Suzanne Rice

The “Tales from Nick’s FARRP” series are a fictionalized version of real events and are dedicated to the memory of friends and classmates from the Class of 1969.

“So, Tony, tell me what you have done in the Army.” 

*     *     *     *     *     *

I was talking with a tall Army guy on a barstool across from me in Fayetteville, North Carolina, that I knew was called Major Tony Williams.  I inherited this bar, called Nick’s FARRP, when my Uncle Nick died of cancers he got from some chemical in Vietnam during three tours as a combat helicopter pilot.  My name, by the way, is Gil Edwards.  Since I know nothing about the Army, I am always asking questions of the guys here in the bar.

*     *     *     *     *     *

“Well, Gil, as you know, I am a proud Texas Aggie.  I graduated from the Texas A&M ROTC program in 1965 as an Infantry Second Lieutenant.  After my initial infantry training at Fort Benning, I was assigned to a mechanized infantry battalion in the Panama Canal Zone.  Maybe the fact that I took three years of Spanish at A&M had something to do with them sending me to Panama.

“Panama was a lot of fun in the sixties.  In addition to my mech battalion, the US Army Southern Command, called USARSO, also had a leg infantry battalion and an airborne battalion, plus the 8^th Special Forces Group, who ran the Army’s Jungle Warfare School and a school for Latin American officers which included a jump school.

“As a mech platoon leader I got to train my troops in jungle operations.  I had the weapons platoon of C Company, 4-20^th Infantry, which meant my guys had the company’s mortars and heavy anti-tank guns.  When training was slow, I got to go through Jungle Warfare School, earning what the Army called ‘the coveted Jungle Expert badge.’  I also got to go through the jump school down there, earning my airborne wings.”

“Yeah, Tony,” interrupted the guy sitting next to Major Tony.  He was another of the regulars here at the FARRP I knew as Captain Kenny Wayne.  “You didn’t go through the real jump school at Fort Benning.  You might as well have gotten your jump wings out of a Cracker Jack box.” 

“All right, smart ass master blaster,” replied Major Tony.  “I made five parachute jumps and was awarded the very same jump wings you got.  And I got ‘silver wings upon my chest’ over a year before you did.  In fact, I was a ‘flash-qualified Green Beret’ before your cadet ass got to Benning the first time.”  

“Hey, Peggy, would you bring us over a couple more beers?”  Captain Kenny said.  Miss Peggy was my bar manager and guardian angel.

“Nice way to change the subject, Kenny,” replied Major Tony.  “Now, where was I?  Oh, yeah.  Going through all the training down in Panama, I really got to know some of the Special Forces guys, and decided I wanted to become a Green Beret like them.  Infantry branch officer assignments approved my request, but they held me in Panama several months for the next Special Forces Officer Course opening at Fort Bragg. 

“This was late 1966, and all the Infantry lieutenants in the Army were getting sent to Vietnam.  All of a sudden, I was the senior lieutenant in the battalion.  While I was waiting for orders to the SFOC at Fort Bragg, better known as the ‘Q Course,’ they made me Commanding Officer of Charlie Mech.  With only 18 months in the Army, dang if USARSO didn’t pin captain’s bars on me, too.  I had my company command ticket punched before I even got to Vietnam.

“Thank you very much, Peggy.  After graduation from the Q Course, I served in Vietnam with the 5^th Special Forces Group, most of that time commanding an Operational Detachment Alpha, commonly known as an A Team.  We were way the hell back in the boonies, amidst the Montagnards.  They are an indigenous people who live in the mountains of central Indochina.  The Vietnamese look down on them as barbarians, but they were very effective fighters against the Viet Cong infiltrators, whom they despised.

“My specialties in Special Forces were intelligence and weapons.  A couple of months into my tour in Vietnam, 5^th Special Forces Group was beginning to stand down.  So, the Army sent me back to Benning for the Infantry Officer Advanced Course.  While in the Advanced Course, I applied for flight school, since they were still sending aviators to Vietnam.  I got accepted and completed flight school in 1971.  I got in a full year tour back in Vietnam flying Hueys.

“I was at Fort Bragg during 1970,” interrupted Captain Kenny.  “That was when the post started filling up with 5^th Special Forces Group guys coming back to civilization.  After years and y ears of combat in the boonies, some of them had a hard time fitting into ‘the world.’ 

“I remember one day a newly-arrived senior SF NCO was bopping his way through the officers’ housing area coming back from the PX.  As he passed in front of a colonel’s house, a little tiny dog behind the picket fence started yapping at him.  Without even thinking, the Green Beret reached across the fence, picked up the little dog and impaled him on the picket fence, and kept on walking.

“The colonel’s wife was looking out her front window and saw what happened.  Hysterical, she called the Military Police.  The NCO was a couple of blocks down the street when two MP cars descended on him.  He put three Military Policemen in the hospital before reinforcements arrived and subdued him.  The guy never understood why everyone was upset.”

“Yeah, Kenny, I know that’s a true story,” replied Major Tony.  “Unfortunately, some of the most effective guys in a combat zone couldn’t adapt to life back in the civilized world.  Maybe the country needs some place to warehouse these super warriors in between wars, so they don’t disrupt society while they are being kept on standby for the next conflict.” 

“I thought that’s what Fort Bragg is for,” interrupted an older Army guy sitting at the bar, with a huge grin.  Chief Rod, I knew, was one of the regulars in the FARRP.  Actually, his real name is Chief Warrant Officer Rod Jordan, a master Army aviator.  Chief Rod had been best buddies with my Uncle Nick and Miss Peggy’s late husband Miguel. 

“Fort Bragg is a place no one else in the country wants,” Chief Rod continued, “so they gave it to the Army.  All the animals in the Army seem to be assigned here.  You got the airborne and the Special Forces, and over in the old Post Stockade there’s a bunch of gorillas that nobody knows what to do with.”

“That bunch of gorillas,” replied Major Tony, “happens to be a supposedly ultra-secret unit known as SF Operational Detachment Delta.  They call themselves OD Delta, or Delta for short.  They got formed up just over a year ago to be the nation’s anti-terrorism strike force.  With all the acts of international terrorism in the news these days, the Army was tasked to form a unit specializing in counter-terrorism operations.  And these really are the kind of guys who don’t have any other place in a peace-time Army.  But they sure are good at what they do.  Someday, the country will call on them, and they plan to be ready.” 

“Your Special Forces guys must have really made rank fast in Vietnam,” said Captain Kenny.  “In the spring of 1970, my armored cav squadron in the 82^nd got a new Command Sergeant Major, just back from 5^th Group in Vietnam.  He had gone over in 1962 as a brand-new Spec 4, not even a sergeant yet.  In less than eight years he was back as the highest enlisted rank in the Army.” 

“Yeah, Kenny, that could happen,” replied Major Tony, “but a lot of that advancement was the result of combat vacancies.  Fifth Group took a lot of casualties over the years.” 

“So, Tony,” I said.  “Keep telling me about what you did in the Army.” 

“Right, you go, young civilian,” Major Tony continued.  “By 1972 the Army had concluded that I probably didn’t show much promise as a conventional infantry officer, so they decided to let me stay in special operations.  Because of my Special Forces experience and language aptitude, they selected me to enter the Army’s Foreign Area Officer specialty track.  By this time, I had three strikes against me in the eyes of my Infantry branch.  First, I was a Special Forces officer, which they considered some sort of an anti-social cult.   Then, I was an aviator, which was even worse.  And finally, I chose to be a Foreign Area Officer, which guaranteed I would never see another infantry promotion.

“The Army sent me to graduate school for a master’s degree in Latin American Studies.  So, my graduate work was in Latin American political science, geography and history.  Plus, for the degree, besides Spanish, I had to complete university freshman and sophomore Portuguese language, for no graduate credit.  Having seen the handwriting on the wall that I had no Army future as an infantry officer, during my time in grad school I applied for a branch transfer out of infantry into Military Intelligence.

“While in grad school, the Army inadvertently promoted me to major, and dang if I wasn’t accidentally selected to attend the Command and General Staff Course at Fort Leavenworth.  That is a year-long finishing school for officers they plan on keeping around for a while. 

“Some insecure officers in C&GSC freak out over the course work.  Guys were known to barricade themselves in their studies for nine-months, leaving healthy wives climbing the walls.  In my class of over a thousand new majors, we had almost two hundred divorces during the year.  Surprisingly, there were actually several dozen cross-marriages of new divorcees.

“Graduating from Leavenworth in 1976, I was assigned as a US exchange officer to attend the Mexican National War College, followed by travels throughout Latin America.  Then the Army sent me back here to Fort Bragg to be chief of Latin American strategic studies in the 1^st Psyop Battalion of the 4^th Psyop Brigade.  And here I am.

“And I am hoping now to be selected as the JFK Special Warfare Center staff aviation officer.  If that happens, I will get to wear my Green Beret on duty again, this time with a JFKSWC flash, in a Lieutenant Colonel slot.” 

“Well, Tony,” replied Captain Kenny with a sarcastic grin.  “You seem to have salvaged a ‘three strikes’ infantry career OK.  Who knows, the Army might accidentally promote you again to Lieutenant Colonel.”

In memory of Bill and Terry and Eddie and Jerry

Continuation of stories about flying Hueys in Vietnam during 1972.  See part 1, “Smoke”.

Craziest thing I remember about “bombing” was one really windy day around March ‘72 when I was still flying co-pilot, or “charlie-pop.” One Republic of Korea White Horse Division company outpost on a mountain pinnacle east of Nha Trang was really hurting for water, so their battalion loaded a rubber blivet, or gigantic water bladder, in our bird and filled it from a “water buffalo” transport trailer. 

     We took off with maybe a ton of water in this rubber bag on the cabin floor trying to roll around, but it was way too turbulent for us to even try to land at the pad on the pinnacle.  The Korean guide on board insisted the troops desperately needed the water, so he finally persuaded the Aircraft Commander to make a really low and slow pass so they could roll the blivet out. 

So he flew us in, about six feet up, just barely in translational lift, maybe ten knots ground speed, with the bird gyrating wildly in the turbulence.  When they rolled the blivet out, the sudden change in center of gravity almost caused a blade strike on the ground, but the bird lurched upward once the load was gone.  That blivet hit the pinnacle pad like a one-ton water balloon, drenching about 40 ROK troops who wanted something to drink, not a shower. 

We didn’t try that again.

Another mission after I became Aircraft Commander [callsign “Ghostrider 8”], we were carrying a ROK Regimental Commander out to see one of his companies on a pinnacle outpost.  The company had taken a 4×8 sheet of ¾” plywood, painted it white, then in red Korean script painted “Welcome, Colonel Whatever, to 7^th Company, home of the best troops in Vietnam.”  The heavy plywood was nailed to a tree, but as we landed, the rotor wash ripped the nails out of the bark and it went flying up into the whirling rotor blades.  BAM!! 

Terrified, I was certain we had severed a rotor blade or worse, so we shut it down on the spot to inspect the damage.  Miraculously, one rotor spar had hit the plywood sheet absolutely flat, slicing it diagonally as if it were cut on a saw.  Along nine feet of that blade’s leading edge was a line of white paint, interspersed with flecks of red.  Still shaking, I called it a day, flew the commander back to his Regimental headquarters, and returned to our airfield.  When the Ghostrider maintenance section inspected the rotor blade, they pronounced it perfectly safe to fly. 

That episode convinced me for certain that there was a Guardian Angel protecting us from our own stupidity. Funny, though, but that Regimental Commander never flew with us again.

(Another “Guardian Angel” story is called “Pigs and Corn.” You can read that here.)

The Guardian Angel was certainly on duty another day.  Our company airfield was almost adjacent to the White Horse Division command post.  Every day we had one bird assigned on stand-by for the two-star ROK commanding general, in case he wanted to go somewhere.  Usually, it was a completely boring day, doing nothing but sitting around waiting.  Even when the generalactually had us fly somewhere, it was a VIP flight, so we had to fly very smooth and gentle, with no maneuvering.  It was usuallyto some other headquarters, so we always had a large landing pad in an open and level area.  Boring!!

The layout was like a large inverted letter L, with the division headquarters at the tip of the lower bar [a couple hundred yards long]and our airfield aligned with the upright.  At the end of this mind-numbing day-long mission, the only fun part was returning to the airfield.  We called the maneuver a “triple-60.”  The bird took off eastfrom the pad, gaining enough airspeed and altitude to cross the extended centerline of the airfield at 60 knots and 60 feet altitude, whereupon we yanked the birdover left 60º and flew a tight 270º turn to roll out south,aligned for landing on the airfield strip.  That was really fun.

Unfortunately, there was a 155mm artillery battery located in the center of the loop we had to fly. 

Before taking off, we always had to get clearance from the airfield control tower to fly near this end of the airfield, and in particular to be cleared for the “left 270” maneuver, since the tower had communications with the artillery battery and could ensure there would be no firing.

So late one afternoon the “command” birdgot “mission-release” and called the controltower for permission to return to the airfield.  Tower replied, “Ghostrider one-four, you are cleared for left 270, landing south straight in.” 

Somehow, and the investigation never got an explanation why, during the triple-60 maneuver, one of the artillery pieces fired.  Miraculously, the shell shot straight through the open doors of the steeply-banked Huey, not touching a thing. 

However, the sonic boom from the supersonic shell did rupture the eardrums of all four crew members, getting them grounded for several weeks.

Many people question whether there is a God, or whether angels are guarding his earthlings, but I can assure you of this: 

Those who have survived a miracle such as this one, they believe!!!

     I spent the majority of my tour in Vietnam flying in the 60^th Assault Helicopter Company [AHC], callsign “Ghostriders,” under the 7^th Squadron -17^th Air Cavalry, a composite unit. We had around 25 “slicks,” which is what we called our lift UH-1H

Hueys that carried troops and cargo, plus a gunship section of six AH-1G Cobra attack helicopters, the “Gunrunners.” 

     Our mission was to provide helicopter support to the Republic of Korea [ROK] White Horse and Tiger Divisions.  Our company was configured for combat assault

operations, where we inserted or extracted ground troops in landing zones, under gunship cover.  However, the majority of our missions were direct combat support, what we called “ash and trash,” usually routine single ships supplying troops in the field with food, ammunition, water and mail.  We got a lot of flying time on these missions, since they typicallylasted eight hours or more, with several dozen individual sorties.  Occasional missions included medical evacuation of wounded troops, and aerial reconnaissance for upcoming operations.  From time to time on all our missions, the bad guys took offense at our presence, and indicated their displeasure with gunfire, usually AK-47.  The ones shooting at me were mostly bad shots.

     The aircraft crew consisted of two aviators and two enlisted crew.  The Aircraft Commander was an experienced and battle-tested pilot who usually flew in the left seat, and his “charlie-pop,” or co-pilot, usually a new guy, flew in the right seat, gaining experience to become an Aircraft Commander himself one day. 

      In the left rear well, or cabin corner, sat the crew chief, who was the owner of the helicopter, in charge of its maintenance, who always flew with his bird.  In the right well sat the door gunner, who assisted the crew chief and was responsible for the machine guns.  Both the crew chief and the door gunner had pedestal-mounted M-60 machine guns, each with an ammo can holding a belt of 1,500 rounds. Their duties were to watch for enemy fire and to advise the pilots about the tail rotor in tight spaces. On direct combat support operations, we also carried an English-speaking ROK soldier, who relayed to us our missions.

     Since our airfield was located just a couple of miles inlandfrom the South China Sea, whenever we took off in the morning for a mission, the first thing we did was to fly “feet wet” (over the ocean), where the door gunners could test-fire their weapons.  Many troops volunteered to bedoor gunners just because they knew at least once each day they could fire their machine guns.  On routine missions, we sometimes let cooks fly gunner on their days off, and we even had a chaplain who loved to fly and shoot the gun.

     During test firing, the door gunners always wanted something to shoot at, and their favorite target was the sharks that swam near the surface in the South China Sea.  Since a shark is mostly cartilage, machine-gun bullets don’t do any damage, but they surely do annoy the shark.  Most sharks were small, but there was one Great White as big as our helicopter tail boom.  He roamed about 200 miles up and down the coast. After I made

Aircraft Commander (callsign “Ghostrider 8”), I absolutely refused to let my gunners shoot that shark when we saw it.  I figured if our engine quit, I did not want our crew to be breakfast for an angry giant man-eating shark.

     Whenever we took fire, our crew’s priorities were to

1.  Advise us where the fire was coming from. 

2.  Drop a smoke grenade to mark the target for the gunships.

3.  And only then, return fire with the machine guns. 

Our good ones could do all three simultaneously.  Before the mission, they would pull the pins on smoke grenades and reinsert them backwards to hang on the edge of the ammo cans.  They cruised with their little finger through the pull ring, so when they engaged with the M-60, it automatically pulled the pin and dropped the smoke.

     Sometimes out horsing around at the end of a day’s mission,we would practice dropping smoke grenades from altitude to see whether we could marka specific point on the ground.  The Aircraft Commander would fly straight and level and call the crew chief when to drop the smoke, then wing over to see where it went.

     Early in my tour (I wasn’t present for this incident), one of our young warrant officers chose as hissmoke bombing targetan old Vietnamese fisherman out in the Tuy Hoa River, about 10 miles in from the coast.  By the third smoke grenade whistling out of the sky obviously aiming for him, old papa-san finally got mad.  He pulled an antiqueFrench flintlock musket out of the bottom of his boat, hung it under his arm and fired, almost knocking himself out of his boat.  The Huey was pulling a steep left turn when the lucky musket ball punched through the plexiglass roof canopy and smashedthe Aircraft Commander in his helmet.  The ball embedded in the Styrofoam over his forehead, but it shattered his plexiglass face shield, driving shards into his eyes.  Since plexiglass doesn’t show up on X-ray, no one in-country had the technology to safely locate and remove it from his eyes, so they had to air-evacuate him to Japan to take it out.

     My most memorable smoke story happened a few months into my tour.  As co-pilot, or “charlie-pop, I was at the controls flying a ROK regimental commander out to inspect one of his company compounds, located on a pinnacle back in the mountains.  I flew in at 2000 feet above the terrain, and when the company popped a red smoke grenade to indicate the winds at the helipad, I began my spiraling approach down to the company position.  As I was rolling out at the bottom approaching touchdown, the smoke grenade ran out, so the conscientious private on helipad duty popped a fresh smoke.  As I settled into a hover to touchdown, I thought to myself, “That’s strange.  I’ve never seen white smoke before.” 

     Just as the white smoke began getting sucked into the open Huey, the Aircraft Commander screamed, “Holy shit!” and yanked the controls out of my hands to go around.  I had just rememberedthat white smoke is CS, better known as tear gas.  As the aircraft gained airspeed, the choking tear gas in the Huey eventually dissipated, but all aboard were coughing with teary eyes.  The angry Aircraft Commander told the ROK interpreter that we were done for the day and turned back toward our base. 

     In a moment, the ROK came back forward and shouted over the noise, “My regimental colonel say, please, we go back.”  The Aircraft Commander declared there was no way he would take us back to that company.  The ROK repeated, “My commander say, please, please, please, we go back, just for one minute.” 

     Finally, the Aircraft Commander relented, and agreed to land us back at the pad, but this time he insisted on keeping the controls in his hands all the way.  When we touched down, the colonel steppedout of our aircraft and issued a command in Korean.  The ROK private who had popped white smoke snapped to attention on the pad.  A moment later his sergeant appeared and came to attention beside him.  A few seconds later, the lieutenant arrived and assumed the position of attention in the growing rank.  Finally, the captain company commander ran up the hill, still tucking in his blouse, to join the formation.

     When they were all assembled, the colonel gave another command, and all four soldiers removed their helmets and held them upside down in front of them.  Another ROK soldier appeared at the commander’s side, holding the case of CS grenades.  The colonel took one grenade from the case, popped it and dropped it in the helmet of the private, then sidestepped to the sergeant and did the same thing, and moved down the line, dropping a tear gas grenade in the helmets held by the lieutenant and captain.

     As soon as our helicopter’s rotor wash was blowing the concentrated cloud of tear gas directly into the faces of all four of the soldiers who had displeased him, the colonel climbed back into our bird, and his interpreter told the Aircraft Commander, “We go now.” 

     As we lifted off, I had learned a lesson – never fly into white smoke.  I’m sure the entire White Horse Division learned a variant of that very same lesson.

*Same type of aircraft flown by the Ghostriders supporting the ROK troops.  Behind the soldier on the left is the right-side cabin well, post of the door gunner.