A briefly attired mission

Cocktail 1968

One evening, Jimmy and I got back late from a resupply mission and went to the showers on the edge of our company area. We always just disrobed, wrapped a towel around us, slipped on shower shoes, grabbed our toilet bag and walked down to the showers. In the middle of our showers, base camp came under rocket and mortar attack. We briefly discussed our course of action and decided that it was closer to the flight line than back to our bunker in the company area that we’d go get a Huey and launch.

We untied the first Huey we got to, grabbed the gunner and crew chief’s helmets and quickly launched. We flew around trying to find the source of the rocket launches and found them coming from the Michelin rubber plantation about three miles to the west of base camp. We called in the location of the position and directed artillery on it.

When we ran low on fuel, we called on our company operations frequency and explained our uniform status, (towels) which they thought was hilarious! We asked for the crew chief and gunner to meet us at the refueling area and to bring some more appropriate clothing with them.

We refueled, got the gunner and crew chief aboard and alternately put on the olive drab T-shirts and boxer shorts they brought with them. They explained that was all our fellow aviators had sent.

Since we now had the capability of putting fire on the gooks, we went back to the plantation and had the gunner and crew chief hose down the area where we spotted the launch tubes. By this time it was getting light and by the lack of activity, everyone agreed that the position had been silenced so we asked for and received permission to return to base camp.

When we finished our approach and were hovering to the revetment area we were directed to, “hover up to the hot spot and shut down”. Since we weren’t very well dressed we declined but were told by our company commander that General Stone, the 4th Division commander was there with his staff to congratulate us on a superb mission, shake our hands and have pictures made. Jimmy and I laughed about the implications but hovered to the hot spot, (VIP pad) and shut down. The look on everyone’s face was pure astonishment as we exited the Huey and stood in front of it at attention wearing our olive green towels, skivvies and a smile. General Stone never showed a sign that anything was out of the ordinary and returned our salutes and shook our hands. Pictures were made but we never got copies for some reason and a commendation was never mentioned.

Since we weren’t on the flight schedule for the day we opened the officers club and with the help of our crew chief and gunner were pretty well crippled by 9:00 in the morning.

Feathered flight

Occasionally, we did resupply work for the South Vietnamese Army, or ARVN. (Army of the Republic of Vietnam) We carried loads similar to what we delivered to American forces with the exception of bags of rice, tea, fish or shrimp and several live food items. Live food items consisted of small pigs and chickens that were stuffed into individual wire mesh tubes with round wooden ends secured with staples. The chickens were very light so we would carry several hundred at a time stacked floor to ceiling.

After a resupply of the ARVN’s one day, we were returning to base camp and had climbed to about 10,000 feet or so to enjoy the cooler temperature when the crew chief, SP-5 Larry Ray* came on the intercom and told me, “Sir, we have a left over chicken. What do you want me to do with it?” After some consideration I told him, “Take one of the wooden ends off the cage and stand by to launch chicken”.

Since I was flying left seat, I eased into a left turn and keyed the intercom and gave the command, “Launch chicken!!” Out it went and I continued the left, rapidly descending turn as I watched the little chicken tumble end for end for maybe a thousand feet when suddenly, it extended its wings and flapped furiously, shedding feathers but giving a courageous attempt at flying!

By now, I was laughing so hard I was having trouble controlling the aircraft so I keyed the intercom and said, “You got it!” Jimmy acknowledged that he had the aircraft and immediately reversed the turn to the right so he could keep track of the rapidly descending chicken. “It’s just tumbling straight down with feathers coming off—look at that, it’s trying to fly!” Huey almost out of control again. “You got it!”

Back into the left turn again as I watched the chicken still descending at whatever terminal velocity was for it, feathers shedding, wings flapping and tumbling end over end. After exchanging control a couple more times, we were now several hundred feet from the ground and it appeared that the chicken would meet its end soon.

When it was about 50 feet from the ground, it again extended its wings and in a fury of flapping and feather shedding, almost stopped it’s descent before landing. We were at a hover now and watched in amazement as the little bird came to a dusty stop, got to its feet and scurried off into the brush! It probably joined the NVA!

We toasted the little aviator that evening and considered trying to enter his amazing and hilarious flight into the Guinness record book but never did.

*After 45 years Larry and I were reunited through our Face Book page 4th Avn. At the time of this mission, I was "short" or close to going back home and Larry was a relatively new crew chief in the unit. He lived in Missouri and I'm thankful for our friendship!

I just learned that Larry passed away August 31st 2015 of a sudden heart attack. Rest in peace Larry. You left us way too soon but the Lord must have wanted some humor in Heaven!

Our mascot, "Lifer"

Almost every unit had a mascot and ours was a small orange mongrel named “Lifer”. He was well liked by everyone and in return, seemed to like all of us. The only problem with having a dog in Vietnam was the fact that the Vietnamese (and many other Asian cultures) ate dogs. He clearly avoided the indigenous personnel that worked at Camp Enari who eyed him like he was a prime Angus. He flew missions with us sometimes but preferred to remain in the maintenance hanger, probably because his main caretaker was one of the NCOs’ that supervised activities there. He had free run of the company area and would show up at any given time to socialize with us. He liked Budweiser and would get loaded with us if he was in a festive mood. He was a nice little dog and was still the Company mascot when I went home. There seems to be some conjecture as to this little guys name. When I scanned the slide it had "Lifer" written on the back so that's what I used in the original post. Then someone commented that the dog's name was, "Toolbox" so I changed it. Whatever this pooch's name was he was well liked and I really think this is "Lifer", so that's the way the post will remain!

Signal Hill and Dragon Mountain
Flying the chaplains to conduct worship
Sundays gave us the opportunity to fly the chaplains to different locations to conduct worship services and our favorite was the helipad on top of “Signal Hill” on the northwest corner of base camp. The helipad was about 50 feet from the edge of the mountain and when we left to take him back to the main helipad at Hensel we would just feel the shudder of translational lift as we broke over the edge. With the landscape rapidly falling away we’d push the nose over as far as we dared and go roaring down the face of the mountain. When we got to the bottom, we’d be at VNE or “velocity never exceed”, (about 130 MPH) and pull up into a zoom climb that was certain to have the chaplain praying like he never had before. Jimmy described this sort of maneuver as “whoop tee pooping”. We did a lot of “whoop tee pooping”.