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Title: why I believe the way I do, I was raised this way Post by maffumatt on Aug 20th, 2005, 1:00pm This is my fathers story about his tour in Vietnam. He is a disabled veteran that supports the war. The book is Headhunters and tells the experiances of the men of the 1/9 Cav. It was compiled by Matthew Brennan, and published in 1987 by Presidio. GUNSHIP CREW CHIEF, ALPHA TROOP 1966-1967 Specialist Five Craig Matlock was drafted, run through the training mill, and sent to Vietnam. There he discovered what it really meant to crew a gunship. At the age of twenty he learned what it was like to kill to survive, to appreciate the beauty of a gunship run, and to feel pride in a unit. O n Christmas Day 1966, I started crewing a Huey gunship in Alpha Troop's gun platoon, the Red Scorpions. It took me three days to earn my first Air Medal. I eventually got nineteen oak leaf clusters, plus a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart. We flew six to ten hours a day, often more. Our saying was that, if you made it through the first ninety days, you didn't have to worry about the next six months, just the last ninety days. That's how we broke down the tour. It took me ninety days to learn my job, get oriented, and understand what was going on and what I had to do. Once you knew your job, the pilots depended on you, you depended on them, and everybody started working as a team. The first battle that I remember was near a place called LZ Hammond. We started it when we killed four or five Viet Gong on a first-light mission (dawn recon flight). The 2/7th Cav moved in and got into a bad fight. The enemy was fortified on a little hill of about one acre, with rice paddies all around it. They let the infantry walk right through the middle of the rice paddies, right down a little old dike, until the infantry was right up next to them. It was a bad situation, because the infantry was up by the hill and behind a dike, and pinned down for about a quarter-mile radius. We had to wait until the last minute before we fired, and then had to cut the gun run short so as not to hit our men on the other side of the hill. |
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Title: Re: why I believe the way I do, I was raised this Post by maffumatt on Aug 20th, 2005, 1:00pm As many tracers were coming up at us as were going down. Every time we made a run, I looked up at the sun one last time; because I knew we weren't going to make it. That was the first time I was shot down. We took five rounds in the pylon and lost all the hydraulic fluid. It was like driving a power-steering car without the power-steering fluid, but some pilots tried anyway. It took both pilots just to steer the helicopter. We made it to a landing strip, dumped in more hydraulic fluid, and flew back to the base for repairs. The battle lasted all day long. Another gunship was shot down on the spot, and those guys had to walk out of there after dark. A lift ship was shot down trying to medevac some of the infantry boys after the regular medevacs refused to land. It was one of the few battles where dead GIs were lying around in the rice paddies. After Hammond, the troop moved north to LZ Dog, north of Bong Son. We started flying along the coast and up into the An Lao Valley, which was a free fire zone. In our first major action along the beach, we had an H-13 scout helicopter and a lift ship shot down. The Blues had been in there and didn't see anything, and the lift ships were picking them up when everything started happening. It was a two-ship landing zone, and the enemy walked mortar rounds in on the lift ships. The first two got out all right. One of the next two, piloted by Captain Anderson, was shot down. The other one received a lot of mortar scrap metal. Its pilot was Robert D. Phipps, the man who would later be my pilot in the Blue Lift Platoon for the last five months of my tour. Then the H-13 was shot down trying to find the mortars. The two guys on it were killed. That was the first time we knew we were being shot at by a 37mm antiaircraft gun. I spotted it because it was throwing out little puffs of smoke that looked like donuts. I told my pilot about it, and we came back around and made a gun run on it. It was in a really good bunker, and the way it was set up, we couldn't get it it. One bunch of VC was mortaring the lift ships and the men were left on the ground, and the other group was with that 37mm gun. The gunship in our team was a "hog ship," with a forty mike mike in its nose and forty-eight rockets. We played his decoy and made a long gun run to draw his fire. As we came out of the run, the hog ship popped over a hill and came down right in front of the bunker. It let loose with everything it had. That knocked out the gun. I think the pilot was given a Silver Star. That was a nice little battle. I don't remember ever losing a battle. There were the boring missions where we didn't find anything, but were always a target, so we never knew how many shots had been fired at us and missed. There were the missions where we came back and counted the holes in our ships. Anytime we were killing someone, be it one or ten of them, that was the high. Most of it was little stuff that added up. I can't say those missions weren't hairy, but they weren't big battles. It was hard to catch the enemy soldiers, except in the open. They'd hear the chopper coming and jump for cover. About the only time we caught them in the jingle was when a gunship came in over the top of a mountain aid spotted a trail. We could see guys jumping off into the jungle. Sometimes they weren't fast enough. We'd see somebody jump off a trail and start shooting. There was a lot of that in the Ai Lao Valley. The crew chief and door-gunner at behind the pilots in those gunships, and every pilot who didn't get a Purple Heart should have—for all the hot machine gun shell casings that hit the back of their necks. More than once when we came out of a gun run, I reached up and turned up my pilot'; collar to keep those casings from going down his neck. The pilots didn't mind the casings going under their seats and all over the floor, but didn't like them down their necks. What kind of action we got into depended upon what kind of pilot we had. Some pilots just couldn't find stuff, and some, like Major Mendenhall, always did. We had tremendous fire-power. One day I flew first-light and last-light missions and every mission in between, each about an lour and forty-five minutes long. We refueled and rearmed several times. Each time we took on 14 rockets, 6,000 rounds of minigun ammo, and 4,800 rounds of door-gun ammo. That was one ship out of a team of two, with other teams relieving us on station. There were other days like that. It was really something to see a team of gunships working out. When I think of it now, I can still see the beauty of it. |
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Title: Re: why I believe the way I do, I was raised this Post by maffumatt on Aug 20th, 2005, 1:01pm When we found something, everybody would fly there and join in. Usually there were the Blues on the ground, two scout ships over or near them, two gunships over that, and the troop commander higher up. If the Scouts took a round, the gunships would roll in at treetop level and we would open up with the door-guns. The gunships started most of the battles. When we found something, we'd call in the Blues, and if the Blues couldn't handle it, there was a backup force. Our Blues were wiped out pretty well in November 1966, a short time after that when we left LZ Hammond, and again while I was flying with the troop. Very few of those guys left, and of those that left very few didn't have Purple Hearts. The officers and enlisted men were close to each other. There was never any conflict, because we were all in it together. If the Blues got in contact, they knew that they could count on the rest of us. If a ship got shot down, we knew that the Blues and the other choppers would be there to help out. When we set the Blues down on a mission, I told them we'd be back out there to take them home. We wouldn't leave them there. We all had to help each other. When it came down to surviving, color didn't mean a thing, and it still doesn't mean anything to me today. We were all brothers over there. Our first troop commander was Major Wingate. The next troop commander was Major Mendenhall, whom few people liked, but he did have a pair of balls. He was one brave sucker. He would stick the nose of his helicopter down and look in through windows, just to see what was going on. Anytime his ship was down, he just came over and got another one of the gunships, like on the 28th of March when he took my gunship. It was one of the first that came over with the Cav and it was a slow-flying ship. We flew out by a village on the ocean. There was a water hole about halfway up the mountain behind the village, and we landed on top of the mountain to have a look. My job was to fly over Vietnam. I didn't walk in it and didn't want to go down there. But I did. I went down a trail to the water hole to see if there were any footprints or anything suspicious going on. Nothing. After we lifted off, we took a couple of rounds fired from the village. One round went through the blade and one through the skid, and one went through my ammo box, the intercom box, and my neck before going through the roof. That's when I got my Purple Heart. Until then the war had been just a game for me. I took it seriously after that happened. They dropped me off at a field hospital, and by the time somebody from the troop got over there, I was ready to go back. They had already fixed the intercom box and I patched the hole in the top of the helicopter. The ship was taken to field maintenance and fitted for a new blade. It was ready to fly in about a day. On the 30th of April, we'd already been in a little battle and had a hog ship shot down and some people killed. Major Mende-hall's door-gunner, Hollingsworth, was going to show us where they had been receiving some antiaircraft fire. They had fired all their rockets and minigun ammo, and all they had left were the door-guns. We were flying in close formation, side by side. I was looking down at the ground to see where Hollingsworth's tracers were hitting. After about ten or fifteen tracers, I saw a round come up from the ground and hit their helicopter right in the nose. I heard over the intercom, "Oh, God! We're on fire! We're on fire!" All we could do was sit there and look at them. That's how close we were. We could see them hopping up and down, and there was nothing we could do. The helicopter rolled a couple of times, rocked back and forth, and just sort of nosed into the jungle on the point of a mountain. The memory of that sight is my worst nightmare of Vietnam. I can still hear those screams and see their faces as they were going down. The major and his entire crew were killed. After the crash, we went in and circled the helicopter about three times, but there weren't any survivors. That morning, I decided that my old machine gun was pretty well worn out, so I went over and got a brand new one. I fired 2,600 rounds through the new machine gun. When the bolt went forward for the last time, it welded shut. That was the machine gun's only mission. I burned it up. I had another one with me. I always carried two machine guns in case one of them jammed. I had seen ships shot down and people killed. I had been |
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Title: Re: why I believe the way I do, I was raised this Post by maffumatt on Aug 20th, 2005, 1:02pm shot down myself in February, wounded in March, and had seen Major Mendenhall die in April. Seven months of that was enough. When they sent me to the lift platoon, I was ready for a break. It was easier, because we flew only about half as much as in the Red Scorpions. But it didn't matter if we were in the guns or lift ships or whatever, because lift ships might be used as command ships or medevacs or gunships. Gunships might be used as mede-vacs or to carry Blues out to the field if there weren't enough lift ships flying. I'm very proud of the fact that Alpha Troop never did use medevac to evacuate their own, and we never left anyone behind, dead or alive, for the whole year that I was there. Medevac didn't do much good under fire. We did all those rescue missions. One time, medevac got called in by a unit and came under fire. They almost ran into us getting out of there. The wounded were left behind. My gunship was the one that went in there and got those guys out. Another time, one infantry boy walked into a booby trap. We were getting low on fuel, about ready to be relieved on a mission, but the medevac was ten minutes flying time away, so we went in. I jumped before we landed, and it seemed like I fell a hell of a long way before I hit the rice paddy and ran to the wounded soldier. The boy was hurt so bad that he bled down my ammunition trays, onto the floor, under the pilots' seats, and out the door. It took me three weeks to get the blood smell out of my gunship. I was twenty years old when I was over there. My door-gunner was twenty, one gunship pilot was twenty-one and the other was twenty-three. Being put in charge of a $400,000 helicopter was quite a responsibility for a young man. When I went over to the lift platoon, it was about the same. Almost everybody there was eighteen to twenty years old. They did their jobs well. We were damned good at what we did. The American people should have been proud of us, instead of treating us the way they did. My pilot in the lift ships was Robert D. Phipps. My ship was "Headhunters Three-Eight." My lift ship is on the front of one of those Vietnam books. I guess my best friend in life was Mr. Phipps. We're still friends. He told me he never had any other crew chief over there but me, and I take great pride in that. He went back over to Vietnam, to the 101st Airborne Division later in the war, but he says the caliber of the pilots and crew chiefs had deteriorated by then. They weren't the same as in the 9th Cav. Mr. Phipps was the only pilot I knew who could touch down and take off and you wouldn't even know you'd landed. He could fly a chopper at 120 knots at treetop level and rice-paddy level and make the trip smooth and fast. The problem with lift ships is not having a door-gunner, just the crew chief. The Blues all sat on seats facing out, so there was a lot of firepower if it was needed. The infantry machine gunner on the side opposite me acted as door-gunner on landings and extractions. But once the infantry was dropped off, the chopper had only one door-gun, and was defenseless on the other side. The same thing happened picking up the infantry. Until they were on board, the ship had just one machine gun. You were a sitting duck while you waited for the Blues to get on board. Every fourth day we had a twenty-four-hour standby when everyone stayed with the ship. I was there, the pilots were there, a squad of infantry was there. If a ship went down somewhere or the gunships spotted something, we went. We'd land the infantry as close as we could to the downed ship or whatever the gun-ships had spotted. On regular landings, sometimes, we'd set the infantry down, pick them up, set them down again, all day long. I'll never forget the happy looks on their faces when they saw us coming in at the end of a long day out there. We went into several hot LZs with our lift ships. On one night mission, we had to pick up the Blues in a one-ship EZ in a heavy rainstorm, guiding on strobe lights. That was scary. There was just enough room to hover down and lift straight out of there. Ships were almost running into each other. We almost got hit by a gunship. I never liked flying in the dark or close to the dark. If something happened then, there wasn't much hope. One time, we were forced to land because of instrument problems. I was pretty sure it wasn't a mechanical problem, although the instruments said it was. Mr. Phipps gave a Mayday, and we went down in a place called the Kim Son Valley. As soon as we |
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Title: Re: why I believe the way I do, I was raised this Post by maffumatt on Aug 20th, 2005, 1:02pm touched down, the Blues on board set out security, and three jets left their assigned mission and circled over us until we got some help out to us. Once I had checked everything, I told Mr. Phipps that it was an instrument failure and not a real problem with mechanics. He trusted my word and flew that helicopter out of there. There were only eight pilots and four crew chiefs in the lift platoon, so we were really close to each other. The gunship platoon was a lot bigger, with twenty pilots and twenty crew chiefs and gunners. I had to pull guard on the bunkers for two hours every night in a lift, and that was spooky. We'd see things we didn't see and hear things we didn't hear. Often the pilots would come down and sit with us and help out. They didn't officially pull guard duty, but they came out anyway. There were many nights when Mr. Phipps and I sat there together on guard. About a month after I left the troop, they moved to another base and sappers got in and cut five crew chiefs' throats. I'd hate to have had the responsibility for being on guard that night. I left Vietnam with two good friends, Ron Forrester (another gunship crew chief) and Mr. Phipps, and lots of memories. The 9th Cav was a prestige unit. I knew that people were extending their tours to come to the squadron as door-gunners, but I really didn't understand just how different we were until I talked to other veterans after the war. If I ever have to fight again, I hope that it can be with a unit like the 9th Cav. I remember that country. It was a really pretty country from the air, but sometimes you would see the bomb craters where men had fought and died. Vietnam was the kind of place you always wanted to get the hell out of, and once you left, you always wanted to see it again. I have a great regard for the MIAs and POWs who are still over there. I don't have anything against the people of Vietnam, even the Viet Cong. They were doing what they thought was right, and we were doing what we were told. I do think that we could have fought the war differently and gotten out a lot quicker. The Vietnamese had wonderful, pretty children. The kids had nothing to do with the war and were trapped in it, the same as us. I don't talk much about the war, because no one ever wants to hear about it. When I came back through San Francisco Airport, I got spit on. I didn't know what was going on in the States. We read the Stars and Stripes over there, and it printed what they wanted us to read. I was a door-gunner on a combat mission on Monday and drinking beer in my hometown bar on Saturday. There was no readjustment counseling. I had been drafted. I didn't ask to go over to Vietnam, but I still got called a baby killer. My family never talked to me about the war, and it wasn't until a couple of years ago that any of them asked to see my Vietnam photo album. People ignored Vietnam veterans and insulted us and treated us really badly, but I believe we will have our day. I don't think the American people are truly interested in the war. Only Vietnam veterans are really interested in the Vietnam War. This story is for them. |
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Title: Re: why I believe the way I do, I was raised this Post by maffumatt on Aug 20th, 2005, 1:08pm War has affected every aspect of my life, been a part of my families life from day we were born. I know what it does to families. I struggled whether to post this, and I don't want people to think I am rideing his coat tails, I am not. I was raised to support our military, our goverment, our troops. The lessons of that era need to be remembered, lets not have our soldiers treated the way these men were. The need and deserve our repect and loyalty whether you support the war or not. Added......and to the vets here, thankyou and welcome home.http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid182/pea455c258f875d099584a2141552e0eb/f2bc4133.jpg |
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Title: Re: why I believe the way I do, I was raised this Post by Jonny on Aug 20th, 2005, 1:31pm Excelent post, Matt!! |
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Title: Re: why I believe the way I do, I was raised this Post by LeLimey on Aug 20th, 2005, 2:10pm Thank you for posting that Matt [smiley=hug.gif] thats for your dad too. |
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Title: Re: why I believe the way I do, I was raised this Post by Redneck on Aug 20th, 2005, 9:11pm Very good, truth from someone thats been there is always refreshing. My lottery number came out high so I didn't go. But had lots of friends there.Sometimes I regret not going, then I think how luckey I was not to go. |
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Title: Re: why I believe the way I do, I was raised this Post by jcmquix on Aug 20th, 2005, 9:48pm My Step Father did 4 tours (I think)... He is not disabled, but that man still haves nightmares to this day about being there. When I was growing up at home, and he used to drink, he told me he was a Grunt over there, his main job was going around cleaning up ALL the bodies.. 24/7.. He finally even had to quit drinking, cause it would keep bringing up the memories of back then... I have never served in the Military, but I almost became an FDLE (Florida Department of Law Enforcement) Agent. I think anyone who makes the decision to Serve and Protect deserves all the Support & Respect of EVERYONE. They VOLENTEERED to do what they do for this country... as Thomas & Frank have stated these people did what they were doing to protect ALL of our freedoms... I say THANK YOU to them and EVERY person who has made that decision. Matt this is a GREAT post... I just really wated to say Thanks to all the People who choose to SERVE & Protect this Country and Our Freedoms... PFDAN's to ALL !!! Charlie |
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Title: Re: why I believe the way I do, I was raised this Post by Charlie on Aug 21st, 2005, 2:07am This Charlie agrees completely with that Charlie. I was a very stong supoporter of Vietnam as well. I always qualify that as being an epileptic, I didn't have to deal with the draft. My uncle still wakes up in the middle of the night when he hears thunder. He was in London during the V-2s. The army are the good guys and we are all proud of them. Charlie |
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Title: Re: why I believe the way I do, I was raised this Post by Ree on Aug 21st, 2005, 9:50am I'm speechless.......imagine that.....! ree |
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Title: Re: why I believe the way I do, I was raised this Post by Karla on Aug 21st, 2005, 3:46pm Thank you for sharing the post. God Bless our servicemen and woman. Please keep them safe. |
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Title: Re: why I believe the way I do, I was raised this Post by Opus on Aug 21st, 2005, 8:35pm Thanks Matt, I hope we have learned from the bitter war and we always support the troups while they are fighting and treat them as the heros they are when they return. Opus/Paul |
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Title: Re: why I believe the way I do, I was raised this Post by TxBasslady on Aug 22nd, 2005, 2:42am on 08/20/05 at 13:08:44, maffumatt wrote:
Excellent post, Matt! How well I remember this war. My brother in law was a Marine, and served 2 tours in Vietnam. He died a few years ago. His body was full of shrapnel......from trying to save his best friend from stepping on a land mine. The stories he told me were similar to your Dad's. Larry was filled with anger and hurt because of that war. The medical treatment he needed through the years was shabby, at best. It was as if noone really cared. I have many friends who served in Vietnam. Like your Dad, most of them don't talk about it. The ones that do talk about it, tell of the nightmares and the pain caused by this war. Some are in wheelchairs, with no legs or arms. Most of them, like my brother in law, have to have constant medical treatment and care. Some have severe mental problems....and most are divorced from their spouse of that era. Many thanks to your Dad for his story and pictures. He's a hero in my book.... Semper Fi Jean |
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Title: Re: why I believe the way I do, I was raised this Post by Frank_W on Aug 22nd, 2005, 9:47am Thank you, Matt. A solemn salute and a hearty "Welcome home; Thank you." to your father. |
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