Long Binh to Tuy Hoa via Phan Thiet.

Major Lewis, the Kappa Alpha C.O. I referred to early on in these posts, received orders to transfer to Tuy Hoa and Major Stiner came in to take his place commanding the Fireball Aviation Section of the 199th. Normally that wouldn't be such a big deal but in this case it was. Not only was Major Stiner an incredible leader and perfect officer to take command of our section but he was a strategist as well, and one who had very insightful methods as it relates to combat operations.

Instead of catching a fixed wing aircraft to Tuy Hoa, a very long distance flight for a helicopter, he chose us to fly him there. I've often thought that he did that because he knew that most of the fixed wing flight would have been over the mountains and if anything at all went wrong, they would end up in the jungles or the mountains and have a most difficult time with rescue.

We left Long Binh very early one morning, picked up Major Lewis in Xuan Loc and began our long distance flight. Since I knew it wasn't going to be a hunter killer kind of mission, I brought a cassette player with me and recorded many parts of the flight.

We flew east to Phan Thiet where the coastline of Vietnam and the South China Sea met and then proceeded Northward for hour after hour. I remember seeing the "Phang Rang Pass" for the first time and recalled the many stories I'd heard about the battles that had taken place all over that area.

An Island that was just offshore had been the site of a huge battle between the Viet Cong and the Korean soldiers we had as our ally. It was famous to us as it was the first experience we had in learning about the "ears" that they had attached to their belts as proof of how many VC they had killed in combat.

It seemed that proof of killing had with it some kind of bonus for their infantry and one guy had ears hanging from his belt to the ground. They were tough as nails and showed no mercy when fighting the merciless and murderous Viet Cong.

Just as we prepared to stop for fuel we received a radio call warning us that we were flying through an artillery line where 125 or 155 mm Howitzers or 8" guns from offshore Navy cruisers were flying through the air.

It reminded me of my first combat mission with Wollman where he found a spot where we would be clear of the artillery lines and more or less, stopped the aircraft and brought it to a hover over the battle field. I can close my eyes and re run all of that through my memory. You may recall that I mentioned that it "wasn't in the tactics book" I had just finished studying at Ft. Rucker, and then, I realized that guys like Wollman were the ones that were writing the book.

I remember how beautiful Chamron Bay was (SP). I'd read about the U.S. Marine Corp coming ashore in amphibious assault boats there and imagined what that might have been like. In any event, we finally arrived at Tuy Hoa and said our goodbyes to Major Lewis. One hell of a good commander.

After refueling for the second time, we took off and headed south as we knew it was going to be an all day long flight that might well end up with us having a night landing if we didn't get a move on.

Nothing of any importance happened on the flight back to Long Binh except for the fact that I had experienced a number of "hot refuels" where we never shut down the helicopter's turbine. When we finally made it home, I remember filling out the log book and being surprised that we had booked nine or eleven hours of flight time that day. It was the most hours I had ever logged or would ever log in one day.