because he's flying a machine that wants to fly and if left alone will generally fly quite well on its own In addition compared to a helicopter an airplane has very few moving parts that can cause a serious malfunction on the other hand Helicopter pilots fly a machine that does not want to fly and only does and only does so by the Interactions of the pilot to balance four forces all opposed to each other plus a helicopter has a lot of moving parts any of which Breaking can and does cause a major disaster Helicopter pilots are moody because we know something is going to break if it hasn't done so already That's right that gave the old man something to think about it. I think it was Grossman He came back and went to flight school and graduated with flight school and came back to the office of pilot Here we go another mission and look I'm covering a Tiny percentage of this book and just trying to figure out which one of these freaking crazy missions to highlight Just it's like throwing it's like a roll the dice to pick one they're all they're all nuts Here's one at H minus one the door gunners open fire concentrating on the tree line as we touched down the grunt started off the aircraft that was when a sledgehammer hit the side of the aircraft one two times and then I lost count The engine started winding down the rotor RPM started dropping as the engine RPM went to zero I mean he was a he just Combat combat combat now he's going into Taroa and You know there's shelling in there's machine gun fire and I asked him I said so when you are getting out This is as they realize at Taroa, you know, they hit the coral reefs now They got a walk 800 yards and there's freaking Japanese machine gun fire coming I said we you know when you when you realize you're going to have to walk where you think and I might get shot or whatever He's like now that wouldn't happen to me. But he was doing his job and didn't want to go home we had a We had a war and officer that come into the unit and He flew Made aircraft commander and never flew a combat mission after that as your aircraft commander He would he would take the aircraft out and within 30 minutes you know he'd be coming back in complaining about something wrong with the aircraft And five they made him an assistant to ops officer and he served as a systems ops officer, but he never flew a combat mission again Brussels Chris he did the same thing quit college join the army I got a phone call from a recruit a one night saying hey I got your son here we're gonna sign him up for four years and I said no you're not you're gonna sign him up for two so and Chris wound up back in my brigade the first Brigade of the hundred and first in the scout patoon got out of went to college came back in on an RTC commission infantry and he just retired two years ago as Lieutenant Colonel and he got he was an infantry I didn't care we'd fly anything What you didn't like though is you got a different crew chief You always got a different crew chief in a different gunner because the crew chief and gunner always stayed with their aircraft Their aircraft was now from maintenance They were down from maintenance as well helping them get the aircraft ready we got back in that night and the medical officer came out and they stood the whole unit down Because I was the third aircraft come in that day and the other two aircraft came in and piloted both declared that's it We're done so the medical officer came out when the company commander came out and they ground it the whole unit You guys end up getting a valourist unit award. I need a little bit more than that Just let me know it's like gonna hit me That's so so six times you had that feeling yeah, and each time you had that feeling we got we got a little them living day like shot out of us Didn't lose anybody you ever have the feeling and it didn't and it didn't happen. So you got to work with the usually the same units and you got to know the the brigade staff at the you know Second brigade in the areas that you're working You got a good relationship with them that that carried over once you were back on day shift with these guys did you feel like safer because you're flying at night it's a good little deal it's fun check that one out again jockel store dot com if you like something you know get something uh you can also subscribe to this podcast there's not just this podcast also there's jockel unraveling myself and Darrell Cooper of Marter Made fame Z-famous from Marter Made yes in my mind you can check out jockel unraveling we're talking about a bunch of different things historical things and how they tying to what's going on right now we got the ground in podcast we got what you could podcast have new episodes up there you can also check us out at the jockel underground dot com jockel underground dot com this is yeah kind of in fact I'm glad you brought that up because um I've got two screenwriters and a producer right now and the screenwriters are taking the three they're taking two books the first two books and they're writing a screenplay and one of the things I've told them I says look guys I do not want this to be typical Hollywood and they're they're good guys a rich graph who starred in making the mob uh new york he played lucky Luciano in that and uh a guy named raki carlitch and krakki owns uh ghostwalker productions and then my producers Amy Soto and she's worked with John Malkovitch uh male gibbs and several of these guys so there there's good crew yeah fully go to go to flipsidecamp is dot com my brother Dakota Meyer he's got a company made in America making cool stuff to hang on your wall which is legit bunch of books we got a bunch of books we got the books that we talked about today the book we talked about today primarily was undaunted valor and assault helicopter unit Vietnam there's also volume two metal vanner and volume three which Matt Jackson Colonel Jackson said was the best of the three about about long lamson in uh 177 18 largest air battle um final spin I have a uh novel coming out myself yeah that happened We had a policy it got to the point where you know earlier you said in the book you know if you had 140 hours you got a couple of days down I was pushing over 160 hours and It got to the point where most of the pilots were the same boat. So we going on this combat assault We were in a chop five or six position and We're going in on a staggered right formation so you got one aircraft in front of you and you got one off the side Six minutes out the artillery goes in the artillery cuts off it two minutes out the coppers roll hot one minute out Door gunners open fire and right away we start seeing green tracers and I hear my crew chief's gunfire in Ralph didn't care didn't care reaching camp Corvad my saying his name or bad gorevad And that's named after the time the commander that that was killed during that assault Ralph landed at the engineering pad and told the Colonel politely but firmly to get out of his aircraft He then called our battalion headquarters on the radio which was being monitored by almost every pilot from the battalion And told them that he had just tossed the entost engineer six out of his aircraft and was returning to base to say the least Shit was about to hit the fan making that call on the radio Alerted every aircraft on the frequency as to what had happened However someone saw Ralph's position in this and nothing came of it at least on For Ralph Yeah, you talk about egos in the engineer had an ego and He was out to make himself a name for himself in the division. we but the good news is we got a new new guy it's arriving it's got about 1600 hours of flying time and a lot of experience and that's what we need guys a lot of experience here in the unit let's welcome the new guy lieutenant Corrie and I'm sitting here at the bar and I'm not facing him facing the bar made I'm going lieutenant yep and Kwon, Lloyd area flying Re-supply of One of the infantry battalions it was late in the afternoon the sun was setting we were monitoring the four radios when we heard the Mayday call Mayday Mayday, Lobo one three is going down Mr. Driscoe a cobra just went to the bamboo at three o'clock set our crew chief specialist Grossman Lobo one three got off One call before he plowed into the bamboo he was in a dive on a gun run and pulled out to late Only being able to get the nose of the aircraft up but not enough to stop his downward motion He crashed into ten foot high bamboo and put the aircraft over on its side He was on top of an NVA bunker complex quickly Mr. Driscoe took controls for me and told me to plot our location and get out in Additional Mayday call which I did alerting everyone where we were while I did that Mr. Driscoe made an approach into a small clearing He'd spotted close to the down-dear craft and landed. I said yeah, and that's why you know we fly something that doesn't want to fly a Harry Reesner about 1973 wrote a great article about Helicopter pilots and helicopters and it's it's kind of long that same line is what what dad-nice conversation was Yeah, well, it's like you said a plane You can you can let go of the stick and it'll kind of just cruise for a while. and we she's got a charity organization and if you want to donate or you want to get involved go to america's mighty warriors dot org and if you want any more and if you just feel like you need more of my protracted pontifications or you need more of echos confounding catechism you can find us on the inner webs on twitter on the gram or on that facebook echoes at echelon chal's nia matchocca willink and thanks once again to Colonel Matt Jackson for joining us and for writing these books but most important for his service to america and we will not forget the fallen soldiers of the 227th assault helicopter battalion freedom is not free and thanks to all the other men and women out there in uniform who are always on watch and ready to protect and defend our way of life and that includes not only the military but also police and law enforcement fire fighters paramedics EMT's dispatchers correctional officers border patrol secret service and all the other first responders thank you for protecting and defending us as well and to everyone else remember the price that was paid for our freedom and in the book undonned validers a part that I did not read today this is where Dan Cori and his team fly to an outstation to pick up some bodies of two soldiers that were killed in action and they arrive on scene and the two fallen servicemen wrapped in ponchos are loaded onto the old hui warboard warbird and Dan Cori whispers a prayer that he had written he says may they soar with the angels on wings of eagles may they watch over those they loved and those who love them may they rest in peace until we gather for the final formation but I advised that it be a closed casket ceremony I said before taking a sip of scotch why is that asked pop well there was an explosion and fire his body is in a plastic bag under a glass case on the glass case is as uniform with all his decorations the glass case is held down by 300 screws opening the lid is easy but not the glass case the rest of the evening was spent telling good stories of Bill from flight school and our one mission in Vietnam together between drinks and teary eyes we got through the night the day of the funeral came and Bill's sister Judy arrived early with her husband and children to cook breakfast the ride to church was quiet and we all sat together in the front of the church it was packed as maro when row was a small town and everyone knew the Michaels the preacher stood and gave the ulogy praising the work bill had done in the community and for the nation he said that Bill was not afraid of death but loved life few helicopter crews in Vietnam were afraid of death it was part of the job I cocked my 38 in weighted as Soon as the down pilots got the miniguns off the down cobra They ran to our aircraft and Mr. Driscoe pulled power to get us out of there as both gunners were firing and I emptied my 38 at the bamboo worthless weapon the down pilots thanked us profusely for saving their butts as They occupied the other side of the chicken pen their CEO came over that night and bought drinks for us at his club Since we no longer had one he invited major Anthony who declined to drink with us But made sure we didn't fly the next day a few months later I came in from my flight and lying on my bed were orders for an air metal with V the down to air crew had put in our crew for the award There was nothing our CEO could do about it and they made me the operations officer for the air cap squadron so I was up there for that for a year and then on a Friday night I got a phone call saying you you need to report to Hank Ridge on Monday morning we just relieved the company commander of the airborne company you're going to take command of the airborne company why did you get relieved I didn't ask that question haha she hacks that you roll in and take so it's now your company commander company commander of one of the airborne companies in Alaska how do you like groundwork I loved it I love groundwork I enjoyed flying no you really couldn't there was had the guys that were drafted you know people said oh they had bad attitudes I never saw but they all had a good attitude they were all in this together now what did happen guys that that were drafted and they came back from nom if they still had a year left they would send them to Germany and theirs were the problems were all that in Germany they had a big time morale problems there what are you going to do send me back to Vietnam been my dog tags it got to the point in Germany in the early 70s where the duty officers were armed with 45s But if you were gonna do something outside of the the normal formation flying like trying to pass somebody on the opposite side You had to be sure and communicate with them So that everybody understand what you're gonna do and evidently there was a lack of communications with these two guys and one flew right into the other You know You had to worry about getting shot at you had to worry about the aircraft maintenance failure and you had to worry about somebody flying into you Yeah, so that's why you see an airfield and there's an NVA right there Low-vo on my left in the bamboo fire I screamed as I increased power in airspeed rapidly staying low to the ground I had never seen so many enemy soldiers before as soon as I spoke 2.75 inch rockets were slamming into the bamboo and as NVA troops Ran and dove for cover low-vo was firing ripple effect Automatically launching 28 rockets would just one pole to trigger and punching the target Then as many gun opened on the tree line on my left as we were hauling ass down the runway as we cleared the abandoned SF camp and runway we stayed low level until we were confident we could climb to altitude and knock at hit by a 51 Cal Machine gun but something wasn't right and in the field of the aircraft the cyclic felt stiff and was getting Stiffer Mr. Corey we have a problem the housing for the push pole to be shot away and each time you move the Cyclic control it's binding the rods can you fix it? but you had that trust and bond built up amongst you know you all went to the same flight school You all understood about what what the different formations were and so you didn't do anything radical and even when we would fly You know our company would fly out there company because we all flew by an SOP We had a system we understood the system and so things were relatively safe It's when somebody would go do something like this that's out of the ordinary that that people got killed Oh Yeah, I Absolutely absolutely Fast forward a little bit throughout the spring and summer of 1969 enemy forces attack fire bases along the border Their tactics were always the same waiting until after midnight the enemy would commence their attack with a mortar and rocket Parage and concert with sappers attempting to penetrate the wire followed by infantry waves attempting to penetrate the perimeter LZ grant was a favorite target of these attacks several times between February and May LZ grant experience major attacks the first in February saw the battalion commander lieutenant Colonel Gorvad killed when around hit the talk He was seriously wounded, but refused to leave the battle the enemy managed to penetrate the perimeter wire and Fighting was fierce to include artillery lowering the tubes and firing point blank into the charging enemy with anti-personnel shot Blue max gunships were called in and engaged the follow on enemy as well as pursuing those attempting to retreat In May LZ grant was under attack again simultaneously Kwon Lloyd LZ Jamie and LZ Phyllis also came underground assaults that night the enemy wanted the first cavalry division out of three core region Which was not going to happen. but if there was a great guy we got the chance to fly together one time had a kick a kick day that day picked him up he'd never flown to combat mission you know flying VIPs around that's all he ever did so I picked him up went out to a firebasing they had a batag commander out there he was crazy as hell had a big red bow on the back of his helmet I never asked him why that was there

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Episode transcript

[00:00:00] This is Jockel podcast number 275.
[00:00:02] With echo Charles and me, Jockel Willink.
[00:00:05] Good evening, echo.
[00:00:06] Good evening.
[00:00:10] I have thought about writing this for the past 48 years.
[00:00:14] As I wrote, I felt it was important to relate to those great soldiers
[00:00:19] that made this such a great company.
[00:00:22] We all have a journey in life with many crossroads, curves and offshoots.
[00:00:29] The synergistic effect created by individual journeys coming together at this point in time
[00:00:35] at this location created an organization that truly stood above the rest.
[00:00:42] The quality of an organization, abs and flows with the quality of the leadership
[00:00:47] and the dedication, personalities and expertise of the individuals present
[00:00:52] at a particular time.
[00:00:55] During this time period, I witnessed the synergism of the unit only increase further
[00:01:02] with each passing month.
[00:01:06] This story is important so that people know who the helicopter crews were
[00:01:10] and what they were asked to do and did.
[00:01:15] In 1964 and 65, the Army ramped up the Warren Officer candidate program
[00:01:21] to meet the expanding need for helicopter pilots and Vietnam.
[00:01:26] Between 1965 and 1971, 44,000 Warren Officer cadets were awarded flight wings.
[00:01:36] Most were high school graduates and some had some college.
[00:01:41] The average age of pilots, crew chiefs and doorgunners was 20 years old.
[00:01:47] Badly needed, they were trained quickly and given enormous responsibility to maintain a very complex piece of equipment.
[00:01:58] Our aircraft were not as sophisticated as the machines today,
[00:02:03] but the UH-1D and the UH-1H models were exceptional.
[00:02:08] For giving war courses, without which this war could not have been waged.
[00:02:13] Of the 5,000 UH-1 helicopters that went to Vietnam starting in 1962, over 3,300 were destroyed in combat.
[00:02:30] This undeclared war also could not have been waged without the young men that supported, maintained,
[00:02:36] and crewed these aircraft.
[00:02:45] Average age of pilots and crews 20 years old, 3,300 out of 5,000 helicopters lost in combat.
[00:02:55] That is a little excerpt from the introduction of a book called Undoanted Valor,
[00:03:01] an assault helicopter unit in Vietnam 1969 to 1970.
[00:03:09] The book was written by Colonel Matt Jackson, who served as a UH-1,
[00:03:17] also known as the Huey pilot in the 227th assault helicopter battalion in Vietnam.
[00:03:23] And he also continued on in the Army after Vietnam becoming an infantry officer,
[00:03:31] and eventually commanding a battalion during the first Gulf War,
[00:03:35] and conducting the largest aerosolte in history with the 101st Airborne Division.
[00:03:44] And it is an honor to have Colonel Matt Jackson here with us tonight to discuss his experiences
[00:03:50] and share his lessons learned. Colonel.
[00:03:55] Thank you, Colonel.
[00:03:57] It is a pretty awesome to read your book and then be sitting here talking to you.
[00:04:02] And before we jump into the book, let's talk about the book, the book jumps right into basically you and listing in the Army.
[00:04:10] Let's go back a little bit further than that.
[00:04:13] So you were born in the Navy yard in Brooklyn, and your dad was in the Navy.
[00:04:18] Yes, yes, I was born, Dad was stationed at the Brooklyn Navy yard in 1947.
[00:04:23] He had been on submarines during the Pacific.
[00:04:26] His first ship was the Lexington until it went down, and then he decided to transfer to submarines at that
[00:04:31] because he felt they were safe for then receiving dive bombers.
[00:04:35] So he was on the horse, he was on what ship in the battle of Coral City?
[00:04:40] The Lexington.
[00:04:41] And it went down and he got recovered by one of the other vessels.
[00:04:43] Yeah, he was in the water for about six hours before he got picked up by a destroyer.
[00:04:46] So then he transferred when he got out, he went back and transferred over to the submarine service.
[00:04:52] He thought that the submarines would be safer.
[00:04:54] He didn't like airplanes.
[00:04:59] So yeah, I was born at the Brooklyn Navy yard, and every three years after that for the rest of my life until I joined the Army, we moved to a different place.
[00:05:08] Constantly moving around, Dad jumped in from one submarine to another, and off at KUS, Naples Italy, Yoke Ahmed, Japan, Kuzbeur again.
[00:05:18] So quite extensive travel as a kid.
[00:05:21] And your dad was, was it a Mr. Guy in the beginning?
[00:05:24] He started as a listed, he was a master chief.
[00:05:27] He had 19 years in and then through the LDO program.
[00:05:30] Got promoted to a Lieutenant J. G. and stayed in to the Made Lieutenant Commander, and he got out in 1973.
[00:05:40] He was commanding the Navy base in Kuzbeurga.
[00:05:43] And what? So what was your dad like, I mean, was he going on deployments all the time when you were growing up or was that like?
[00:05:48] Yeah, Dad was gone a lot.
[00:05:50] But in those days, the old diesel subs, they go out for two or three weeks, and then he'd be back in.
[00:05:55] And mom ruled through, then.
[00:05:56] You know, I've been hit with a shoe, a spatula, a bill, to back up her hand.
[00:06:02] But Dad was a dysponarian.
[00:06:05] And from very young age, I was taught that you say, yes sir, no sir, yes ma'am, no man, and don't you dare get caught lying.
[00:06:14] There was nothing that made my dad matter than a kid you lying. I would get, he's spanking.
[00:06:18] Never got beaten.
[00:06:20] But my little fan he got worn out a couple of times by dad.
[00:06:23] I learned real quick. But he was a good man. So was mom.
[00:06:28] And so you're traveling around all these different places. Are you playing sports?
[00:06:32] What's like, what are your hobbies when you're growing up?
[00:06:35] Hunting.
[00:06:36] Dad taught me to shoot when I was seven years old.
[00:06:39] And any chance we had, we'd be out on the weekends out hunting someplace squirrel hunting or deer hunting.
[00:06:44] That was when we lived in Virginia and Connecticut.
[00:06:47] And it led me to play soccer because all my friends were Italians. And I learned to speak very good Italian. You come up my house.
[00:06:56] And that was the way I spoke Italian.
[00:06:58] But we, you have played a lot of baseball, softball when I was a kid.
[00:07:02] Typical kid things.
[00:07:04] Typical kid things.
[00:07:05] And so what do you do? Where were you when you graduated when you graduated from high school?
[00:07:09] I was in Yoko Harman, Japan.
[00:07:10] And there I learned to play football because we had to have every high school kid playing in order to have a team.
[00:07:18] All the boys playing anyway. And that's where I learned judo took judo lessons while I was over at the Kodakon.
[00:07:24] And really enjoyed my time in Japan. We were there for two years and I found it very enjoyable.
[00:07:29] So then when you graduated high school was your dad looking at you ready to throw you out at when you turned 18.
[00:07:36] All right, go. You can go figure it out now.
[00:07:37] Well, dad said the day I graduated, he said, son, you have three choices. You can go to college.
[00:07:43] You can go to work or you can go in the military.
[00:07:47] But the operative word is you can go.
[00:07:49] So two days after I graduated my high school went back to Oregon.
[00:07:54] I got a job on a log in the crew sitting at Chokers.
[00:07:56] And then went to college for a year.
[00:07:58] Then the next summer I shipped out on a merchant oil tanker.
[00:08:01] The SS American trader did two trips to from Oca now to Saudi Arabia on an oil tanker.
[00:08:05] And then came back and did another year of college and it was a pretty worthless year.
[00:08:11] So what year is this?
[00:08:13] This is in, I would say, I went to college in 65 and 66.
[00:08:17] I went out on the merchant mariners.
[00:08:19] And then when I came back 67 was the worthless year.
[00:08:23] And at the end of 67 dad was coming back from Japan and weight a little discussion about my future.
[00:08:29] And I was going to go back in the merchant mariners.
[00:08:31] He said, if you do that you'll never go back to college and he was right.
[00:08:33] I wouldn't have, I loved the merchant mariners.
[00:08:36] And I said, okay, I'm going to join the Marine Corps.
[00:08:38] He said, you joined the Marine Corps.
[00:08:40] They're going to take us both to the hospital.
[00:08:42] Extract my foot from your rear end.
[00:08:45] So I thought this conversation is going nowhere.
[00:08:48] You're over two.
[00:08:50] And he said, look it, you've got a private pilot's license.
[00:08:53] Why don't you go into that army one officer flight program?
[00:08:57] So the next day I went down signed up.
[00:08:59] So you had your private pilot license already?
[00:09:01] Yeah, the first two years I was in high school.
[00:09:03] We lived in Cusby, Oregon.
[00:09:05] And I got a job working at the airport,
[00:09:07] Refuel and airplanes.
[00:09:09] And instead of getting paid in cash,
[00:09:12] I got paid in flying lessons.
[00:09:13] So by doing that, I was going to get my private pilot license just before we went to Japan.
[00:09:18] So you like flying and your dad says your dad knew about this war and officer program.
[00:09:22] Did you recognize what was going to happen with this war and officer program?
[00:09:27] I mean, and that introduction that I just read, you know,
[00:09:29] that they needed pilots, they needed pilots for a reason.
[00:09:34] I mean, they were losing them.
[00:09:36] And did you just think, okay, well, that's, that's a path I'm going to take.
[00:09:41] I thought I'm getting out of college.
[00:09:44] I really didn't think much about, you know, what was happening over there?
[00:09:48] We'd see it on TV, you know, but, no, I just, I was determined.
[00:09:52] I was getting out of college one way or the other.
[00:09:54] And that was the path to get out of college right then and then air.
[00:09:56] I joined up. So this book, Undoanted Valor.
[00:10:01] There's actually, there's actually three books that you've written called Undoanted Valor.
[00:10:05] The first one is this one and a soul helicopter unit via NOM.
[00:10:08] The next one is called Medal of Honor and then Lamson 719.
[00:10:13] That's volume one, two and three.
[00:10:16] So in this book, you, the way you explain to me or the way that I understand it is that this first book,
[00:10:23] volume one, you're the lead character, even though the lead character has a different name, Dan Cory.
[00:10:30] That's, this is your story.
[00:10:31] That's correct. And I mean, it's real.
[00:10:33] I mean, if you're trying to cover up, you didn't do a great job because Dan Cory's dad was a master chief of the game.
[00:10:38] I'm an officer.
[00:10:39] Uh, then you, you know, he grew up in all these different places.
[00:10:42] And so you didn't do a good, is there a reason why you said, you know what?
[00:10:45] I'm going to change my name in this book.
[00:10:47] It just because my attorneys said that you want to change your name.
[00:10:50] You don't want to use your real name in the book.
[00:10:53] So that's the reason I come up with Dan Cory.
[00:10:56] Did you pull Dan Cory out of anyone?
[00:10:59] Was that a name that meant anything?
[00:11:01] Cory was a good friend of mine in college.
[00:11:03] And Dan, I just kind of pulled that one out of the air.
[00:11:06] Or so.
[00:11:07] Right on.
[00:11:08] Uh, so we're going to jump into this first book here a little bit.
[00:11:12] And, well, here we go.
[00:11:15] Okay.
[00:11:16] First chapter is called It begins.
[00:11:17] It says raising our right hands, we all took the oath of allegiance.
[00:11:21] Those of us that were flight school wannabes were escorted to a waiting cab that was to take us to the airport.
[00:11:27] We were there were anti war protesters blocking the front door.
[00:11:32] So we went out the back through an abandoned storefront.
[00:11:35] Instead of band playing as we went off to combat as our grandfather's had experienced.
[00:11:40] We were sneaking out the back door.
[00:11:42] That's correct.
[00:11:44] This is back in, uh, see this would been February of 68.
[00:11:49] And important to worry at that time as today.
[00:11:52] Uh, they had demonstrators outside the MEP station all in front of the MEP station.
[00:11:57] So what they had is the MEP station had a back door that went through an abandoned storefront.
[00:12:02] And they would take us in and bring us out through that back door.
[00:12:05] Uh, so that we didn't have to put up with the protesters around front.
[00:12:08] Yeah, and you said as your grandfather's, as your grandparents went off to war,
[00:12:11] this is actually your parents, your dad went off to war.
[00:12:14] Well, my dad and my grandfather, my grandfather was in the destroyers in World War I.
[00:12:19] Uh, served in the Navy back then and went to the big wars.
[00:12:25] Uh, fast forward a little bit.
[00:12:27] You get to boot camp.
[00:12:29] I'm highlight this one section of boot camp.
[00:12:31] The hill was a hundred yard dirt and gravel field with a steep slope of 50 feet at one end.
[00:12:38] We were lined up by squad and four ranks of 10 on command.
[00:12:41] We had to crawl to the top of the slope.
[00:12:43] When I reached the top, my hands knees and elbows were raw.
[00:12:46] For the next three days, we revisited the hill each evening before child.
[00:12:50] On the third day, I was really feeling sorry for myself.
[00:12:53] Suddenly, I had to come to Jesus moment.
[00:12:56] Hey, dumbass, you volunteered to be here.
[00:12:59] You weren't drafted.
[00:13:00] You quit college and volunteered for this shit.
[00:13:03] So stop your crying and suck it up.
[00:13:06] Yeah.
[00:13:07] It was, they held us.
[00:13:09] Yeah.
[00:13:09] It was kind of a frightening thing.
[00:13:10] Now you as a seal sitting there, you're chuckling because you think,
[00:13:13] My god, one of my children whimps going up the hill.
[00:13:15] But, you know, much guys that just got Muslim or draft ease.
[00:13:19] Mm-hmm.
[00:13:20] And we were in a state of shock because that was the very first day in basic training.
[00:13:24] We spent five days in reception station and they treated you so nice.
[00:13:28] And then you get over to the company and, oh my god, the drill sergeants were devouring us.
[00:13:33] It's always start up this hill and I'm thinking, oh my god, this is.
[00:13:36] Yeah, this is killing my knees.
[00:13:37] It was all stones.
[00:13:38] Knees are getting torn up hands are getting torn up and on the third day, I had the, you know,
[00:13:43] premonition came, suck it up.
[00:13:46] So, so you're going to boot camp with just everyone, just normal, everyone that's going
[00:13:51] in the army.
[00:13:52] Oh yeah, yeah.
[00:13:53] Yeah.
[00:13:54] There's no, there's no special treatment because you're going in this war and officer program.
[00:13:56] No, no.
[00:13:57] Basic training was, you were thrown in with everybody, draft ease, national guard,
[00:14:01] just regular army guys and listed and y'all went to for puke, Luis, for polk, Luis and.
[00:14:11] Fast forward a little bit, you get done with basic training and look, you've got all, this is the thing.
[00:14:14] I always have to make this statement.
[00:14:16] I'm not reading the whole book.
[00:14:18] People, if you got to get the book to get all of it, but I'm so when it, when it might sound like it's
[00:14:23] jumping around, it is jumping around.
[00:14:24] I'm just jumping through sections.
[00:14:26] The story, you've got to, you've got a bunch of great stories in here.
[00:14:29] And, and there's just tons of lessons learned.
[00:14:31] I'm going to fast forward a little bit.
[00:14:32] You get done with basic training and then you go to pre flight.
[00:14:35] And you say basic training, taught us discipline, pre flight is going to teach us attention to detail.
[00:14:40] Cadet Brady trade the 1800 briefing.
[00:14:43] Welcome to pre flight.
[00:14:45] I'm a holdover from a previous previous class.
[00:14:47] So me and the other cadets were directed to meet you and get you settled in.
[00:14:51] After tomorrow morning, we're just like you and in this with you.
[00:14:55] First formation will be at 0530 and it will be frightening.
[00:14:58] Our tack officers are warm officers who finish their flying tours and Vietnam.
[00:15:02] Now they're babysitting us and said, being instructor pilots and they're not happy about it.
[00:15:06] You can expect to get your ass smoked in the morning.
[00:15:09] Nothing you do will make them happy so be prepared for it.
[00:15:12] This is my second time going through this and I'll try to laugh my way through tomorrow morning because it's the only thing to do he explained.
[00:15:18] Yeah, it's all you could do.
[00:15:20] They smoked us that first morning.
[00:15:22] In fact, they smoked us all the way through pre flight.
[00:15:24] And the big thing at pre flight, and we didn't realize it at the time,
[00:15:27] was attention to detail because the quickest thing they'll get you killed in a helicopter is a broken safety wire.
[00:15:34] Or a bolt that's turned into slippage marks aren't lined up.
[00:15:38] So that's what they were adamant about there in pre flight.
[00:15:41] Is teach you attention to detail.
[00:15:43] How much detail?
[00:15:45] At the end of the third week, we had to take our belt buckle to part.
[00:15:49] Our brass belt buckles and clean the inside to get the pen to seal it out.
[00:15:54] Or they'd be tearing the belt buckle to part.
[00:15:56] Your shoes, your low court of shoes.
[00:15:59] You had to be sure and take a black magazine marker and go around the outside to cover up any stitching that it turned white.
[00:16:06] Your uniforms.
[00:16:07] You had to take black magic marker on your uniforms or your name tags rack and make sure that that thread hadn't turned any white.
[00:16:14] Toothbrush.
[00:16:15] You'd better be sure there's no leftover toothpaste inside that toothbrush.
[00:16:18] It was all those kinds of things that they went through and it paid off.
[00:16:23] I mean, it really paid off once we got to the flight line.
[00:16:26] The idea of attention to detail.
[00:16:28] Yeah, that's a comment here.
[00:16:31] But I went to Navy Bootcamp and I don't think it was as stringent as that.
[00:16:35] But and officer candidates called the same thing.
[00:16:38] Attention to details huge and I remember they had the drill instructors at officer candidates.
[00:16:43] They have a, they walk around a metal ruler in their pocket and they're measuring your folded underwear.
[00:16:51] To make sure that they are whatever it was, four and three quarters inches by four and three quarters is perfect square.
[00:16:57] That's what it's got to be.
[00:16:58] And if it's out, you fail.
[00:17:00] Attention to detail.
[00:17:02] Ars was rolled under where nine inches.
[00:17:05] There you go.
[00:17:06] So, and they had the rulers.
[00:17:09] And if they didn't like it, you'd come back and that barracks would be torn apart.
[00:17:13] Bids would be upside down matches is upside down.
[00:17:15] Everything out of foot lockers and tack off should be standing there waiting for you.
[00:17:19] God help you.
[00:17:20] Again, I hate to fast forward through so much good stuff, but I have to.
[00:17:27] On the flight school, we did get a pay raise coming to flight school as we were promoted from E1 or E2 privates to E5 sergeants.
[00:17:36] Our pay went from $98 to $225 a month, almost all extra pay went to two things.
[00:17:42] Haircuts and laundry bills.
[00:17:44] Yep.
[00:17:45] Every day, you'd spend half a day on the flight line in a flight suit and it was those gray flight suits over from the 60s at Air Force Corps.
[00:17:55] Navy war and orange one.
[00:17:57] The other half of the day, you were in fatigues.
[00:18:01] Starch fatigues.
[00:18:03] And they'd better not be broken over from yesterday.
[00:18:06] You'd better be breaking starch every day.
[00:18:08] And they would start so bad that you had to work at getting your leg down your pants or your arm down the sleeve.
[00:18:14] I mean, it was brutal starch.
[00:18:16] But by God, you had to do that every day in between haircuts and laundry bill.
[00:18:20] There went your pay raise right there.
[00:18:22] So that lasted well, and I know you were in the army until the 90s, but when I came in the Navy and when I got to seal team,
[00:18:28] I went out with going through basic seal training, the same thing, which is freaking crazy.
[00:18:33] Because that is the most pointless thing in the world to have combat uniforms, starched.
[00:18:42] And I think it was the Marine Corps.
[00:18:45] God bless him was the first service that I saw with a said, look, you don't starch those uniforms.
[00:18:51] And they started just looking like normal clothes, which was a good thing.
[00:18:56] I remember when the army got away from it, I think it was in the mid 70s that, you know, you don't need to start your fatigues anymore.
[00:19:03] And then definitely when the the BDUs came out, it was a big no known to get those things starched.
[00:19:09] Well, I was glad to see that. I wish the Navy would have known that because I had starched BDUs for the first 10 years of my career.
[00:19:14] Absolutely.
[00:19:16] That was a better fact. My son was going through some of my old gear the other day.
[00:19:19] He was picking up a fair fight, a pair of pants, they're freaking 20 or 30 years old.
[00:19:23] And there's still, you could put him on inspection ready, but it's so much a day and start.
[00:19:28] Boom.
[00:19:30] Once we completed fleet pre flight training, we entered a primary flight training at any one time in 1968.
[00:19:38] There were 10 flight companies in session.
[00:19:41] You ended up, you get to pick, well, you, I guess you draw what kind of helicopter you're going to fly.
[00:19:46] Now you're told, okay, you get your told and you get the TH55.
[00:19:49] Love that aircraft.
[00:19:51] Looks like a, looks like kind of a dragonfly looking for it.
[00:19:56] Yeah, it's the, it was bought, the army bought them right off the shelf from Hughes Aircraft.
[00:20:00] And it's in civilian world, it's a Hughes 300.
[00:20:03] You started the engine up, then you engaged the clutch, which engaged eight rubber bands that started turning the main rotor.
[00:20:10] And so we got that going for us.
[00:20:12] Yeah, I got down there on foot, but the thing had a ton of power and down there in Texas in the summer,
[00:20:17] the OH13's and the 23's, the other two training aircraft, they could barely get off the ground.
[00:20:22] TH55 would spring off the ground.
[00:20:24] So it was just a great little aircraft to fly. I loved it.
[00:20:28] Awesome.
[00:20:29] About two months into our flight training, we returned from the flight landing we were told to get in company formation right away.
[00:20:38] Once all 275 of us were assembled, as we'd have had about 75 drop out of the class at this point,
[00:20:45] our company commander came forward and addressed the class.
[00:20:48] One of our fellow classmates crashed that day and was killed.
[00:20:51] That was something none of us had considered at this point in our training.
[00:20:54] His death would not be the last either.
[00:20:57] Another student and his flight instructor were killed in a mid-air collision with another aircraft flown by someone from another class.
[00:21:05] How there weren't a lot more merit mid-air collisions always amazed me.
[00:21:10] A little bit of a wake-up call?
[00:21:12] Well, it was, you know, you had roughly around 1200 aircraft at eight o'clock in the morning leaving.
[00:21:18] And coming back in at 11 o'clock and then leaving again at one o'clock and coming back at five o'clock.
[00:21:23] And most of them were flown by students. So, on students had anywhere from 10 hours to 50 hours,
[00:21:30] or let's see, yeah, got 100 hours total while you're in a flight school, early flight school, first days there.
[00:21:37] So, you had a lot of inexperience out there running around and not that big of an area.
[00:21:41] And why we didn't have a lot more air emitters? I have no idea.
[00:21:45] The one student, the first student that we lost, he flew into a cloud. And we hadn't had any weather instrument training yet at that point.
[00:21:54] Well, he went in the cloud and people had saw me came out of upside down, he was inverted.
[00:21:58] And you just don't invert in a helicopter, it doesn't work.
[00:22:02] So, that he got killed that way. Then the other one was a student and instructor and another aircraft slammed into them.
[00:22:07] We lost them in there.
[00:22:09] Those are the only two that I knew about there were others that did happen in other flight classes, but we were kind of fortunate.
[00:22:15] We started at with 350. We graduated. I think 150, somewhere on that neighborhood there.
[00:22:24] Good done with that. It's onto advanced flight training.
[00:22:30] This was, I kind of had to, there's a good leadership lesson here, but I wanted to jump into.
[00:22:37] Says we are approaching the end of our instrument training when we return to the barracks from the flight line.
[00:22:42] The night prior to the meteorology exam.
[00:22:46] Mr. Clinton wasn't happy with the condition of the barracks, and it gone on a rampage, aided by a bottle of jacked anios.
[00:22:54] Beds were overturned, wall lockers, contents were flying on the floor. The fire hose was spraying water and the contents of everyone's foot lockers were everywhere except in the foot lockers.
[00:23:06] He was on a tie-raight.
[00:23:08] One cadet was singled out. Mr. Clinton was burading him.
[00:23:12] Evidently the cadet was responsible for his five o'clock shadow.
[00:23:16] Mr. Clinton told the cadet to get into the push-up position.
[00:23:19] Once there he placed a razor on the floor and front of him and told him to shave.
[00:23:23] The cadet looked scared, and I was mad.
[00:23:26] I had had enough of Mr. Clinton's crap with all respect for his rank that I could master.
[00:23:30] I stepped forward and got in Clinton's face.
[00:23:32] Sir, you've been drinking and you are drunk. If you do not leave this minute, I'm going straight to the company commander and have him resolve this situation.
[00:23:40] Now leave. I shouted.
[00:23:42] There was dead silence.
[00:23:45] Mr. Clinton just stood there and glared at me with his bloodshot eyes. Everyone was watching.
[00:23:49] Finally, he laughed, turned, and staggered out of the barracks.
[00:23:53] Everyone including me, side with relief.
[00:23:55] We spent most of the night getting the barracks back in order, and no one had an opportunity to study for the weather exam.
[00:24:01] It showed the next day. The exam was in the morning when we returned to the barracks after flying in the afternoon.
[00:24:06] We were immediately informed by the company first sergeant that we were all restricted to the barracks until further notice.
[00:24:11] And I was to report to the company commander's office.
[00:24:14] When I arrived, the senior officer from the weather committee was present as well.
[00:24:18] I was told to sit down.
[00:24:19] Cadet, Cory.
[00:24:21] Do you know why I've restricted the company and called you here? The company commander asked?
[00:24:26] Like I was some clairvoyant and I could read his mind.
[00:24:29] This was the first time I'd ever spoken to the man.
[00:24:32] Again, dad's words of wisdom came to mind.
[00:24:35] No sir, I replied, knowing this wasn't the time to be a smart ass.
[00:24:39] It appears Cadet, Cory, that most of your class failed the weather exam.
[00:24:43] We need to know why he stated.
[00:24:45] Oh shit, most in the class which includes me too.
[00:24:48] Again, as class leader who is my fault.
[00:24:51] Didn't you study for the exam last night asked the weather committee instructor who didn't look happy?
[00:24:56] Why did I suspect that shit rolled downhill here and it was coming high at me?
[00:25:01] However, I was seeing a U-turn for this shitstorm.
[00:25:05] No sir, we did not study last night.
[00:25:08] We had a party instead.
[00:25:10] I replied, their eyes bulged and I thought both men were going to drop dead from heart attacks.
[00:25:14] You did what gagged the company commander.
[00:25:16] You had a party the night before the most important exams in this course.
[00:25:20] Do you realize by having a party and failing that exam, you could all fail flight school and be sent to infantry immediately?
[00:25:25] Yes sir, I replied and let them stew on this revelation.
[00:25:28] Now the weather instructor had a grin on his face as he turned to the company commander.
[00:25:31] Well, I guess the problem wasn't with the instruction, but with a discipline of these cadets.
[00:25:36] I was beginning to see what was going on here.
[00:25:38] Somewhere above their level, the shit had hit the fan and someone high up was looking for somewhere to lay the blame.
[00:25:43] The army needed helicopter pilots at this point had spent considerable money training 80 cadets.
[00:25:49] The army couldn't afford to wash out 80 cadets at one time.
[00:25:52] The company commander wasn't looking too good right about now.
[00:25:55] Could that Cory why in the hell would you have a party the night before major exam?
[00:26:00] Sir, we had no choice.
[00:26:02] I answered sheepishly.
[00:26:03] I was beginning to enjoy this.
[00:26:05] I'd been around the military long enough to know when people were to stay to panic over something that had gone terribly wrong.
[00:26:10] Oh, dad, you taught me well.
[00:26:11] What the hell do you mean?
[00:26:12] You had no choice the company commander.
[00:26:14] Sir, when we returned from flight line last night, Mr. Clinton had torn apart the barracks to include,
[00:26:18] turning on the fire hose and told us to get the mess cleaned up before morning.
[00:26:21] We had a barracks cleaning party to get it squared away and not took until midnight.
[00:26:26] Light out lights out was at 2200, but we worked on stuff until dark until we had it taken care of.
[00:26:32] Only the married man had a chance to study last night.
[00:26:36] You're dismissed, cadet Cory, and there you go.
[00:26:39] So you, you then up, you go to the company commander, then you end up with a battalion commander and the school combat.
[00:26:46] And the school commander finally.
[00:26:49] Uh, you end up all assembled.
[00:26:53] The battalion commander comes out.
[00:26:55] I am Lieutenant Colonel Barlow, your battalion commander.
[00:26:58] I've not met most of you and normally do not meet cadets until graduation.
[00:27:01] However, because of this incident, I've met some of you and thought I should meet all of you.
[00:27:04] What you've experienced is not typical of the treatment of cadets.
[00:27:07] Changes have been made.
[00:27:08] The first being that you have a new company commander.
[00:27:10] Major, kiddo will be your company commander for the remainder of your training.
[00:27:13] Mr. Clinton, in fact, in first class moron will no longer be your tax either.
[00:27:18] Major, kiddo, and he turns it over.
[00:27:21] The, uh, back up a little bit.
[00:27:24] Our class got a bad rap the very first day we showed up.
[00:27:29] Me and another guy, we had flown into Savannah the night before.
[00:27:33] So we had a 1200 hour report.
[00:27:35] Him and I got there at about 11.
[00:27:37] So we, we were poured on time.
[00:27:39] The rest of the guys, they all flew in on a flight that was supposed to land at eight o'clock in the morning, but didn't because of the weather.
[00:27:45] So they all showed up on hour late.
[00:27:47] So that set Clinton off.
[00:27:50] And for eight weeks, we never got a pass to get off the base.
[00:27:55] Where every other class had blanket passes on the weekends.
[00:27:58] And so Clinton and the man had had a drinking problem.
[00:28:02] This wasn't the first incident with him, but this is the one that broke camel's back.
[00:28:06] Uh, when he, when he went through that, that weather exam, as I said in the book,
[00:28:12] you couldn't afford it.
[00:28:13] The flunk 79 guy is right now.
[00:28:16] Somebody was going to go ballistic over this.
[00:28:19] So it worked its way up and thank God and we got to the Berge commander's office and they asked me they said,
[00:28:25] Why do you think Mr. Clinton did that?
[00:28:27] I said, well sir, because he was drunk.
[00:28:30] Well, the three of them looked at me.
[00:28:32] Like, do you know what you just said?
[00:28:34] You accused an officer of this?
[00:28:37] Well, I was a little bit older than most cadets.
[00:28:39] I joined the army.
[00:28:40] I was 21.
[00:28:41] The day I came in.
[00:28:43] And all the other classmates, they were 19, 20 year olds.
[00:28:47] And been around the military all my life.
[00:28:50] I had an idea how things worked.
[00:28:52] So I was going to play my Trump cards.
[00:28:54] And that's where I played the Trump card and it's with them for gay commander.
[00:28:58] No, over the next couple of days, they called in every day they call in three guys.
[00:29:02] And they'd asked them the same questions.
[00:29:05] And everybody backed my comments up.
[00:29:07] So we got Mr. Clinton, got rhythm Mr. Clinton, got rhythm,
[00:29:11] got rhythm, got a sergeant moron.
[00:29:13] And I used the name Sergeant moron.
[00:29:15] I never heard the guy ever speak.
[00:29:17] He had tattoos covering him everywhere before tattoos were popular.
[00:29:22] And so I don't know anything about the man outside of he never said anything.
[00:29:26] So I figured it was more.
[00:29:28] But then after that, we went into our advanced training.
[00:29:32] He would transition the following Monday morning and things went along really well after that with the unit.
[00:29:37] Major kid, him, it was a great guy.
[00:29:39] How'd you like that he would when you started flying it?
[00:29:41] I loved it.
[00:29:42] I still love the hewint to this day.
[00:29:44] The hewis of fantastic aircraft had plenty of power even the Delta models had plenty of power.
[00:29:49] They were forgiving.
[00:29:52] They were just they were dream the fly and they still are.
[00:29:57] Isn't it crazy?
[00:29:59] Oh, I guess it's not too crazy.
[00:30:00] I mean, I joined the Navy in 1990.
[00:30:03] And we still had hewis and they're still hewis right now.
[00:30:06] The army's put it all layers and you see him.
[00:30:09] What about the Marine Corps?
[00:30:10] The Marine Corps has got a different hewis.
[00:30:12] They got a big beefed up one muskiller thanks.
[00:30:14] So it's twin engines.
[00:30:15] I'm not sure if it's got four rotor blades or just two but they've got a beefed up hewis.
[00:30:21] That's much bigger than the army's ever wore.
[00:30:24] So it's great aircraft.
[00:30:26] I mean, why wouldn't still be using today?
[00:30:28] I don't know.
[00:30:29] I mean, I've got the black hawks and the other.
[00:30:30] They're way bigger.
[00:30:31] I mean, they're way smaller than the black hawks.
[00:30:33] Oh yeah.
[00:30:34] Yeah, yeah.
[00:30:35] We could get six combat troops.
[00:30:38] Besides the crew crew for board and had power to, you know, to do things and stuff like that.
[00:30:44] The black hawk when we assaulted into Iraq.
[00:30:48] Back during desert storm.
[00:30:50] There was 15 guys in my aircraft with me and my RTO is my and I had one squad of infantrymen with me when we went in.
[00:30:57] So much more power, much more much faster aircraft.
[00:31:00] And it was an aircraft.
[00:31:01] The black hawk.
[00:31:02] I was on the testbed for it.
[00:31:04] They were designed in case we went into war with Iran.
[00:31:07] And that's that's really what we were looking at as an aircraft.
[00:31:09] They could get the altitude of the mountainous out, mountain out to the two to round a ran.
[00:31:14] They were placed the Huey and the black hawk was the, the choice over it.
[00:31:19] They first to there was a Boeing put a proposal up for the U-tass.
[00:31:23] And then, of course, he put a proposal up for the U-tass.
[00:31:25] It was called U-tass at that time utility tactical transport system.
[00:31:30] And of course, he's the one that won.
[00:31:32] So, and it seems like when you look at the Huey, it's like a friggin' nineteen sixty-nine muscle car.
[00:31:42] Just in terms of, hey, that's the engine.
[00:31:45] You see the aircraft now, the helicopters.
[00:31:49] There's so many computer parts to it's like when you open up the hood of a car nowadays.
[00:31:54] You don't know what the hell's in there, right?
[00:31:57] You can't fix any of it with a wrench.
[00:32:00] Look at the Huey, who's the guy crew in the Huey?
[00:32:03] The guy was eighteen, nineteen years old, maybe twenty.
[00:32:06] And he was the crew chief.
[00:32:08] And what those kids did with those engines was just amazing.
[00:32:10] They'd work on them and, you know, I was a pilot and the most dangerous thing you could do is let the pilot up there around the engine.
[00:32:15] My crew chief wouldn't dare do that.
[00:32:17] But these kids, they really maintain those things well.
[00:32:20] And what they couldn't do at the operator level at the crew chief level.
[00:32:24] They went into the maintenance level, which is right there with our unit.
[00:32:27] And they were all nineteen and twenty year olds, known the sheet metal work and the electronics.
[00:32:32] I took a bullet through the, through the wiring bundle one day.
[00:32:37] And the wiring bundle was about that thick.
[00:32:40] And it was maybe thirty five forty white wires in there.
[00:32:45] And I saw a kid sitting down and sit there and put each one of those wires back properly to each one of them.
[00:32:50] To get the, to get the communications and the electronics all working.
[00:32:54] To me, it was a bunch of spaghetti.
[00:32:59] Yeah.
[00:33:00] So let's fast forward a little bit.
[00:33:04] Let's get to, let's get to Vietnam.
[00:33:08] The flight from Fort Lewis, Washington to Vietnam was fourteen hours in the two hour stop at Yucada Air Force Base outside of Tokyo, Japan.
[00:33:16] The plane was a commercial airliner contract by the government.
[00:33:19] Most Air Force transport aircraft were carrying cargo and not passengers.
[00:33:23] We arrived in Cameron Bay, Vietnam in the dead of night.
[00:33:27] Jumping forward a little bit.
[00:33:32] You get to where you're going.
[00:33:34] A Jeep came this and look, in order to get there, I got a bypass all the bunch of good stuff.
[00:33:40] Get the book.
[00:33:41] A Jeep came to stop in front of me with a handless captain driving.
[00:33:44] You Mr. Corey?
[00:33:45] Yes sir.
[00:33:46] I snapped to a chance, tension and saluted and saluted.
[00:33:49] Shit.
[00:33:50] You're trying to get me shot. Damn sniper sees you doing that.
[00:33:53] I'm going to be the one that's going to get shot.
[00:33:55] Don't you have, I don't have a hat on for a reason.
[00:33:57] So get your shit and let's go.
[00:33:58] He said with a disgusted tone.
[00:34:00] Sorry sir.
[00:34:01] I tossed my duffel bags into the Jeep and climbed in.
[00:34:03] He extended his hand and grinned.
[00:34:05] There's no sniper's here.
[00:34:06] Just thought I'd scare the crap out of you.
[00:34:08] I'm Captain Goodnight.
[00:34:10] The operations officer for our Mary Band.
[00:34:13] Welcome to the chicken coop.
[00:34:14] The chicken coop is the company location.
[00:34:17] And this here is the parking area and the is the chicken pen.
[00:34:20] Our call sign is chicken man.
[00:34:22] Chicken man.
[00:34:23] That's our call sign I responded.
[00:34:25] That's our art and still encourage in the hearts of our troops and fear in the minds of the enemy.
[00:34:29] Why couldn't it be something bold and dynamic?
[00:34:31] I thought chicken man.
[00:34:33] Sir, how do we come by that call sign I asked?
[00:34:35] The official call sign is drumstick.
[00:34:37] There's a popular radio show in the Chicago area.
[00:34:40] Now it's on armed forces radio and Vietnam about a wicked white winged warrior called chicken man.
[00:34:46] Some of the episodes are hilarious.
[00:34:49] When the unit first came to nom, we were the hoot owls.
[00:34:52] And the name has changed several times over the years to Apache and lucky shot,
[00:34:56] 1966, sidewinder and swordfish in 1967 and drumstick in 1968.
[00:35:01] Some of the war officers decided about six months ago to start using chicken man call sign.
[00:35:06] And it's pretty much stuck.
[00:35:08] So now it's the unofficial call sign for the unit.
[00:35:11] I was starting to like this chicken man call sign now.
[00:35:14] The, the, the, you got to understand war officers back then.
[00:35:22] Again, they're all 19 year olds, somewhere 18, 20 year olds.
[00:35:29] And it's 60s.
[00:35:31] So, you know, once you got out of flight school, your hair regulation kind of slipped and you're trying to grow a mustache when you don't have any hair to grow a mustache.
[00:35:39] And what are they going to do to you?
[00:35:41] And then you're going to do that.
[00:35:44] Benjud dog tags and send you to Vietnam.
[00:35:47] You're already there.
[00:35:49] So, war officers were kind of a rebellious bunch to the army.
[00:35:52] We had the war officer protection association that, you know, if something was going right in the unit, all the warrants, you get together and bitch about it.
[00:35:56] But, so when they came up with this name drumstick, everybody did, you know, thought, oh my god, what a stupid name.
[00:36:02] And then the chicken man series started on AFVN.
[00:36:06] And then it stuck.
[00:36:08] And even after they changed the name drumstick officially.
[00:36:13] Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.
[00:36:16] Chicken man, chicken man.
[00:36:17] We still kept the chicken man calls signer.
[00:36:19] We never gave it up.
[00:36:20] And like on the front of the book there, it's got a picture of the aircraft with the chicken on the nose.
[00:36:25] And we never took the chickens off the nose.
[00:36:29] Awesome.
[00:36:32] So, you're going through kind of in dock.
[00:36:35] You're learning what's going on there.
[00:36:38] And finally, we get to this.
[00:36:39] How much flying are we getting I asked?
[00:36:41] Every newbie asked that question, Captain Goodnight, chimed in.
[00:36:44] You'll get all the flying you want and more than you can handle.
[00:36:48] There'll be days when you go to bed with your butt cheeks hurting.
[00:36:50] And there'll still be hurting when you wake up.
[00:36:52] And you have another 12 to 15 hour day ahead of you.
[00:36:54] Some days you'll get 20 hours in before you shut the engine down.
[00:36:57] Normally when you get 140 hours for the month, you get a two day stand down.
[00:37:02] If I don't need you.
[00:37:04] Yes, cleaned is another individual walked in.
[00:37:06] This is Lou Price.
[00:37:07] He's going to show you where you can set up housekeeping.
[00:37:11] Lou Price was probably absolutely one of the best telecopter pilots ever knew.
[00:37:16] Lou was 21 years old.
[00:37:20] His first mission in Vietnam was about six about eight months before I got there.
[00:37:25] And it was into the Oshia Valley.
[00:37:27] He flew in and he walked out because his aircraft landed upside down.
[00:37:32] And he had a punch his way through the greenhouse bubble.
[00:37:35] They were shot down going into the aircraft for old.
[00:37:38] Lou, he left after the year.
[00:37:42] And in the book, as you see, he came back about eight months later.
[00:37:46] He said, Vietnam was a hell of a lot safer.
[00:37:48] They'd been an instructor at Flight School.
[00:37:50] And Lou stayed for the next year.
[00:37:53] And he had been discharged from the army.
[00:37:58] And was still flying in Vietnam.
[00:38:00] They had to get a Marine escort, I mean, a NPS court to come and get him and taking back.
[00:38:05] And it was because the first cab division had left all of our personnel records had left.
[00:38:10] And so they didn't know how much time anybody had left in the unit.
[00:38:13] So Lou just, he was enjoying it.
[00:38:15] He was flying his beer drink, flying his helicopter drink and his beer had nothing better to do.
[00:38:20] So Lou just stayed and fired.
[00:38:21] They had to bring an MPs up to get him out of there.
[00:38:24] Lou, he let out out.
[00:38:26] Last I heard Lou had been a financial advisor to a major corporation before he passed away.
[00:38:32] But he was a great pilot.
[00:38:34] Awesome.
[00:38:38] You did note in here that there was a latest lead Zeppelin song was playing on a real, real,
[00:38:43] real tape player.
[00:38:44] Oh yeah.
[00:38:45] He's wild.
[00:38:46] I was talking to this, so I have a song whose 18 years old.
[00:38:49] And he listens to Metallica.
[00:38:52] So when I was thinking about this,
[00:38:55] the first lead Zeppelin album came out like 1968.
[00:38:58] I was born in 1971.
[00:39:00] And when I grew up, lead Zeppelin seemed really old, right?
[00:39:04] They seemed so old.
[00:39:05] I mean, I love Led Zeppelin, but they seemed like they were way before my time.
[00:39:09] Well, my son was born in 2002.
[00:39:13] The first Metallica album came out in 1983.
[00:39:19] That's old.
[00:39:20] So like way before he's way older than Metallica.
[00:39:24] He's much further away from Metallica's beginning than I was from Led Zeppelin.
[00:39:28] Opening.
[00:39:29] You know, it's crazy how that time goes by.
[00:39:31] But you guys were there and the thick of it, listening to some Zeppelin.
[00:39:34] Has your son ever heard of David?
[00:39:36] Oh yeah.
[00:39:37] Oh yeah.
[00:39:38] I love playing on guitar.
[00:39:39] I still play it around the house.
[00:39:40] My wife looks at me because we're going to have one of those moments.
[00:39:43] This is always a good, good thing to do here.
[00:39:48] You just kind of talk about some of the characters.
[00:39:50] The pilots were mixed back.
[00:39:52] Most of the war officers fell into one of three categories either.
[00:39:55] High school graduates college dropouts or former NCOs that had gone to flight school.
[00:39:59] Most of the warrants were bachelor's with girlfriends back in the states.
[00:40:04] Except the old guys who were married with wives and two kids back in the states.
[00:40:08] The commissioned officers.
[00:40:10] I was you call them real live officers or RLOs as warrants refer to them.
[00:40:16] We're all college graduates, but I didn't notice any west pointers in the unit.
[00:40:20] They were all in the same position by the large ring on their finger.
[00:40:23] Hence the nickname ring knockers.
[00:40:25] Although no one did PT, there were no overweight pilots.
[00:40:28] Most were attempting to grow moustaches with limited success.
[00:40:31] We were all just too baby-faced.
[00:40:33] Most of the crew chiefs in maintenance personnel were volunteers who had enlisted rather than
[00:40:37] waiting to be drafted.
[00:40:38] There were 29 draftees.
[00:40:40] The most were doorgunners who had volunteered to extend for doorgunner duty to cut their
[00:40:45] draft time short or to put more money in their pockets before going home.
[00:40:49] They were all good soldiers.
[00:40:51] There was an occasional drunk and disorderly and maybe an occasional pot used.
[00:40:55] But I couldn't recall any specific cases of a lack of discipline.
[00:40:59] If pot was being smoked, it was kept pretty quiet and infrequent.
[00:41:03] The crews in the unit were just their fantastic kids.
[00:41:09] The doorgunners, they most of those guys, in fact, I think just better than one of them was an
[00:41:14] infantry guy who volunteered to come and serve as a doorgunner.
[00:41:18] They were an essential part of the aircraft.
[00:41:20] Not only do they take care of the guns on the aircraft, they also assisted the crew chief and
[00:41:24] cleaning the aircraft and running the engine and stuff like that.
[00:41:28] The pilots, as I said, college dropouts, most of us, or the old guys, and the old guys,
[00:41:34] they were, we tried to give them the easy missions but they never took them.
[00:41:37] They stepped right up to the plate like everybody else.
[00:41:40] Fortunately, we only lost two or three guys in my time there that were married men.
[00:41:47] My roommate Dave Hannah, another two other guys that I knew real well that we lost.
[00:41:53] But both of them were married guys.
[00:41:56] The crew chiefs, all of those guys, they had enlisted four crew chief duty.
[00:42:02] And they had gone to the maintenance course and came back over really a great bunch of guys.
[00:42:08] I still keep in touch with several of them.
[00:42:11] Commissioned officers, the RLOs, the real live officers, as us warn officers refer to them.
[00:42:16] Most of them were pretty good guys.
[00:42:18] We have one or two that were less than stellar.
[00:42:23] Let me put it that way.
[00:42:24] But most of them were really, really pretty good.
[00:42:27] Our maintenance officer was fantastic and I still communicate with him quite frequently.
[00:42:34] The operations officer, he talked to him a lot.
[00:42:37] He was good.
[00:42:39] Even our previous operations officer who left the day I got there, Howard Burbank.
[00:42:44] He kind of heads up our reunions and everything's a great guy.
[00:42:48] So mostly officers were really fantastic and easy to work with.
[00:42:52] In the unit, aircraft commander didn't make a difference what your rank was.
[00:42:57] You had the earn to seek to be an aircraft commander.
[00:43:01] And it took four months of flying time and a vote of confidence by all of the existing aircraft commanders before you got that honor.
[00:43:07] Didn't make a difference if you were a war officer or if you were an RLO.
[00:43:11] If you didn't cut the mustard, you didn't get in the left seat.
[00:43:14] And they held that pretty steady through my entire time there and it was good.
[00:43:19] There was a lot of respect for aircraft commanders.
[00:43:21] Everybody understood how it worked.
[00:43:23] If you were an RLO, you're going to be in the right seat until you get voted to be in the left seat and it worked well.
[00:43:29] As you're kind of learning the ropes of what's going on there,
[00:43:34] you're talking to a guy's sergeant first class Robertson, like an ops guy.
[00:43:38] Guess you guys called him pops.
[00:43:41] Good man.
[00:43:42] He lays some stuff out for you.
[00:43:44] What are most of the missions that we fly?
[00:43:46] I asked sir.
[00:43:47] It's a bit of everything.
[00:43:48] You may start the day off flying ash and trash,
[00:43:51] Re-supply for a battalion followed by being part of a six to combat assault followed by flying night hunter killer or Chuck Chuck.
[00:43:59] Chuck Chuck, I asked command and control of a battalion commander.
[00:44:02] We'll jump aboard with his staff.
[00:44:04] We'll fly around the circle around the unit in contact while the battalion commander directs artillery fire.
[00:44:11] Boring is hell for you, generally.
[00:44:13] What's a six to I asked?
[00:44:14] A six to is a flight of six, you is in two cobras.
[00:44:17] The cobras will come from our delta company on the other side of the chicken pen.
[00:44:21] They refer to their areas the snake pit.
[00:44:23] And hunter killer, that's a fun one.
[00:44:25] Three aircraft.
[00:44:26] A co-brew flying at about 1,000 feet.
[00:44:28] A hewie full of flares flying at about 1,000 feet.
[00:44:31] Following the cobras and a hewie flying between the ground and 500 feet.
[00:44:35] Nice and slow with lights on, so Charlie can see you and shoot at you.
[00:44:39] The low bird is equipped with a 50 caliber machine gun replacing one of the M60 guns and a search light with a low angle with a low light intensity night vision scope on top is mounted in the cargo door.
[00:44:51] If the low bird sees something or get shot at the cobras rolls hot on it and the flare aircraft starts dropping flares of the cobras and sea targets.
[00:44:58] Once more coffee. Yes, please.
[00:45:01] How do you get, how do you get missions?
[00:45:05] During the night and generally before 200 hours the maintenance offshore will tell us how many birds we can put up for the next day.
[00:45:11] We pass that to battalion.
[00:45:13] Sometimes around 0,200 battalion starts sending the missions to us.
[00:45:17] Captain Goodnight comes in about 0,400 in the signs the pilots and the missions.
[00:45:21] And we start waking everyone up.
[00:45:23] Generally we get the birds in the air at first light.
[00:45:26] Most of the birds aren't instrument rated so that can be a problem in the monsoon season which will begin in about three months.
[00:45:32] When do I get to fly? I know what you're thinking and that's good.
[00:45:35] But enjoy sitting on the ground for as long as you can, because once you're cleared you'll get all the flying you want and then some.
[00:45:41] Yeah, you did get all the flying you want to get some.
[00:45:44] That was one thing that was interesting to me and I guess I kind of knew it but not this clearly.
[00:45:50] You you you guys did everything you whether it was logistics runs whether it was supporting assaults you were doing everything you did everything.
[00:45:57] You did everything the only thing you didn't do is operate as a gunship because we weren't quick to be a gunship.
[00:46:01] There was aircrafts fishing for that but everything else and met a vac.
[00:46:05] It wasn't common for the slicks to fly met a vac missions unless it was really an emergency.
[00:46:12] And why is that? Well, we didn't we weren't equipped with medics or any medical supplies on board.
[00:46:17] We were a little first aid kits and that was about it. So they would try to get the medivac birds to come in and take care of them now.
[00:46:23] They had medivac birds and dust off.
[00:46:25] Dust off medivac birds were part of the first cavalry division and the hundred and first airborne division.
[00:46:31] They were equipped with guns.
[00:46:33] Had the big red cross on the side but they had guns on board.
[00:46:36] Dust off had the red cross on the side but they had no guns and they were part of the 44th medical brigade.
[00:46:43] So that was the difference between the two and people here at the term dust off from medivac, which one was a witch.
[00:46:47] Well, that was the difference between them.
[00:46:49] The only time I ever flew medivac is when I was actually supporting a ground unit with a log mission and they got hit at the same time.
[00:46:56] And I came back in and they threw on the bunch of guys that were wounded and I flew them out.
[00:47:01] But that was about it for a medivac mission.
[00:47:04] The missions we didn't like that medivac wouldn't fly is pulling the bodies out.
[00:47:10] That event wouldn't touch a body.
[00:47:13] We had to fly those out so we did those.
[00:47:15] Everything else we did it all.
[00:47:17] Re-supplies CNC, 900 Killer, 11900 Killer.
[00:47:20] I'd fly the low bird.
[00:47:22] I didn't want to fly that flare bird one bit.
[00:47:25] So is it the low bird the one that's the bait?
[00:47:28] Yeah.
[00:47:29] I like that one.
[00:47:30] The flare bird, he just orbits around up there.
[00:47:33] He's getting bored.
[00:47:35] And the bad thing is he's carrying 21 million power candles.
[00:47:41] Yeah, he's huge, huge flares.
[00:47:44] He takes the tracer around that bird's burning.
[00:47:48] And they, in fact, they carried them in 55 gallon drums out on the skids that were held on by straps so that they did take a round.
[00:47:54] They would take the machetes and cut those straps and drop and drop and drop all that stuff right away.
[00:47:59] So I never want to fly the flare bird.
[00:48:01] The low bird, I love flying the low bird.
[00:48:03] That was fun.
[00:48:04] I was like, hey, bait.
[00:48:05] That's for a little bit.
[00:48:12] Sleep came quick and I drummed a pleasant thing as I hadn't been in country the long enough to have bad dreams.
[00:48:18] As I slumbered, I began to dream about the jet I heard coming in for landing on our air strip.
[00:48:24] It was getting louder and louder and holy shit.
[00:48:27] Jet's can't land here.
[00:48:28] I was on the floor of our tent with everyone else.
[00:48:31] When the rocket impacted behind our tent followed by a second impacting the VIP landing pad behind the majors tent.
[00:48:38] Incoming I heard as I grabbed my flack jacket and my helmet.
[00:48:41] I was half running half crawling to the bunker in my boxer shorts.
[00:48:44] When another rocket impacted with a flash spraying shrapnel, diving through the door, the bunker I piled into someone in total darkness of the bunker and got shoved to the other side.
[00:48:53] Hey, watch it man, someone said, anyone seeing the new guy?
[00:48:56] I recognized lose voice.
[00:48:57] Over here, Lou.
[00:48:58] I answered.
[00:48:59] This is your first rocket attack new guy he asked.
[00:49:02] Well, yeah, I've only been here for two days.
[00:49:04] Is this common I asked?
[00:49:05] Yep, almost nightly.
[00:49:06] And since this is your first, you get to buy the beer.
[00:49:09] You can't be sure the refrigerator stock tomorrow morning when we come back.
[00:49:13] And the darkness, the sounds of laughter could be heard over the sounds of impacting rockets and secondary explosions.
[00:49:20] Anytime you did something for the first time, you had a bio case of beer.
[00:49:24] And that was the cost of learning.
[00:49:26] So I bought a lot of beer just like everybody else those first couple of months.
[00:49:30] Yeah.
[00:49:31] Yeah, those 120 two rockets, they weren't accurate.
[00:49:35] But boy, they would sure wake you up and just, you know, create havoc for your evening.
[00:49:40] They were always trying to shoot at the runway or at the chicken coop snake pit area.
[00:49:45] And everyone's why we lost an aircraft to want it slam in there.
[00:49:49] The mortars, they were accurate.
[00:49:53] And we did not like getting the mortar rounds in.
[00:49:56] And you may bring it up later on.
[00:49:59] Yeah, the mortars, the barber, our barber was the one that was registering the mortar rounds on us.
[00:50:08] Well, case of beer.
[00:50:10] So yeah, that was, I don't know, I don't know when that, I don't know where that came from, but when I got the seal teams.
[00:50:15] Same thing.
[00:50:16] Oh, the first time jumping cool case of beer.
[00:50:18] Okay, first time doing a fast rope cool case of beer.
[00:50:20] First time what, you know, first time shooting an MP5, yep, okay, so beer.
[00:50:24] So they got their beer out of us.
[00:50:26] That's for sure.
[00:50:29] In the air at last, now you're flying and you get the aircraft turned over to locate Dan, your turn.
[00:50:39] Oh, wow, it was Dan and Tony, nocturne, first name basis.
[00:50:42] I have the aircraft, Tony.
[00:50:44] You have the aircraft you responded indicating he recognized I had positive control of the aircraft.
[00:50:48] With my left hand on the collective right hand on the cyclic, my whole hand, I started coming up on the power.
[00:50:55] The aircraft broke ground.
[00:50:57] Oh, shit, scream the door going, I work on a die.
[00:50:59] Whale the crew chief as I was shooting my pants.
[00:51:03] All right, you two knock it off, Tony said to the crew, they were laughing their asses off.
[00:51:07] Oh, sure, can't we screw with the new guy?
[00:51:10] Yeah, they did that to me.
[00:51:13] Of course, they did it to every new guy, too.
[00:51:15] Like I said, the crew chiefs in in door gunners, there are a bunch of jokes.
[00:51:20] And if they could jerk you chain, they jerk you chain.
[00:51:23] All in good fun, no.
[00:51:25] So you talk about doing combat auto rotations.
[00:51:29] Loved it.
[00:51:30] So explain the auto rotation and then what gets different on the combat auto rotation.
[00:51:35] In flight school, they teach you how to do the standard Army issue auto rotation.
[00:51:40] 2000 feet over the approach in the runway, chop the throttle, pull the nose back to a 60-not air speed,
[00:51:46] but the collective down completely, let the aircraft fall 75 feet in the ground.
[00:51:51] You flare the aircraft and pop the collective.
[00:51:54] As a aircraft continues to settle, you level the skids and commitment the rest of the power to set it down on the ground.
[00:52:00] Just love doing auto rotations.
[00:52:02] So the purpose of an auto rotation is you have something wrong with the aircraft.
[00:52:06] The engine quits and you can land an aircraft.
[00:52:11] You can land a helicopter safely.
[00:52:13] Sure.
[00:52:14] Yeah.
[00:52:15] It's basically the momentum of the helicopter blades.
[00:52:18] That's right.
[00:52:19] They're just spinning and they keep spinning because they've been spinning really fast.
[00:52:22] And then as you come down, does the air keep them spinning as you come down?
[00:52:26] Keep some spinning.
[00:52:27] When you execute that flare, you've got to pop that collective or you're going to get an overspeed on your rotor head.
[00:52:33] You pop the collective and that keeps from the rotor speed.
[00:52:36] You want to keep your rotor in the green at 6600 rpm.
[00:52:40] And you'll correction at 335 rpm, 345 rpm, engines at 66.
[00:52:46] So you keep it at 345 when you flare, you're going to go well above that 345.
[00:52:51] So you pop that collective.
[00:52:52] And then that lets you settle the aircraft down.
[00:52:54] And then when you get about four feet off the ground, you come in with the rest of it as you level the skids.
[00:52:59] Easy set down.
[00:53:00] You don't want to try to parachute out of a helicopter with no engine.
[00:53:02] You might get beat up on the blades.
[00:53:05] So, no, nobody wears a parachute to exit a helicopter in an emergency.
[00:53:09] A combat auto rotation.
[00:53:12] There's a thing in the book called The Dead Zone.
[00:53:15] And pilots have to know the dead zone.
[00:53:17] There's a certain area that if you don't have air speed and altitude, air speed or altitude, you're going to die.
[00:53:24] You want to have air speed or you want to have altitude.
[00:53:27] If you can have both, you're better off.
[00:53:29] But you have to keep one of those two.
[00:53:32] The combat auto rotations, especially the low level one, you come in a tree top level at 90 knots air speed and chop the throttle right then.
[00:53:39] And just start your flare.
[00:53:41] And just as the aircraft comes over, where you want to touch down, you keep the flare going, keep the flare going, keep the flare going,
[00:53:48] and pull the power in and set it down.
[00:53:50] I love doing low level loader rotations.
[00:53:52] There were so much fun.
[00:53:54] Then you get to the advanced stage.
[00:53:57] You do the 180 auto rotation.
[00:53:59] 1000 feet, chop the throttle.
[00:54:01] Take the aircraft, turn it in a tight turn and come down.
[00:54:05] Or what I was taught, if I guy that was a test pilot at the Bell helicopter.
[00:54:11] 1000 feet, chop the throttle.
[00:54:13] Zero the air speed.
[00:54:15] Do a pedal turn.
[00:54:16] Punch the nose straight to the ground.
[00:54:18] Build up your rotor RPM and just do a normal touch down.
[00:54:21] And you can do that at 3602 and 360 save me one time.
[00:54:26] Are you, so look, like how many times when you when you start trying to do the combat auto rotation,
[00:54:32] how many times do you try this before you've got it?
[00:54:36] About three or four times.
[00:54:39] You do enough auto rotations in flight school that you've got the basics for an auto rotation down pat.
[00:54:44] And you go up with an experience pilot and they'll run you through a couple of times and you'll have no problem.
[00:54:49] Then again, too, once you become an AC, you can do auto rotations whenever you want.
[00:54:55] You don't have to worry about an instructor pilot sitting next to you.
[00:54:58] And we would do that.
[00:54:59] We would go out and when we're coming back at night after a mission, let's do an auto rotation.
[00:55:03] Let's go shoot some auto rotations.
[00:55:04] So you practice those things constantly when you're coming back in.
[00:55:09] But now today, they don't even teach touch down auto rotations.
[00:55:12] I don't think.
[00:55:13] Why is that?
[00:55:14] I have no idea.
[00:55:16] What do you do if you lose power?
[00:55:18] I think they teach in the auto rotation, but they make them put the power in before they get to the ground and set it down.
[00:55:24] But I had heard that they don't teach touch downs anymore.
[00:55:28] They don't let them take them all the way to the ground.
[00:55:30] How much does a, how much does an HH60 cost?
[00:55:34] Oh God.
[00:55:35] How much is a Huey cost?
[00:55:38] A Huey right now.
[00:55:39] You can get by a Huey for about 500,000.
[00:55:41] What about a nom?
[00:55:42] Let me what about in this time period.
[00:55:43] On this time period, I think there are 250,000.
[00:55:46] And what's your best guess on a black off?
[00:55:48] Probably somewhere in the neighborhood of about 8 or 900,000.
[00:55:52] That's just a guess.
[00:55:54] I don't know if that's way cheaper than I thought.
[00:55:56] I'm going to have to check that one out.
[00:55:58] Yeah, I'm not sure.
[00:56:00] Roger.
[00:56:01] Seems like the Huey was way, way, way cheaper.
[00:56:05] Oh, it is.
[00:56:06] There's nothing sophisticated about Huey.
[00:56:09] I mean, engine was simple.
[00:56:12] The L13 engine, a great engine.
[00:56:14] But nothing, no complicated computer electronics in it.
[00:56:20] You had to just standard flight instruments.
[00:56:22] And none of it was computerized, no computer chips.
[00:56:25] Very simple aircraft to work on, and a simple aircraft to fly.
[00:56:29] And it was an amazing aircraft to fly.
[00:56:31] It would take so many hits that, and it still keep going.
[00:56:36] The biggest I saw was a friend of mine, Al Hess, Bill Hess.
[00:56:41] He got hit and I covered it in one of the books.
[00:56:45] I forget which one it's covered in.
[00:56:47] He had 107 bullet holes.
[00:56:49] And his aircraft, one of which was a 50 caliber round that went through the frame.
[00:56:54] Right above the pilots head.
[00:56:56] In fact, one of our Canadian lieutenants.
[00:56:59] He had gotten shot in the groin, and it leaned forward.
[00:57:03] And when he did that 50 caliber round hit the the post.
[00:57:07] And if he hadn't a lean forward, he would have hit him in the head.
[00:57:10] But yeah, but he had 107 rounds in that aircraft.
[00:57:13] And the aircraft still flew.
[00:57:15] Another thing that you do over there is the combat takeoff.
[00:57:20] Yes, so what's the combat takeoff all about?
[00:57:22] Nice flight school type helicopter takeoff is you come to a three foot hover.
[00:57:27] You pull your power, you drop your nose, and you climb out of the nice rate of climb.
[00:57:32] Combat helicopter takeoff.
[00:57:35] You pull that power in, and you shove that nose over at the same time.
[00:57:39] And so you're coming out of there like a bat at a hill.
[00:57:43] It's no this three foot hover stabilizing and then go, it is pushed.
[00:57:47] Roll the nose over, give it full power and get out of there as quickly as you can.
[00:57:51] And the first couple times you do it for a new guy, it scares you because you think you're going to hit the rotor blades on the ground.
[00:57:57] You roll it over so far.
[00:57:59] But how much clearance do you have?
[00:58:02] Oh, you got your front rotor blades.
[00:58:04] Six or seven feet.
[00:58:05] Easy.
[00:58:06] No factor.
[00:58:07] Yeah, it's no factor.
[00:58:08] Yeah.
[00:58:09] But when you're sitting there, you're normally looking at, you know,
[00:58:11] it's sitting up there 15 feet and then all of a sudden it's six feet off the ground.
[00:58:15] You go, oh, hell, scared the crap out of you.
[00:58:19] You say you're getting advised Dan, don't fly without a map.
[00:58:24] And know where you are at all times on that map.
[00:58:26] If you go down, you're going to have a lot of time to figure that out.
[00:58:29] This is another cool thing is you guys were just doing land now the whole time.
[00:58:32] Yes.
[00:58:33] You're not, you're not looking at any kind of instrument to know where you are.
[00:58:36] I mean, I guess I'll do the compass.
[00:58:38] You had a DB and DB non-directional beacon.
[00:58:42] There was one in Tane in.
[00:58:44] We had one at Lyke.
[00:58:46] And I believe there was one up at Song Bay.
[00:58:49] And if you had to do an instrument approach, you're going to do an NDB approach or a GCA approach.
[00:58:54] But that was it.
[00:58:55] So you really need to know where you were at at all times and have a good idea where you were.
[00:59:00] Were you, were you flying in a small enough area that you got to know everything?
[00:59:07] Yes.
[00:59:08] Really easily.
[00:59:09] From Lyke up to Tane in was probably 80, 90 miles from Tane in across along the board.
[00:59:15] It was probably another 100 miles.
[00:59:17] And then back down to Lyke was probably another 80 miles.
[00:59:19] So that was about the area you were working in.
[00:59:21] So you had a bunch of geographical references there.
[00:59:23] There's that road.
[00:59:24] There's that mountain.
[00:59:25] There's that whatever.
[00:59:26] There's the river.
[00:59:27] There's bridge.
[00:59:28] In fact, the funny thing was three core of the area.
[00:59:30] We flew.
[00:59:31] It was pretty flat.
[00:59:33] The vegetation wise.
[00:59:35] But at Tane in, there was a mountain there that looked like an extinct volcano.
[00:59:40] It wasn't.
[00:59:41] But it's just this big tits sticking up.
[00:59:43] And it's song Bay was another one sitting there.
[00:59:45] So if you could see those two, you knew exactly where you were at.
[00:59:49] And then there's thunder road that went up the middle.
[00:59:51] So you had a pretty good idea where you read it all times.
[00:59:58] You're on a mission.
[00:59:59] You're out there fast forward a little bit.
[01:00:01] You're still learning.
[01:00:02] You made a pass over the intended landing point, Mr. Leak went into education mode.
[01:00:06] Okay, this smoke tells us almost no wind.
[01:00:08] So that's not going to be a factor.
[01:00:10] The trees on the south side look lower than the north side.
[01:00:12] The units on the south side as well.
[01:00:14] So we'll make final approach over the south side.
[01:00:16] Never make your approach the same twice in a row if you can help it.
[01:00:21] Always make the approach from a different angle each time.
[01:00:24] Turning into final at the last minute if you can.
[01:00:26] You make the approach.
[01:00:28] You make the approach the same each time.
[01:00:30] And Charlie will fire your ass up.
[01:00:33] Got it. Got it.
[01:00:35] Yes.
[01:00:36] The, the big LZs.
[01:00:39] You had a lot of options where it came critical.
[01:00:42] Was when you got into a smaller LZ or a hoverhold that you're going to have to
[01:00:46] Re-supply at.
[01:00:47] If you came in the same way three times in a row.
[01:00:50] Charlie is probably going to smoke in the third time.
[01:00:52] You always tried to come in a different way a different angle.
[01:00:55] You had to keep mind where it's the lowest approach path I can use.
[01:00:58] Especially if you had a heavy aircraft.
[01:01:00] Where's the wind blowing?
[01:01:01] I want to come into the wind and I want to come in and
[01:01:04] I'll lowest path.
[01:01:05] So a lot of times that was dictate that maybe the final turn would be the same.
[01:01:09] But you want to come in from the left side.
[01:01:11] You want to come in from the right side.
[01:01:13] If you could you come in from into the, you come in with the wind and then do a
[01:01:16] Pedal term.
[01:01:17] Although that's seldom very happened.
[01:01:18] So you just did not want to map the same approach the same path every time.
[01:01:23] When I was home on leave after my year there.
[01:01:27] Somebody was using my aircraft went into a hover hole the same way three times.
[01:01:33] And the third time Charlie got him.
[01:01:35] And we lost the aircraft, lost the crew and lost everybody on board.
[01:01:39] You know what's as you mentioned the weight of the aircraft.
[01:01:43] Well, one thing that I really got an appreciation for.
[01:01:46] And I noticed that when I would get out of helicopters.
[01:01:50] You could see you know the helicopter would move a little bit depending on what kind of
[01:01:53] helicopter it was. But you know when you drive a car.
[01:01:57] If you put 500 pounds, I mean if you put 200 300 400 pounds into a car you don't really
[01:02:02] Notice it. You have to put a lot of weight into a car before you notice it.
[01:02:06] It takes a little longer to break.
[01:02:08] You know, maybe if you throw a bunch of you know,
[01:02:11] 2000 pounds of bricks into the back of your pickup truck, you notice that.
[01:02:16] But the he who you guys could notice the weight, you know,
[01:02:20] 300 400 pounds is is a lot different and you have to be.
[01:02:24] It's like you guys were so attuned to those aircraft.
[01:02:28] The the weight and balance, you know, if we were at a hover and
[01:02:32] 300 pounds off to one side, you're going to notice that.
[01:02:35] You noticed it, especially if guys started jumping out of the aircraft,
[01:02:38] you'd notice the rocking in it.
[01:02:40] A lot of times going into an LZ for the first time on a resupply,
[01:02:43] I would try to take 30 water cans.
[01:02:46] That gave me a good size load for that trip.
[01:02:50] It also gave me a load light enough that I could see how the aircraft was handling
[01:02:54] based on the wind conditions and the approach.
[01:02:56] There was one time I got no NLD, I only had 10 water cans on.
[01:03:00] That's how bad that hoverhole was.
[01:03:02] But most of the time 30 water cans was good.
[01:03:04] Then you know, you're going back the second time.
[01:03:06] If I could take more than 30 water cans and smamble, we throw that on as well.
[01:03:10] But you always had to be careful and the crew chief was really the guy responsible for this.
[01:03:14] Watching where the weight and balance was at, making sure that they put too much weight
[01:03:18] up forward to the pilots, keep trying to keep it all back, back centre around the transmission
[01:03:23] well in the centre of the aircraft.
[01:03:26] Another little section here, sort of about what life was like over there for you guys.
[01:03:35] It was obvious that the rear echelon lived a lot better than those closest to the front action.
[01:03:40] We lived good as aviators certainly much better than the grunts.
[01:03:43] But these rear echelon mothers, rymphs, as we called them, were living the life.
[01:03:48] There was always had been and always would be some animosity between those on the front lines
[01:03:54] and those in the rear.
[01:03:56] Those in the rear areas enjoyed levels of comfort only imagined by those on the front.
[01:04:00] Clean sheets, hot chow, good boots, and movies were just some of the perks.
[01:04:05] Besides never getting shot at and all the while bitching how tough they had it because of the paper cuts they received.
[01:04:11] History shows general Eisenhower wanted Paris to be an R&R centre for the front line troops.
[01:04:16] Just after it was liberated, 150,000 rymphs took up residence and he could do nothing to dislodge them.
[01:04:24] Some things never changed.
[01:04:25] And they still haven't changed to this day.
[01:04:28] During desert storm, I was out there with my battalion and we were in jungle boots.
[01:04:33] We used a superglue to close the holes up on the side to keep the sand out.
[01:04:38] And it got to the point where we were using duct tape to hold the boots together because they were just getting torn apart in the flint.
[01:04:44] And up shows some rymphs from the back end and they've all got brand new desert boots.
[01:04:49] We never got desert boots the whole time we were there.
[01:04:51] We were front line infantry.
[01:04:53] So it hasn't changed and it never will change.
[01:04:55] You're always going to have that argument.
[01:04:57] A perfect example is you look at the movie, what glory.
[01:05:02] About the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment.
[01:05:06] And what was their big complaint boots?
[01:05:08] It hasn't changed.
[01:05:09] We're still arguing about boots in the military.
[01:05:12] I have a leadership consulting company.
[01:05:15] The name of the leadership consulting company is echelon front.
[01:05:20] And there's a very specific reason why we have that because we want to be well-known.
[01:05:24] Like where it's talking about what leadership is like from the front.
[01:05:28] Yes, the front lines.
[01:05:29] Not what it's like in the rear with the gear.
[01:05:32] That's right.
[01:05:33] Well, we used to say nothing's too good for the infantry.
[01:05:36] So the infantry gets nothing.
[01:05:38] Check.
[01:05:43] Next section's called Reality Sets in.
[01:05:47] That evening, this is fast forwarding.
[01:05:49] That evening we were in our tent discussing that day's activities.
[01:05:52] The assistant maintenance officer came in looking for a beer.
[01:05:56] Hey, John, how's it going?
[01:05:57] I asked, give me a beer and I'll tell you how it's going.
[01:05:59] One of the other pilots opened their refrigerator and handed him a cold one.
[01:06:02] We have 13 of our 21 aircrafts shot to shit.
[01:06:06] Two have got to be evacuated back to the states.
[01:06:08] They're shot up so bad, 251 and 228 of the remaining 11.
[01:06:12] We have an estimated 3,000 hours of work ahead of us to get them into flying condition.
[01:06:17] Tomorrow we'll have a total of six aircraft that we can put into the air as I already had two in for periodic inspections.
[01:06:24] The first of those shot up today will be up the day after tomorrow.
[01:06:29] And that's seven 40 as I only need 24 hours of maintenance to solve that one.
[01:06:34] I can tell you that maintenance platoon is not going to get any sleep for a few days.
[01:06:38] I silently thank God I wasn't a maintenance officer.
[01:06:41] Again, just point out that the teamwork that it took to keep these birds flying was immense.
[01:06:47] It meant steam work to keep them up.
[01:06:49] It was incumbent upon the pilots to make sure that we weren't messing the aircraft up with tree strikes on rotoblades or tail rotostrikes on on on bushes.
[01:06:57] That was a bad factor that happened.
[01:07:00] Not paying attention.
[01:07:01] You've been in the skids on a stump or on a log or you punch a hole in the bottom of the aircraft on a stump.
[01:07:06] So it was incumbent upon the flight crews.
[01:07:08] First of all, make sure you don't screw the aircraft up because the maintenance guys when we got in situations.
[01:07:14] They had more than enough work to keep them busy.
[01:07:19] Another kind of interesting thing here.
[01:07:21] At this time we had no standardized markings on the noses of our aircraft.
[01:07:25] The pilots' doors had a green triangle with a lightning bolt through the triangle but that was all.
[01:07:29] Across the nose of each, the aircraft commanders and crews generally put their individual pet name on the nose.
[01:07:35] Iron butterfly, green lantern, devils advocate and hard luck to name a few.
[01:07:41] We had some really good, we had a really good nose art artist, Sergeant Skowell who was kept busy.
[01:07:48] Some units had a bit more discipline and a standard emblem on the noses of the aircraft, which you guys eventually got the chicken.
[01:07:54] We eventually got the chicken. Mike Skowell, he is now a famous artist in South West America.
[01:08:02] He's out there and he still does a great artwork.
[01:08:04] I've got a couple of his pieces and he keeps busy with that.
[01:08:07] But at that time our unit had an assortment of nose art and it's got changed.
[01:08:13] There's a great book that a guy named John Brennan just published his second one and it's nose art of aircraft.
[01:08:21] And it covers all a lot of units that had nose art on them, both of my birds are in there.
[01:08:26] What'd you have on your birds?
[01:08:28] Well the first one had the chicken and then it had a hard luck.
[01:08:31] So what was that, what was the nose art for hard luck?
[01:08:36] It was the calf patch with the chicken in the middle of it and then hard luck with across the top.
[01:08:41] I'll send you a picture of it.
[01:08:43] That's awesome.
[01:08:45] This is another interesting thing and this is, this is, I was going to bring this up earlier.
[01:08:51] So you're talking about why it's so important to have confidence in the aircraft commander.
[01:08:56] As Lou is bringing us into position as chalk six he asked how much formation time do you have.
[01:09:01] Just when we got in flight school in a couple hours the other day I replied without looking in his direction.
[01:09:06] Don't tell me this is your first combat assault.
[01:09:09] Okay, I won't but it is.
[01:09:11] Oh, I see it's going to be a long day.
[01:09:13] He took a breath. Okay, formation flying here isn't like flight school.
[01:09:17] He said as he moved closer to the right side of chalk five in mother rocker, which is where you guys go to flight school.
[01:09:23] And mother rocker, they wanted two rotor blade widths between aircraft.
[01:09:27] Here we fly at one to one half rotor from the other.
[01:09:32] He was going for the half rotor distance and my pocket factor was starting to suck the seat up my ass.
[01:09:37] I looked back at chalk seven.
[01:09:39] Oh shit, he's going for half rotor distance as well.
[01:09:42] Lou is calmly smoking his cigarette and continuing to lecture while he held the cyclic sicklic in his hand index and middle fingers.
[01:09:52] The one thing you don't want to do is overrap rotor blades.
[01:09:55] Oh, trust me that ain't happened.
[01:09:57] Okay, you got it. He said, I responded.
[01:09:59] I got it.
[01:10:00] And I wish I hadn't immediately we started sliding back to a two rotor blade distance.
[01:10:05] Chalk seven called us. Hey, chalk six did the new guy just take it great. Now the entire formation knew I added.
[01:10:12] Yeah, and he's shitting in his pants.
[01:10:14] Now that wasn't true, but it wasn't far from the truth.
[01:10:17] Okay, let's close it back up and get with the formation.
[01:10:20] I pulled in some more power and ease that aircraft forward.
[01:10:22] Good. Now just hold it there.
[01:10:24] Lou said and I immediately started drifting back.
[01:10:26] No, get back up there.
[01:10:28] Yeah, formation flying to be truthful.
[01:10:31] I didn't like formation flying.
[01:10:33] I didn't like it in flight school.
[01:10:35] I don't even like reading about it.
[01:10:37] I wanted to be.
[01:10:38] I really wanted to be a dust off pilot because dust off pilots didn't fly formation.
[01:10:42] So that made me happy.
[01:10:43] And then they said, no, you're going to a lift.
[01:10:45] Oh, hell.
[01:10:46] I'm going to have to learn how to fly formations.
[01:10:47] I hate formations.
[01:10:48] So it was not easy for me to get in there with Lou and fly formations.
[01:10:52] But he is such a good pilot and such a good and common structure.
[01:10:57] And it made him because he usually drank a six pack in the morning before he got in the aircraft.
[01:11:01] I don't know. But anyway, he was really good.
[01:11:04] And really set me to ease and probably after about five hours.
[01:11:09] I could get in there and be comfortable flying at one road to blade out.
[01:11:13] And then the book I go through about how he taught me about how to get judge your distance,
[01:11:18] how to judge where you're going to be, how to keep yourself out of trouble in LZs and stuff.
[01:11:22] Really a really a good pilot.
[01:11:24] Yeah, that half road to blade.
[01:11:27] That's scared to live in the Jesus out of me.
[01:11:30] You have a section here, fast forward a little bit.
[01:11:35] You're talking about it.
[01:11:37] It's a good conversation as you know, I tend to bring things back to leadership and there's a good conversation.
[01:11:42] You have about leadership in here.
[01:11:45] And it starts when you're talking about the current company commander that you had at this time.
[01:11:49] Yeah.
[01:11:50] And the question is, have you ever seen him in the cockpit or on the flight line or out of his tent?
[01:11:54] When you do, please let us know.
[01:11:56] It'll be a first said Mr. Toliver.
[01:11:59] The other second at that comment, how come I asked?
[01:12:02] The CEO is on his third tour over here.
[01:12:05] His first was as an advisor in the early 60s and his second was in 65 as an aviator.
[01:12:10] Pretty rough assignment. He took a couple hits in the aircraft and on his body.
[01:12:15] He's paid his dues. He only has another couple of months in command and then they'll probably move up to batallion or brigade staff.
[01:12:21] He's all right. He just doesn't care to fly anymore.
[01:12:24] Responded, Mr. Toliver.
[01:12:26] Well, what makes a good flight leader I asked as I opened another beer for myself and others.
[01:12:31] Mr. Reynolds field that fielded that question. He had been in the unit for about seven months and was considering extending but not for our unit.
[01:12:39] No one seemed to do that.
[01:12:41] Extending your tour was a rare occasion in Vietnam even in those units that appeared to have high morale and good leadership.
[01:12:47] A good flight leader must be a good pilot.
[01:12:51] Must first be a good pilot and no his aircraft.
[01:12:53] No what its limitations are and how far he can stretch them. He must be a good aircraft commander taking care of his aircraft and his crew.
[01:13:00] Just because we're officers doesn't mean we can't help the crew take care of the aircraft.
[01:13:05] Did you notice when Captain Bullock landed?
[01:13:07] The first thing he did was leave the aircraft to his crew and beat feet to the club for a beer instead of stay behind and help them sweep it out and post flight it?
[01:13:15] No. He left that to has says co-pilot for today and the crew.
[01:13:20] Self-centered bastard. Just because he's an RLO he thinks he's too good to get his hands dirty.
[01:13:26] Do you think he helped Phil Sandbags to build the bunker?
[01:13:29] Not him or any of the RLLs for that matter.
[01:13:32] James and stood there that day and supervised while everyone else did the digging and stacking.
[01:13:38] Okay Reynolds that's enough venting, interjected Mr. Toliver.
[01:13:42] Besides being a good pilot and aircraft commander a flight leader must plan, coordinate and anticipate the mission.
[01:13:48] Once he gets his brief from the ground commander he needs to do a recon flight over the LZ or PZ.
[01:13:53] He needs to judge how many aircraft will fit in and what formation will work so we're not doing last minute dick dance like we did today.
[01:14:01] Bullock never did a recon and that's why we were dick dancing in the kill zone.
[01:14:05] Once he's done his recon he needs to coordinate with the ground commander on what formation will be so they can plan accordingly.
[01:14:13] He needs to coordinate with the attack helicopter's if it's going to be an insertion. He needs to coordinate with the aircraft commanders and let us know what's what.
[01:14:20] And he needs to anticipate what all can go wrong and have a plan for that as well.
[01:14:24] Be an aircraft breaking down before the mission or ground fire on the LZ or PZ.
[01:14:31] Yes.
[01:14:33] The aircraft commander and leadership was so important. I found out recently that the commander that we had before the current commander talked about in there was worse than the current company commander.
[01:14:46] And the current company commander he just was not interested in being the company commander or exercising leadership.
[01:14:54] Leadership in the unit was from the RLOs. It was from our operations officer and one of the butoon leaders.
[01:15:00] I mentioned in there did not exercise leadership and very seldom you ever see him exercise leadership.
[01:15:07] And it was pretty much up to the operations officer and this one other butoon leader that that really took things by the horn.
[01:15:12] They were the flight leaders and really guided us pretty much.
[01:15:17] That's one of the reasons nobody ever read re-up for the unit.
[01:15:20] The more on the unit wasn't that good at the time. It was it was good with the horn officers and the crew chiefs and stuff.
[01:15:26] But as far as a unit cohesion goes it was lacking.
[01:15:31] The you mentioned something in there about the flight leaders.
[01:15:36] If you had a flight leader that was screwed up.
[01:15:39] Everybody's lives were going to be in trouble.
[01:15:42] And on this one mission there that bullet was the flight leader. We got a bunch of aircraft shot up. That was March 6.
[01:15:48] And I think we went in with something like seven aircraft.
[01:15:52] One broke down before we got there. The other six went in and the LZ had to go in two, two and two.
[01:15:57] And the NVA were sitting there waiting for us.
[01:16:00] If we ran in against NVA we were going to be a trouble.
[01:16:03] VC didn't worry about them. They couldn't shoot for shit.
[01:16:06] But they couldn't hit their they're asked with both hands.
[01:16:10] But the NVA knew how to shoot it. They helicopter and they did a good job of shooting.
[01:16:13] But the leadership was important and it just was lacking when I first got there.
[01:16:18] Yeah, that scenario that I skipped over.
[01:16:22] It's real obvious when you look at it you're thinking, okay, how long is going to take us to put two birds at a time.
[01:16:28] Multiple lifts in a row before the enemy goes, okay, well we'll wait for them.
[01:16:32] We'll head them next time they come in here.
[01:16:34] Yeah, that a lot of times they'd let you in on the first lift.
[01:16:37] And then the second lift that's when they'd open up on you or the third lift.
[01:16:43] Usually if it was an extraction you could expect the third lift coming out to take fire.
[01:16:49] Last position you want it was number six in a six ship lift coming out of a two ship LZ because you're going to catch every bit of it.
[01:16:56] They're just waiting for you.
[01:16:57] And if they could knock an aircraft down then what happens is they've got it.
[01:17:02] Oh, there's a wrench thrown in everything.
[01:17:04] Everybody's got to come back in. You got to pile on.
[01:17:07] And you better have a plan ready for it.
[01:17:10] There's a crew good going to get killed.
[01:17:13] And even you're talking about the contingency of hey, one of our aircraft might go down before we even take off.
[01:17:18] That's right.
[01:17:18] Maintenance problem if you don't have some kind of contingency.
[01:17:21] And that's another thing that we'll get into, but the idea, so you have the aircraft commander who's obviously in charge of their singular aircraft.
[01:17:28] But then you've got the flight lead that's leading the whole operation that's in charge of it overall.
[01:17:33] And that's the person that has to account for all these different things.
[01:17:37] That's right.
[01:17:38] And we go out the flight leader. We go out about an hour before everybody else and get the coordination with the ground commander done the artillery, etc.
[01:17:45] Go out and do his recon of the LZ.
[01:17:47] Make sure you do what formation was going to finish.
[01:17:49] Make sure the ground commander knew what formation he need to have his troops in to pick up.
[01:17:54] And he knew what formation you were going to drop them off because that would make a difference in his ground assault plan.
[01:17:59] So all that coordination had to get done.
[01:18:01] You had to have a flight leader that was on his toes to do that kind of stuff.
[01:18:05] Initially when I got there, only the artillery else could be flight leaders.
[01:18:10] Warn officers.
[01:18:12] We were technical officers, not tactical officers.
[01:18:15] So, Warn officers weren't allowed to be flight leaders when I first got there.
[01:18:20] Here's a mission that we hadn't talked about yet.
[01:18:25] What's a sniffer mission I asked?
[01:18:29] This machine picks up ammonia which bodies give off in this heat in the form of first operation.
[01:18:35] When the machine gives off a reading of max, the operator will call out max mark, which means he has a large group giving off a lot of first operation.
[01:18:44] And we should engage.
[01:18:46] Problem first problem is not only do humans give off ammonia, but so do monkeys.
[01:18:52] So we'll probably be shooting a lot of monkeys.
[01:18:54] The second problem is in order for this to work, we'll be flying at tree top level at 60 knots.
[01:19:00] The two co-bris from L.O.B. will be 1,000 feet and following us and we'll engage if we call for fire or our taking fire.
[01:19:09] Bob and formed me.
[01:19:11] You're shooting me, right?
[01:19:12] We're going to fly at tree top at only 60 knots.
[01:19:15] I shit you not, Bob said with a grin.
[01:19:18] So that's an interesting one.
[01:19:20] Yeah, the sniffer missions were very interesting.
[01:19:23] The first time I took a hit near craft, we were flying along and the guy ran out max mark and about that time I claimed more and the top of the tree went off.
[01:19:31] And like a shotgun blast hit the front of the aircraft.
[01:19:35] But I am sure that more monkeys died than NVA from the sniffer missions.
[01:19:40] Stay the truth.
[01:19:41] It was.
[01:19:44] Now here's something that you mentioned before.
[01:19:48] Fast forward a little bit.
[01:19:49] Mike and I walked back to the aircraft and saw that I had a light load of ammo.
[01:19:54] Morning missions usually meant picking up empty water and mermaids cans from the night before and taking ammo in for the day ahead.
[01:20:00] As we started the aircraft, they've asked, have you done any hoverholes yet?
[01:20:05] Just around Long Bean, which I understand isn't much compared to this area I replied.
[01:20:11] He says back, you're about to experience the scariest thing about flying in Vietnam.
[01:20:16] Yes.
[01:20:17] Yes.
[01:20:18] So talk to us about talk to us about hoverholes.
[01:20:21] Ever holds.
[01:20:22] Long Bean, the vegetation around Long Bean was the biggest trees are only about 30 feet.
[01:20:26] Well scattered out, yet some brush and stuff like that.
[01:20:30] So it was pretty open to rain.
[01:20:32] You could find a Nell Z pretty easily.
[01:20:34] Nothing to it.
[01:20:35] Up along the Cambodian border, Song Bay region that we flew in a great deal.
[01:20:40] There it was different.
[01:20:42] There it was triple canopy jungle.
[01:20:44] The trees are about 300 feet high.
[01:20:47] And it was packed.
[01:20:48] There was no LZs.
[01:20:50] To get an LZ, you either had a bomb crater from an air strike or they were bringing a daisy cutter.
[01:20:56] In 15,000 pound bomb that had chains welded around the outside of the casing.
[01:21:00] They dropped it from the sea, went 30 on a parachute.
[01:21:03] And it had a probe on the end of it.
[01:21:05] And it would come down when it'd probe hit the ground that thing would go off.
[01:21:07] And it would make a nice one ship helicopter LZ.
[01:21:10] It would clean out every tree, every stump, everything.
[01:21:13] Just beautiful.
[01:21:14] But most of the time you didn't get that, you got the bomb crater from a B-52 strike to go down it.
[01:21:20] And so when you come in at that thing, here you are.
[01:21:22] You got a load on board.
[01:21:23] 30 water cans.
[01:21:25] You come in and I think you're looking for the wind.
[01:21:27] You want to land into the wind, turn into the wind.
[01:21:30] And you start down.
[01:21:31] You're at a hover and you're hovering down 300 feet.
[01:21:35] The eyes in the back are the crew chief and door gunner.
[01:21:37] And they're telling you, bring your tail right.
[01:21:39] Bring your tail left.
[01:21:41] Drop down.
[01:21:42] Stop. Come right.
[01:21:44] Come left.
[01:21:45] Start down.
[01:21:47] Stop.
[01:21:48] Move your tail to the left.
[01:21:49] And you worked your way down through those trees to get to the bottom at home.
[01:21:54] There were times I would look up through the greenhouse window.
[01:21:57] And I couldn't see the sky.
[01:21:59] These kids would wander.
[01:22:00] Make us come down.
[01:22:01] We'd slide around.
[01:22:02] Drop down a month.
[01:22:03] And then the tree limb.
[01:22:04] Slide back down.
[01:22:05] And then they'd tree limb.
[01:22:06] And start back down.
[01:22:07] Turn the tail boom.
[01:22:08] Slide down some more.
[01:22:09] And it takes all the eyes.
[01:22:11] One of them is Mike Krowls 8.
[01:22:12] I9 altered that aircraft.
[01:22:13] To bring that aircraft down into those holes.
[01:22:15] Are you working with the same aircraft the time?
[01:22:18] Yes.
[01:22:19] Well, they only the only person that it wasn't the same would be the right seat pilot.
[01:22:23] Aircraft commanders flew less seat.
[01:22:25] We rotated new guys through through the aircraft commanders.
[01:22:28] To be me, my crew chief my door gunner'd be always the same.
[01:22:31] And that's the full loadout.
[01:22:33] happi.
[01:22:34] My door gunner.
[01:22:35] That's the full loadout.
[01:22:36] Cool pilot.
[01:22:38] Pilate Cargonone crew chief.
[01:22:40] Yeah.
[01:22:41] So you know exactly when this guy says left a little bit. You know what that means. Yeah, in fact
[01:22:47] They would have to say
[01:22:49] Mr. Jackson
[01:22:51] Come left your other left
[01:22:54] So I
[01:22:56] Screw up. Oh, okay. How do you know?
[01:23:00] Yeah, that sounds freaking scary
[01:23:03] Um, you're having some some chat and Captain Bullock
[01:23:10] What's Captain Bullock's position? He was one of the two leaders. Okay, so he's one of the two leaders and he's got he's doing some introductions
[01:23:16] He says this is Lieutenant weed. He said indicating the new pilot Lieutenant weed was tall and Lanky with long blonde hair
[01:23:23] Reminding me of a California surfer which he claimed he was during his introduction
[01:23:27] We didn't pay much attention until someone asked him for his first name
[01:23:31] Richard was his response
[01:23:32] Luka didn't let that one go looking at the four of us. He said
[01:23:36] Probably loud enough to be heard by the group Lieutenant dick weed
[01:23:41] We couldn't keep it in all three of us were in hysterics. Luminating to straight face standing up and turning to Lieutenant dick
[01:23:47] We'd do introduce himself. Welcome sir on blue price heading back to the states in a month
[01:23:51] He said and left the mess hall lieutenant dick weed was in Vietnam on his first tour and he would prove to be a cocky guy
[01:23:57] If he wasn't in charge of something he tried to make himself in charge and a one more than one occasion was put in his place by a flight
[01:24:04] Leader or an aircraft commander he arrived the unit before I made aircraft commander
[01:24:09] So I was fortunate enough never have to fly with him. Yeah, he was one of those lieutenant's that the thought because he was a lieutenant
[01:24:14] He would be in charge of the aircraft
[01:24:16] It it took him a while to realize that no you don't get to be in charge of the aircraft until you're voted charge of the aircraft
[01:24:23] So we had many many times with lieutenant dick weed
[01:24:29] The night the night hunter killer missions you already you already kind of briefed what those were and
[01:24:35] That you prefer to be the bait. Oh, yeah, yeah, I'd much rather be the bait
[01:24:39] They were they were good missions a lot of times. She flew them down the rivers
[01:24:44] So you'd be flying along and and one of the reasons you liked it because you knew if you had an engine failure
[01:24:50] You'd be better off going into the river than you would in the jungle. So we always flew it right
[01:24:54] Just right along the edge of the tree line there
[01:24:57] But you'd fly long it was interesting
[01:25:00] You were looking for something you weren't just born a hole in the sky like the the cobra and the flair ship or
[01:25:06] You had the same crew all the time usually the guys that were on the search light and the star light scope
[01:25:11] That was usually somebody from the supply room or one of the kids at a maintenance that wanted to go out and do some
[01:25:16] The besides is normal job. So they would jump up and volunteer for that
[01:25:19] The 900 killer mission that crew got that mission from month
[01:25:24] So when everybody else was out flying in the daytime, we'd be sleeping and when they came back in
[01:25:28] That's when we were going back out
[01:25:30] So you got to work with the usually the same units and you got to know the the brigade staff at the you know
[01:25:35] Second brigade in the areas that you're working
[01:25:37] You got a good relationship with them that that carried over once you were back on day shift with these guys did you feel
[01:25:45] like
[01:25:47] safer because you're flying at night and it's hard to see how look after a night or was a little bit a little bit
[01:25:53] But then again, too, you know you know you know you're out there trying to get shot at
[01:25:57] We flew with the dopile estores open off took those off the aircraft what why is that?
[01:26:03] Because each one of the pilots we carry a nm79 grenade launch on his lap
[01:26:07] And we'd fired out the door if we needed to so and
[01:26:11] And it was just kind of nice to be able to look out there couldn't fly at the doors off during the day for some reason, but
[01:26:18] We like flying in at night like that so and and go an example there you talked about three times
[01:26:23] Same up there so you got the 50 cal on the back you got what a cobra gun ship as well with all their munitions
[01:26:29] But you guys had to make sure you had those m79
[01:26:32] That's right. We had a 50 on one side of 60 on the other and the two m79s and the laps
[01:26:37] The one time we got in trouble and it was one of the cases where we almost flew the mission three times the same way
[01:26:46] We were coming back we'd we'd flown twice up in song bay on the river
[01:26:51] So at the first night one way flew at the second night the same way the third night
[01:26:56] thought it's changed up
[01:26:58] So we came around and we flew at the opposite direction
[01:27:02] We're coming down and
[01:27:04] The cobra starts screaming at me you're taking fire and
[01:27:09] My crew chief he looked behind us and he said yes, we're taking 51 fire from my honest
[01:27:12] You could tell it's 51 because it looks like a flaming basketball
[01:27:16] Come on up at you and
[01:27:19] The cobra starts to roll hot and another 51 opens up in front of me and
[01:27:24] Then a third 51 opened up on the other side of the river and with that's the way they would do it
[01:27:28] They'd set up three 50 ones and try to catch you in the middle of the cone and they were set up perfect
[01:27:33] If I've been coming from the other direction I'd have been right caught between two of them easily
[01:27:37] But as it was one gun was out of position the flare ship dropped his flare
[01:27:41] And then we spotted all three of them and the cobra went to work and my crew chief which was our company commander at that time
[01:27:47] flying his first night hundred mission
[01:27:49] He was on the phone calling the artillery up so day
[01:27:53] the next day
[01:27:54] They went out and found what the results were and and then the mission went to another unit
[01:27:59] I
[01:28:00] warned them about that
[01:28:01] They did the same thing I did and
[01:28:04] The third day they got fire and they were ready with the artillery and the next day
[01:28:09] They went out and picked up please to ball three guns and about 21 bodies, so
[01:28:14] Are you getting shot at the 51 cows that is that green tracer coming at you?
[01:28:19] Yes, so that's the weird thing and I've talked about this with some other guys and be it that we're in Vietnam is
[01:28:25] For us
[01:28:26] Everyone has red tracer now. Yeah, so you just it's crit. It's it's not the different
[01:28:31] We don't have that distinguishing characteristic of green tracer
[01:28:34] Tracer is they look like flaming basketballs at night and daytime
[01:28:38] It looked like a bit you know flaming
[01:28:40] Hardball at night that was a basketball coming up. You just oh my god. There was no doubt in your mind
[01:28:45] But we're shooting at you
[01:28:51] Little leadership here major Anthony, so you get a new a new company commander major Anthony now the new company commander
[01:28:58] Justored they're looking over us and we at him no one said anything until he finally told us to take our seats
[01:29:03] He then went on to give us his philosophy on command and how he expected the unit to operate
[01:29:09] an hour an hour later in the club some discussions took place about what had been said
[01:29:15] Mike said Dan what did you get out of the major speech? I'm running wondering if I heard wrong
[01:29:21] What I heard was don't do anything that's going to jeopardize my success in command and we'll get along fine
[01:29:27] Do so and I'll be unmerciful upon you. Yeah, I heard that to Mr. Hester Greed
[01:29:32] I continued you know I've seen commanders like this when I was a kid with some of my dad's
[01:29:37] Skippers having a command is a is a mandatory is mandatory for a successful career
[01:29:42] Especially the higher up you go however managing and leading that command effectively and efficiently is what's important
[01:29:49] Some officers view it as a threat if their subordinates do anything that would reflect badly on them
[01:29:54] Major Anthony strikes me as that type will just have to wait and see I guess and he did not prove us wrong
[01:30:02] He was really afraid that we were gonna ruin his career and and his last comments when he finally gave up command was
[01:30:08] Well, I don't have you guys to ruin my career anymore, so I never saw him fly a mission a combat mission
[01:30:15] He'd fly the action trash going down a side gone to the PX and stuff like that
[01:30:20] He moved his tent
[01:30:22] Because we're living in tents at that time he moved his tent out to the flight line and he was sitting there in a chair and
[01:30:28] When you was time for you to launch hey check your times off if you launched late
[01:30:33] You're gonna hear about it that night when you got back in
[01:30:35] But he was very very much fearful of his career and I'm sure that his career puppy ended disastrously form I hope
[01:30:45] On April 16th
[01:30:46] 1969 I was flying with Mr. Driscoe returning from a long day in Kwon, Lloyd I said it right yep and Kwon, Lloyd area flying
[01:30:55] Re-supply of
[01:30:57] One of the infantry battalions it was late in the afternoon the sun was setting we were monitoring the four radios when we heard the Mayday call
[01:31:05] Mayday Mayday, Lobo one three is going down
[01:31:09] Mr. Driscoe a cobra just went to the bamboo at three o'clock set our crew chief specialist Grossman
[01:31:15] Lobo one three got off
[01:31:18] One call before he plowed into the bamboo he was in a dive on a gun run and pulled out to late
[01:31:24] Only being able to get the nose of the aircraft up but not enough to stop his downward motion
[01:31:30] He crashed into ten foot high bamboo and put the aircraft over on its side
[01:31:35] He was on top of an NVA bunker complex quickly Mr. Driscoe took controls for me and told me to plot our location and get out in
[01:31:43] Additional Mayday call which I did alerting everyone where we were while I did that Mr. Driscoe made an approach into a small clearing
[01:31:50] He'd spotted close to the down-dear craft and landed. It was just big enough for us to fit into the first thing
[01:31:55] I noticed was the NVA bunker opening not ten feet from my door
[01:32:00] I drew my 38 caliber pistol and pointed at the opening expecting someone to open fire at any moment
[01:32:06] The down crew is struggling to get the miniguns off the front of the cobra when they began taking small arms fire
[01:32:12] Specialist Grossman opened with the M60 machine gun shooting at nothing specific
[01:32:16] But in the direction of the enemy fire as did specialist Leonard our door gunner. I cocked my 38 in weighted as
[01:32:23] Soon as the down pilots got the miniguns off the down cobra
[01:32:27] They ran to our aircraft and Mr. Driscoe pulled power to get us out of there as both gunners were firing and I emptied my 38 at the bamboo
[01:32:35] worthless weapon the down pilots thanked us profusely for saving their butts as
[01:32:39] They occupied the other side of the chicken pen their CEO came over that night and bought drinks for us at his club
[01:32:46] Since we no longer had one he invited major Anthony who declined to drink with us
[01:32:51] But made sure we didn't fly the next day a few months later
[01:32:54] I came in from my flight and lying on my bed were orders for an air metal with V the down to air crew had put in our crew for the award
[01:33:03] There was nothing our CEO could do about it
[01:33:05] But instead of presenting the awards to us in front of the entire company he simply put them on our beds or at least had the orderly room clerk do it
[01:33:12] He did that as well for the crew chief and the door gunners awards the man held grudges his last words to anyone when he departed the unit after six months
[01:33:20] Was something to the effect of he wouldn't have us around the ruin his career. I think he may have done that on his own so
[01:33:27] His late his later-shame style
[01:33:30] When he first got there that first night
[01:33:33] And I put this in the book he came into the club which was our we had a big GP medium tense where our club was that and he came in and
[01:33:42] He asked he says how many who's flying them are?
[01:33:45] Well bunch of the guys raised the hand he sent gentleman no drinking 24 hours for you fly and
[01:33:51] And everybody's gone wait a minute
[01:33:54] But we fly every day and and that was his point
[01:33:58] Army of policy was you would not drink 24 hours for you fly or smoke within 50 feet of the aircraft well warn officer does it
[01:34:05] Make you didn't smoke 24 hours for you flew or drink within 50 feet of the aircraft but but he didn't go along with that
[01:34:11] So he shut the club down and
[01:34:14] That way there he could say if somebody crashed he could say hey, it's my policy
[01:34:20] They violated my policy because they drank the night before so they couldn't blame him. That's where he was
[01:34:25] Well the the copper company commander he'd fight us over so we went over there our company commander wouldn't go he made sure we didn't fly the next day
[01:34:33] but
[01:34:35] But yeah, it's just the way that man was
[01:34:38] Okay, well, I'm glad that you had a horrible leader, but damn going into that LZ landing on top of an NVA bunker complex grabbing those guys
[01:34:46] It was been mayhem
[01:34:48] Well, you had no choice. You don't leave somebody behind and that's kind of one of our models was you don't leave people behind
[01:34:54] You saw the cover go down
[01:34:57] We didn't know it was a bunker complex to we got on the ground there with them and I look over and I see this opening there
[01:35:03] And I've got this worthless pistol that you couldn't hit a thing with and
[01:35:08] But that's what you do and we did that many times over is that you're going to someplace it
[01:35:13] Because you had a crew down you go and you get the crew out
[01:35:16] Your aircraft taking the hits on that one. No, we didn't take any hits on that one
[01:35:21] No, that's just what you're doing
[01:35:24] No time to think about it. No no time to think about it
[01:35:29] If you thought about it you would have never become a helicopter pilot
[01:35:33] You know I had a bad guy by the name a Dean lad who is a
[01:35:37] Marine Corps officer in World War II and
[01:35:40] He was going into Taroa who and he'd already been into a couple other islands. I mean he was a he just
[01:35:49] Combat combat combat now he's going into Taroa and
[01:35:51] You know there's shelling in there's machine gun fire and
[01:35:56] I asked him I said so when you are getting out
[01:35:58] This is as they realize at Taroa, you know, they hit the coral reefs now
[01:36:02] They got a walk 800 yards and there's freaking Japanese machine gun fire coming
[01:36:05] I said we you know when you when you realize you're going to have to walk where you think and
[01:36:09] I might get shot or whatever
[01:36:11] He's like now that wouldn't happen to me. No, we'll happen to somebody else and that's pretty much what everybody
[01:36:16] Everybody says like it might happen and he ended up getting shot. You know getting God shot and somehow survived
[01:36:21] But the attitude of like well look it's going to be dangerous for other people
[01:36:25] But not for me. I think I think the helicopter potts for a large extent had that same attitude
[01:36:30] You know as hey we hate seeing aircraft go down
[01:36:32] It's going to be somebody go down, but it's not going to be me and you just you just didn't think about that happening to you if you did
[01:36:40] You probably wouldn't have finished the mission
[01:36:42] Yeah, it's going to say maybe you get a guy like your earlier company commander who had deployed already who had done a Taro over there
[01:36:49] And he had seen combat take to taking hits to his body and to his aircraft and eventually he realizes all this
[01:36:55] I'm not quite as good as it may be your thought as lucky as I think I am and I'm just going to sit back here
[01:36:59] Yeah, and I'm not invincible so and I could see that would happen with an old guy like that, but
[01:37:05] Young guys and that's the reason they have young guys to tell a copter pilots and crew chiefs
[01:37:09] That young guys just don't have any fear. Maybe we're not smart enough to have fear. Oh
[01:37:14] Yeah, I
[01:37:16] Absolutely absolutely
[01:37:21] Fast forward a little bit throughout the spring and summer of 1969 enemy forces attack fire bases along the border
[01:37:26] Their tactics were always the same waiting until after midnight the enemy would commence their attack with a mortar and rocket
[01:37:31] Parage and concert with sappers attempting to penetrate the wire followed by infantry waves attempting to penetrate the perimeter
[01:37:37] LZ grant was a favorite target of these attacks several times between February and May
[01:37:41] LZ grant experience major attacks the first in February saw the battalion commander lieutenant Colonel Gorvad killed when around hit the talk
[01:37:50] He was seriously wounded, but refused to leave the battle the enemy managed to penetrate the perimeter wire and
[01:37:56] Fighting was fierce to include artillery lowering the tubes and firing point blank into the charging enemy with anti-personnel shot
[01:38:03] Blue max gunships were called in and engaged the follow on enemy as well as pursuing those attempting to retreat
[01:38:11] In May LZ grant was under attack again simultaneously
[01:38:15] Kwon Lloyd LZ Jamie and LZ Phyllis also came underground assaults that night the enemy wanted the first cavalry division out of three core region
[01:38:24] Which was not going to happen. Yeah, they they they started stepping up the fight back then and
[01:38:29] And hit those three LZs at the same time that that had everybody up and scrambling we got pulled out in the middle of the night to start flying resupply in there
[01:38:38] And you had to be careful when you took the resupply in because you had you're trying to go in there
[01:38:43] But where the NBA at around that wire?
[01:38:45] So you're looking to see where most of the shootings at and you come in most of the time you come in fast and low and
[01:38:51] Kick out and just that's the way the grunts want if they didn't want to have to run out there to grab ammo or grab your aircraft
[01:38:56] But then as a day light came out then you'd start going in there and start getting more of the resupply in
[01:39:02] Bring in reinforcements in I talked about we did one night combat assault that we brought
[01:39:07] Reinforcements in and we put them about two clicks out and they were catching the NBA as the NBA
[01:39:12] We're trying to get back to Cambodia, but yeah, they started picking up hitting those fire bases pretty hard
[01:39:22] Fast forward a little bit. We had a new commander arriving August
[01:39:25] Who was a major improvement major Robert Saunders. I say that right Saunders. Yeah
[01:39:31] He was a leader and we recognize it almost immediately one of his first actions was to allow us to hire Hooch Mades
[01:39:37] previous commanders wouldn't hear of it
[01:39:39] So we cleaned our own tents now we had Hooch Mades that would come over from the village and clean out our rooms
[01:39:44] Do our laundry and shine our boots in an effort to raise morale
[01:39:48] Major Saunders directed that one Hooch would be turned into an officer into a club for the enlisted members of the unit
[01:39:54] There wasn't another there wasn't another empty Hooch available
[01:39:57] So he directed that the officers should build our own club
[01:40:01] We had an engineer RL RLO pilot and he drew up a design for the commanders approval with a design
[01:40:09] We then began a scavenger hunt for building material and before along we had an officer's club
[01:40:14] The brigade the engineer brigade headquarters poured a concrete floor for us and returned for some flight time for their projects
[01:40:22] Yeah, yeah, the about time Sanders got there. We moved out of the GP medium tents and moved to the other side of the chicken coop
[01:40:29] The other side of the chicken pan and took over some wood buildings
[01:40:34] That were Hooches and that's when Saunders said okay you can have Hooch Mades now
[01:40:37] But he said I'll tell you right now
[01:40:39] Ben and I've been he sex going on with the Hooch Mades and so the guys were they were pretty adamant about watching that that there would be no boom boom girls
[01:40:45] And that that increased morale significantly right there
[01:40:50] But then he said okay, there's an empty Hooch factory M club
[01:40:55] Officers if you want one you build it yourself and
[01:40:58] We did the engineer officer he drew up the plans for and we started scavenging and and scavenging stuff up. I seen to remember a pallet of
[01:41:07] 10 coming flying in one day on the bottom of the helicopter being delivered
[01:41:11] But it was a great little club they had I we had a stone bar that
[01:41:16] And we were located in a rubber tree plantation
[01:41:21] Taboo cutting down a rubber tree you didn't dare cut down a rubber tree
[01:41:24] In fact you could even run military operations in the in the
[01:41:28] Plantations rubber tree plantations
[01:41:30] So we built the bar out of stone and it went from the wall
[01:41:35] To a tree in the middle of the club. I mean it was a nice looking bar we got none of that
[01:41:40] You got new pictures of it. Oh, I wish I did I don't but we had this big tree growing up through the middle of the roof and
[01:41:45] So we built our club and it was sheet metal on the outside is tin roof
[01:41:49] We had a big cargo parachute that we requisitioned one day
[01:41:53] Spread out over the top of it for extra shade and we put we got two of those parachutes
[01:41:57] We put one over the elisted club as well. So the guys could sit outside and enjoy themselves outside. It was a nice club and
[01:42:04] We used to have the pilots and be over there and then a lot of the other pilots from other units or
[01:42:09] The engineer battalion brigade their headquarters guys have come over in the bed of act nurses would come over
[01:42:14] So it was pretty nice little place. So this is what called what do we call the club?
[01:42:18] They're just the club the chicken coop. What do we call it? Just call it the chicken house the chicken house. We had a chicken
[01:42:24] Your mask was a rooster
[01:42:26] For a dolly you could buy the rooster a shot of Scotch
[01:42:29] Rooster would not drink beer
[01:42:31] He drank. He drank Scotch. He drinks Scotch and that was it you'd buy a shot of Scotch for a doll of from from
[01:42:37] Sam our bar made and she'd set it down form of the rooster and walk over and he'd sit there and drink that Scotch
[01:42:41] And I about two of those that rooster couldn't walk anymore, but it was funny as hell watching that rooster
[01:42:46] What was the rooster's name rooster?
[01:42:50] The the seals that sealed team too during Vietnam had a had a
[01:42:54] Monkey that they brought home from Vietnam. Oh my god, and they had it on the quarterback and it was like the most
[01:43:00] Henri evil monkey the monkey's name was Joko
[01:43:06] Like you read the partner in our book about the monkey didn't you? What about it? Oh?
[01:43:10] Oh
[01:43:11] One of our pilots. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, where do you took it in the aircraft?
[01:43:15] Yeah, yeah, go ahead
[01:43:16] The guy is a he's a right seat pilot and they had to admit that not in the head these monkeys. They were given monkeys
[01:43:22] They're they get pretty damn big. Well, he bought one of them and it was kind of small and
[01:43:26] He brought it out to the aircraft. Thank god. It was not the aircraft commander that day
[01:43:30] So the monkey's sitting there and the monkey's jumping on his seat and he jumped over to the aircraft commander
[01:43:35] She's sitting then he climbed up on the first aid kit behind the aircraft commander scurry of on over in the first aid kit
[01:43:41] troops jump on board going for a combat assault and they think this is funny watching the monkey run back and forth
[01:43:47] two minutes out
[01:43:49] Cobbers roll hot one minute out the door gunners open up and when they opened up that monkey opened up with his bowels and his
[01:43:57] Piss all over the pilot all over the aircraft commander
[01:44:00] Scream and it said I'll find the aircraft commander reached up and grabbed him grabbed it by the neck and we're about 200 feet up
[01:44:05] Toss that monkey out the window
[01:44:07] I don't know if he learned how to skydive, but that monkey was gone
[01:44:10] But nobody would go near that crew that day. They stunk so bad
[01:44:15] Yeah, like I said I'm fast forwarded through a bunch of stuff. There's some stories in here. You've got a read for sure
[01:44:21] That's one of them
[01:44:23] The other one I was thinking that the monkeys and I'm not gonna cover today
[01:44:28] But the guys are calling in that there being attacked there surrounded and all this stuff and you guys got over top and said you're surrounded
[01:44:35] By monkeys. I we didn't tell those monkeys. We didn't we didn't want to we didn't want to bust the chops
[01:44:40] It was a brand new patrol leader. It was a a lyrs team out there. So we just went ahead and okay
[01:44:46] Yeah, we engaged the monkeys and they were able to any out of the area
[01:44:51] So we got back in the brigade talk I said hey
[01:44:54] What what the reports you get on the enemy situation at there might not quite be true
[01:45:05] Next up
[01:45:07] Ralph was a good aircraft commander a quiet man. He was the youngest pilot in the outfit as he joined the army right out of high school
[01:45:13] He was not a drinker and spent as evenings working on college correspondents courses his mission for that day was flying C and C
[01:45:19] For the divisions engineer Battalion commander the engineer Battalion commander wanted to fly out to where his engineers were working on various projects in the A O to see their progress
[01:45:29] Not unreasonable as they were scattered all over the A O improving roads building a school and supporting projects on the various fire bases
[01:45:36] The day started off normal and they were visiting the various locations however just after the lunch things changed
[01:45:42] The Colonel wanted to go on a recon of some areas
[01:45:45] Ralph agreed to fly those areas and be and proceeded to fly between
[01:45:50] Corn, Lloyd and Song Bay the Colonel was focused on looking for clearings
[01:45:55] Finally, he asked Ralph to take them down and land in one
[01:45:59] Ralph asked for the frequency and call sign of the unit in the clearing so he could contact them prior to landing
[01:46:03] Especially as he didn't see anyone in the clearing the Colonel came up with an excuse for why he couldn't provide the information and told Ralph just to land
[01:46:10] Ralph insisted on a call sign of frequency before you take the aircraft down the Colonel became I rate
[01:46:17] But when he accused Ralph of being a coward that was when things exploded Ralph reached up and disconnected his helmet from the inner calm system
[01:46:24] Took the controls from the co-pilot and headed back to camp go go gorevad
[01:46:30] The Colonel was live it Ralph didn't care didn't care reaching camp Corvad my saying his name or bad gorevad
[01:46:36] And that's named after the time the commander that that was killed during that assault
[01:46:41] Ralph landed at the engineering pad and told the Colonel politely but firmly to get out of his aircraft
[01:46:47] He then called our battalion headquarters on the radio which was being monitored by almost every pilot from the battalion
[01:46:53] And told them that he had just tossed the entost engineer six out of his aircraft and was returning to base to say the least
[01:47:00] Shit was about to hit the fan making that call on the radio
[01:47:03] Alerted every aircraft on the frequency as to what had happened
[01:47:07] However someone saw Ralph's position in this and nothing came of it at least on
[01:47:13] For Ralph
[01:47:15] Yeah, you talk about egos in the engineer had an ego and
[01:47:21] He was out to make himself a name for himself in the division. He was a fairly new guy and
[01:47:25] He would do that. He tried to get an aircraft to go down and clear ring without anybody being in the clearing to protect them
[01:47:32] Ralph's was smart enough to say no
[01:47:36] Call on Ralph a coward bad mistake Ralph had already had to silver start this point and distinguish flying cross
[01:47:43] This engineer batiny commander did that to my roommate and my roommate flew into the clearing
[01:47:49] They never came out the NBA were waiting for him and everybody was killed
[01:47:52] So Ralph did absolutely the right thing with this guy because of his ego wanting to impress everybody
[01:48:04] Yeah
[01:48:07] That you talk about that here exactly what happened when I this is fast forward a little bit when I returned from my mission
[01:48:14] That evening major Saunders approached my aircraft as I was shutting down
[01:48:18] Mr. Cori award police he said as opposed you open my door the major was standing in front of my aircraft and hadn't approached me
[01:48:25] Yes, sir. I unstrapped climbed out and came over to him
[01:48:28] It's a mystery Cori now instead of Dan what did I do wrong?
[01:48:31] Let's walk Mr. Cooper he called over his shoulder addressing my copilot sir
[01:48:35] Would you grab Dan's gear and put it and put it in his room?
[01:48:37] Please yes, sir. He called back with a question to look on this face
[01:48:41] We walk halfway back to the chicken coop with nothing said between us
[01:48:44] But we're angling towards his hooch finally he said Dan. I have some bad news
[01:48:50] Dave and YA were shot down today. I'm afraid the entire crew was killed
[01:48:55] YA was Dave's copilot for the day and fairly new to the unit
[01:48:59] I felt like I'd just been gut punched what happened sir as best as anyone could tell while supposedly flying from
[01:49:05] Queun Lloyd a boot-top the engineer Colonel had again gone on a recon and convinced Dave to land in a clearing
[01:49:11] A scout team happened to find the aircraft sitting there. It was obvious that someone had landed the aircraft before the enemy
[01:49:18] Open fire with some heavy weapons as the only damage to the aircraft was in the cockpit and transmission and none in the engine or belly
[01:49:25] The skids indicated a normal landing
[01:49:27] Dave and YA were still strapped in their seats and Sergeant Alfred the door gunner was in his as well
[01:49:33] The crew chief however was found about a hundred yards from the down-dear craft it appeared that specialist Collins fought as
[01:49:39] M.T. as M.T. 556 shell casings were around him, but not a weapon the aircraft was booby trapped the Colonel and his staff were dead in the back of it
[01:49:49] There'd been no friendly soldiers at the location
[01:49:53] Damn that son of a bitch has gotten more aircraft shot up than anyone damn his sorry ass and now he's gotten people killed at
[01:50:00] least his sorry ass was one of them bastard
[01:50:03] Major Sanders just let me rant while he opened a cabinet and pulled out a bottle of Johnny Walker scotch filling two clouds
[01:50:09] Glasses he handed one to me and raised his own two absent comrades to Dave YA Alfred and Collins
[01:50:19] A few days later I was sitting in my room writing a letter when my new roommate OE Richie came in from flying
[01:50:25] He looked troubled as he grabbed a beer and tossed his flight gear on the bed. What's up Richie? I asked
[01:50:31] Just a bad day saw my first crash and it was not pretty. He said finishing off the first beer and opening the second
[01:50:38] What happened was it one of ours? I asked no. It was a Charlie company bird and one of the pilots was in my fight class
[01:50:45] I
[01:50:46] Just been talking to him before we launched and now him and his crew are dead hit a tree
[01:50:50] Damn were you under fire?
[01:50:52] No, we were coming out of an LZ which we'd been in four times already and the blade on the right side
[01:50:57] Hit a tree at about 75 feet
[01:50:59] Rotor blade just came apart and they crashed and burned no one got out
[01:51:04] Damn sorry Owen who the pilots?
[01:51:06] Let's see worn officer Thomas Brown was in flight school with me
[01:51:11] Worn officer Dennis Varney was the AC specialist Marcin Shelby was the door gunner and the crew chief was specialist Robert Lazarus
[01:51:20] I just met them on now or before when I went over to talk to Tom
[01:51:25] O being another beer for myself. I raised it and tapped to Richie's beer in a toast to absent comrades
[01:51:32] A few nights later our platoon leader came walking down the hall the CEO wants CC everyone in the club
[01:51:38] He said we all started heading that way the CEO did not look happy
[01:51:42] Gentlemen take a seat after you get a beer he didn't have to say that twice after everyone was seated and holding a cold one
[01:51:49] The major raised his beer to absent comrades
[01:51:52] The look of shock and dread was on everyone's face. We all stood and raised our drinks to absent comrades
[01:51:58] We all repeated and chugged our beers still wondering who'd we lost?
[01:52:01] Motioning us to sit down the major looked over everyone before he started to speak Charlie company lost a crew last night
[01:52:08] They were on a night mission out of LZ buttons and ran into bad weather at about
[01:52:14] 0-200 hours
[01:52:16] They attempted to take off in the fog the grunts on the perimeter said they had all their lights on so they could see them in the soup
[01:52:22] The aircraft got to about 200 feet and then it crossed the perimeter wire
[01:52:27] They'd have as it crossed the perimeter wire it appeared to roll 90 degrees and crashed into the trees on the perimeter
[01:52:34] The whole crew was lost
[01:52:37] Yeah, that that period of time we started losing crews and we knew a lot of the crews in the other units because we flew a lot together
[01:52:44] a lot of times they'd have maybe a unit could put four birds up for a lift and you'd get tagged to put two your birds with them
[01:52:50] See you got to know the other crews and the other pilots as well
[01:52:52] But this period of time when Saunders got there that's when we started losing a lot of birds and it kept right on up for the rest of the time
[01:52:59] I was there
[01:53:01] The night birds the who had minimum minimum instruments for weather flying and
[01:53:07] If the guys didn't practice their weather flying they were rusty at it and tried to pull off from the fog
[01:53:13] That sounds like what happened there. You just wasn't on his instruments that tight and
[01:53:17] He lost control of the aircraft hitting the tree that happened frequently in fact
[01:53:22] My last mission one of my last missions one of our birds in a tree had about 75 feet up and we got one guy out
[01:53:30] We didn't think he would make it but
[01:53:33] Last summer I had lunch with him at the congressional golf club in Washington, DC and he pulled through
[01:53:39] He's in a coma for six weeks, but he looks good
[01:53:42] He said from the neck daddy said I'm one big scar, but from the face up he looked John look pretty good, so
[01:53:52] And the thing isn't I think a lot of times
[01:53:56] People don't understand I mean when this stuff is happening the war goes on oh
[01:54:00] Yeah, it's like okay
[01:54:02] We still have a mission to do we're still gonna get the birds spun up we're still gonna go out and do our job
[01:54:06] Yeah, now you still you got to put it behind you at that time
[01:54:10] I don't know how it wasn't other units, but at that time in our unit we never did have a memorial service
[01:54:16] Well, somebody was lost the
[01:54:18] Just before I left we had a guy that we all loved nearly a crew chief and
[01:54:23] We're on a combat assault and he got shot in the arm pit
[01:54:26] Well, the chicken plate didn't cover the arm pit and he died we had a memorial service for him
[01:54:31] But anybody else we lost the the memorial service was get drunk in the club that night
[01:54:35] so a lot of us just didn't have any and he good thoughts
[01:54:40] About when we left there so it was
[01:54:44] It was good to see good good to have a drunk fest anyway with the guys
[01:54:53] Fast forward a little bit my crew and I arrived at the aircraft and conducted our pre-flight good morning
[01:54:59] Pozy how she look I asked my crew chief all good missed all good Mr. C answered as you close the engine
[01:55:05] Cowling quill and how's it guns and ammo I asked my gunner fresh cans ammo this morning Mr. Curry were good Mr. Cory were good
[01:55:12] He responded I climbed up and looked over the roader head while my coat pilot for the day worn off
[01:55:17] Sir Ron Fender did the walk around inspection and tail rotor all appeared to be good
[01:55:21] We strapped in start of the engine and waited ready ready to assume the mission if called upon
[01:55:27] Hey one nine or two seven is down assume his mission in contact Badger six when you reach quann loy for further instructions
[01:55:36] Flight operator instructed Roger 3 and the one nine or has it I started pulling power oh guy
[01:55:41] Okay guys coming out about this time I saw chip rumble chicken man two seven along with his co-pilot
[01:55:47] War officer McCartney waving to me and running over I set the aircraft back down
[01:55:52] Jumping on the skid next to my door chip ass. Hey Dan. I'm I'm low time pilot for the month. Let me take the mission
[01:55:58] He had just returned from a seven day R&R trip to Hawaii and hadn't flown much for the past month
[01:56:03] You got it. I said is Ron and I unstrapped and climbed out turning over the aircraft aircraft to chip and McCartney
[01:56:10] We watched as they hovered out of the chicken pen and onto the runway
[01:56:13] We were walking back to flight operations when they started down the runway and disappeared behind the trees
[01:56:18] Reaching flight operations we went in first class Sergeant first class Robinson was crying
[01:56:25] He saw us and immediately got a shot look on his face. Oh my god. Who's flying your aircraft?
[01:56:29] The asked I told him why what's the problem?
[01:56:31] They got off the runway and we're climbing out when the rotor head came off
[01:56:36] They're all dead
[01:56:38] Yeah, I was stunned and suddenly sick to my stomach outside I threw up Ron dropped through his knees and started and stared at the ground
[01:56:45] I went back to my room and just sat on my bed 30 minutes later major Saunders stock stopped by
[01:56:50] You okay Danny asked. I don't know sir. I checked that heading it all look good
[01:56:54] What happened? I don't know but the accident investigation board will figure it out. You just take it easy
[01:56:59] He left
[01:56:59] But about an hour later. He was back Dan. I hate to ask you but can you take a mission?
[01:57:03] It seems Lieutenant weed is to upset to fly his mission and his brought back his aircraft
[01:57:09] Lieutenant weed was close to chip the aircraft commander. Yes, sir. I got it. I picked up my gear
[01:57:14] I'll walk out with you. I want you to see
[01:57:17] I want to see just how upset he is the major and I walked together to the flight line
[01:57:21] We didn't say much as there wasn't a lot to say I didn't expect what came at me as soon as Lieutenant weed saw me
[01:57:27] He threw his helmet on the ground and came at me. You son of a bitch Cory
[01:57:31] This is your damn fault major Saunders step between us Lieutenant stop right there get your shit and go to your room
[01:57:36] Not another word. Do you hear me now go turning to me the CO said Dan forget this and get on with the mission
[01:57:43] This wasn't over however that night at the club lieutenant weed proceeded to allow me bowed mouth me
[01:57:49] I let it go as he was lieutenant and I was just a warrant, but I finally had enough
[01:57:52] Hey lieutenant dick weed with all due respect for your rank go to hell
[01:57:55] I knew using his full name as modified by the worn-offsters would piss him off and it did with that
[01:58:01] He was up and headed straight for me. I was off my bar stool and eager to get it on with him looking forward to hurting him
[01:58:06] I was not a brawler but could hold my own in a fight just before he got to me captain Armstrong
[01:58:12] A platoon leader step behind him and jerk him off his feet
[01:58:17] Don't you dare move lieutenant captain Armstrong was an infantry officer of considerable size very tall and very muscular
[01:58:24] He was a no-nonsense man Mr. Cory. I think you should retire for the night now
[01:58:28] He told me yes sir and I departed back to my room in the worn-offsters hooch
[01:58:32] After any aircraft accident and accident investigation has held my copilot was interviewed as were the assistant maintenance officer and myself
[01:58:41] The crash site was well was examined as well
[01:58:44] The rotor head was flown to a general aviation support facility at Vung to and examined
[01:58:51] The results were posted and indicated that the rotor headed not come off
[01:58:55] But it failed the rotor head that had been put on the aircraft the night before was a rebuilt one
[01:59:01] During the rebuilding the bolt holes for the bolts that held the pitch change horn had been cleaned and resized
[01:59:09] 1 millimeter
[01:59:10] However, the same original bolt sizes were installed upon the U.S. NS
[01:59:15] Court this Christie afloatting aircraft overhaul facility those original bolts were one millimeter too small
[01:59:23] Between the test flight and the takeoff the bolts holding pitch change horn had failed due to the stress
[01:59:29] And the result was a loss of control over the blades making the aircraft unstable in flight the
[01:59:34] Investigation board found that there was no way to the assistant maintenance officer or I could have found the problem as the bolts hadn't twisted out
[01:59:42] But it's simply an instantly torn out
[01:59:45] The bolts were never found but the condition of the bolt holes told the story
[01:59:50] Easy for them to say but this would haunt me every day
[01:59:53] I couldn't help but think that it was something I should have caught on the pre flight
[01:59:57] It could have been me and my co-pilot we had come that close
[02:00:05] Yeah, that's that it's and it just wanted me for a long time
[02:00:10] I lost posy I lost Quinn and
[02:00:14] It was that close that
[02:00:17] That we almost bought the farm the maintenance officer had flown the bird the night before after they put the rotor head on it and
[02:00:22] All seemed well and then we got out here on the morning and looked at it. I did the rotor head
[02:00:29] The safety wires were all in place the slippage marks were all lined up and everything looked good and
[02:00:35] But when chip went out he pulled full power when he came off the end of the runway and those four bolts that hold that pitch change horn on
[02:00:43] They just blew out and
[02:00:46] They said when they made this officer told me so when we took it down the long time
[02:00:50] They looked in there they could see where the threads had just been ripped apart they hadn't they hadn't been screwed out
[02:00:56] They could just where the bolts exploded out of there. So we lost the crew lossy aircraft
[02:01:12] Talk about some other missions that you did you talk about doing some sioffs missions
[02:01:15] Yeah
[02:01:17] Which yeah, they didn't like me to do sioffs missions. Why is that? Well, I did that one mitsiops mission and and
[02:01:25] You know, it was just after David died. It was just after
[02:01:28] Chip McCartney and we killed and
[02:01:30] They say okay, you're gonna go out there fly the sioffs mission. Okay, so they put these big loud speakers in the sight of the aircraft
[02:01:35] And this Vietnamese captain jumps in and they say okay, why don't you go out there's crossroads?
[02:01:40] So we fly out to this crossroads where at 2500 feet
[02:01:43] Who are flying around this guy's in the back of the aircraft? You know, sing song Vietnamese language for two hoys, right?
[02:01:48] Yeah for two hoys. You can try to get the North Vietnamese surrender
[02:01:52] So I courage you've loved life at that time and
[02:01:55] Look, that says hey, just a quarry. There's a bunch of guys down here in the in the bamboo. They're digging trenches
[02:02:00] Right alongside the intersection. So yeah, so I look over there. I thought shit there. They are and V.A. Down here
[02:02:07] and
[02:02:09] I turn to the American sergeant. I said hey
[02:02:12] Yeah, you think those guys can hear from us meet up at 2500 feet when she likes to go down a little lower
[02:02:17] He goes just a quarry nobody will fly at 1515 hundred's idea. I said how taken 15 hundred
[02:02:23] So as I'm lower in the aircraft down to 1500 flying this orbit around these North Vietnamese guys
[02:02:27] And I turn to my copies and get song Bay artillery on the line
[02:02:31] He calls up song Bay Artians is fire mission standby
[02:02:35] Give some of the coordinates there. He thing we get down there
[02:02:37] Sure enough and V.A. start shooting up at us. So I said we're taking fire and he says
[02:02:43] He said yeah, we're on Mr. Bridges. You need to go back up. I said no, we need to get a little further out
[02:02:47] So I've just moved out a little bit further. Let's keep shooting
[02:02:49] Well, that's what I call the artillery and autumn and the Vietnamese captain in the back. He just went ballistic
[02:02:54] I mean, you know, they're supposed to surrender and I said well if he talks at him now
[02:02:58] They're gonna be more willing to surrender after we hit him with smart artillery
[02:03:01] We did we put about 12 rounds in there on top of these guys and
[02:03:04] And after that the Vietnamese guy didn't want to argue with any more
[02:03:08] He took back in the American captain charge of the soaps program. He came up. He says
[02:03:12] We're gonna have to crash scratch this mission office of failure. I said hey, you know
[02:03:17] They started shooting first and I was protecting my crew and you're crews well
[02:03:20] So he's he just kind of laughed at me and he tapped me on the show. He says yeah, got it. I understand
[02:03:26] I hated sobs missions
[02:03:29] This was crazy
[02:03:31] Your dad was still in the Navy at this time. Yeah, and he's now an officer and he's in freaking
[02:03:38] Saga. Yeah, yeah, he was living well
[02:03:41] He was one of the ramps. He was one of the ramps and Saga
[02:03:44] Well deserved every
[02:03:46] Three-fought World War II was on submarines. I got no with rope problem with him
[02:03:50] Enjoying some five and Saga. So I went and asked a couple of commanders. I said hey sir
[02:03:53] This was Sanders still I said
[02:03:56] And he was Cassandra was getting cords his end of his tour
[02:03:58] So I said hey my dad's in Saga on
[02:04:02] Could he come up in five three days with me or something like that my thought centers is a thing
[02:04:05] You know, you know, no hell no they said sure bring him up
[02:04:08] Okay, we'll bring him up so dad came up and I picked him up in Saga and he jumped in the front seat
[02:04:14] We're before you get there when you're in Saga
[02:04:17] I know you went to a officer's club with him. Oh, yeah, and they come to kick you out
[02:04:22] Well as you're going into the officer's club
[02:04:23] You see like a bunch of nice pistols hanging up on the wall and you're thinking yeah, unskilled no one's watching them
[02:04:30] And you're thinking well, that doesn't seem very smart. So then you sit down having some lunch with your dad
[02:04:34] They kicked us out they kick you out because you're not a field great officer, which is a major lieutenant commander above
[02:04:42] So they kick you out on your way out
[02:04:45] Some of those weapons with you
[02:04:47] So you end up with a nice instead of that 38 caliber pistol that wasn't very effective you end up with a
[02:04:55] 45 a nice 19 11. I'm sure not that's not quite this the right way
[02:05:00] Let's just say that when I got back to light. K. I had a brand new 45
[02:05:04] Okay
[02:05:06] So so your dad ends up freaking coming up. How old you're dad at this point?
[02:05:10] That's probably about 43 44. Okay. He's in the game. Oh, yeah, he's in the game. He's
[02:05:19] I think he was
[02:05:21] He was about 50 when he retired from the Navy and this was three years before he retired from the Navy
[02:05:25] So he's in his late 40s okay, so he came up and what was he doing? What was he some kind of a liaison or something?
[02:05:32] No, no, he was in J6 at Mac Veehead Corps communications and I guess I can say it now
[02:05:39] It's not class funny more but he was working on the communications plant for the repatriation of POWs
[02:05:43] God is is what he was doing at the time so
[02:05:47] So he came up to like a and
[02:05:50] Spend about three days with it flew as my a crew chief or no, he's flew as my door gunner
[02:05:55] Give my my crew chief at some time off, but he did good
[02:05:58] He had had has asked you a little bit. Yeah, so tell us about the first gunfight
[02:06:03] Yeah, that's a good one. Yeah, we're a flat along there and
[02:06:06] He's working the LZs and and he's doing good clearing this in clearing this out stuff like that
[02:06:11] So we got the troops on board
[02:06:12] troops all get on the aircraft and dad uniform as the same as ours of fatigues and
[02:06:18] He had his major is Lieutenant Commander's leaf on you
[02:06:21] Which is just a little smaller than the the army major leaf the grunts are back there in the back and all of a sudden
[02:06:26] Somebody starts pulling on my collar
[02:06:28] I've looked over this grunts pulling I can go
[02:06:31] Hey, sir, what's your rank?
[02:06:33] I said I'm a W2 why and he goes
[02:06:35] Damn did that major back there screw ups. It's easier door gunner
[02:06:40] So then I told them no, it's my dad. He's flying with us. So they thought that was pretty cool
[02:06:43] So we going on this combat assault
[02:06:45] We were in a chop five or six position and
[02:06:49] We're going in on a staggered right formation so you got one aircraft in front of you and you got one off the side
[02:06:55] Six minutes out the artillery goes in the artillery cuts off it two minutes out the coppers roll hot one minute out
[02:07:01] Door gunners open fire and right away we start seeing green tracers and
[02:07:06] I hear my crew chief's gunfire in but I don't hear my dad's and I said dad open fire
[02:07:13] Nothing and I'm thinking oh shit. He's been hit and I turn over my shoulder and look
[02:07:20] He's standing on the skids. He's got his monkey harness on and he's taking pictures out in front
[02:07:27] I got on that right I got on the intercom is a dad get your ass in here and get on it
[02:07:33] God damn gun
[02:07:35] He gets on the gun. Well we got back
[02:07:37] We had a discussion about
[02:07:40] Crew chief do the he's a door gun on the air guy and he wrote my mother and he says you know
[02:07:44] I've had a lot of ass tunes in my Navy career, but that's the worst one I've ever had and he took it
[02:07:48] I'll give him credit. He took it
[02:07:50] quite well and
[02:07:53] He came back fluids about three or four times that's crazy
[02:07:56] I like this this conversation you had with your dad. It says he says I noticed one thing different about
[02:08:02] Those air force pilots from you guys air force pilots seem to be outgoing and always in a positive mood
[02:08:08] Versus you guys who always seemed withdrawn and pensive he explained and then you replied dad and air force pilot is that way
[02:08:15] Because he's flying a machine that wants to fly and if left alone will generally fly quite well on its own
[02:08:21] In addition compared to a helicopter an airplane has very few moving parts that can cause a serious malfunction on the other hand
[02:08:28] Helicopter pilots fly a machine that does not want to fly and only does and only does so by the
[02:08:34] Interactions of the pilot to balance four forces all opposed to each other
[02:08:38] plus a helicopter has a lot of moving parts any of which
[02:08:42] Breaking can and does cause a major disaster
[02:08:45] Helicopter pilots are moody because we know something is going to break if it hasn't done so already
[02:08:51] That's right that gave the old man something to think about it. Dad had flown with the one of the things he did when he came up at a
[02:08:57] Like we had a OV10 squadron that flew out of there the Broncos and
[02:09:03] We got him a ride in one and he went out and flew with him. He flew with a Captain Rider and was straight in captain
[02:09:08] It was an exchange officer and he thought that was pretty cool out there flying with those guys and
[02:09:12] And so when he came back in that night that's when this this conversation came up about you know
[02:09:17] The fighter pilots there just jovial and happy and et cetera and you guys you're all kind of
[02:09:21] Moody and down in the dumps. I said yeah, and that's why you know we fly something that doesn't want to fly a
[02:09:26] Harry Reesner about
[02:09:29] 1973
[02:09:30] wrote a great article about
[02:09:33] Helicopter pilots and helicopters and it's it's kind of long that same line is what what dad-nice conversation was
[02:09:40] Yeah, well, it's like you said a plane
[02:09:44] You can you can let go of the stick and it'll kind of just cruise for a while. Yeah, it'll fly itself
[02:09:50] But a helicopter is not that's not happening. That's not happening. That's not happening
[02:09:54] They have now a helicopter that do have an autopilot on them, but in those days
[02:10:00] Do you like go with those controls in the Huey?
[02:10:02] Yeah, they're telling where she's gonna go
[02:10:04] Mm-hmm
[02:10:08] Fast forward a little bit you get you eventually get orders and you're gonna go to Fort Ord which to you sounds great
[02:10:14] Because it's up by mom and rain you start like thinking oh I'm gonna California. I'm gonna beat
[02:10:18] Yeah, but it's gonna be awesome and then you start asking people about what the deal is and you start hearing that it's actually horrible to be there
[02:10:25] It's expensive as hell and the high school kids are driving around in jags and Mercedes and and you're gonna
[02:10:31] Barely scrape by won't be able to afford to anything as a worn officer and
[02:10:36] So you figure out okay, I'm gonna try and get my orders changed and you go talk to your CEO and
[02:10:43] And you say hey can I get my my orders change?
[02:10:46] He's like no, I can't do that. Well, you think I think I'm magic and then he says now wait one
[02:10:50] There is a way you can change your orders now as excited there is how
[02:10:54] You can extend for six months and stay in nom he was grinning
[02:10:58] Did he have something to do with my RFO?
[02:11:00] I wondered sir you're kidding hell I've already had my cherry busted had a door gunner wounded had hydraulic failure and a compressor stall
[02:11:07] Added that over 1300 hours of flying here. I didn't mention the aircraft had gone down with the pitch change horn failure
[02:11:15] The one I'd almost ridden in he knew that was on the score card without me mentioning it
[02:11:20] Yeah, you've racked up some time, but that's only but that's the only choice you have think about it and he headed to the bar
[02:11:27] Yes, yeah
[02:11:28] And I really thought at the time I thought well hey he just changed my orders not a problem
[02:11:32] But no, it wasn't but hey, man though and the
[02:11:37] Patoon leader the tenant your bow chop or Captain bow shop
[02:11:41] They had probably already worked this out ahead of time. I'm thinking they didn't have anything to do with me getting orders to ord
[02:11:47] But put in the idea of my head to extend and up to this time we had not had guys extending at least for our unit and so when I said okay
[02:11:56] I'll extend I'm thinking I'll go to a meta-vac unit which is what you kind of wanted to do
[02:12:01] Yeah, because you don't have to fly in for me. Yeah, so because I have to fly formation
[02:12:05] but then
[02:12:07] Bochampus so they so they get you to extend yeah, they got you to say listen yeah
[02:12:11] You don't go to meta-vac unit will be in the rear with the gear
[02:12:13] You know and you'll have to fly the nurses and you'll be nurses there in the whole nine yards
[02:12:17] So you agree you seem like a good idea
[02:12:20] You're not gonna get it or you can go back to someplace once you get orders you'll go back to someplace better than ord
[02:12:25] And so you get that extension yep and then and then you guys go out you can do some drinking and and now you guys are drinking hard
[02:12:33] I'm gonna order the book after about an hour this is a complete about an hour about people feed new drinks
[02:12:37] The company clerk came up to me in the officers club and asked me to sign some papers
[02:12:41] What's this for I asked with a slight slur and blurry eyes?
[02:12:44] I was becoming as drunk as our rooster
[02:12:47] Who frequented in the club each night with Fed Scott's a damn rooster would not drink beer expensive taste
[02:12:51] Oh, it's just some paperwork. I need your signature for on the extension
[02:12:55] He said and I signed it without another thought. I thought I had submitted everything as he left the RLOs
[02:13:00] Excuse themselves slapping each other on the back and laughing their asses off two nights later
[02:13:05] I found out what was so funny the major wanted all the pilots in the club for meeting and
[02:13:10] And then he goes in there and he announces that
[02:13:14] I'm happy to announce one of our
[02:13:16] Chickens has decided to stay in the coupe Mister Cori has graciously modified his extension to remain with us instead of going to a
[02:13:24] MetaVac unit. Thank you, Dan
[02:13:26] That's what happened. Oh, yeah, you got your drunk and you signed papers to stay on I did then
[02:13:32] Right after he announced well the who's in the new instructor pilot and
[02:13:36] One of the pilots asked not and they just kind of grin and he looked around he goes
[02:13:39] Mister Cori's the new instructor pilot so it's also about the instructor duties
[02:13:43] Yeah, the instructor duties you're the unit instructor pilot and your job was to
[02:13:47] When a new pilot showed up in the unit they flew with you
[02:13:51] Their first orientation flight would be with you and then frequently they would fly with you then
[02:13:55] Well, it major decided that since I was gonna take my extension leaving about a month and a half
[02:14:01] He wanted me to fly with new pilots only
[02:14:04] So a pilot a new pilot would come in and we had two come in right away almost Mr
[02:14:09] I forget the one gentleman's name the other one was Dumas but I would fly with one on one day and fly with the other one the other day and
[02:14:16] Fights and first the days they weren't flying with me
[02:14:18] They'd be flying with another AC
[02:14:20] But it was my job to teach them combat flying combat other rotations combat takeoffs how to get real hoverhole
[02:14:27] Those sorts of things and you're still doing your normal missions. Oh, yeah, what's going on? Why with the new guys? Yeah, yeah
[02:14:32] You just you you fly the normal missions just now you got really new guys flying with your right seat
[02:14:42] On May 4th 1969 two aircraft from our sister company company be joined information with the second aircraft in a right echelon
[02:14:49] To the first the second aircraft attempted to pass the first aircraft on his right side
[02:14:54] There was a miscommunication between the two aircraft resulting in a mid air collision all crew members on both aircraft were killed
[02:15:00] Yeah, yeah, when you flew formation
[02:15:04] You flew at my SOP
[02:15:06] But if you were gonna do something outside of the the normal formation flying like trying to pass somebody on the opposite side
[02:15:13] You had to be sure and communicate with them
[02:15:15] So that everybody understand what you're gonna do and evidently there was a lack of communications with these two guys and one flew right into the other
[02:15:24] You know
[02:15:25] You had to worry about getting shot at you had to worry about the aircraft maintenance failure and you had to worry about somebody flying into you
[02:15:32] Yeah, I was telling you earlier that
[02:15:37] Pilot was never really my kind of thing like I have no desire to be a pilot
[02:15:41] That's one that's like couple the reasons right there
[02:15:43] I like relying on some big big machine with a bunch of parts that I don't understand
[02:15:47] That's gonna keep me alive and keep my friends alive. I'll like that if it was just a matter of trusting each other
[02:15:52] Yeah, I I trusted a hundred percent the guys in our unit that I flew with
[02:15:58] 90 percent the guys in other units I didn't fly with
[02:16:01] So but you had that trust and bond built up amongst you know you all went to the same flight school
[02:16:06] You all understood about what what the different formations were and so you didn't do anything radical and even when we would fly
[02:16:12] You know our company would fly out there company because we all flew by an SOP
[02:16:17] We had a system we understood the system and so things were relatively safe
[02:16:22] It's when somebody would go do something like this that's out of the ordinary that that people got killed
[02:16:28] Yeah, and this is because everyone's relying on each other so much. I mean it's similar in the sealed teams if somebody
[02:16:34] If somebody's outside
[02:16:38] It's if the job is outside their capability like it's a non-starger that's why I like what what I like
[02:16:43] What you guys had with the with the AC in order to be an aircraft commander
[02:16:48] You had to get the thumbs up from the other ACs
[02:16:50] There's a standard there that you can't compromise because it's truly putting everyone else at risk. That's right everybody
[02:16:59] Fast forward a little bit
[02:17:01] Coming around the end of the valley I climbed up the ridge and popped up looking south right down the runway
[02:17:05] This is just out on another freaking mission. What you're doing all the time. There's a sniffer mission
[02:17:09] On the on the left specialist linemen started shooting the sniffer team let loose with a 40 millimeter round
[02:17:15] I'm not under the bamboo canopy on the edge of the runway was a regular village of NVA soldiers lying around somewhere in uniform
[02:17:23] Some lying in hammocks some cooking chow tables were made out of bamboo as were chairs
[02:17:27] They were totally surprised as were we and this is there they're occupying a
[02:17:32] Abandoned airfield. Yeah, so that's why you see an airfield and there's an NVA right there
[02:17:38] Low-vo on my left in the bamboo fire I screamed as I increased power in airspeed rapidly staying low to the ground
[02:17:43] I had never seen so many enemy soldiers before as soon as I spoke 2.75 inch rockets were slamming into the bamboo and as NVA troops
[02:17:51] Ran and dove for cover low-vo was firing ripple effect
[02:17:55] Automatically launching 28 rockets would just one pole to trigger and punching the target
[02:18:00] Then as many gun opened on the tree line on my left as we were hauling ass down the runway as we cleared the abandoned
[02:18:06] SF camp and runway we stayed low level until we were confident we could climb to altitude and knock at hit by a 51
[02:18:12] Cal Machine gun but something wasn't right and in the field of the aircraft the cyclic felt stiff and was getting
[02:18:20] Stiffer Mr. Corey we have a problem the housing for the push pole to be shot away and each time you move the
[02:18:25] Cyclic control it's binding the rods can you fix it? I was surprised at how calm I sounded when I was
[02:18:31] Shitting bricks here no sir. I could hold up the tubes, but then I would be flying the aircraft from here
[02:18:36] He said well, what do you suggest?
[02:18:38] Slowly descend and find a clear area that we can do a running landing into you might be able to rate raise the nose, but it will be a one-time move
[02:18:46] Not to be countered by attempting to lower the nose. Okay, I can do this running landings were practiced and the further south
[02:18:52] I flew the better terrain for this a runway would be nice, but the closest was song bay and it was laid out East to West
[02:19:00] Whereas I was flying north to south that ain't going to work guys start looking for an open area what about the road?
[02:19:06] Bruce said he was now
[02:19:08] On his third cigarette since I'd taken the controls damn he better save a couple for me. I thought in the distance
[02:19:13] We could see a straight stretch, but the trees were close and the sides were lined with bamboo
[02:19:18] It's gonna have to do I want everyone up forward and seat belts on linemen make sure everyone is strapped in tight as I got to treetop level with the road
[02:19:26] Under the chin bubble. I started easing up on the I started easing the nose up slowly the air speed began to bleed off
[02:19:32] 89 70 not 60 knots and our speed continued to drop we were slapping the tops of bamboo stocks now 20 knots
[02:19:40] Bamboo stocks were breaking off and I could feel the main roader
[02:19:44] Buffeting as we hit thicker vegetation
[02:19:46] I just didn't want to know what kind of vegetation at this point just don't let us hit a hardwood tree trunk and rip the rotor head off
[02:19:53] At 20 knots the skids touched the ground and we're sliding along
[02:19:56] Steering with the pedals to maintain a straight line broken bamboo was whirling about as if it was in a tornado as the aircraft came to a stop
[02:20:04] I was shutting the engine down while linemen and Dietrich had the guns in hand with belts of ammo in their arms and
[02:20:10] And we were unassing the aircraft as Mike landed right behind me
[02:20:14] He didn't worry about tree limbs one look at my rotor blades told him that I'd cleared out everything for him as if a giant lawnmower had passed over the bamboo field as
[02:20:23] Mike flew us back to Song Bay Dietrich had asked the question that I knew was coming
[02:20:28] Hey Mr. Sinky was at your first time shot down Bruce walked into a yeah, I've only been in country a couple months
[02:20:34] Thank you sir. You're buying the beard and night. I considered it
[02:20:37] I considered if I should speak up as well as it was my first then Mike spoke up hey Mr. Corey that's your first two, isn't it?
[02:20:45] There'll be lots of free beard tonight guys. I started to protest but to know a veil
[02:20:50] Yeah, yep, yep, yep, they took a we took one round
[02:20:54] And it's all it hit us, but it hit right on the housing for the the push pull to for the for the slide click
[02:21:01] So every time I move that cycle I can feel it's starting to bind up I didn't dare
[02:21:05] Try to move it left or right because I you know, I did not want the aircraft in a turn and it just so I just get moving it forward and back
[02:21:12] And finally we just found a straight stretch of rodent said okay, let's let's go down the road and we practice running landings all the time
[02:21:19] So that was no big deal. I was just worried that I wasn't gonna get that nose far enough back up to slow the aircraft down
[02:21:25] Now last thing I want to is what you're doing
[02:21:27] 60 not sliding down that road and my skids
[02:21:31] So making sure we had enough room to ease that nose up and keep that aircraft and sliding too fast
[02:21:37] But yeah Mike Mike saw a good at he heard the Mayday logo put out a Mayday for me as well and
[02:21:44] They got in four hours later. She knew came in pick the aircraft up and flew it back to like A and yeah
[02:21:50] That's what's crazy you these helicopters you get shot down and you just leave the bird and then a CH 40 47 would come in
[02:21:58] Strap on to the thing and take it on well what happened is that a bird would go down and first in the night's calf
[02:22:03] They always had a rapid reaction force this called their blues and they would fly in that rapid reaction force
[02:22:08] Into where the aircraft was if it was salvageable set security yet set security and then they'd hooked the the aircraft up to a CH
[02:22:15] 47 and 47 would pull the aircraft out and fly it back to its own base and
[02:22:19] That's all they did with this one. They replaced the rotor blades. They replaced the bell housing on the bottom and that was it two days later
[02:22:25] That bird was back up and flying again
[02:22:27] Now when you did you get that you stand your own bird
[02:22:32] The like all the time or you always find the same bird. Yes, unless it's down for maintenance for some reasons
[02:22:38] So you get some other random bird are all the birds a little bit different now. They were pretty much laid out the same
[02:22:42] I mean
[02:22:43] There were little corpse about them, but nothing that you'd really notice
[02:22:48] We had we had
[02:22:50] Outboard motors right for our zodiac boats. Yeah, and they even though they're all from the same company
[02:22:57] They're all supposed to like we had names form
[02:22:59] You know and they would all be just a little bit different
[02:23:03] Temperamental ten for mental like there's one I remember it's called Frankenstein. It was like the one that was it was all
[02:23:09] It looked like it would never run, but it was the most reliable
[02:23:12] But you but it's but for you you didn't care if you got a different bird other than hard luck
[02:23:18] Yeah, yeah, I didn't care we'd fly anything
[02:23:21] What you didn't like though is you got a different crew chief
[02:23:24] You always got a different crew chief in a different gunner because the crew chief and gunner always stayed with their aircraft
[02:23:29] Their aircraft was now from maintenance
[02:23:30] They were down from maintenance as well helping them get the aircraft ready
[02:23:34] So that's the only thing I didn't like about is I had to learn different crew chiefs in different gunners, but
[02:23:38] Otherwise, yeah, it's the aircraft were pretty much the same enough
[02:23:42] Are you so you're flying this is analog flying right? I mean this is you're moving the stick and it's moving a piece of
[02:23:49] Whatever cable that's moving something it's moving a tube it's moving a tube but that's what it is
[02:23:55] So this
[02:23:56] our is a black hawk the same thing is a black hawk
[02:24:00] Is it is it analog like that where you're actually moving a
[02:24:03] Gear somewhere or moving a cable or moving a tube I think so I'm not sure about the black hawk
[02:24:09] But on the Huey it was always tubes the only place you had cables was back in the back in the tail boom and that was a cable two cables
[02:24:17] Two or four I can't remember I think it was two cables that ran down the tail boom back to the tail rotor
[02:24:24] But for the for the cyclic the collective and the pedals initially those were all push pull tubes
[02:24:30] They were called but it's all mechanical it's all mechanical. They know there's is there anything like
[02:24:36] Power steering the only thing that was that was the governor the fuel on the the Huey
[02:24:42] There was control the throttle was controlled by a governor so once you started the aircraft up you brought the throttle up all the way
[02:24:48] And the governor would stop at at
[02:24:51] 6600 RPM on the engine and you had a governor control switch
[02:24:56] If that went out then you had to fly the aircraft manually and
[02:25:01] You learned how to fly it manually with the TH55 and flight school
[02:25:04] But on the Huey that was really sensitive with that trying to fly that thing with the manual control on the throttle
[02:25:11] But that's the only thing that was automatic so to speak on the Huey was that throttle control man
[02:25:16] These are some like durable
[02:25:19] Beasts oh they were the Huey the cober gunship
[02:25:23] The charlotte old Charlie model gunships they were just great. I mean bell helicopter built a great aircraft force and it did well the
[02:25:31] Hue's built the OH6 which you see those with the MH6 is now in the in task force 160 the OH6
[02:25:42] Guys love the fly that thing because if it got shot down
[02:25:46] It would crash the road ahead come off the tail boom come off and it rolled like an egg
[02:25:50] And so guys really they they didn't mind well they did mind getting shot down crashing but their survivability rate was really good in the OH6
[02:26:02] All right
[02:26:04] Going back to the book here you take some leave and
[02:26:08] And while you're on leave you know you got it what you got DC Baltimore area DC yeah
[02:26:13] Mama's mama's going to college at the University of Maryland and then
[02:26:18] You know you you spend some time with with Mary is that right yeah
[02:26:24] Spend some time with Mary get to know her and then
[02:26:29] Let me give you some background Mary what's here about Mary I'm that Mary dad was stationed in Morocco
[02:26:35] You're that my dad and 60
[02:26:39] seven
[02:26:41] Yeah, and I went back to Morocco
[02:26:44] So for Christmas of 67
[02:26:49] Met Mary one night in church in Morocco in Morocco there what was her parents doing they were stationed at the same navy base it was a communications base
[02:26:57] So she's another navy brand navy brand and
[02:27:01] The base is no longer there it was at city i.e. outside of canetra but in that her church
[02:27:08] We went out for a ride my dad's mg the next day and that was it and then a year later just for him
[02:27:13] Went to Vietnam I came back and met her parents you know so our parents and everything she'd already gone back to the states
[02:27:20] And so when I came back from Vietnam the first time
[02:27:23] You know all the way to Morocco and Mary
[02:27:25] Right there and so so I came back to the states and mom said hey why don't you get out and see the Simmons
[02:27:33] And and I said yeah, we used to live in Virginia Beach with the devastation on the cobblers
[02:27:38] SS 344 so I thought yeah, they'd be kind of cool I like to go back and see an office
[02:27:41] So I went down there and met her and we got kind of hooked up then and
[02:27:46] That was that was a while you were on leave yeah, that's why I was on my extension leaf got it
[02:27:52] So that's really you don't kind of a mission accomplished there yeah, yeah, the states side mission accomplished you you come back from leave
[02:28:01] And you you mentioned that you were ready to go back from leave you were ready to go back to normal
[02:28:05] Yeah, I was ready to get back. I just I was climbing the walls a little bit
[02:28:08] Um
[02:28:11] You get back their hair red in the paper and DC that an aircraft went down was it one of ours no one said anything
[02:28:16] But everyone looked uncomfortable finally someone spoke up
[02:28:20] Yeah, it was one of us that was all you would say well who was it did the crew get out everyone?
[02:28:26] Okay, it was your aircraft one nine
[02:28:30] No one got out
[02:28:32] What what the what happened? I asked I was in total shop shock
[02:28:35] They were on a resupply over a hoverhole the gooks open fire on them on their third pass and they crashed into the trees
[02:28:42] Grunt said that they made each of their three approaches over the same ground
[02:28:47] They had five new replacements on board the grunts got to the aircraft and we're shooting gooks in the cabin and a cockpit
[02:28:54] Who was the crew it was ash as AC and a newbie Taylor your crew chief linemen
[02:29:00] Linem is that any says name? Linnem and Dichrick were on board two
[02:29:06] Sorry they told me I didn't know the copilot who had arrived the day after I'd left to go home the AC like all
[02:29:13] Our guys was a good man. He had just received a deer John letter from his wife telling him she was getting a divorce
[02:29:19] I guess she didn't need to know
[02:29:21] But he guess she didn't need to now. I raised my glass and they joined me to apps and comrades
[02:29:26] So the guys Linnem and Dichrick who you just went through that
[02:29:33] Is that called a crash landing what you do? Yeah, you went through that crash line landing you go home and both those guys get killed
[02:29:38] Yeah, and the thing that struck me was that here. I'm in Washington DC
[02:29:42] I'm reading the paper in the morning and it's talking about this helicopter shut down a hundred miles north of Saigon
[02:29:47] I'm thinking what's so unusual about that? I mean helicopters getting shut down all the time and Vietnam
[02:29:51] And I just it just kind of struck me odd that that would be there and then I get there
[02:29:55] And I find out it was my own aircraft
[02:30:03] There's a chapter in here called stand down and it really points out the the importance of
[02:30:11] Crew rest you guys were run ragged
[02:30:13] We're running you go through one point where you you're in a helicopter helicopter flying you wake up
[02:30:19] Yeah, and you see that the the person well I guess it's the lead pilot my coat pilot is also asleep
[02:30:24] Yeah, and the cruisest leap yeah that happened
[02:30:27] We had a policy it got to the point where you know earlier you said in the book you know if you had
[02:30:31] 140 hours you got a couple of days down
[02:30:34] I was pushing over 160 hours and
[02:30:37] It got to the point where most of the pilots were the same boat. We were shorter pilots
[02:30:42] We were training our crew chiefs
[02:30:44] To fly the aircraft because it was getting that desperate
[02:30:47] So what we did was if we were flying a long leg
[02:30:51] One pilot would sleep the other would stay awake and so that's what we were doing
[02:30:55] Well, he was flying where come back at night beautiful night to fly
[02:30:59] And I told him said I'm gonna I'm gonna catch some sleep. He said okay
[02:31:02] So I close my eyes and ride away fell asleep. Well something told me to wake up
[02:31:07] And I kind of woke up and looked around and it may have been a one of the first indications of a problem is a change in sound in the aircraft
[02:31:16] You know if suddenly the engine's quiet you know you got a problem
[02:31:19] But there was just you really listened to sound in the aircraft and that would that would tell you something's wrong a whistling sound
[02:31:25] It you just got a bullet through the road of blades
[02:31:28] So something just woke me up and I just sat there and just kind of looked around everything looked great and I looked over at him
[02:31:34] And I thought what did he just looking at his head was down and then I realized he's asleep
[02:31:40] And we just sat there and the aircraft was flying long perfect and then she just and I suspect what happened is that
[02:31:46] He probably just let a little pressure off his hand and the cyclic just ease forward a bit because the no-star dropping
[02:31:53] We started picking up speed and pick up speed sounds gonna change the aircraft started vibrate and then he walked up and looked over it
[02:32:00] Me and I went you had a nice nap
[02:32:02] So yeah, we got back in that night and the medical officer came out and they stood the whole unit down
[02:32:08] Because I was the third aircraft come in that day and the other two aircraft came in and piloted both declared that's it
[02:32:14] We're done so the medical officer came out when the company commander came out and they ground it the whole unit
[02:32:21] You guys end up getting a valourist unit award. Yes, yes, we got a valourist unit for the action on six March
[02:32:29] 69
[02:32:31] um
[02:32:40] Here's another thing that happens
[02:32:42] You're in for a briefing mr. Corey you and I will have three lifts tomorrow and that should about do it mr. Roberts
[02:32:48] You and I will fly to the day after tomorrow sir mr. Roberts responded looking at me and I at him
[02:32:54] You two are gonna be the next flight leaders the policy about worn officers not being flight leaders has changed
[02:32:59] You will be first if you guys want the assignment all the warrants in the room were smiling and talking softly my platoon leader was smiling
[02:33:06] And while captain weed wasn't he didn't protest noted any the commission officers
[02:33:10] I never knew if the major had spoken with them before the meeting or not. Yes, sir. I'll take it
[02:33:16] So you you alluded to that earlier where the real the real life officers with the only ones that could be flight leads
[02:33:23] Yeah, and now like you were saying you're so underman that
[02:33:26] They opened it up and you and one of their guy get to be the first
[02:33:31] Warrants or flight leads. Yes, they changed the policy because we're just we're so short of officers
[02:33:36] of
[02:33:37] We didn't have any experienced officers
[02:33:40] That were ready to take over flight lead position so the company commander he went to the brigade commander and say hey
[02:33:45] We got to start letting the experienced warrants, you know, he said I got I got two warrants that are over
[02:33:49] Over 12 months in the unit and these guys know what they're doing you got to you got to open the policy up in the brigade commander
[02:33:57] Colonel suit check really a good guy
[02:34:00] He's he's absolutely open it up
[02:34:02] So you said you were training some of their crew chiefs to become pilots and I never make that transition while you're in Vietnam
[02:34:07] Oh, yeah, they could they could they could we would train them sufficiently to land the aircraft not hover or running landing
[02:34:14] But we always felt that you know if somebody got shot
[02:34:16] I have both pilots got wounded somebody's gonna have to bring this bird back so we would train the crew chiefs to do running landings
[02:34:23] My crew chief was pretty darn good at it and one crew chief. I think it was Grossman
[02:34:29] He came back and went to flight school and graduated with flight school and came back to the office of pilot
[02:34:37] Here we go another mission and look I'm covering a
[02:34:40] Tiny percentage of this book and just trying to figure out which one of these freaking crazy missions to highlight
[02:34:48] Just it's like throwing it's like a roll the dice to pick one they're all they're all nuts
[02:34:52] Here's one at H minus one the door gunners open fire concentrating on the tree line as we touched down the grunt started
[02:34:58] off the aircraft that was when a sledgehammer hit the side of the aircraft one two times and then I lost count
[02:35:04] The engine started winding down the rotor RPM started dropping as the engine RPM went to zero
[02:35:11] We're taking fire screamed Peters
[02:35:13] It was on his side of the aircraft and it was concentrated on our engine his gun was ripping through ammunition get out
[02:35:19] I yelled and we began unassing the aircraft
[02:35:22] Talk to is leading the rest of the flight out. We were now on the ground with the grunts
[02:35:27] Peters was on his M60 machine gun and I told him to get down no need for him to sit in the gunners position and be a target to his credit
[02:35:33] He did and took his gun with him dragging ammo as well
[02:35:37] Specialist love lace was doing the same the code was were coming in around for a second pass and using the remaining rockets and 40 millimeter ammo
[02:35:43] That they had rattle or six was on the ground next to me and began calling for artillery support as the second flight crew
[02:35:50] Flight came into view the artillery silence and the anti aircraft gun that had worked us over as well as the small arms fire
[02:35:57] That was coming from the trees
[02:35:59] We remained in the LZ until the third lift and jumped on an aircraft to get out
[02:36:03] Already the battalion commander notified brigade that an aircraft was down in the LZ a recovery team was getting ready to come and get the aircraft and fly it
[02:36:10] Fly it back under our CH 47 a new engine would be installed that night and that aircraft would be flying in the morning
[02:36:17] hopefully
[02:36:17] Flying back love lace turned to me damn Mr. Corey your psychic with your feelings
[02:36:23] And that's something I kind of skipped over you have a whole whole chapter that's called psychic so you had some kind of
[02:36:29] Whatever six cents about
[02:36:31] I don't think things are gonna go well. I
[02:36:35] The first the first time I happened I went out to the aircraft one day and just didn't have a good feeling
[02:36:45] Got got shot up bad that day and
[02:36:49] It happened this a second time third time I came out to the aircraft
[02:36:52] I asked love lace. I said hey how's the aircraft today? He goes you got your feeling don't you?
[02:36:56] And I kind of lied nice I find it. Yeah, I just it's gonna be okay guys. I just got a strange feeling that strange feeling hit me six times
[02:37:04] And it just I would go out to the aircraft and I would just have this feeling of dread for that day and
[02:37:09] Low in the whole would get hit and I just think I'm a believer in
[02:37:14] The supernatural and my patron saint is saint the
[02:37:17] Padre Pio and I just think Padre Pio was was watching over me. He blessed me when I was a little kid and
[02:37:22] I think he was just watching over me saying hey be careful
[02:37:27] So okay, well, it's gonna ask you like what I appreciate you Saint Pio
[02:37:33] But just let me know that I'm gonna get shot off. I need a little bit more than that
[02:37:37] Just let me know it's like gonna hit me
[02:37:41] That's so so six times you had that feeling yeah, and each time you had that feeling we got we got a little them living day like shot out of us
[02:37:47] Didn't lose anybody you ever have the feeling and it didn't and it didn't happen. Yeah, yeah
[02:37:53] I had a guy I had a guy named Johnny and the great guy, but man every time we rolled out he thought he was we were all gonna die
[02:38:03] Every time he'd go he'd he smoked chain smoke. He said
[02:38:07] He go it can I tonight sir I can feel it this one you ready you ready because it's coming every night
[02:38:12] It didn't matter what we were doing little logistics run. He goes
[02:38:15] I'm gonna bat feeling about this one boss
[02:38:18] This is coming you're like this chocolate you like where this is going like okay
[02:38:22] So I had to take that and it's right I didn't have Saint Pio I had
[02:38:25] Saint John and John wrong gonna die
[02:38:28] We had I knew what that guy went out on every single mission and as a matter of fact
[02:38:33] This is on my first deployment to Iraq and
[02:38:35] Our senior in my senior in listed advisor
[02:38:38] Said hey man you gotta get you know get Johnny out of here man get him on the first because you know it takes
[02:38:43] It takes a couple weeks to get everyone flown home
[02:38:46] And I said I said he said hey you got it you know get talk to Johnny get him on that first bird out of here man
[02:38:51] He's gonna you know he's he's he's losing it and I got he's not gonna want to leave and he goes
[02:38:56] He goes you need to you need to get him on a plane and I said I'm not gonna put him on a plane
[02:39:00] He's not gonna want to leave and he goes well just ask him and I go
[02:39:04] All right fine I'll ask him so I go up the Johnny one day and I said I said hey John and you know the first first planes are heading home
[02:39:10] You want to be you want me get your seat on that plane you go fuck you
[02:39:16] I was like Roger that just checking it's your enough you all last bird home, you know like he he was you was paranoid
[02:39:23] But he was doing his job and didn't want to go home we had a
[02:39:26] We had a war and officer that come into the unit and
[02:39:30] He flew
[02:39:31] Made aircraft commander and never flew a combat mission after that as your aircraft commander
[02:39:36] He would he would take the aircraft out and within 30 minutes you know he'd be coming back in complaining about something wrong with the aircraft
[02:39:43] And five they made him an assistant to ops officer and he served as a systems ops officer, but he never flew a combat mission again
[02:39:50] Yeah, he just I would say he had a yellow streak he didn't have bad feeling he had yellow streak
[02:39:56] That's the difference Johnny had that bad feeling all time, but no yellow streak there he was ready to rock and roll
[02:40:08] Another one on April 30th
[02:40:11] Arvan forces
[02:40:13] Along with some US forces cross to Perett's beak into Cambodia
[02:40:18] The Arvan forces consisted of 12 infantry battions and three range of battions the US
[02:40:23] Elements consisted of a brigade from the 25th infantry division
[02:40:29] Tropical lightning and two squadrons of armed cavalry operation rock crusher was on
[02:40:35] So here this is the first major operation going into Cambodia because of course the sog guys were going in there. Oh, they were in there all the time
[02:40:44] On May 1st 1970 at 07 10 hours company C
[02:40:48] 227 AHB inserted an Arvan airborne rifle company to secure landing zone just across the border inside Cambodia once the landing zone was secured
[02:40:59] 605 105 millimeter howitzers and three
[02:41:02] 155 millimeter howitzers which would support additional insertions throughout the area of operations were brought in by
[02:41:08] CH 47 helicopters later that day the second battalion 7th cavalry was inserted into landing zone X
[02:41:14] Ray marking the first American ground troops from the first cavalry division to enter Cambodia
[02:41:19] Throughout the day first battalion 9th cavalry flew reconnaissance missions while elements of the
[02:41:25] 227th and 229th helicopter assault helicopter battions provided lift support to Arvan grunts and the
[02:41:32] 228th assault support helicopter battalion provided CH 47 heavy lift capability
[02:41:38] for the movement of artillery and other heavy equipment
[02:41:41] the invasion of Cambodia didn't didn't know what was coming the night before
[02:41:49] I got called into the company commanders office me and Reynolds and a couple of the two leaders and
[02:41:57] he said
[02:41:58] he poured eight drinks Scotch
[02:42:02] we're all sitting there looking each other like what else is and how many of them was here there's about eight of us
[02:42:07] in the middle of the night so one per guy yeah one per guy made it's officer two and later flight
[02:42:11] leaders he said gentlemen I can't tell you where we're going but we got a big lift tomorrow
[02:42:18] and the maintenance officer I've been real stingy about letting us take an aircraft
[02:42:22] and he turned to the maintenance officer is what's available at your mart made in
[02:42:25] substance sir we got 21 out of 21 he says good they turned to to me and he says
[02:42:31] you're chalked two tomorrow if I go down you take the flight in
[02:42:38] I'm thinking what the hell you turned to Reynolds and he says if Corey goes down you take the flight in
[02:42:46] okay sir he says now I want you to get everyone of your pilots and your crew chiefs up and I want every
[02:42:50] aircraft pre-flighted tonight I want maintenance to know right away if an aircraft's got a problem
[02:42:54] but we're cranking 21 aircraft tomorrow morning so next morning we got up all the birds cranked up
[02:43:00] current or the boss the CO he led the assault we went up to a stage field and we're sitting
[02:43:07] here with our 21 aircraft and here came Bravo company with their 21 and Charlie company with
[02:43:13] their 21 and then 10 CH 47's and we had all of the low bows that was that was 20 aircraft
[02:43:21] and we had 20 aircraft and blue max and we're sitting there going what and we've never seen this many
[02:43:28] baton commander shows up he takes map board he throws them canves over the map board and says gentlemen
[02:43:34] we're in Vaton Cambodia the crew chiefs a crew chiefs in the darkness all got up and left
[02:43:39] and went back and started cleaning guns and cleaning ammo right away and we did we picked up an
[02:43:44] arvin force and we flew three top level uh baton commander was at 3000 feet and he was navigating
[02:43:51] telling chalk one what his heading wasn't set her and directing the artillery and the cobras
[02:43:56] and we flew it about oh maybe 200 feet above the trees and punched across the border as we went
[02:44:03] across the border there was a road parallel at the border look down there's guy NVA and their
[02:44:10] khaki uniforms as far as you could see down the road both sides of the roads sling arms
[02:44:14] and they're just standing there kind of shocked at all these aircraft are passing over them
[02:44:19] went in hit the landing zone picked up didn't take any fire going in we thought no this is great
[02:44:24] took a lot of fire coming back out across that road but uh that was the first day at the Cambodian
[02:44:29] invasion we did three assaults at day putting Vietnamese soldiers in so he was a big day then things
[02:44:35] got hot the next day next day the NVA waiting for the helicopters and we started taking a lot of hits the next
[02:44:40] days it's uh it's kind of crazy I always I always kind of joke about um Hollywood and in Hollywood
[02:44:51] you know they show like the platoon's about to go in and the commander shows up right as the birds
[02:44:56] are spinning since our i-gence here's where you're going and here's the mission and I was
[02:44:59] talking about how unrealistic that is but that's what you guys did well yeah kind of in fact I'm glad
[02:45:04] you brought that up because um I've got two screenwriters and a producer right now and the screenwriters
[02:45:11] are taking the three they're taking two books the first two books and they're writing a screenplay
[02:45:15] and one of the things I've told them I says look guys I do not want this to be typical Hollywood
[02:45:22] and they're they're good guys a rich graph who starred in making the mob uh new york he played
[02:45:27] lucky Luciano in that and uh a guy named raki carlitch and krakki owns uh ghostwalker productions
[02:45:34] and then my producers Amy Soto and she's worked with John Malkovitch uh male gibbs and several of these
[02:45:40] guys so there there's good crew but I told them I said I do not want this to be a typical Hollywood
[02:45:46] movie and I and I've given the list of of movies to watch this is good ones and this is terrible
[02:45:53] I don't want these terrible ones so we've had some some lively discussions about what will be
[02:45:59] in this movie and not in this movie so but yeah Hollywood just makes it look kind of odd but uh
[02:46:05] when you have an SOP you can say all right this is what we're gonna do and here's how we're gonna do it
[02:46:10] and you don't take a lot of discussion with it and and some of that works out pretty well it
[02:46:15] worked out for well for me for one exercise where uh found out my LZ uh the opt for uh
[02:46:22] reserve was sitting on my LZ and I grabbed the the flight leaders grabbed the company commander sat
[02:46:29] down pulled a poncho over our heads turned the flashlight on said okay here's your new LZs
[02:46:34] any questions no let's go so you can do that stuff if you have a system and if you have a good
[02:46:38] working procedure but yeah some of the stuff that Hollywood puts out is just uh um
[02:46:50] here's one made a made a dragon breath two three is bailing out and going down the
[02:46:56] sanity and there's the grid coordinates you all are in the air watch the parachute go down
[02:47:01] so there's a guy bailing out of one of these he's at four-year reserve so what's he in an OV-10
[02:47:07] yeah he was sent yeah he no uh what was that twin tail sessna they had a push pull yeah yeah
[02:47:16] I don't I don't remember the normal clay tron it but it was it wasn't the OV-10 but he was in one of
[02:47:20] those when he went down so the sky punches out of his aircraft and the you guys are on this
[02:47:28] operation looking watching his parachute go down watch you know tracking as it goes into the jungle
[02:47:34] you're flying you're looking for it and here we go as captain boa shamp slid the aircraft over
[02:47:40] the pilot sergeant west informed him sir the pilot appears to be out cold he's just hanging there
[02:47:45] hanging in the tree there okay we have to get him quick quick captain boa shamp said
[02:47:50] surveying the ground for a place to land there wasn't one as the vegetation wasn't dense but the
[02:47:54] trees were 30 feet high and close enough together that they didn't offer a clearing big enough to land in
[02:48:00] west had already climbed into the cabin area and was preparing a 200 foot repel rope that was
[02:48:05] maintained in the aircraft sir I can get him and with that he dropped the rope and was prepared
[02:48:11] preparing to go down okay but and west was gone he'd forgotten to put gloves on and his hands were
[02:48:17] paying for that mistake how am I going to get him out he said more to himself than anyone particular
[02:48:22] jameson you keep an eye on him and keep him covered captain boa shamp said to the door gunner
[02:48:28] dropping the 70 feet or so west sprinted to the pilot who is still unconscious and hanging in the tree
[02:48:34] only a few feet off the ground small tuffs of graft grass and dirt were being kicked up around west
[02:48:40] as small arms fire was directed in his direction
[02:48:45] damn parachute release won't release son of a bitch dammit come on west screamed hoping the pilot would wake
[02:48:51] and give him some assistance he did not got to get a knife pausing at a low crouch west waited
[02:48:57] a moment before he sprinted back to the aircraft which was still at a hover engaging the NVA position
[02:49:03] as he ran west made a cutting motion hoping the gunner or copilot would recognize the signal
[02:49:09] and drop a knife they did picking up the knife west didn't hesitate to sprint back to the hanging pilot
[02:49:14] cut him free and throw him over his shoulder just then an RPG round slammed into the tree the pilot
[02:49:20] had been hanging in with the pilot over his shoulder in a fireman carry position west ran for the
[02:49:26] aircraft and the dangling rope grabbing the rope he wrapped it around the pilot and himself and
[02:49:31] motion for the aircraft to take off west didn't have time to tie a knot but only had the rope
[02:49:36] wrapped around himself on the pilot because of his rope burned hands west couldn't climb the rope
[02:49:42] but prayed he could hold on long enough to get safely back to ground as the aircraft climbed
[02:49:47] out and built up some speed small arms fire continued captain boa shamp didn't fly couldn't fly
[02:49:52] with any speed as the drag on west in the pilot would be too great and pull them off the rope
[02:49:57] west was dangling about 70 feet below the aircraft which was flying over the jungle at two to
[02:50:02] 300 feet helicopter crews did not have parachutes as west cleared the trees captain boa shamp
[02:50:08] nose the aircraft over and began picking up speed all the wild praying west didn't fall everyone
[02:50:14] was well aware that if they had the an engine failure or any other emergency west in the pilot wouldn't
[02:50:20] survive arriving over a clearing captain boa shamp captain boa shamp lowered the aircraft to place
[02:50:25] west and the pilot on the ground and then the aircraft this was an unscured clearing only about
[02:50:30] 1500 meters from where they picked up the pilot detaching the rope west and jamison quickly
[02:50:35] loaded the pilot into the aircraft and departed for LZ Center where the unconscious pilot was
[02:50:41] quickly transferred to a meta-vac aircraft that had been requested west resumed his duties as crew chief
[02:50:49] west went on to receive it was put in for the metal of honor it was downgraded to the
[02:50:54] Stinger service cross and he spent 20 years in the army retired as a command sergeant major
[02:50:59] at the fort used as Virginia yeah that's a that's a that's a crazy story
[02:51:15] and and the crazy story is just kind of continue they they just kind of continue
[02:51:20] throughout this book just incredible the heroics on every page
[02:51:26] um you end up getting commissioned you end up getting commissioned now do they
[02:51:31] commission as an infantry officer while you're there do you does that is that orders that you
[02:51:35] get that you have to wait for no no I got commissioned while it's there as an infantry officer
[02:51:39] battlefield commission basically totally surprised 11 day light set of me you know what what it
[02:51:44] happened I got I was getting calls that that morning I got a call somebody seen a uh Mr. Corrie
[02:51:50] understand you're going to battalion so when you talk about I'm going to come to battalion
[02:51:54] yeah it's uh understand you're going up to battalion I'm thinking that's impossible I
[02:51:59] extended to stay in the unit well a little while later my battalion leader boesham
[02:52:04] jumps up on my skids as I'm getting refueling taps him on the show is a dad and I hate
[02:52:08] to see leave you know send the good missions to us when you get up there on battalion staff
[02:52:12] I'm thinking oh crap my tunators say and this is like be true throughout the day I keep
[02:52:18] getting radio calls hey dance sorry to see a leave on my home so that night I get to the
[02:52:22] now I get back in I'm really dejected I'm feeling down I throw my gear in the room and go over
[02:52:26] the bar and get a beard company commander walks in he says hey everybody get a bear I need your
[02:52:31] attention so I'm thinking oh crap so he gets in he says hey I got good news like I've
[02:52:37] bad news I said the first good news first bad news okay he says Corrie come up here
[02:52:43] so I go up there and he says y'all know Corrie's been with us now what 16 months
[02:52:47] damn I said yeah that's been about that sir and he says you know everybody's flown with
[02:52:51] them you're not a great job how my homo but time for you to leave so we're gonna miss you
[02:52:57] damn but we know you'll go forth and do great things for us congratulations so I go back up
[02:53:04] and get on my bars to them sitting there and he says now we but the good news is we got a new
[02:53:08] new guy it's arriving it's got about 1600 hours of flying time and a lot of experience and that's
[02:53:14] what we need guys a lot of experience here in the unit let's welcome the new guy lieutenant Corrie
[02:53:19] and I'm sitting here at the bar and I'm not facing him facing the bar made I'm going lieutenant
[02:53:24] Corrie I did it's got the same last name as me I wonder where the hell he's from I turned around
[02:53:29] and everybody's looking at me and the old man looks at me says come up here lieutenant Corrie
[02:53:35] and so I thought wait a minute they're talking about me so I get up and walk up there and
[02:53:40] he can graduate and meet and somebody had put me in for a direct commission the first lieutenant
[02:53:44] so I was the first lieutenant in the infantry now is there no such thing as it were
[02:53:49] helping you not a first lieutenant pilot is that not a thing well see at that time we didn't have
[02:53:54] an aviation branch the army had they had all the other branches but we didn't have an aviation branch
[02:54:01] and there were some politics involved with that with the air force and they did not form
[02:54:06] the aviation branch in the army until about 1985 and at that time you had a choice if you were an
[02:54:13] infantry officer if you were another branch you could decide if you're going to go the aviation
[02:54:16] branch or retain the branch that you were in and I've retained the infantry branch because
[02:54:20] I lost the the retina my left eye just before that so I wouldn't have been able to fly anyway so
[02:54:25] I'd just stayed in the infantry so back to the book a little bit I mean so you get this commission
[02:54:36] you're you're still conducting all kinds of missions I'm jumping through all kinds of missions
[02:54:41] you're starting to get short meaning you're close to heading home yeah picking it up here I was
[02:54:50] in the chalk to position and it just cleared the trees and was really paying no attention to chalk
[02:54:55] three who attempted to fly between two trees and caught a rotor blade on one yeah to everyone's
[02:55:01] hard the aircraft slowly rolled to the right where the damage rotor blade made contact with the
[02:55:06] ground when it did the rotor blades began to disintegrate with pieces flying everywhere soldiers
[02:55:11] in the back began falling out of the aircraft and they were fortunate and they were the fortunate
[02:55:15] ones as the aircraft was now descending toward the ground as the right side impacted the
[02:55:20] transmission was ripped from its mounts and tore through the cargo compartment as the aircraft
[02:55:25] came to stop the engine was still running now whatever increasing RPM as there was no
[02:55:29] rotor to turn or transmission connected fuel began to spill across the engine at this time the
[02:55:36] aircraft aircraft were not equipped with self-sealing fuel cells that would prevent a major
[02:55:41] fire the aircraft began to burn and burn rapidly as Bill had been waiting for chalk three and
[02:55:46] forward to take off he was only he was only light on his skids when the accident happened his
[02:55:51] crew chief door door gunner and captain head immediately jumped out and ran to pull people out of
[02:55:57] the aircraft soldiers on the ground also moved forward to assist lightning and that was a call
[02:56:02] sign of one of the guys was attempting to climb out but was days to and having difficulty moving
[02:56:08] quickly to assist lightning captain head was having difficulty as well as the fire was now in the
[02:56:12] cockpit and spreading rapidly the copilot was consumed in the flames as was the crew chief the
[02:56:17] gunner could not be seen as he was under the aircraft having occupied the right side of the
[02:56:22] aircraft that day finally lightning was extracted from the wreckage and fire yeah that's the
[02:56:28] story that you told earlier yeah they are lightning that was his name is John Copenhaver
[02:56:33] yeah great guy and his nickname was lightning because John just always kind of walked kind of slow
[02:56:40] time to talk to a little on the slow side but we all loved him dearly and he was he was really a
[02:56:46] great petoon leader as well and but yeah they hit this tree and I was always worried about John
[02:56:52] and this this particular great seat pilot flying together there been an incident the month before
[02:56:57] with them flying together and they lay down some stumps and there was just something about
[02:57:05] this right seat pilot that the day I met him I looked at him and said this kid's not going to make it
[02:57:12] there was nothing about him tell me you know he wasn't competent he was he was at halfway decent pilot
[02:57:18] he was a nice guy but there was just something about it that told me he's going to make it
[02:57:24] and so they had that first accident him and John and I was kind of concerned about them flying
[02:57:29] together again but I didn't make flight assignments so there's nothing I could do about it and then
[02:57:33] they had this happen and hit the tree and we got John out we didn't get anybody else out and
[02:57:39] John spent six six weeks in a coma and but he's doing quite well today there's in there's
[02:57:47] in Maryland I think it is but he's doing well so you say no one was in good spirits that evening
[02:57:56] everyone in both the officers club and in listen man's club wasn't a sober mood it hurt even more
[02:58:02] when we were informed that the division commanders aircraft was missing and presumed crash my good friend
[02:58:08] Bill you say Michael Michael was the pilot the division commander was major general Casey a very much like
[02:58:16] division commander very good guy Casey Casey was a super he had been the division assistant division commander
[02:58:23] and then moved up took over as division commander had had been division commander very long
[02:58:28] but he was a guy that was always out there with us you be in an LZ or you get back to a refuel point
[02:58:35] and their Casey being he'd be talking to you like okay how to go you know what problems you got
[02:58:40] as a aircraft running maintenance working okay he was concerned he was even as well everybody considered a
[02:58:46] good leader and we were all very much down we found a they crash into a mountain top bad weather
[02:58:58] then this happens lieutenant Corey sir you got your orders you're going home
[02:59:01] you're a report to two division rear no later than tomorrow we have a bird waiting for you at
[02:59:06] 1400 today to take you to Benhoa what what are you talking about sir you are to report to
[02:59:12] division rear casualty assistance office you best get packing fast it suddenly dawned on me
[02:59:19] Bill's parents had requested that I bring Bill's remains home
[02:59:24] yeah I was close with his family I stayed there before I went to Vietnam and then when I came home
[02:59:30] I'm on leave and before I went back again I stayed with this my mom and dad great great people up there
[02:59:34] they lived in Monroe Washington outside of the home is she had a little brother that had just gotten
[02:59:40] into the air force academy Bill was really proud of of Norm and this happened and they they
[02:59:47] had me be the escort officer to bring Bill home you say arriving at the funeral home this is
[02:59:56] after you get back arriving at the funeral home I made sure Bill was settled in for the night
[03:00:00] and then I was taking a Bill's parents house in Monroe Washington mom and pop wanted me to stay
[03:00:05] with them as they considered me family two other couples were there with mom and pop when I arrived
[03:00:10] after putting my bags away in the upstairs bedroom I came into the dining room where they were all seated
[03:00:17] Dan what are you drinking pop past I wasn't much of a drinker except beer but took a scotch on the rocks
[03:00:23] when I sat down mom placed her hand on mine and asked what happened he was a VIP pilot she was a
[03:00:29] tough woman but I could see from the puffie eyes that she had been crying I tried to explain as
[03:00:34] calmly and as much detail as I could what had happened bad weather bad maps but I didn't have
[03:00:40] the heart to say that the general was probably fine the aircraft generals could fly but not in
[03:00:45] weather and on top of that Bill wasn't instrument rated either but could handle the aircraft
[03:00:50] in weather conditions then the hard part came Bill's in the casket but I advised that it be
[03:00:57] a closed casket ceremony I said before taking a sip of scotch why is that asked pop well there
[03:01:05] was an explosion and fire his body is in a plastic bag under a glass case on the glass case is
[03:01:12] as uniform with all his decorations the glass case is held down by 300 screws opening the lid
[03:01:18] is easy but not the glass case the rest of the evening was spent telling good stories of Bill
[03:01:25] from flight school and our one mission in Vietnam together between drinks and teary eyes we got
[03:01:32] through the night the day of the funeral came and Bill's sister Judy arrived early with her husband
[03:01:38] and children to cook breakfast the ride to church was quiet and we all sat together in the front of
[03:01:44] the church it was packed as maro when row was a small town and everyone knew the Michaels
[03:01:50] the preacher stood and gave the ulogy praising the work bill had done in the community and for the
[03:01:55] nation he said that Bill was not afraid of death but loved life few helicopter crews in Vietnam
[03:02:04] were afraid of death it was part of the job but they all loved life there were some of this
[03:02:11] nation's finest when the preacher finished six army Paul Bears came forward hoisted bills casket
[03:02:18] and solemnly moved outside to the hers at the grave site I lowered my salute and accepted the flag
[03:02:26] from the commander of the burial detail executing a smart about face I walked over to mom thinking
[03:02:33] that this was one strong woman as I saw no tears standing in front of her I knelt and said
[03:02:40] on behalf of a great formation I present this flag that was what I had been instructed to say
[03:02:47] but in my heart I had my doubts about this being a great formation standing slowly I came to
[03:02:54] attention and again raised a slow salute in the distance the command for the firing squad could be
[03:03:03] heard and three valleys of seven rounds each cause-mated jump as the 21 gun salute was fired
[03:03:13] on the last volley of the three the distance sound of taps was heard no one held back tears at
[03:03:21] this point I slowly lowered my salute turned and walked to the side my officials duties concluded
[03:03:29] as many started to leave I came back put my arms around mom and wept just like every other human
[03:03:39] there and I weep to this day yeah that was that was kind of a hard hard period for me going
[03:03:51] through the funeral with them I picked Norm up at the airport from the Air Force Academy they gave
[03:03:56] him leave emergency leave and he was home for that and he struggled his first year through that
[03:04:03] academy because of this but he got through just fine he came to see one 41 pilot
[03:04:10] and he went for the airlines and he's retired from that now so he's doing well we stay in touch
[03:04:15] and mom and pop they've passed away at this point but if there was a great guy we got the chance
[03:04:21] to fly together one time had a kick a kick day that day picked him up he'd never flown to combat
[03:04:27] mission you know flying VIPs around that's all he ever did so I picked him up went out to a firebasing
[03:04:34] they had a batag commander out there he was crazy as hell had a big red bow on the back of his
[03:04:38] helmet I never asked him why that was there but he get there and he says hey yeah how do you feel
[03:04:44] how do you feel about dropping bombs I said sir we're really not a quick drop bombs because
[03:04:49] you're a quick drop these bombs he said how do you feel about so well yeah we'll do it so we
[03:04:55] get out through the aircraft and they got this box that's on one end if it's sitting on the floor
[03:05:01] and the other ends up on stands and in this box he's got about six 81 millimetre mortar rounds
[03:05:08] with aerial bomb fuses in the nose and tape tied around the tails and so what we did is we flew
[03:05:14] along 2000 feet and we went over these four crossing points on the river and as the crossing point
[03:05:22] came up through the pedals I would say mark mark mark and they opened the door on that box
[03:05:29] and these mortar rounds had fall out at 2000 feet and it was just like a bombing run and we did
[03:05:34] this about four five times that day and build what guys are crazy this is great stuff and then we
[03:05:40] did a log mission that he'd never done before he'd never been down in hell how I'll
[03:05:42] accurate or the uh oh there was it was darn accurate it was really it was really pretty darn good accuracy
[03:05:48] uh surprise 11 days but the Italian community says I don't really mortise in this range but I
[03:05:52] want the NBA to think that we've got guys pretty close to them so that's the reason we were doing that
[03:05:57] and we did we did one combat assault and build just he was excited when the day was over
[03:06:03] flew about 10 hours a day but yeah he really enjoyed that day and it was it wasn't two months later
[03:06:09] that he crashed up there so so now you're home from Vietnam and you're now going to become
[03:06:20] an infantry officer you talked about your retina when did that happen that happened in 83 okay
[03:06:25] so you still could fly but you still but you have to become an infantry officer is that how I want
[03:06:30] yeah yeah I was an infantry officer so I went I got home and went to Fort Benning
[03:06:34] attended the infantry officer basic horse went to Fort Lewis Washington to come and have a infantry
[03:06:39] company up there and then uh we formed the ninth infantry division up that had been stood down
[03:06:46] in Vietnam but they stood it back up I was there so I was there as the aviation officer for the
[03:06:50] first brigade so I was back to flying again then it went to Fort Benning for the advanced course
[03:06:56] then went to Alaska are they are they taking you with your combat experience and throwing you
[03:07:00] in sort of in leadership position in these oh yeah yes company commanders I got to Alaska and they
[03:07:05] made me the operations officer for the air cap squadron so I was up there for that for a year and then
[03:07:11] on a Friday night I got a phone call saying you you need to report to Hank Ridge on Monday morning
[03:07:17] we just relieved the company commander of the airborne company you're going to take command of the
[03:07:20] airborne company why did you get relieved I didn't ask that question
[03:07:24] haha she hacks that you roll in and take so it's now your company commander company commander
[03:07:30] of one of the airborne companies in Alaska how do you like groundwork I loved it I love groundwork
[03:07:38] I enjoyed flying but I honestly one day he was thinking when I was flying you know I'm
[03:07:44] I really had glorified Greyhound bus driver and and I saw all the things that was to do in the
[03:07:50] army and I I wanted to do other things besides fly that helicopter so when they said you're
[03:07:54] going to be an infantry officer I had no complaints about that I love groundwork
[03:07:59] commanding that airborne company in Alaska people go let's 30 below zero you're just going to jump
[03:08:05] out of an airplane heck yeah let's jump so did that and then so what year is it now that was that was
[03:08:12] 78 I was commanding the airborne company 79 they made me the operations officer for the infantry
[03:08:18] battalion how was the how was the post Vietnam years in the army terrible absolutely terrible
[03:08:25] we didn't have any any ammunition to train with the fact the soldiers they would charge up a hill
[03:08:30] and a training exercise and they go bang bang bang 13 cents bang bang bang 13 cents because that was
[03:08:35] a cost of training rounds 13 cents around but we didn't even have training rounds it was really
[03:08:40] pretty bad near me we went through a period from 70 to 75 what we were rifting captains
[03:08:53] and that just killed them aral in the captains ranks uh I was in the advance course in 73
[03:09:00] therefore many we had 10 200 man classrooms on one side of the building 10 200 man
[03:09:07] classrooms on the other side of the building all full all of them infantry captains back
[03:09:12] Vietnam and on one day they walked in and from getting a 200 man class
[03:09:20] every one of those rooms went down to be in 140 man class those captains were pulled out they told
[03:09:25] you have 90 days to get out where you can divert to be in a sergeant one of the other wow
[03:09:31] so and they did that for four years so that really ruined the morale and the captains ranks
[03:09:38] so no it wasn't not the early years after Vietnam we're not not good years in the army
[03:09:42] one more question about Vietnam this is a question I bring up and you already talked about it
[03:09:48] but you said most of the guys that you had most of the crew chiefs most of the most of the
[03:09:52] support people that weren't flying they were people that had volunteered was it was it
[03:09:57] if you're going to be a door could you be a just assigned a door gunner was there's all those people
[03:10:01] volunteers uh door gunners for volunteers may they have been drafted and then they volunteered for
[03:10:07] that's what a lot of them were they were drafted into the infantry they did a tour in the infantry
[03:10:11] and then they volunteered to become be a door gunner got it so could you tell the difference between
[03:10:16] someone that was a drafty and someone that was a life her no you really couldn't there was
[03:10:21] had the guys that were drafted you know people said oh they had bad attitudes I never saw
[03:10:25] but they all had a good attitude they were all in this together now what did happen
[03:10:32] guys that that were drafted and they came back from nom if they still had a year left
[03:10:36] they would send them to Germany and theirs were the problems were all that in Germany
[03:10:41] they had a big time morale problems there what are you going to do send me back to Vietnam
[03:10:45] been my dog tags it got to the point in Germany in the early 70s where the duty officers
[03:10:50] were armed with 45s yeah they had one incident over there were duty officers
[03:10:55] was put stuffed in a wall locker throwing out a second story window yeah the morale in Germany
[03:11:00] in the early 70s was not good at all but in Vietnam they very seldom saw a problem I had one
[03:11:07] problem once in the aircraft were in E6 just refused to go to the field last I saw of him the
[03:11:13] MPs had him and they were driving away with him but that was it so now now we're in the 70s
[03:11:20] bringing about bring us back to time and it's just morale is horrible it's tough it's tough
[03:11:26] especially in the officer's court because because of all the riffs going on guide doesn't the
[03:11:29] ways and have a job next month or not what are they basing it on how do you know if you're
[03:11:33] going to get rifter nodded you don't it's not performance it's just numbers it's it's I would
[03:11:39] like to think it was based upon your efficiency reports but we had a guy in my class had this
[03:11:44] thing of service cross they rifted him what yep yeah all of us all of us said the same thing how
[03:11:50] and I held it he get rifted I mean he's got the stinger service cross this is in 73 and he got rifted
[03:11:57] one of the guys that that I work with in 75 Charlie had he had silver stars a couple of silver stars
[03:12:04] purple heart couple of stinger flying crosses got rifted he's now he got out and he became with the
[03:12:11] I think the eastern manager for Michelin tires but you didn't know if it's supposed to be best
[03:12:18] on fish in your reports and I think at some point in time they just said all these guys
[03:12:22] got great efficiency reports we just got to have numbers now and if you're a reserve officer
[03:12:29] up till 75 you were definitely in a hunt to get rifted regular army officers didn't face that
[03:12:36] the next rift 76 regular army officers were in that boat too so yeah it's just it got bad
[03:12:44] so you're just keeping your fingers crossed basically yep yep I hope to God the army never
[03:12:49] has to go through that again do you know do you know off the top of your head how much smaller
[03:12:54] of the army got from 1970 to 1978 no I don't I don't this is a massive downsizing massive downsizing
[03:13:02] I can tell you this today you could take all the 11-provel infantrymen in the army and put them in
[03:13:08] RFK stadium and you still have empty seats so the army is not nearly as big as it used to be
[03:13:16] not very close it's not even close that's crazy yeah today we rely a lot on the national guard
[03:13:22] the army reserve and they've really stepped up they stepped up in desert storm and a lot of the
[03:13:27] animosity that existed in the 70s between the active army and the army guard and the army reserves
[03:13:33] a lot of that disappeared thank God during desert storm well I worked with the national guard all the
[03:13:38] time in Iraq and they were freaking awesome yeah they were outstanding professionals yep they've
[03:13:44] stepped up done a great job I was the aviation advisor from Maryland for two years and we had
[03:13:50] an aviation maintenance company that was fantastic we took them down to brag every year for brag
[03:13:55] always one these guys come down work on the aircraft form they're just really super so so this time
[03:14:01] so you're continuing kind of up through the ranks you become you do your company commander tour
[03:14:05] what comes after that company commander then I was an instructor at the army commander general
[03:14:13] staff college I was a tactics instructor and then I got tagged kicking and screaming to go to
[03:14:20] Germany as an exchange officer in the German army for two years teaching tactics and interop
[03:14:26] billi issues with German forces then came back went to Fort Campbell and the fact we got a phone
[03:14:31] call in the middle of the night and guy called me and he said this is the personnel officer for the
[03:14:38] hundred first airborne division how quick can you get here and I said so I could be there in five days
[03:14:45] he said start packing stuff you'll be here in five days I turned around on my wife and said
[03:14:49] start getting stuff off the wall it's where me and transferred back to the states in five days she
[03:14:52] started to laugh at me 20 minutes later the phone rang it was my boss he says you are relief from
[03:14:57] that assignment get the four camberless facets you can what was that all about uh there was something
[03:15:02] coming down and they needed me to be there to be the brigade executive officer for the for the
[03:15:07] second brigade did you know someone there was one of your friends or something didn't know anybody
[03:15:12] just just random just random branch branch pulled my hat name out of the hat and said get the
[03:15:17] four camber and so what was your role then obviously executive officer for the brigade
[03:15:22] second brigade okay and then I was at for two years and then I went over and took command of
[03:15:27] third battalion three to seventh infantry for two years and had that during desert storm
[03:15:34] so tell us about desert storm it got boring tell you the truth
[03:15:41] sitting out there in the desert you know we've I had the task force at West Point training the
[03:15:46] cadets for the summer and my exo was sitting there he's reading the Sunday newspaper he says hey
[03:15:52] you know this what takes going on with the rack and Kuwait so we read that and I said you know
[03:15:56] Billy if they go into Kuwait we're gonna go to war and I think it was two weeks later it was in the
[03:16:02] Wall Street jobs in the New York Times and two weeks later he got the call and I turned to Billy
[03:16:05] I says let's get out of here so right away we got the West Point staff we planned out what we had
[03:16:10] to get done that week and to get out of there so when we got the call on a Friday night to get out
[03:16:16] of West Point we were gone the next morning and got back to Campbell had three weeks back at
[03:16:21] Campbell before we'd shipped out to to Iraq or out to Saudi Arabia well if Sedan had attacked
[03:16:29] we in the 80s second would have been speed bumps and thank God he didn't attack but we went up and
[03:16:35] sat about 60 miles from the border and we had a defensive position set up there and that's what we
[03:16:40] sat from August to February January to January oh man good times oh yes sitting out there in the
[03:16:48] middle of the desert you know at least you were there in time for summer yeah yeah yeah yeah
[03:16:51] yeah in August well it made us appreciate when when February January you were older when you
[03:16:56] were now freezing yeah you're freezing at night so yeah we sat up there and just ran tactical exercises
[03:17:03] and like we would back in the states you know it was it was it was different because we'd always
[03:17:07] trained in in force and woods and stuff like that but we got up there we said all right we're in
[03:17:12] new environment let's learn how to do this new environment so we spent a lot of time learning desert
[03:17:16] techniques studying up on what the desert rats had done in World War II looking at some stuff that
[03:17:22] we've received from SAS about desert operations and just started practicing that stuff and the kids
[03:17:27] the kids did great the soldiers did fantastic and then the war kicks off and you did I get that
[03:17:33] right when I opened up you there was the largest airborne assault ever it was the largest air
[03:17:37] air mobile assaults yeah air assault ever and the people that don't know aerosolte is with helicopters
[03:17:43] airborne is with parachutes yeah so it was the largest air so what the hell did that look like
[03:17:49] oh you know I talked about in the book about we had 60s hues and you know 10 shnooks and
[03:17:56] all those cobras well this made that look small because these were all black ox and
[03:18:01] black ox you haven't had your home any I think oh let's see we probably had close to 80 black
[03:18:07] ox and 80 black ox all taking off at the same time and we took off from several different locations
[03:18:14] and then joined up in the air and and flew in for this thing and I am sure that the
[03:18:20] rackies that we flew over just kind of oops oops because we got we got in there and there was
[03:18:27] there are four or five positions that that were set up that that we went into right away and
[03:18:33] took over and what we did is we set up a big perimeter out there so we did you you guys flew into
[03:18:39] Iraq oh yeah and then you hit the ground and we're you're your mission tasking was to secure
[03:18:45] some positions we're our mission tasking was to secure this big area that right away they started
[03:18:51] flying in fuel blivots and we were securing for lack of a better term a giant gas station
[03:18:57] for the cobras and the patchies the patches were flying out of there going after the
[03:19:02] Iraqi tanks and stuff so we sat there for my bit of time sat there for two days doing that
[03:19:09] and then we flew out and went with another brigade to another location and secured that
[03:19:13] for the gas station I was in a state shock that we got to that second location
[03:19:19] we were engaged in some Iraqis and my S3 came up and said sir, ceasefire and so what are you talking
[03:19:24] about ceasefire we're in the middle of contact here, surcees fire it's word came down from Brigade
[03:19:29] with the ceasefire I said you go back and had called Brigade for clarification on that I'm not
[03:19:34] ceasefire and right now somebody shooting at us and he came back and he said ceasefire so we were
[03:19:41] shocked after four days this thing's over and all the troops said it was a ceasefire because the
[03:19:45] war was over yeah yeah and all the troops said the same thing we're gonna be back here
[03:19:50] sir what what are we doing we're gonna be back here some day we can't stop now and we did
[03:19:59] and it was that taking any casualties I had one soldier dislocated shoulder that was it
[03:20:05] we'll take it yeah yeah in fact it was kind of kind of unique because when I when I took command of
[03:20:11] the batay and my training guidance I gave it to the batay and then I said in conclusion we will go forth
[03:20:17] we'll win the last battle of the next war and we'll win the entire war and we will bring everybody home
[03:20:24] I didn't realize I was gonna bring everybody home alive but I was happy to do that so
[03:20:28] that worked that good when you were when you were getting ready during that August to whenever the
[03:20:34] invasion kicked off did you were you thinking it could be a major battle and major casualties
[03:20:41] because so I came in the Navy in 1990 and I remember they were saying on the news there's going to
[03:20:46] be 40,000 casualties in the first 48 hours yes in fact our operational plans my last objective was
[03:20:55] the airport at Baghdad we had planted out that far as where we were gonna go and so when we got
[03:21:01] the word stop after four days we're going what in the world has gone on I have heard because because
[03:21:07] right now I'll put a shameless plug in I'm right in another three book series on desert storm
[03:21:13] and and I have found out my research that one of the reasons that we stopped was because Turkey
[03:21:21] did not want us to overthrow Saddam because Saddam they felt was the only one to keep the
[03:21:25] Kurds in check and Turkey said don't go to Iraq and then Schwartzkoff's guidance was
[03:21:33] kicking out of Kuwait it didn't have any guidance supposedly to go after him in Iraq so that's
[03:21:38] one of the reasons we stopped but yeah we thought we were gonna go all the way to Baghdad
[03:21:41] very disappointed that we did yeah well so what did you do after that was the next move the next
[03:21:50] move was to an army headquarters that was the worst worth of headquarters in the army and I did
[03:21:55] two years there after I got promoted and then they said sorry the next time it's the Pentagon and I said
[03:22:01] I'll take the option thank you very much so I went ahead and retired 93 and now you have
[03:22:09] two sons yes two sons both boys yeah they're sons they're boys they're like jay jay
[03:22:19] he joined the Marine Corps reserves while I was commanded when I first got command on my batay
[03:22:24] and I came home from a field exercise at just kick my butt walked in the house and my lovely wife
[03:22:32] Mary is standing there and she's got her arms crossed and she said guess which her son did
[03:22:35] I'm thinking my son you know as far as I know it's ours son I know that
[03:22:42] sorry jay what'd you do he goes simplify I want you joined the Marine Corps he said dad dad
[03:22:48] I joined the Marine Corps reserves I just he says he wasn't college and I he says I'm just tired
[03:22:52] of going to school I'm gonna go in the reserves I'll drop out of school one semester I'll do
[03:22:57] you know my two weeks in the summer one weekend each each each month and and you know I just want
[03:23:03] to break so I said okay that sounds good Mary stand in there she goes well what if they have to go
[03:23:10] to war and I said Mary the Marine Corps reserve hasn't gone to war so it's career and nothing's
[03:23:16] gonna happen there you go there you go eight them words thanks given day I'm standing on the Iraqi
[03:23:23] Iraqi study boarder my brigade commander flies any goes uh hey uh you call home lately and I said yes
[03:23:31] or there's a phone booth behind every sand doing out there no I haven't called home since we got here
[03:23:35] this is well you need to call home when we get you back to eagle and I said what's happening
[03:23:39] he says your son's unit got activated he's on his way so three days three days before the air war
[03:23:46] started I got you have to go down to where the Marines were at and I got to spend the day with him
[03:23:50] and I'm sitting there as we're leaving and I'm looking at him I'm going bam he's just a little kid
[03:23:57] so I got back I was talking about brigade commander Tom Hill and I says damn JJ's look like a
[03:24:03] little kid Tom reached over attack me I laces everyone of your troops is just one of those little
[03:24:08] kids like a damn he's right I'm the oldest guy in that battalion he's right they're all a bunch of
[03:24:13] kids so but JJ came through fine and then came back got a two year RTC commission her RTC
[03:24:20] scholarship and came in the army as an armor officer and now he's an o6 and NATO headquarters
[03:24:26] and Brussels Chris he did the same thing quit college join the army I got a phone call from a recruit
[03:24:33] a one night saying hey I got your son here we're gonna sign him up for four years and I said no
[03:24:37] you're not you're gonna sign him up for two so and Chris wound up back in my brigade the first Brigade
[03:24:42] of the hundred and first in the scout patoon got out of went to college came back in on an RTC commission
[03:24:48] infantry and he just retired two years ago as Lieutenant Colonel and he got he was an infantry and
[03:24:56] then he got over into strategic intelligence a good friend of ours Lieutenant General Friedevich
[03:25:03] an SF guy talk Chris going into strad until and Chris has done a lot of work in that
[03:25:09] that arena there with with you guys and some other people so he just retired a couple years ago
[03:25:14] back in the Pentagon doing the same job back in the same office so he can't wait to get out of there
[03:25:20] and come down to Florida and what did you do after you after you retired?
[03:25:24] Two days after retired I started as a real estate a praiser friend of ours had an appraisal company
[03:25:30] and found out I was retiring and said when she come to do this so I went up there and saw what it was
[03:25:34] about and thought yeah I have to work for the government and it's back in the town that we want to
[03:25:37] live in makes a decent wage so why not so when it back up there it's meant two years as an apprentice
[03:25:43] doing that and then took my exams past those and just kept doing real estate appraising for 20 years or so
[03:25:51] and then what at what point did you decide you're gonna write the books?
[03:25:57] We came down here in 20 or down here we came to Florida
[03:26:02] 2016 that's when I finally said okay I'm fully retired sail my boat down from Tennessee
[03:26:08] sailed it over and my wife had a problem come up she couldn't get on the boat anymore
[03:26:15] we had a 36 foot sailboat so I thought okay I'm gonna sell the sailboat
[03:26:18] she can't get on it we're not gonna can't do cruising I was doing boat deliveries from Panama and
[03:26:24] Mexico but she never went on those so but anyway so suddenly I didn't have anything to do
[03:26:32] and we we went down to the to the DAV because see about this this retina and we're talking to the guy
[03:26:42] and he said something about Vietnam and I broke down I mean big time
[03:26:52] and he said have you ever been evaluated for PTSD and I said no he's were getting you evaluated
[03:27:00] and they sent me over to the VA for an evaluation I had always thought and I hate to say this
[03:27:05] but I always thought PTSD was a bunch of bull I thought it was just a sham
[03:27:10] and I'm sitting there with him my wife and I'm crying and they took me over there and I got
[03:27:18] evaluated and they put me into 16 week programming with a psychiatrist and for about eight weeks
[03:27:25] we spent one day a week me crying and working through this thing so one of the things he suggested
[03:27:32] he says you know why did you write everything down that happened while you were in Vietnam
[03:27:36] so I said all right so I started writing the first book and first I started writing it as an
[03:27:43] autobiography and I thought well hell nobody's gonna read this so I'll make it a novel so I wrote it as a
[03:27:49] novel and went to a reunion in 2019 of our our unit and it's first time I'd ever been to one
[03:27:57] so I took the book with me and presented it there and the guys loved it and they said well what about
[03:28:03] what about this what about this why didn't you include this so I wrote the second book and
[03:28:12] did that and put that out there and it's had great reviews and then guys started calling me hey you know
[03:28:17] we were in Lombson 719 the biggest battle at army aviation has ever been in why don't you
[03:28:22] write a book about that so I wrote the second book or the third book and put that out and now they
[03:28:27] they've come back and said well we love the third book but we want more of the wife side
[03:28:32] as to what why is we're going through and this battle is going on there here and about it so right now
[03:28:37] I'm drafting out a fourth book that'll that'll be coming out sometime after I get this this series
[03:28:42] I'm working on now about desert storm anyone who's who kind of guided you through the writing process
[03:28:49] there's a guy named James Rosen and James wrote in a couple of books a couple he's got a bunch out there
[03:28:57] and he wrote one interview with a terrorist he was an interrogator and he wrote that and he wrote a
[03:29:04] couple of books my mommy has PTSD my daddy has PTSD and he wrote those and I read one of his
[03:29:11] boats is he's got a series called rigged and I read that and I wrote him a sentiment email saying hey
[03:29:16] I really enjoyed reading your books well come to find out he lives around the corner for me and he
[03:29:21] called me up he said let's go to Buffalo Wingson we went to Buffalo Wingson he had been kind of my
[03:29:26] mentor guiding me through on how to write the process of how to get published and we published on Amazon
[03:29:33] it fixed me up with a great editor she's really good drives I drive her crazy but so he's been kind
[03:29:40] and guiding me along and then I got this while here about we need to make a movie and we're working
[03:29:46] right now on that with with the two screenwriters and my producer any any idea when that's going to
[03:29:53] come to fruition well we're hoping to have the screenplay done by the end of the summer and the
[03:29:58] producers putting together the package that we're going to start taking to the studios I'm just hoping
[03:30:03] that'll still be alive when we get it on the screen you know it takes it's about a three to four
[03:30:08] year process I'm finding that to get a movie made yeah no I I think that's a minimum and it can
[03:30:16] the other weird thing about movies are you can you can sell a screenplay tomorrow for a millions of
[03:30:23] dollars and it can never get made yeah yeah you can just sit and someone someone buys it from
[03:30:28] from you and it just sits there and that's the way it is sometimes I would rather have it made
[03:30:32] than make a million dollars and I know people are going to go yeah right I think our story
[03:30:37] is important enough that it needs to get out there I've already talked to a couple of organizations
[03:30:43] what money we make on this a lot of it is going to get donated back to army aviation association
[03:30:49] the wings of liberty museum at at four camel the American Huey Huey chapter 365 I mean these are
[03:31:00] outfits that have been helped me out and stuff like that so that's our intent is to get a lot
[03:31:04] of this money donated back to those that helped us well that's that's awesome look we've been going
[03:31:11] for over three hours right now I I I kind of we should probably wrap this thing up for people to find
[03:31:18] you online I know you have you have Matt Jackson books dot com is that the main place to find you
[03:31:26] uh they can find us at www dot Matt Jackson books dot com we're on Facebook Matt Jackson
[03:31:34] we're on Facebook undonted valor and very soon we're going to have a website for the movie
[03:31:41] the gals effect she said me an email yesterday and I got a sitting on Saturday and we will have that
[03:31:45] out coming out pretty soon the books are all for sale on Amazon that's who we work with for publishing
[03:31:52] stuff yeah and we'll have those linked up so people can just we have a thing on our website
[03:31:57] called books from the podcast we'll have all these on there so people can click right in and get the
[03:32:02] books echo yes do you have anything I do okay see now we get through real part of the area
[03:32:10] that's one he seemed off a quiet oh and one okay what's going through is my uh okay so when you
[03:32:15] started working with the uh the screen writers right and you were like hey these movies don't follow
[03:32:21] this you know BS but these movies you can sort of can yeah what were the movies that you kind of
[03:32:27] can like that had some integrity with their previous hacksaw ridge that's great one of the best ones
[03:32:35] is hamburger hill I thought that was that was a pretty good production that they need to
[03:32:39] focus on uh one of the ones I said no to was what was the Clint East one where is a marine
[03:32:49] oh heartbreak heartbreak ridge now no no no no 19 17 I thought was pretty good
[03:32:58] for those those are the three big ones that that I've focused these guys on looking at
[03:33:02] what about saving private right oh saving private lines definitely good that's that's a great one
[03:33:07] all right what about apocalypse now absolutely not what about two because we had a
[03:33:13] but two is a good one okay but two is a good one never seen put you never have yeah I
[03:33:18] tell you what you were recommended but you haven't seen cobra so I haven't seen cobra even of course
[03:33:24] so yeah when you guys watched cobra then yeah yeah but two was one of the first good ones that
[03:33:29] came out you know apocalypse now came out and yeah because I came out in 75 yeah 75 and that was such
[03:33:35] I don't want to say the word on the air but absolutely not only through a poachin
[03:33:40] fact I never watched the whole thing I watched bits and pieces here and there and just that
[03:33:44] told me I didn't want to see this thing but Patoon came out and it was pretty darn realistic
[03:33:49] I love the part where in hamburger hill where they make a brush their teeth as soon as they arrived
[03:33:55] happened to us and Vietnam soon as we got off the airplane we had a brush our teeth so you know
[03:33:59] stuff like that was pretty realistic to what was going on where apocalypse now was
[03:34:04] blowing smoke well when the joke the joke that I forget who it was they played a joke and you said hey
[03:34:13] don't salute me that was our operations officer when I got there yeah okay so that's from a scene
[03:34:18] from forest gum by the way yeah yeah well it's like don't salute me yeah yeah yeah
[03:34:25] except for he says it for real yes he did he's not joking okay yeah he's being serious yeah and forest
[03:34:30] gum was made way after so that's interesting yeah you know I wonder if there's some sort of a
[03:34:35] through two line or something well I don't know I'll call Tom Hanks up and ask him to push me
[03:34:40] well Gary we had Gary's niece on the podcast he was pretty good briefing I mean he definitely
[03:34:44] asked it I like Gary's you know you can you can not not like Gary's a great guy huge supporter
[03:34:50] huge supporter of the military in of America uh sir you got anything else you want to add no no you
[03:34:56] guys I hope I answered all your questions we're just getting warmed up I will tell you of the three
[03:35:02] books people ask me that's okay you wrote three books which ones the best in my opinion
[03:35:08] Lomson 719's the best people that have read that have called me up and they said
[03:35:14] I'm crying I've read this thing it's intense and and I will warn you right now if you thought the
[03:35:19] combat scenes in the first one were intense that one there is just unbelievable it is absolutely
[03:35:24] unbelievable what those guys went through and in flying that operation I just can't say enough about it
[03:35:32] the bravery the determination the dedication the loyalty the courage you know it would be awesome
[03:35:39] is if if you've gotten a friends or you know anyone that was there and they want to come on here
[03:35:43] and talk about it and talk us through the book that'd be awesome how many would you like to have
[03:35:48] had one time well I'll I'll have them all at some point you know you can if anyone wants to come on
[03:35:55] this with this that's what this podcast is for I will I will I know I know the guy a particular
[03:36:01] that I will I will call him up and ask him to feel come talk to you about it because uh
[03:36:05] he was in an integral part he was part of the common cheros and uh and they did a great job of course
[03:36:11] every one of the units the the blue dolphins uh the Robin Hoods that were at Likesay with us one up there
[03:36:18] they all just amazing what they did and how they did it and you know when you go into a battle
[03:36:25] and you lose in 45 days 600 aircraft 1100 crew members and you still accomplish the mission it's just
[03:36:33] unbelievable what they went through but yeah I will call one guy in particular and and see if he'll
[03:36:38] come out and sit out with you open invite to anybody you send me the chair is waiting for them
[03:36:44] it'd be an honor to have him on and it's you know you're talking about it's incredible what they did
[03:36:48] but as far as I'm as far as I can tell as far as I know what you all did over there it's incredible
[03:36:55] and and well thanks for joining us today and and more important thanks for thanks for your incredible
[03:37:02] service and incredible sacrifice and we won't forget we will not let it we will we will not
[03:37:09] forget what you all did and we will not forget your brothers that did not come home well thank you very
[03:37:14] much jockel for having me and for those thoughts thanks for joining us sir thank you and with that
[03:37:22] Colonel Matt Jackson has left the building and we are here echo Charles another guest another
[03:37:35] another example of how much more we can do as human beings yeah
[03:37:43] something to think something for us to think about because we should want to do more right
[03:37:48] so in our lives we should want to we should want to get better and be better
[03:37:57] check any suggestions on how we do that yeah planning but but the part where you know
[03:38:02] when he was talking about I forget the the term when how they got a lower and they got a you know
[03:38:07] when you go through the jungle with the helicopter I felt that part it was making me kind of nervous
[03:38:13] like yeah imagining there's not a lot of times when I read stuff and actually I didn't read those
[03:38:19] sections because it was a lot of dialogue and the dialogue would be like hold left pull left tail
[03:38:24] and you know it's just like this dialogue going back and forth I don't think I could do the dialogue
[03:38:29] justice yeah so I just asked him to kind of describe what it was like but yeah crazy crazy stuff
[03:38:36] the whole thing just the fact that those helicopters are basically like a 1968 VW bug
[03:38:46] like they got an engine they got a steering wheel you know there's not a lot of there's no computers
[03:38:52] in this like yeah just completely manually maneuvered through space and he made a good point
[03:38:59] through that like you kind of don't think about compared to when he compared it to airplanes
[03:39:02] we're like brother helicopters all you they're playing a lot of time you can sort of let it cruise you know
[03:39:09] yeah where the helicopters like man you can't wait to tell that today Burke good deal to you know
[03:39:15] exactly exactly you do it all right cool yes we're all improving
[03:39:21] trying to live trying the path yep I'm on the path I used to say
[03:39:26] maybe what we were trying to improve is seen how quickly we could get through certain times
[03:39:31] oh yeah like efficient yeah that's efficient you see getting more efficient it's opposed to rushing
[03:39:35] it because we don't want to rush nothing or or do we I don't know am I wrong should I should we rush
[03:39:40] it um I'm thinking we could probably move more quickly more efficient than efficiently I get it
[03:39:49] I know you think that there's a bunch of people that are listening they're not they're not listening
[03:39:54] they shot it off they heard Colonel Jackson left the building like oh cool let me get let me get
[03:40:02] back 70 minutes of my time right now because I can just press stop on this podcast all right all right
[03:40:07] okay okay I got you I got you hey look we're all in the path we may need some help
[03:40:12] how about that we'll supplement ourselves with supplementation from jockel see that right there
[03:40:19] that whole sentence did not need to exist it was right it exists and it has it has a massive value first
[03:40:25] okay look hey look if I'm about to give you some help how should I not
[03:40:31] to my when I'm should I declare that I am here to help if you need help okay or could you
[03:40:38] help I'm just saying you don't you don't you don't tell us what we didn't know okay all right
[03:40:42] I'm over here but you're over here you know yeah I see that's a thing I bring this on myself yes
[03:40:49] you should just be totally silent yeah well okay I don't I don't know about all that okay
[03:40:53] how can we help ourselves echo through supplementation jockel fuel you got problems with your
[03:41:00] joints or you don't want to ever worry about your joints anymore take super cruel oil and joint
[03:41:04] warfare boom you want vitamin D3 supplementation which is good for all aspects of health
[03:41:10] if you care about that which we do because we're on the path boom jockel is that that as well
[03:41:17] also you want some additional protein we got milk and it tastes good how about that true put a
[03:41:24] banana and that's what I did something also got discipline and discipline go which are at its core
[03:41:30] I like the fact that I tell you Dary and I tell you that everybody already knows all this and you
[03:41:35] still tell this stuff to me like I'm hearing it for the first time well you're looking at me like
[03:41:39] hearing it for the first time yeah some of us either didn't hear it or it's cool to get a reminder
[03:41:50] okay you seem to say yep we're you're in my everyone's reminded good stuff yeah supplementation
[03:41:57] okay get the discipline go I was I was gonna go into this earlier off air but the so if you drink
[03:42:03] energy drinks yeah I don't care if you get the sugar free one but it's like at a certain
[03:42:09] point usually after the first one if you taller if you're even into it after the first one you're
[03:42:14] like proud and you I can't do these anymore at least for a day your body knows and they tell
[03:42:20] you're mind this is not good that is the point right there yep yeah it's like your body knows
[03:42:25] yep your body knows there's something wrong with this one jockel discipline go it your body
[03:42:31] still knows your body knows it's good yeah your body says hey I could use a little bit more of that
[03:42:36] so if you're listening to a four hour Vietnam pilot scenario brother those things just keep rolling
[03:42:43] with a smile I'll tell you that yeah yeah yeah hey if you want to get any of this stuff and you
[03:42:47] want to get it shipped to your house for free for the jockel fuel dot com and then what you can
[03:42:53] do is subscribe if you subscribe do it will come to your house for free anything that you want
[03:42:57] in this category of supplementation can also get the drinks at wall wall you can also get the whole
[03:43:04] line at vitamin shop jockel fuel dot com get some also origin USA dot com you can get the stuff there
[03:43:14] as well also jiu jitsu stuff it when we're doing our jiu jitsu we want some new stuff and we
[03:43:19] ghee just face it we could it with Colonel Jackson we could have gone that he trained at the
[03:43:23] codocon judo we could have gone down that well that's a two hour three hour podcast didn't even get
[03:43:28] there yet because when that guy was coming when when lieutenant dickweed was coming at him
[03:43:34] sure dickweed right you know that guy was about to get judo tossed right on his head so that's what I'm
[03:43:41] talking about so jiu jitsu we're doing jiu jitsu sorry but yeah origin USA I'm saying if you you know
[03:43:47] you want to get some new jiu jitsu stuff boom that's where you get it all made in America by the way I say
[03:43:52] I say by the way but it's a huge you deal here's the thing though if let's say you need stuff beyond
[03:43:56] jiu jitsu stuff like you got your jiu jitsu stuff handled you got the ghee you got the
[03:44:00] rash guard you still might need to go to the grocery store you can't wear the ghee to the grocery store
[03:44:06] what you can wear is American made jeans not to make you can't make it as American made boots
[03:44:12] true you get it all there yeah and don't think hundred percent work industrial like this
[03:44:20] that but let's face it there's some I know you don't like the word fashion but there's some fashion
[03:44:24] in there leave it to Pete Robert some function there okay Pete Robert's bleeds over in some some
[03:44:29] citron scenarios put it this way he added a significant amount of aesthetic value to both by the way
[03:44:36] jeans and boots I don't agree you just can't see that can't stop no it's just functional yeah yeah
[03:44:40] like I said you can't really see that kind of stuff but nonetheless it is there so yes origin USA
[03:44:47] that's the spot to get these items also jocos stores to well jocos store this is where you can get
[03:44:52] your t-shirts that say discipline equals freedom good death core uh take the high ground hardcore
[03:44:57] rickando hardcore rickando i like when somebody comes on to twitter or the glam and says you should
[03:45:03] make a shirt that says back to the book or you should make a shirt that says this link was freedom or
[03:45:08] you should make whatever right and I go up to our top of the store come yeah it's not there yeah
[03:45:13] I'm not saying we fall in every shirt by any stretch but there's a bunch of shirts there speaking
[03:45:19] of thinking of every shirt so we've expanded into a subscription scenario and this is where we can
[03:45:26] experiment for lack of better term with all other ideas for shirts every idea pretty much what's this
[03:45:33] thing called the shirt locker see that's a good name what what did you originally call it I forget that was
[03:45:38] long time ago forget well you try to block that for the ride you know your mind like I said it's a good
[03:45:44] it's a good little deal it's fun check that one out again jockel store dot com if you like something
[03:45:50] you know get something uh you can also subscribe to this podcast there's not just this podcast
[03:45:57] also there's jockel unraveling myself and Darrell Cooper of Marter Made fame
[03:46:03] Z-famous from Marter Made yes in my mind you can check out jockel unraveling we're talking
[03:46:09] about a bunch of different things historical things and how they tying to what's going on right now we
[03:46:13] got the ground in podcast we got what you could podcast have new episodes up there you can also check us out
[03:46:19] at the jockel underground dot com jockel underground dot com this is look it's uh what they call it
[03:46:26] paywall you I always say firewall you correct it for say paywall yeah what's a difference
[03:46:31] uh firewall is the security thing that's nothing to do with paying okay so we have a thing that you can
[03:46:37] pay it costs $8.18 a month it's basically you're supporting this podcast you're supporting
[03:46:43] all these podcasts that we're doing and also we have a contingency plan in case we get
[03:46:50] removed for whatever reason or if we we hear that other platforms are injecting advertisements
[03:46:59] into our podcast we don't like that I don't like that I don't want to have Colonel Matt Jackson talking
[03:47:04] about flying a mission to be a nom and have somebody edit in a freaking advertisement so we don't want
[03:47:10] that we don't want that so that's why we made jockel underground dot com we also we also put a little
[03:47:17] additional podcast on there just to say thanks so we appreciate if you're if you're helping us out
[03:47:22] there you're you're helping us remain free so go to jockel underground dot com if you want to help
[03:47:29] out there we also have a youtube channel a youtube channel because echo Charles is a youtuber
[03:47:35] technically you're the youtuber technically so you know hey well yeah it draws the youtuber
[03:47:42] and he wants you to subscribe to his youtube channel where he posts youtube videos first of
[03:47:48] okay first off the youtube channel is called jockel podcast does have echo in there at all
[03:47:53] ever pretty much maybe in some of the titles yes what's the difference between a youtuber and
[03:47:58] somebody that's posting youtube videos okay well I don't know I guess if you go to super youtube
[03:48:04] no youtuber is that that's their primary occupation is to be on youtube but then again even that
[03:48:11] yeah that that is it I think this is for as I know there's some really
[03:48:17] legit youtubers out there that make freaking awesome stuff and I'm posted yeah fully there's also a lot
[03:48:23] of youtubers out there it's hard to throw him in that same bucket with the awesome yeah the
[03:48:29] awesomeness so I think you're more in the bucket of like you know wait all right what's the next
[03:48:34] section I'm not gonna get to anyway all right cool good I mean you're a youtuber I mean to
[03:48:40] bro no that's not our primary so technically we're not youtuber because we have a youtube channel
[03:48:44] and it is yeah I think it's legitimate okay so check that out if you want also psychological warfare
[03:48:50] isn't album that jockel made we made of jockel telling you how to get through moments of
[03:48:56] the weakness I was actually telling you yeah telling me now it's everybody not everybody that
[03:49:00] why it's because we all have them from time to time so same but yeah you can get that anywhere where
[03:49:04] you where you get MP3's whether be Amazon Google Play boom that's what you can get them also
[03:49:10] you want visual representation you want things to hang on your wall basically yeah fully go to
[03:49:15] go to flipsidecamp is dot com my brother Dakota Meyer he's got a company made in America
[03:49:19] making cool stuff to hang on your wall which is legit bunch of books we got a bunch of books we got
[03:49:24] the books that we talked about today the book we talked about today primarily was
[03:49:29] undaunted valor and assault helicopter unit Vietnam there's also volume two metal vanner
[03:49:34] and volume three which Matt Jackson Colonel Jackson said was the best of the three
[03:49:39] about about long lamson in uh 177 18 largest air battle um final spin I have a uh
[03:49:48] novel coming out myself and it's a story it's a book it's a poem it's a new form of writing
[03:50:02] am I allowed to do that we don't know yeah we I don't know if I'm allowed to do it but I did it
[03:50:08] it's a story if you want to get final spin if you want that first the dish boy that first the
[03:50:13] dish is gonna be loaded to you all right if you want the first the dish order because the guess what the
[03:50:17] publisher's thinking the publisher's like well you know jocca you know you mostly but right
[03:50:22] books about uh leadership so you know what what's this thing over here they're not gonna print
[03:50:26] enough they're not gonna print enough and then it'll come out you'll be mad because you got the third
[03:50:30] of the dish brutal shame just shame uh leadership strategy and tactics field manual the
[03:50:38] code the evaluation of protocols discipline equals freedom field manual way the warrior kid one two three
[03:50:42] and four mic in the dragons about face this is getting to be a long list this is just an
[03:50:50] in the the original books extreme ownership and the dichotomy of leadership that I wrote with my
[03:50:55] brother Dave Babin also we have echelon front which is our leadership consulting company
[03:51:01] we saw problems through leadership kota echelon front dot com if you want us to help inside your company
[03:51:05] we have eF online which is online training for leadership you can get your whole organization
[03:51:12] into the game go to eF online dot com for that muster our leadership events we are executing
[03:51:20] we didn't execute in 2020 there was the virus and whatnot we were about to execute one in 2020
[03:51:26] and guess what happened I got the virus I got I had had had messroona and so when I had
[03:51:34] messroona I couldn't go spread it to everybody so we we didn't execute any in 2021 we are 100
[03:51:41] percent executing in 2021 Orlando may 25th and 26th Phoenix August 17th and 18th and Las Vegas
[03:51:53] October 28th and 29th go to extremotorship.com everything that we've done has sold out these are
[03:51:59] going to sell out too especially because we got a little less people for social distancing and whatnot
[03:52:04] so less seats so they're going to sell out if you want to come go to extremotorship.com asapee we have
[03:52:12] eF battlefield which is us for this particular one the next one we've got up is us walking the
[03:52:20] battlefield at getty'sburg this is a small number of people attending very small it's like 35 people
[03:52:27] so if you want to come go to echelon front dot com slash events you can sign up for that or you can sign up for
[03:52:33] the FTX we do combat missions simulated combat missions to teach leadership awesome stuff
[03:52:40] if you want to help service members active and retired if you want to help their families if you
[03:52:44] want to help gold star families check out mark leaves mom mom and we she's got a charity organization
[03:52:50] and if you want to donate or you want to get involved go to america's mighty warriors dot org and if
[03:52:54] you want any more and if you just feel like you need more of my protracted pontifications or you
[03:53:02] need more of echos confounding catechism you can find us on the inner webs on twitter
[03:53:11] on the gram or on that facebook echoes at echelon chal's nia matchocca willink and thanks once again
[03:53:19] to Colonel Matt Jackson for joining us and for writing these books
[03:53:25] but most important for his service to america and we will not forget the fallen soldiers of the
[03:53:32] 227th assault helicopter battalion freedom is not free and thanks to all the other men and women
[03:53:42] out there in uniform who are always on watch and ready to protect and defend our way of life
[03:53:47] and that includes not only the military but also police and law enforcement fire fighters
[03:53:52] paramedics EMT's dispatchers correctional officers border patrol secret service
[03:53:58] and all the other first responders thank you for protecting and defending us as well
[03:54:06] and to everyone else remember the price that was paid for our freedom
[03:54:12] and in the book undonned validers a part that I did not read today this is where
[03:54:20] Dan Cori and his team fly to an outstation to pick up some bodies of
[03:54:25] two soldiers that were killed in action and they arrive on scene and the two fallen servicemen
[03:54:33] wrapped in ponchos are loaded onto the old hui warboard warbird and Dan Cori whispers a prayer
[03:54:46] that he had written he says may they soar with the angels on wings of eagles may they watch
[03:54:54] over those they loved and those who love them may they rest in peace until we gather for the final
[03:55:02] formation
[03:55:05] Amen
[03:55:07] and that's all I've got for tonight and until next time this is echo and jockel out