A summary of the last days with the 199th Light Infantry Brigade.

I had a number of highlights during my time with the 199th. I experienced a rocket attack at Mace in broad daylight, some kind of night time attack at our rear area that caused me to put on a flak jacket, go to the flight line and hide behind a revetment wall with an M 16 in case the dinks made it through the wire.

Ed, do you remember that night and us shooting a starlight shell at the ARVN guards to wake their asses up?

I don't know why we weren't scared to death but I will admit that we were shocked. Maybe it was the training, maybe it was due to the fact that so many of the pilots were seasoned veterans and always ready to fight. In any event, I recall being scared a time or two when I was watching Wolman doing some of the things he did but I eventually wrote that off as being new to the job and not really knowing why he did things that seemed to me to be crazy.

One daylight mission, as a Command and Control co pilot, the Colonel had us fly him to a hell of a fire fight on the extreme eastern end of our area, not far from Phan Thiet. There was a mountain there that we called "Budda Mountain" even though it wasn't the original Budda Mountain that is most commonly referred to. I was watching Charlie Model gunships making gun run after gun run on the target area and was amazed at their bravery even though they were watching the green tracers arc upward in an attempt to shoot them down.

The Colonel told Wolman to get into another holding pattern west of the target area and make north to south passes. After a couple of passes, he asked Wolman to slow it down a little. That's when I nearly jumped out of my seat. Wolman put the nose of the Huey into the wind and, for the most part, began to hover. I recall my course in tactics and could remember Hofius telling us not to never, never, never give the enemy a slow moving target if we could help it. As it turned out, Wolman knew exactly what he was doing and the Colonel made whatever decisions he made regarding artillery strikes and the battle was over soon after that.

On another occasion, Wolman was really pissed over the fact that we had to fly a Colonel (Underwood)? in from Saigon to have a meeting with our C.O. at Mace. It was during the monsoon season and the weather was the worst. When the meeting was over, we were assigned to fly him back to his base. Once we left Mace, it was pitch black and the monsoon winds were very strong. Wolman must have thought that was the perfect set of circumstances to check my IFR abilities and he told me to contact Center for a vector to Bear Cat. There was no way we could make it back to Long Binh or Saigon as both were closed due to the monsoon.

I looked up the frequency, contacted Center and asked for a vector to Bear Cat. They gave me instructions to squalk 1200 and ident on the transponder, found us on the radar screen and gave us the heading. I changed course and began to fly toward the Locator Outer Marker. We were already low on fuel and the headwinds became a concern but we continue to fly as we had no other choices.

I contacted Approach Control and was immediately asked to make a 360 degree turn "for separation". As it turned out, every aircraft in that part of Vietnam was being diverted to Bear Cat as everything else was closed. It seemed that every radio call was followed by Bear Cat ordering us to make a 360 degree turn for separation. Soon after that, they asked us to state our final approach speed and when they did, I told them we were flying a UH 1 and could adjust our final approach speed to anything they wanted.

With the lights of Bear Cat seen in the distance, our 20 minute fuel warning light came on. Approach asked us to make another 360 degree turn for separation and to slow our approach speed. I returned that call and said: "Sir, our 20 minute low fuel light is on, if you will let me make the Locator Outer Marker, I'll hover over it and make my approach from there".

As I recall it, Wolman laughed at my response, gave me a "Good Job", took control of the Huey, dove for the Marker and continued the approach to a full stop landing for refueling. I don't remember if we ended up spending the night or were able to proceed later but I clearly remember the OH SHIT feeling that came when the 20 minute fuel warning light lit up. I also remember Wolman being really pissed off that the entire crew had been put in danger by some Colonel's desire to have a social event at our forward area.

In any event, we had the best pilots one could ever hope to have as mentors, the best leaders in Major Lewis and then Major Stiner. We also had a great rear area that had showers and an officers club not far from our quarters where we could buy a steak and watch tv. It was a wonderful outfit and all of my experiences there as a member were positive. Some were heart breaking, like July 4th but all of them resulted in me becoming the Night Hawk pilot I became.

I have another post to make before I move on to the 11th Cav but it's 8 minutes to brain swelling time so I have to go for now.