Christmas in Shreveport, one more fist fight, then on to Ft. Rucker and Graduation

I drove James Miles' VW to my mothers house and began a short Christmas vacation. Before I knew it, I found myself in a room full of drunk people at the home of Kirk Bramlett, a kid I had known since childhood . If you've been following these stories, Kirk was the place kicker for the Northwestern State football team that kicked the guy in the nuts when we had the bar room brawl.

It was the typical teenage and early 20 year olds Christmas party until Joe Thigpen threw a bottle of wine at Roger Neal. Roger was a good friend of mine and despite my initial thoughts of knocking Joe's brains out, I managed to completely avoid the fight and decided to go home. That turned out to be a good decision and shortly after that, I loaded James' VW and headed south to take the Gulf Coast road along Mississippi to view the damage from a recent hurricane before finishing the trip to Rucker.

I checked into 5th WOC class 70-07 and prepared for the next phase of training which was the instrument course. We flew the Bell 47G just like the Mash helicopter seen during the opening scenes of that tv show. It was an oldie but a goodie. We also flew the Blue Canoe which was a flight simulator that was made from plywood and had a covered cockpit you couldn't see out of. I assumed it was Korean War vintage as it was old and you could tell it. I must have been a natural for it because I did very well at it. Instrument cross country flights, holding patterns and instrument approaches came easy to me. After 50 hours of actual flight time in the 47, we graduated and began the transition to the turbine powered Huey.

I had an instructor pilot named Hofius. He was ugly as sin but was a Vietnam Veteran who had a photographic memory. He told me to memorize the preflight manual as well as the before start up manual and I set about to do exactly that. He told me it would be "Gross" but I didn't realize what he meant until I counted the individual steps taken during preflight and start up. There were 144 things that had to be done before you could get a Huey in the air and somehow or another, I pulled it off. Hofius liked me and treated me as well as Diable did at Ft. Wolters.

The Hueys were old and weak A and B models but we didn't know what that really meant until we started flying D models in Vietnam. One night during pinnacle approach and landing practice, I made a really good landing on top of a man made hill that was used as the platform to teach us how to land on mountain tops.

When it was the other students turn to do that, he totally botched it and we hit the top of the hill so hard the helicopter bounced back into the air and almost rolled over and crashed. I was astounded that the other student apparently had no depth perception at all and marveled over the fact that we weren't killed.

I told Hofius about it and requested to be moved to another student pilot partner. When he told me that was almost impossible, I told him I would rather quit the program and be a ground pounder than risk my life on another flight with Mr. Can't See Anything". Hofius pulled it off and I never had another bad experience with a student pilot flying in the other seat of the Huey.

Tactics became more focused and one day I found myself in the Artillery Adjustment Course. For some reason, even though I was great at math, adjusting artillery from a moving helicopter that was constantly changing it's direction of flight while the artillery base stayed put, was very difficult for me. I had to be tutored and eventually passed the course. I'd never made a bad grade in anything but this one whipped my butt the first go around. That's another example of great instructors and Rucker was full of them.

Toward the end of the course, we were told to prepare a flight plan to fly from Ft. Rucker Alabama to Eglin Air Force Base Florida where we would pick up some Army Rangers, do an LZ insertion and return to base while we waited for the next group to be extracted. When we were called to make the extraction, my turn to fly was already completed and, as a function of tradition, the pilot that was sitting in the back, carried candy bars for the Rangers who had been in the field with nothing but a canteen of water and a compass.

I met the Rangers and, as I passed the Baby Ruth candy bars to the Ranger closest to me, his face lit up with the widest smile one can imagine. That was a great exercise and later that day, we flew back to Alabama feeling like we had mastered insertions and extractions of combat troops into and out of landing zones. We felt like we were ready.

Graduation came and my mom and Aunt Nell came to the party where we received our Warrant Officer bars and wings. It was great and I still have the picture of me and my mom from that night. We were given orders for "Overseas Movement" and we left for Shreveport and a 30 day leave, the next day. After a long day's drive, 70 miles from Shreveport, we pulled into the restaurant in Ruston, Louisiana to grab a late lunch.

While I was sitting at the booth eating, I noticed a motorcycle pull up to the curb and was shocked to see that it was the Ranger I had given the Baby Ruth to. I got up, went outside and told him that I was the guy who gave him the Baby Ruth. Since I had my helmet on during that exchange he never really got to see me clearly but he remembered the voice and the Baby Ruth. We shook hands had a laugh about our chance meeting, wished each other good luck and went our separate ways. Believe it or not, I would run into him again at Tay Ninh but that's another story.

After a well deserved 30 day leave, I left Shreveport, flew to Los Angeles and stayed with Mike Morris at his home in Northridge. That was the first time I'd been to California and I was amazed at the girls.

Steve Eide, another student pilot from my class, lived in Northridge too. His father was the Chief Pilot of Penny's or Sears and had been given permission to fly us to Oakland where we would depart the US and head to Vietnam. We drew straws and between Mike, me and Steve, we had a chance to fly the departure and climb section of the flight, the cross country section and then the approach. It was magical because the jet was parked in Burbank where Johnny Carson's jet shared the hanger. That was the last flight I made in the USA for a long time.

Today is hospital day so I'll have to close this and continue with the next story later. Remember, there's a point to be made by all this rambling so please stand by and just grit your teeth while you ramble through it.