"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.









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