Reporting for duty in VIetnam Part 1.

Once we arrived in Vietnam, I was taken to the Replacement Battalion near Bien Hoa. The bus ride from the base to our new quarters was a shock as the bus had wire mesh over the windows to prevent the Viet Cong from throwing hand grenades through the windows and killing all of us. You should have heard the explanations for that when we boarded the bus. The entire bus load was now on high alert as most of us were first timers in a combat zone. Despite that, I knew many of the guys at the Reception Station and that made things much more comfortable for all of us.

After we received some In Country gear, we settled into the barracks and waited for the briefing that would allow us to select any particular unit we might want to fly for. I didn't have a clue so I threw caution to the wind, left the decision to them, and was selected to fly for the 199th Light Infantry Brigade. Their Headquarters building was located a short jeep drive from the barracks and before I knew it, I said my good byes to all the guys and took the short ride to my new duty station.

My first impression of the unit was not a good one. Nobody was there. The jeep driver dropped me off at the maintenance section and took off without a word spoken other than 'Good Luck". As I looked around, I saw a D Model Huey on the ramp and heard the sound of a jeep approaching. Specialist West was the driver and as he came to a stop next to me, he said: "Are you the new pilot, sir"?. When I told him I was, he said: "Sir, can you get in that Huey and fly it to Xuan Loc, they need it right now".

I can remember thinking to myself: "Fly it to Xuan Loc? Hell, I don't even know how to start it much less where the hell Xuan Loc is". I'd never flown a D Model and I knew that I was supposed to check in at Headquarters before I did anything so I told West that he needed to take me there first. Before any of that transpired, a pilot from the unit showed up and even before I was assigned quarters, we climbed on board the Huey and headed east to Xuan Loc, our forward area.

The next minute found me standing at attention with the normal, Sir, Warrant Officer Butler, reporting for duty". Major Lewis stood up, returned my salute and extended his hand. That's when I saw the college ring on his finger and noticed the KA on the top of his ring. I said: "Sir, is that Kappa Alpha" and he said "The very same". That was a standard question and answer between two KA brothers meeting for the first time.

He told me he was glad to see a "Southern Gentleman" show up for duty with the 199th and he began to explain who the 199th was and what they did. After a brief conversation about our college experiences and our time as KA brothers from different chapters, he told me not to worry and that he would assign me to fly with some of the best pilots in Vietnam. I was immediately comforted with that and the bugs in my stomach went away. I was told to fly back to the rear area and get my gear and quarters squared away. That's when I met my first room mate, Ed Wolfe, a friend to this day.

I managed to get everything squared away and later in the day, the pilots who had been in the field returned and I met all of them except whoever had to stay at Fire Support Base Mace in case they were needed to fly a Night Hawk mission. They made me feel at home as most of them seemed somewhat crazy to me. Femmer, Young, Wolman, Nelson "Kat" Ballew, all made the list of crazy people except for Ed Wolfe, the one pilot who seemed to be the only sane guy there. I was glad he was my room mate because I surely needed some sanity at that time.

The next day, my first full day on duty in Vietnam, I was flown to Mace and was given a bunk to sleep in. It was in a bunker and it was clearly a combat zone barrack that was surrounded by sand bags and had a slit in the side wall that was very long but not too tall. When I asked what that was all about, I was told: "So you can shoot out of the opening". I thought: "Oh shit".

In any event, those were the beginning days of my experiences flying Nighthawks for the 199th. In the beginning I flew daylight missions doing everything from taking mail and ammo to a couple of Firebases throughout the area as well as some really nice looking Donut Dollies from the Red Cross. With that, I thought that this was going to a great, easy tour. I was wrong on that one. I didn't find out the truth until after my tour was over but the Army statistics stated that the 199th accumulated more hours per pilot than any other unit in Vietnam.

Dudley Young was given the job of flying me around our Area of Operations for my AO familiarization flight. As it turned out, he was an excellent navigator and had his VFR charts laminated and folded in a way that he could simply fold it over and continue flying as he "flew off the map". The greatest thing I learned from him came right out of the Diable "Pay Attention to Detail" book. He had six digit grid coordinates written all over the map. Whether it was a mountain, a road intersection, a Firebase, village or river, he had a penciled in grid coordinate for it. He explained that we would be able to radio our exact location instantly if we knew where we were all the time and had to make a Mayday call. "I'm 5 klicks east of Yankee Tango 106601".   

I don't want this to become too information intensive so I'll stop here before I tell a few other stories. Eddie, is Yankee Tango 106601 Gia Ray or the mountain above FSB Mace? How's that for a little homework for you?.