My first daylight mission with the Slicks was flown with my classmate from Wolters and Rucker, Bill Reinhardt. Bill and I graduated from flight school on the same day but somehow his day to report in Vietnam was slightly behind mine. In any event, he'd been in the 11th Cav much longer than I had and was chosen to fly as Pilot in Command or Aircraft Commander.
Despite the fact that I had more flight time logged from the 199th where we flew almost every day, I was more than happy to fly as Bill's co pilot. I never figured out why the AC was seated on the left side of the helicopter with the copilot on the right because, in my opinion, the right side of the Huey cockpit had a much better sight picture of the instrument panel than the left. In any event, there we were, walking out to the revetment area where the Hueys were parked. It was one day that can only be described as hot as hell.
When we finished with our preflight of the Huey, we strapped on the bullet proof vests that we referred to as "chicken plates" and climbed into the cockpit, put on our helmets, buckled our 4 point harnesses and began the start up procedure to get the turbine up to operating speed. With everything in order to leave, Bill took control of the ship and began to ease it up to a hover.
Revetments weren't the best place in the world to be hovering. They didn't allow a lot of room for that because they were really designed to keep scrapnel from hitting the ship during mortar and rocket attacks and their walls were very close to the left and right side of the helicopters.
I remember watching the torque meter and feeling the Huey shutter a little bit. I immediately knew something was wrong. Bill got on the intercom and said the skids were stuck in the asphalt. It was common place for high temperatures to exist and as a result of that, find that the asphalt had become tacky to a point where you could even hear the difference in the sound of your walk when each step you took carried with it a squishing sound.
In any event, if you ever watched a Huey leave the ground and come to a 3 foot hover, you may have noticed that the typical manner in which they did that, was to have the ship lift the front part of the skids off first, rare back just a bit and then lift the back of the skids off and come straight up. Bill had the cyclic in the aft position and was applying enough rear cyclic to lift the front of the skids up, but the ship didn't want to let go of the asphalt. We appeared to be hopelessly stuck.
With more than a small amount of skill, he managed to get the front of the helicopter light on the skids but the rear portion of the skids simply dug in deeper. At that time he began applying left and right pedal inputs to the tail rotor hoping that we could get the left and right movements of the skids to wallow their way out of the muck. For the inexperienced, let me say that this takes a huge amount of pilot technique and Bill had it. It wouldn't have made an ounce of difference who was doing the flying on that day because "Stuck was stuck".
Bill eventually managed to get the front section of the skids completely under his control. As a result of that and the degree of "stickiness" that existed on the pad, we found that the left rear skid had dug further into the asphalt than the right rear. In any event, he managed to get the Huey's nose to come up a bit and continued to try and break the asphalt's hold on the rear skids. Eventually it worked.
Bill had quite correctly been using right pedal as left pedal turns required more torque because of the torque that was stored in the rotating rotors. You have to remember that the rotor diameter of the Huey was 48' in diameter and stored a boat load of energy.
The second we broke loose from the asphalt, with all the control inputs that existed at that moment, the tail boom of the Huey began to move swiftly toward the revetment wall on the left side of the ship. It was at that moment that we felt and heard the left horizontal stabilizer as it hit the revetment wall.
To make a long story short, we came within a hair of a situation that could have knocked the entire tail boom of the Huey which would have resulted in a catastrophic failure that would have totally destroyed the ship. Bill's lightning reaction put the Huey back in the middle of the revetment where he landed it and shut down.
We inspected the tail boom with a crew chief, deemed everything was okay and started all over again. We managed to get underway safely and return without incident. With all the action that took place during our attempts to get the Huey off the ground and the resulting crash into the revetment wall, I don't have any recollection of the mission other that that.
I often times wondered what my history in the 11th Cav would be if my first daylight mission began with a crash before we ever even left the revetment. In any event, let me say that Bill was a great Huey pilot and proved that over and over again especially when we began operations into Cambodia.
A hearty "well done" to my good friend, flight school buddy and fellow Huey pilot from the Slick Platoon, Bill Reinhardt.
Saturday, May 12, 2012
Friday, May 4, 2012
Day 2 in the Slick Platoon
I think it's common place to have uncertainties when you come into a new unit, but the ups and downs that came from day one in the Air Cav Troop seemed a bit different from my first couple of days with the 199th. I was pleasantly surprised by the demeanor of the Huey pilots I'd met and could tell by looking at them that they knew what was going on and were ready for whatever else was to come. Despite that, there still appeared to be something uncertain from the overall picture.
I discovered that we had a Lt assigned as a pilot with the Slicks, but he never flew. I also discovered that the pilots in the Slick Platoon were sitting around for the second day and not out flying any missions. Further to that, even though I did not expect any kind of heroes welcome, I was a bit surprised that no commissioned officers had called on me to discuss preparations for the Nighthawk missions I was there to begin. I still hadn't met Cpt Sheehan and that seemed to be the most unsettling thing.
On the upside of that, I quickly learned that there was a Huey pilot in the Slick Platoon named Jim Jelsomin and he was considered by all the pilots in the unit, to be the most experienced Huey pilot and that the description of him was somewhat like my description of Wollman, Femmer and Young.
With that thought in mind, I remember the first time I saw him and I had to agree that he looked the part of the "Ace" and perfectly fit the mold of what you might expect a super pilot to look like. If there was any Huey pilot that should have been on the front cover of Life Magazine, he surely fit the profile.
Despite those things, I finally met Captain Sheehan. As he extended his hand, he told me that he was real excited to see me in the unit and could not wait to begin night combat operations. I soon found out that he had been briefed and knew where I had come from, what my combat experiences were and what I was there to do. Even though that made me feel much better, it gave me a certain degree of uncertainty as it related to my first meeting with Major Blanchard who more or less said nothing along those lines.
As Sheehan went into his background, he told me about his experiences as an instructor pilot at Ft. Rucker and that during his time there, he became General Patton's instructor. He also told me that he'd written General Patton a pink slip for poor performance during one his flight lessons and that the General raised hell about receiving a pink slip. The part I liked most about that story was the ending where he said that the pink slip stuck and he wouldn't change his grade. I thought that was more than a little ballsy.
As our discussion continued, he told me something that furthered my comfort level. He told me that he would not accept a situation where I simply came into the unit and started training the other pilots in the art of night combat operations. He was most emphatic about his position as CO of the Slicks and how important it was that he be the first pilot in the unit to become Nighthawk qualified.
Even though I didn't know him, I was quite relieved that I would be flying with a pilot that had been an instructor at Rucker and was stepping up to the plate as a Platoon Commander who exhibited an attitude that he would not ask any of his men to do anything that he wouldn't do himself. I instantly became comfortable with that as I knew he had extensive knowledge of our Area of Operations, more flight hours than I did and that he knew everybody in the unit on the aviation side including the gunners and crew chiefs.
As I returned to the Slick Hootch, my new level of confidence fell a bit when I discovered all the pilots still sitting around playing guitars, writing letters home, listening to music or just shooting the shit with each other. It was then that I discovered that the Slicks had not seen much flying in the recent past and they were bored to death, wanting to fly and make a difference.
Somehow, I had the sense that they blamed Sheehan for all that. I'd never experienced a situation like that with the 199th as we were a very tight knit outfit and flew all the time. I remember that I eventually fell into the same sense of boredom as day after day went by without me flying. I didn't know how the scheduling ran but I knew that Sheehan almost certainly had nothing to with it.
In any event, I was soon to take my first flight and even that added to my uncertainties. Major Blanchard sent a runner to get me and have me report to the helipad for a flight. I was thrilled with the opportunity to get back in the cockpit, but soon became disappointed with it. I thought I was going to have an opportunity to show my stuff but instead, more or less became a passenger who did nothing.
We flew North for a minute, turned west and gained alot of altitude which was something we only did in the 199th when we knew there was alot of anti aircraft fire around. As we passed the famous base at Cu Chi where Colin Powell had been stationed, and continued to head westward, I told the Major I'd been here before and advised him that I had made a flight to Cambodia when I was first with the 199th. When I said that, he looked at me with an eye that showed me his "hold card" and let me know that he was thinking something was going on that he wasn't aware of.
I remembered that flight because there had been a huge firefight when another ground unit landed right in the middle of a huge marijuana field in Cambodia where our ground unit learned that the drug lord's private army was every bit as tough as the NVA or the VC.
Another aviation unit was there dropping 55 gallon drums of gasoline out of a Chinook which immediately set the marijuana field on fire. I remembered Little O laughing and saying: "Fly us over there". It was my one and only flight into Cambodia during my entire time with the 199th and I had no idea why we were there.
As we approached Tay Ninh and the famous mountain that was known as Nui Ba Din, Major Blanchard did a 180 and we began our flight back to Dian. I don't remember if I did any piloting at all that day but I do remember that I considered it be as far away from an orientation flight as it could be. When we landed back at Dian I filled out the log book, post flighted the Huey and watched the Major go back to his office. It was the only flight I made with the Troop Commander during the entire time I was with the Cav and I considered it to be a very strange and uninformative flight.
When I returned to the Slick Platoon, I found the pilots in their usual positions and began to understand a bit more about the types of pilots these were. It was on this day that I became convinced that these Huey jocks were fighters and should not be left to sit on the side lines during the big game.
I would soon realize that my side of that situation would change radically. I was going to completely skip the normally accepted procedure of flying with Jelsomin first and THEN being released or qualified as okay to fly Slicks. Instead of that I would immediately begin night combat ops with Cpt. Sheehan.
Even though I welcomed the chance to begin spying on the night life of the NVA or VC in the area, I found myself flying at night and sleeping most of the day. With that schedule, I missed alot of the shit shooting times with my fellow pilots. I was a bit concerned that I would not be looked upon with any degree of equality as I was getting flight time and during the daytime lull, they were getting none.
Adding insult to injury, we had Cobra gunship escorts as back ups if anything went wrong and that produced a situation where almost everybody was getting flight time except the Blue Team.
By that time, we were already into October of 1970 and as I see it, the Slicks had seen very little flight time at all for the first two weeks I was with the unit and even though I was Blue 28, I was wracking up the flight hours almost every night while my brothers were sitting on the side lines waiting and waiting and waiting.
It was a strange environment for me as everybody from the 199th always had their hands full with flight time and I'd never experienced a situation where pilots more or less were grounded by situation and circumstance. As hindsight often proves, we would soon wish for the lull in the fighting as before long, the fighting began on a large scale and with that, came losses.
I just received a call from the hospital and I have to run but this is as accurate a report as I can make from the first two weeks I was in the ACT. I am certain that, at a minimum, Bill and Curt will remember these weeks as I recall having conversations with them about it as I didn't understand the long terms of inactivity either.
More later, stand by.
I discovered that we had a Lt assigned as a pilot with the Slicks, but he never flew. I also discovered that the pilots in the Slick Platoon were sitting around for the second day and not out flying any missions. Further to that, even though I did not expect any kind of heroes welcome, I was a bit surprised that no commissioned officers had called on me to discuss preparations for the Nighthawk missions I was there to begin. I still hadn't met Cpt Sheehan and that seemed to be the most unsettling thing.
On the upside of that, I quickly learned that there was a Huey pilot in the Slick Platoon named Jim Jelsomin and he was considered by all the pilots in the unit, to be the most experienced Huey pilot and that the description of him was somewhat like my description of Wollman, Femmer and Young.
With that thought in mind, I remember the first time I saw him and I had to agree that he looked the part of the "Ace" and perfectly fit the mold of what you might expect a super pilot to look like. If there was any Huey pilot that should have been on the front cover of Life Magazine, he surely fit the profile.
Despite those things, I finally met Captain Sheehan. As he extended his hand, he told me that he was real excited to see me in the unit and could not wait to begin night combat operations. I soon found out that he had been briefed and knew where I had come from, what my combat experiences were and what I was there to do. Even though that made me feel much better, it gave me a certain degree of uncertainty as it related to my first meeting with Major Blanchard who more or less said nothing along those lines.
As Sheehan went into his background, he told me about his experiences as an instructor pilot at Ft. Rucker and that during his time there, he became General Patton's instructor. He also told me that he'd written General Patton a pink slip for poor performance during one his flight lessons and that the General raised hell about receiving a pink slip. The part I liked most about that story was the ending where he said that the pink slip stuck and he wouldn't change his grade. I thought that was more than a little ballsy.
As our discussion continued, he told me something that furthered my comfort level. He told me that he would not accept a situation where I simply came into the unit and started training the other pilots in the art of night combat operations. He was most emphatic about his position as CO of the Slicks and how important it was that he be the first pilot in the unit to become Nighthawk qualified.
Even though I didn't know him, I was quite relieved that I would be flying with a pilot that had been an instructor at Rucker and was stepping up to the plate as a Platoon Commander who exhibited an attitude that he would not ask any of his men to do anything that he wouldn't do himself. I instantly became comfortable with that as I knew he had extensive knowledge of our Area of Operations, more flight hours than I did and that he knew everybody in the unit on the aviation side including the gunners and crew chiefs.
As I returned to the Slick Hootch, my new level of confidence fell a bit when I discovered all the pilots still sitting around playing guitars, writing letters home, listening to music or just shooting the shit with each other. It was then that I discovered that the Slicks had not seen much flying in the recent past and they were bored to death, wanting to fly and make a difference.
Somehow, I had the sense that they blamed Sheehan for all that. I'd never experienced a situation like that with the 199th as we were a very tight knit outfit and flew all the time. I remember that I eventually fell into the same sense of boredom as day after day went by without me flying. I didn't know how the scheduling ran but I knew that Sheehan almost certainly had nothing to with it.
In any event, I was soon to take my first flight and even that added to my uncertainties. Major Blanchard sent a runner to get me and have me report to the helipad for a flight. I was thrilled with the opportunity to get back in the cockpit, but soon became disappointed with it. I thought I was going to have an opportunity to show my stuff but instead, more or less became a passenger who did nothing.
We flew North for a minute, turned west and gained alot of altitude which was something we only did in the 199th when we knew there was alot of anti aircraft fire around. As we passed the famous base at Cu Chi where Colin Powell had been stationed, and continued to head westward, I told the Major I'd been here before and advised him that I had made a flight to Cambodia when I was first with the 199th. When I said that, he looked at me with an eye that showed me his "hold card" and let me know that he was thinking something was going on that he wasn't aware of.
I remembered that flight because there had been a huge firefight when another ground unit landed right in the middle of a huge marijuana field in Cambodia where our ground unit learned that the drug lord's private army was every bit as tough as the NVA or the VC.
Another aviation unit was there dropping 55 gallon drums of gasoline out of a Chinook which immediately set the marijuana field on fire. I remembered Little O laughing and saying: "Fly us over there". It was my one and only flight into Cambodia during my entire time with the 199th and I had no idea why we were there.
As we approached Tay Ninh and the famous mountain that was known as Nui Ba Din, Major Blanchard did a 180 and we began our flight back to Dian. I don't remember if I did any piloting at all that day but I do remember that I considered it be as far away from an orientation flight as it could be. When we landed back at Dian I filled out the log book, post flighted the Huey and watched the Major go back to his office. It was the only flight I made with the Troop Commander during the entire time I was with the Cav and I considered it to be a very strange and uninformative flight.
When I returned to the Slick Platoon, I found the pilots in their usual positions and began to understand a bit more about the types of pilots these were. It was on this day that I became convinced that these Huey jocks were fighters and should not be left to sit on the side lines during the big game.
I would soon realize that my side of that situation would change radically. I was going to completely skip the normally accepted procedure of flying with Jelsomin first and THEN being released or qualified as okay to fly Slicks. Instead of that I would immediately begin night combat ops with Cpt. Sheehan.
Even though I welcomed the chance to begin spying on the night life of the NVA or VC in the area, I found myself flying at night and sleeping most of the day. With that schedule, I missed alot of the shit shooting times with my fellow pilots. I was a bit concerned that I would not be looked upon with any degree of equality as I was getting flight time and during the daytime lull, they were getting none.
Adding insult to injury, we had Cobra gunship escorts as back ups if anything went wrong and that produced a situation where almost everybody was getting flight time except the Blue Team.
By that time, we were already into October of 1970 and as I see it, the Slicks had seen very little flight time at all for the first two weeks I was with the unit and even though I was Blue 28, I was wracking up the flight hours almost every night while my brothers were sitting on the side lines waiting and waiting and waiting.
It was a strange environment for me as everybody from the 199th always had their hands full with flight time and I'd never experienced a situation where pilots more or less were grounded by situation and circumstance. As hindsight often proves, we would soon wish for the lull in the fighting as before long, the fighting began on a large scale and with that, came losses.
I just received a call from the hospital and I have to run but this is as accurate a report as I can make from the first two weeks I was in the ACT. I am certain that, at a minimum, Bill and Curt will remember these weeks as I recall having conversations with them about it as I didn't understand the long terms of inactivity either.
More later, stand by.
Thursday, May 3, 2012
Walking through the door at the Slick Platoon
I will never forget the instant I entered the Slick Barracks. My first impression, with the incense burning a familiar smell from the States and a great stereo system with super nice speakers, led me to wonder where Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young were. After seeing a guitar leaning against a wall in the corner, I knew I was going to have fun during after duty hours as I could play a little bit and liked doing it. When I saw the blue light and the posters hanging around, I almost wanted ask if Jimmy Hendrix was in.
I didn't meet the platoon commander, Captain Bill Sheehan, at that time but Bill took me around and made the introductions to some of the pilots that were hanging around the hootch. Gary Justice, Curt Lambert, Glenn White, Mike Coker, Charles Harrington and then, a guy named John Finnerty that I would end up flying with during the best mission of my entire career.
Finnerty was a pilot that I call a "sleeper". At first glance you might think that he was a mild mannered, soft spoken kid who was simply there as a function of having graduated from flight school. Little did I know that ten weeks later I would watch his reactions to incoming fire on short final to a hot landing zone surrounded by NVA, and do that, almost without batting an eye. In my opinion, Finnerty was the kind of pilot that you only hear about and never get a chance to meet.
There were several pilots missing at that time as they were involved with duty elsewhere. Bill Sheehan the CO, Jim Jelsomin, who was affectionately referred to as "Jelly", Leslie Earnst who was also from Louisiana and Wayne Morvant, who I would later suffer a turbine compressor stall with as we were coming out of a LZ not too far north of our home base.
Having come from the 199th, a unit that was later described by the US Army as compiling more hours per pilot than any unit in Vietnam, I began to wonder how over worked we might be with the 11th Cav. As you might recall from the previous posts, I had an 11 hour day flying Major Lewis to Tuy Hoa and a 9 hour Nighthawk mission with Wollman while I was there and that is a ton of flight time to log in a two day period.
Bill took me around the rest of the Troop area to meet other pilots in the unit. There were 3 barracks assigned for housing the 36 pilots of the Air Cav Troop. Compared to the single barracks building we had at the 199th where we only had twelve pilots, the Air Cav Troop was huge. The Huey pilots were referred to as the Blue Team, where I became Blue 28 with Cobras being Red and Scouts being the White Team where I eventually became White 8 when I transferred to the Hunter Killer Teams.
As if I hadn't already been pleasantly surprised enough, Bill took me to a small building that was close to the pilot's barracks. We used it as a "ready room" during duty hours where we were on "stand by" to react immediately to any call to scramble the helicopters. When I went to the Scout platoon to fly OH 6s instead of Hueys, I would eventually spent many hours there playing cards while waiting to fly.
There was some degree of separation between the pilot's platoons. Some of the Scout pilots stayed to themselves as did some of the Cobra pilots. Since the 199th housed guns, slicks and scout pilots in one barrack only, it seemed unusual to me. I later concluded that the Scouts suffered more losses than anyone and much in the same sense that many of the men from World War II were advised not to get too close to the other men in the unit, I understood where all that came from.
In any event, at that time, I had yet to meet my new boss or a couple of the other Huey pilots but despite that, I was greatly impressed with the Air Cav Troop accommodations. In a sense, when compared to sleeping in a bunker at Xuan Loc, I felt like the accommodations had gone from the out house to the penthouse. I didn't know at that time that I would eventually be sleeping in a tent near the Cambodian border but that again is another story.
Those are my first impressions of the day I became Blue 28 in the Slick Platoon. Day two is coming up and let me say that "it ain't over yet". Stand by. Gotta go to the hospital but I will be back and keep on with the story.
I didn't meet the platoon commander, Captain Bill Sheehan, at that time but Bill took me around and made the introductions to some of the pilots that were hanging around the hootch. Gary Justice, Curt Lambert, Glenn White, Mike Coker, Charles Harrington and then, a guy named John Finnerty that I would end up flying with during the best mission of my entire career.
Finnerty was a pilot that I call a "sleeper". At first glance you might think that he was a mild mannered, soft spoken kid who was simply there as a function of having graduated from flight school. Little did I know that ten weeks later I would watch his reactions to incoming fire on short final to a hot landing zone surrounded by NVA, and do that, almost without batting an eye. In my opinion, Finnerty was the kind of pilot that you only hear about and never get a chance to meet.
There were several pilots missing at that time as they were involved with duty elsewhere. Bill Sheehan the CO, Jim Jelsomin, who was affectionately referred to as "Jelly", Leslie Earnst who was also from Louisiana and Wayne Morvant, who I would later suffer a turbine compressor stall with as we were coming out of a LZ not too far north of our home base.
Having come from the 199th, a unit that was later described by the US Army as compiling more hours per pilot than any unit in Vietnam, I began to wonder how over worked we might be with the 11th Cav. As you might recall from the previous posts, I had an 11 hour day flying Major Lewis to Tuy Hoa and a 9 hour Nighthawk mission with Wollman while I was there and that is a ton of flight time to log in a two day period.
Bill took me around the rest of the Troop area to meet other pilots in the unit. There were 3 barracks assigned for housing the 36 pilots of the Air Cav Troop. Compared to the single barracks building we had at the 199th where we only had twelve pilots, the Air Cav Troop was huge. The Huey pilots were referred to as the Blue Team, where I became Blue 28 with Cobras being Red and Scouts being the White Team where I eventually became White 8 when I transferred to the Hunter Killer Teams.
As if I hadn't already been pleasantly surprised enough, Bill took me to a small building that was close to the pilot's barracks. We used it as a "ready room" during duty hours where we were on "stand by" to react immediately to any call to scramble the helicopters. When I went to the Scout platoon to fly OH 6s instead of Hueys, I would eventually spent many hours there playing cards while waiting to fly.
There was some degree of separation between the pilot's platoons. Some of the Scout pilots stayed to themselves as did some of the Cobra pilots. Since the 199th housed guns, slicks and scout pilots in one barrack only, it seemed unusual to me. I later concluded that the Scouts suffered more losses than anyone and much in the same sense that many of the men from World War II were advised not to get too close to the other men in the unit, I understood where all that came from.
In any event, at that time, I had yet to meet my new boss or a couple of the other Huey pilots but despite that, I was greatly impressed with the Air Cav Troop accommodations. In a sense, when compared to sleeping in a bunker at Xuan Loc, I felt like the accommodations had gone from the out house to the penthouse. I didn't know at that time that I would eventually be sleeping in a tent near the Cambodian border but that again is another story.
Those are my first impressions of the day I became Blue 28 in the Slick Platoon. Day two is coming up and let me say that "it ain't over yet". Stand by. Gotta go to the hospital but I will be back and keep on with the story.
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
My first impressions of the Air Cav Troop
It was impossible to land a Huey on the Air Cav Troop helipad without everybody in the unit knowing someone had arrived. The pad was located adjacent to the Troop Headquarters but it was directly abeam many of the barracks that housed the Arps and only two or three buildings away from the pilot's barracks.
There was no welcoming committee waiting there to greet the new pilot coming into the unit but unlike the 199th Fireball Aviation Pad, one that was completely void of anybody except a jeep driver when I arrived, I was immediately met by an enlisted man and taken to Major Blanchard's office. After an extremely short meeting with him, one that I recall as not nearly long enough to explain who I was and what I was bringing to the unit, I walked out of the building to find Bill Reinhardt yelling my name.
With the single exception of the time it took to transfer from Ft. Wolters to Ft Rucker, he and I had spent every single day together from July 4th of 1969 to April 15th of 1970. We spent more than a couple of weekend nights and days in Panama City getting drunk and making the rounds of the night clubs like men who knew their next stop was Vietnam.
I hadn't seen him or heard of his whereabouts since graduation in April of 69 and it was already September 15th of 1970. Not knowing anyone in the unit, it was a huge relief to see him because I knew I would find out exactly what the ACT was really like.
I had mixed emotions when I arrived because there were so many considerations to make when an experienced pilot comes into a unit where he doesn't know anyone. I was hoping that someone had announced that a Nighthawk Gunship Standardization Pilot, with a ton of combat experience, was coming into the unit, but that wasn't the case.
As it all unfolded, I arrived earlier than Major Wulff did and I soon realized that the Regimental Commanding Officer and the Troop Commander, Major Blanchard, were the only two officers in the entire Regiment who knew I was coming and what my mission was. At the time, I couldn't figure out what the big secret was all about.
After roughly 400 hours of logged combat flight time, the last thing I wanted to do was fly as a copilot for someone who only had 100 hours or so of combat assault experience under his belt.
On the other side of those mixed emotions, not only did I not want to be a copilot, I didn't want to have a copilot who was inexperienced with that discipline because night combat operations are totally different than daytime CAs.
I later realized that was a pretty selfish thought as I had no experience at all when Wollman, Femmer and Young found me as their co pilot. Despite that, this was a huge unit compared to the 199th and I didn't even know the names of the pilots I might have to call on if we were shot down, if my copilot was dead or we crashed from a mechanical problem of some sort.
As most guys remember the first day of their arrival into a new unit, I can also remember other selfish thoughts beyond the ones mentioned above. I eventually realized that there was no way in hell that a pilot who had achieved the comfort and respect of the pilots and crews of the 199th, was going to automatically be given that status or position.
All of those thoughts left me the second I was introduced to the guys in the Slick Platoon. I will never forget the "instant" I walked into their hootch and the reaction I had when I did. I do not want to spoil that story as it was so influential to my attitude, I think it deserves it's own post which I will write next.
As an addition to the influence that hit me the moment I met them, shortly after that, I had time to reflect on the many things I had learned. Diable's Attention to Detail, Wollman, Femmer and Young's mentoring skills, the importance of confidence building with your crew chief and gunner and the admiration and respect of the commanding officers, were just a few.
I almost hate to admit that I had those selfish thoughts when I arrived but I think that it's more than a little important to note that because there are upcoming stories that will explain it.
I have another Doctor's appointment at 1 o'clock so I have to blitz and continue this on the next post. I hope you continue to follow along as their are several Nighthawk missions, huge daytime firefights, another transfer for me and the Cambodian Invasion.
Stand by and a special hello to Bobrob.
.
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There was no welcoming committee waiting there to greet the new pilot coming into the unit but unlike the 199th Fireball Aviation Pad, one that was completely void of anybody except a jeep driver when I arrived, I was immediately met by an enlisted man and taken to Major Blanchard's office. After an extremely short meeting with him, one that I recall as not nearly long enough to explain who I was and what I was bringing to the unit, I walked out of the building to find Bill Reinhardt yelling my name.
With the single exception of the time it took to transfer from Ft. Wolters to Ft Rucker, he and I had spent every single day together from July 4th of 1969 to April 15th of 1970. We spent more than a couple of weekend nights and days in Panama City getting drunk and making the rounds of the night clubs like men who knew their next stop was Vietnam.
I hadn't seen him or heard of his whereabouts since graduation in April of 69 and it was already September 15th of 1970. Not knowing anyone in the unit, it was a huge relief to see him because I knew I would find out exactly what the ACT was really like.
I had mixed emotions when I arrived because there were so many considerations to make when an experienced pilot comes into a unit where he doesn't know anyone. I was hoping that someone had announced that a Nighthawk Gunship Standardization Pilot, with a ton of combat experience, was coming into the unit, but that wasn't the case.
As it all unfolded, I arrived earlier than Major Wulff did and I soon realized that the Regimental Commanding Officer and the Troop Commander, Major Blanchard, were the only two officers in the entire Regiment who knew I was coming and what my mission was. At the time, I couldn't figure out what the big secret was all about.
After roughly 400 hours of logged combat flight time, the last thing I wanted to do was fly as a copilot for someone who only had 100 hours or so of combat assault experience under his belt.
On the other side of those mixed emotions, not only did I not want to be a copilot, I didn't want to have a copilot who was inexperienced with that discipline because night combat operations are totally different than daytime CAs.
I later realized that was a pretty selfish thought as I had no experience at all when Wollman, Femmer and Young found me as their co pilot. Despite that, this was a huge unit compared to the 199th and I didn't even know the names of the pilots I might have to call on if we were shot down, if my copilot was dead or we crashed from a mechanical problem of some sort.
As most guys remember the first day of their arrival into a new unit, I can also remember other selfish thoughts beyond the ones mentioned above. I eventually realized that there was no way in hell that a pilot who had achieved the comfort and respect of the pilots and crews of the 199th, was going to automatically be given that status or position.
All of those thoughts left me the second I was introduced to the guys in the Slick Platoon. I will never forget the "instant" I walked into their hootch and the reaction I had when I did. I do not want to spoil that story as it was so influential to my attitude, I think it deserves it's own post which I will write next.
As an addition to the influence that hit me the moment I met them, shortly after that, I had time to reflect on the many things I had learned. Diable's Attention to Detail, Wollman, Femmer and Young's mentoring skills, the importance of confidence building with your crew chief and gunner and the admiration and respect of the commanding officers, were just a few.
I almost hate to admit that I had those selfish thoughts when I arrived but I think that it's more than a little important to note that because there are upcoming stories that will explain it.
I have another Doctor's appointment at 1 o'clock so I have to blitz and continue this on the next post. I hope you continue to follow along as their are several Nighthawk missions, huge daytime firefights, another transfer for me and the Cambodian Invasion.
Stand by and a special hello to Bobrob.
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Tuesday, May 1, 2012
"Fly to Macv and report to Major Roy Wulff".
My first visit with Major Wulff was one that ended up as another stroke of good luck for me. The 199th was in "stand down mode", preparing to go home and a huge party was scheduled at Long Binh. While we were getting things squared away to leave, Major Stiner explained to me that the 11th ACR, Air Cav Troop was getting a new Commanding Officer and I had been recommended to transfer to the unit as a Nighthawk Standardization Pilot as the Cav wanted to start night combat ops.
The knowledge of that removed any nervous reactions that would have normally come from an order to report to Macv because an order like that was similar to one that would be equal to an order to report to the Pentagon. Macv was the sometimes referred to as the "Head Shed" as every organizational thing that each unit depended on in Vietnam went through Macv before anything happened.
I didn't know it at the time but it would afford me an opportunity to stay in the same area I had been flying Nighthawks in and fitting into their Area of Operations would pretty much be a no brainer for me.
Since we weren't flying combat operations any more, a Huey was filled with all sorts of Saigon Sight Seeing guys and off we went to the keyhole, Hotel 3 and Macv. A jeep was sent to Hotel 3 to take me to Macv but a very strange thing happened to me before I met with Major Wulff.
While walking down a corridor, I saw an Air Force Sgt and noticed that he looked real familiar. I looked at his name that was embroidered on his uniform and saw "Knoblock". I noticed that he was looking me over and when our eyes met, I said: "Knobby, is that you"? He laughed and said: "It sure is MR BUTLER", with emphasis on the MR. He and I both began to laugh as we had attended St. Gregory's Jr College in Shawnee, Oklahoma in the 1964-65 school year.
There was a prep school attached to the Jr College and we loved to tell everybody that we attended a "Jr College" even though I was only a sophomore high school student. I have forgotten what his MOS was but my meeting Knobby was a happenstance that put me at ease and gave me a great feeling of being at home. He told me that he had seen another St. Gregory's student since he'd been in country but even though I immediately recognized the name, I can't recall it now.
Immediately after my meeting with Knobby, I was directed to Major Wulff's office, but prior to my entrance, I made sure that my flight suit was as squared away as possible. As I was given permission to enter but before the usual "reporting as ordered, sir" was made, I was most pleasantly surprised to see a man who was so squared away, it reminded me of Diable. I immediately felt comfortable and after the introductions, I was told to take a seat.
Major Wullf, like Major Stiner, wasn't one to keep you in the dark. He gave me the low down on his orders to take command of the Air Cav Troop. That was another inspiring moment from that first meeting. He went on to explain the details surrounding the interview between us and I was most happy to hear that I would be considered as a Standardization Pilot for Nighthawk ops instead of a newbie Warrant Officer that had to start at the bottom of the ladder again.
He already had the records of the 199th's successes with the Nighthawk program and my role in that. After the usual conversations and war stories, he smiled at me and told me that he would be happy to have me in the unit. I felt just as comfortable then as I did the moment I met Major Stiner when he replaced Major Lewis.
As another one of those statements that begins with: "I didn't know it at the time", I have to say that Major Wullf proved to be the best commanding officer a young helicopter pilot could ever ask for.
His maturity, experience and understanding of the things that 21 year old "kids" can do in combat, almost certainly saved my life and literally kept me out of Long Binh Jail. I'll get to the specifics of that later but wanted to note that now. I think it's important for the readers to know what kind of man I had covering my back when I became a different kind of pilot when we started to suffer losses among the pilots and gunner's from the Cav's combat operations.
In any event, I returned to Hotel 3 to find the entire group there, ready to fly back to Long Binh where the stand down party was soon to begin. I did not realize how fast my transfer was to take place but I assumed that Major Wullf and Major Stiner got together by land line and a decision was made to send me to the Cav right away.
I remember arriving at the Air Cav Troop a day or two later and reporting for duty to a Major who was not Roy Wullf. Despite the uncertainty from that, I was escorted from the ACT office and directed to the Slick Platoon barracks. As I was walking toward the hootch (barracks) where I would be sleeping, I had another moment similar to the Knoblock moment I had at Macv.
Halfway between the Major's office and the Slick Platoon, I heard a voice yelling: "Timmy, Timmy". As I turned to see who it was, I discovered my very dear friend from Flight School, Billy Reinhardt. If you want to think about a welcoming committee, it could not have been better. Billy told me a little bit about the crazies in the Slick Platoon and I knew I had found a home and that certainly proved to be the case. Things could not have been better for me at that time in my tour. .
Years later, when I luckily found a phone number for him at his home on the Gulf Coast, I gave him a call and was most happy to hear his wife tell me: "Yes, this is the home of Roy Wulff who commanded the ACT in Vietnam". She told me to hold on for a second and she would go get him. A moment later, as he answered the phone, I announced that I was former Chief Warrant Officer Tim Butler from the Air Cav Troop and then asked if he remembered me.
With that being said he began to laugh out loud and answered with: "Remember you, of course I do, you are my FAVORITE war story". We both laughed for a moment and he began to answer my questions about his life after Vietnam.
It was no surprise for me to hear the achievements he made and the lofty position he attained in the simulator side of the aviation industry. It was absolutely wonderful for me to hear him say the things he did about me and that he had no ill feelings about a couple of the stunts I pulled when the losses in the unit began to add up and I began to run my own vengeful and totally unauthorized combat ops.
That covers my time with the 199th and the meeting with Major Wullf that found me assigned to the 11th ACR. Many stories to come but I wanted everybody to know the step by step progression of things that took me from the position of a Nighthawk Co pilot to a unit standardization pilot in one step. Stand by as more are coming.
.
The knowledge of that removed any nervous reactions that would have normally come from an order to report to Macv because an order like that was similar to one that would be equal to an order to report to the Pentagon. Macv was the sometimes referred to as the "Head Shed" as every organizational thing that each unit depended on in Vietnam went through Macv before anything happened.
I didn't know it at the time but it would afford me an opportunity to stay in the same area I had been flying Nighthawks in and fitting into their Area of Operations would pretty much be a no brainer for me.
Since we weren't flying combat operations any more, a Huey was filled with all sorts of Saigon Sight Seeing guys and off we went to the keyhole, Hotel 3 and Macv. A jeep was sent to Hotel 3 to take me to Macv but a very strange thing happened to me before I met with Major Wulff.
While walking down a corridor, I saw an Air Force Sgt and noticed that he looked real familiar. I looked at his name that was embroidered on his uniform and saw "Knoblock". I noticed that he was looking me over and when our eyes met, I said: "Knobby, is that you"? He laughed and said: "It sure is MR BUTLER", with emphasis on the MR. He and I both began to laugh as we had attended St. Gregory's Jr College in Shawnee, Oklahoma in the 1964-65 school year.
There was a prep school attached to the Jr College and we loved to tell everybody that we attended a "Jr College" even though I was only a sophomore high school student. I have forgotten what his MOS was but my meeting Knobby was a happenstance that put me at ease and gave me a great feeling of being at home. He told me that he had seen another St. Gregory's student since he'd been in country but even though I immediately recognized the name, I can't recall it now.
Immediately after my meeting with Knobby, I was directed to Major Wulff's office, but prior to my entrance, I made sure that my flight suit was as squared away as possible. As I was given permission to enter but before the usual "reporting as ordered, sir" was made, I was most pleasantly surprised to see a man who was so squared away, it reminded me of Diable. I immediately felt comfortable and after the introductions, I was told to take a seat.
Major Wullf, like Major Stiner, wasn't one to keep you in the dark. He gave me the low down on his orders to take command of the Air Cav Troop. That was another inspiring moment from that first meeting. He went on to explain the details surrounding the interview between us and I was most happy to hear that I would be considered as a Standardization Pilot for Nighthawk ops instead of a newbie Warrant Officer that had to start at the bottom of the ladder again.
He already had the records of the 199th's successes with the Nighthawk program and my role in that. After the usual conversations and war stories, he smiled at me and told me that he would be happy to have me in the unit. I felt just as comfortable then as I did the moment I met Major Stiner when he replaced Major Lewis.
As another one of those statements that begins with: "I didn't know it at the time", I have to say that Major Wullf proved to be the best commanding officer a young helicopter pilot could ever ask for.
His maturity, experience and understanding of the things that 21 year old "kids" can do in combat, almost certainly saved my life and literally kept me out of Long Binh Jail. I'll get to the specifics of that later but wanted to note that now. I think it's important for the readers to know what kind of man I had covering my back when I became a different kind of pilot when we started to suffer losses among the pilots and gunner's from the Cav's combat operations.
In any event, I returned to Hotel 3 to find the entire group there, ready to fly back to Long Binh where the stand down party was soon to begin. I did not realize how fast my transfer was to take place but I assumed that Major Wullf and Major Stiner got together by land line and a decision was made to send me to the Cav right away.
I remember arriving at the Air Cav Troop a day or two later and reporting for duty to a Major who was not Roy Wullf. Despite the uncertainty from that, I was escorted from the ACT office and directed to the Slick Platoon barracks. As I was walking toward the hootch (barracks) where I would be sleeping, I had another moment similar to the Knoblock moment I had at Macv.
Halfway between the Major's office and the Slick Platoon, I heard a voice yelling: "Timmy, Timmy". As I turned to see who it was, I discovered my very dear friend from Flight School, Billy Reinhardt. If you want to think about a welcoming committee, it could not have been better. Billy told me a little bit about the crazies in the Slick Platoon and I knew I had found a home and that certainly proved to be the case. Things could not have been better for me at that time in my tour. .
Years later, when I luckily found a phone number for him at his home on the Gulf Coast, I gave him a call and was most happy to hear his wife tell me: "Yes, this is the home of Roy Wulff who commanded the ACT in Vietnam". She told me to hold on for a second and she would go get him. A moment later, as he answered the phone, I announced that I was former Chief Warrant Officer Tim Butler from the Air Cav Troop and then asked if he remembered me.
With that being said he began to laugh out loud and answered with: "Remember you, of course I do, you are my FAVORITE war story". We both laughed for a moment and he began to answer my questions about his life after Vietnam.
It was no surprise for me to hear the achievements he made and the lofty position he attained in the simulator side of the aviation industry. It was absolutely wonderful for me to hear him say the things he did about me and that he had no ill feelings about a couple of the stunts I pulled when the losses in the unit began to add up and I began to run my own vengeful and totally unauthorized combat ops.
That covers my time with the 199th and the meeting with Major Wullf that found me assigned to the 11th ACR. Many stories to come but I wanted everybody to know the step by step progression of things that took me from the position of a Nighthawk Co pilot to a unit standardization pilot in one step. Stand by as more are coming.
.
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