July 4, 1970 in South Vietnam, Wollman, Jernigan and Stearns.

On July 4, 1970  I had only been in Vietnam for six weeks. I was a co pilot with the 199th Light Infantry Brigade and was stationed at Fire Support Base Mace which was located at the foot of a mountain that was located on the east side of a small town named Xuan Loc. That's pronounced "Swan Lock".

We referred to the mountain as "Signal Mountain" even though there was already another Signal Mountain further north in I Corp or II Corp. I recall that the mountain's name was Gia Ray or Ghia Rey. You can google earth Xuan Loc and see it just east of the town.

We had an observation post and a radio communication station at the top of that mountain and it had a helipad that was on the very top of it. It was one of those hand made helipads and certainly not something that was chiseled out of the rocks. It was wooden as I recall, and there was no room for error if your approach went bad. Some of the copilots said: "You either got it right or you got it dead".

At that point in time I had already experienced several combat hours flying Nighthawk Gunships. Those missions were logged as "night time combat operations". They were mostly close air support missions for the guys who were stationed at remote fire bases out in the jungle and were under attack by NVA or Viet Cong.

We would be called in to fly over the burm surrounding the fire base, locate the direction of fire from the bad guys, and provide protection for our guys by using a 4,000 round per minute mini gun, a 50 caliber or two M60's that were hung by rubber straps called "Monkey Straps". We never failed to stop an attack and we were held in very high regard by the guys on the ground.

Most of my flight hours over the first six weeks of my tour, were consumed by learning our area of operations by flying a number of daytime missions. I would fly to each of those fire bases during the day and would deliver everything from mail, food and ammo all the way to Donut Dollies that brought donuts to the guys that lived there 24/7.

On July 4th, I was on standby to fly Command and Control missions if any attacks around the area began. We were already well into the day when a call came to the Tactical Operations Center (TOC) advising us that an ambush of our convoy was underway. We ran to the Huey, cleared the covers from the intake side of the turbine, removed the blade tie down strap and hopped on board to prepare for a take off.

The Colonel came running out of the TOC, jumped on board and we began to spool up the turbine and fly to the site of the ambush which was only a few minutes flight time from the TOC. On that day, we were using the C&C ship which had a huge radio set behind the pilot and co pilot's seat. For that reason, we had no mini gun or 50 caliber. There were only two M60s that we could use as offensive weapons.

We took off, turned north and began to follow the dirt road that our convoy used to get to their objective. Almost immediately, we saw smoke on the ground from a burning vehicle and several aircraft orbiting the battle site. They were on the east side of the road and the Colonel ordered us to orbit the battle on the west side of the road.

We arrived over the ambush site on the west side of the road, began a north to south holding pattern and observed the green and red tracers as fire was exchanged between the enemy and our guys on the ground.

Since I was still a newbie co pilot at this time and the battle below was a very serious one, I was relegated to monitoring the radio traffic, making cross checks of the instrument panel and checking for aircraft that might be making gun runs on the target. On our second or third northward pass, I noticed a AH 1G Cobra lining up to make a gun run on the target area. I didn't know it at the time but it was being flown by a couple of Warrant Officers named Jernigan and Stearns.

The copilot's window was now the best place to observe the entire battle as we were heading north and my seat was on the east side of the ship. After repeated cross checks of the instrument panel, I took my eyes out of the cockpit and saw the Cobra begin his rocket run on the target. In less time than it takes to write about it, my eyes went back to the instrument panel.

When I took my eyes off the instruments and looked toward the east, I saw a huge ball of fire, the largest one I had ever seen. It was the result of the Cobra hitting the ground at 190 knots. I already knew that they carried 38 high explosive rockets as well as a lot of mini gun ammo and some 20 mm rounds.

When you add that to fuel tanks that were close to full, you might be able to imagine the size of the explosion. I can remember the surprise at seeing that ball of flame to this very day and have known, for over four decades, that I will take that sight to my death bed.

So, with regard to the idea of Independence Day celebrations, I think more about those that paid the price for it than those who enjoy it. It makes a lot of sense, in my eyes, to focus more on the sacrifices and the price that must be paid to keep it than the unconscious celebrations that are more often than not, focused on partying instead of maintaining.