By Guy Miller

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, were there any funny or crazy things you remember from Vietnam?”

*     *     *     *     *     *

     I was talking to my beer-drinking customer Tony, known to the Army as Major Williams, sitting on a stool on the other side of the bar from me in “Nick’s FARRP.”  That was a drinking establishment for Army guys in Fayetteville, North Carolina, just outside Fort Bragg, that my Uncle Nick left me when he died.  Some chemical he was exposed to during his three tours in Vietnam as a helicopter pilot, or as they like to call themselves, “aviator,” gave him cancers that he eventually died from. 

     I know nothing about the Army, so I am always asking the guys in here questions.  My name, by the way, is Gil Edwards.

*     *     *     *     *     *

     “Well, Gil,” Major Tony replied, “anyone who ever served in any of the military services can tell you about the crazy and funny things that happened during their time in.  Most of the stories you hear these guys here talking about are the crazy things that happened to them.  So, yeah, I suppose you could say I have some stories.

     “Silliest thing I remember from Vietnam was in late summer of 1972, when three Special Forces guys in a jeep turned up at our aviation field.  They had heard that there was a former Green Beret, now an aviator in the 60^th Assault Helicopter Company at Ninh Hoa.  Our airfield was located along the South China Sea in central Vietnam, some twenty miles or so north of Nha Trang, so they wanted to look me up. 

     “They had a proposition for me.  It seems that they had a “perfectly good” Bravo-model Huey helicopter they wanted to trade to us for eight cases of steaks.”

     “Are you kidding me?” exclaimed the guy sitting next to him, a short younger soldier I knew as Captain Kenny.  “They wanted to give you an operational helicopter, in trade for eight cases of steaks? How much does a helicopter like that cost anyway?”

     “That, my young friend, is a question I can answer,” replied the stout older Army guy on the other side of Major Tony.  I knew him as Chief Warrant Officer Rod Jordan, a long-time Army master aviator who had been best friends with my late Uncle Nick.  He had been flying Army helicopters for nearly twenty years, since they had graduated flight school in 1962 and gone to Vietnam for their first flying tours.

     “A Huey helicopter, regardless of the model or year delivered to the Army, cost $238,000.  When the first operational B-models began deliveries in 1962, Bell Helicopters negotiated a fixed price with the Army.  Later on, as the Huey models got bigger, more advanced and more powerful, the Army insisted that the fixed price of $238,000 each remain in place.

     “Over the years, the B-models got supplemented with Charlie-model gunships, and later D-model troop carriers.  The helicopter war in Vietnam kept on growing, and Bell couldn’t deliver new models of Hueys fast enough.  The Marine Corps got in the act, buying E-models, so the Air Force had to get their F-models as well.  In the later years of the war, the extended-cabin more powerful H-models became the mainstay in Vietnam, but always the price remained exactly the same.” 

     “Hey, Miss Peggy, bring me another beer if you would,” Chief Rod interrupted himself, before continuing.  Miss Peggy is my bar manager and mentor, the widow of Uncle Nick and Rod’s life-long buddy, Miguel.

     “Through 1972, Bell Helicopters delivered over 13,000 Hueys of various models to all the military services, always for the same flat price.  Lady Bird Johnson, who was the primary shareholder in Bell Helicopters, got really rich off the Vietnam war.  So did lots of politicians.  But I guess that’s how it has been since time began.” 

     Captain Kenny looked puzzled.  “So then, why did these Special Forces guys want to trade a Huey for eight cases of steaks?  There must be some story that goes with that.”

     “As a matter of fact, there was.  Back around 1966, a Special Forces sergeant from a Green Beret A-team in the Central Highlands of Vietnam got approved to go to helicopter flight school as a Warrant Officer Candidate.  He went all the way through the program, but two weeks before graduation, there was a scandal at Fort Rucker over a colonel’s daughter, and he was bounced out of the class and straight back to Vietnam.

     “Eventually his Special Forces A-team learned of a B-model Huey that had been written off the Army’s property books as a combat loss, just because some aviation unit didn’t want it anymore.  Knowing how to fly, this sergeant went out and flew the Huey back to the team camp in the Central Highlands.  It became the private helicopter of the Green Berets for the next year and a half.  He flew it into the refueling points throughout central Vietnam, topping it off with jet fuel and keeping the oil levels up. 

     “In 1970 the sergeant was rotated back stateside to Smoke Bomb Hill at Fort Bragg, so the helicopter just sat there abandoned for two years.  In all the time it had been flying, the sergeant had never kept track of the flight hours he put on the bird, and no maintenance had ever been performed.  There were no maintenance records at all for the helicopter.

     “The deal the Green Berets were offering us was this:  They were all being rotated back to Fort Bragg and wanted to throw a party for the Montagnard villagers they had supported and fought with for all those years.  For eight cases of steaks the helicopter was ours.  All we had to do was fly it out.  But with no flight records and no maintenance ever having been performed, there wasn’t a single aviator in our company, not even that crazy AMOC warrant officer I told you about earlier (https://thedaysforward.com/amoc-1978/), who would dare even crank it up.  As far as I know, it is probably still sitting there, waiting for someone brave enough to try to fly it.” 

     “Wow,” I responded to Major Tony’s story.  “Tell me another story from Vietnam.”

     “For the price of another beer, Gil, I will be glad to.”  As I drew him a fresh beer, Tony continued entertaining all of us at the bar.

     “In February 1972, an AH-1G Cobra from my unit, callsign Gun Runners, had finished its mission and was heading back to our airfield, when the Aircraft Commander (AC) decided to have some fun.  QL-1 is the main Vietnamese national highway that runs along the South China Sea coastline from Saigon to Hanoi.  The AC and his front-seat copilot were zipping along low-level on QL-1 at 120 kts about five feet above the road.  They were flying south between Qui Nhon and Tuy Hoa, having fun honking around the turns and up and down the hills, just barely off the pavement.

     “Cresting a small hill, they were surprised by a 5-ton cargo truck rumbling north, which scared the crap out of both the aviators and the truck crew.  The AC yanked his Cobra up, but not before the truck driver and his assistant saw helicopter skids slam right around their heads.

When the Cobra hooked its skids through the canvas bows on the truck, the impact ripped the entire skid assembly off the bottom of the gunship.  The shocked truck driver and his assistant found themselves still driving in the truck cab, surrounded by the framework of the Cobra skid assembly.  I have no idea what the story was they told when they got back to Qui Nhon.

     “Lacking any landing gear, the Aircraft Commander radioed ahead to our base that he wouldn’t be able to land the bird.  The airfield commander rounded up every spare man to come down to the flight line and start filling sandbags.  While the Aircraft Commander held the gunship at a two-foot hover, they built a sandbag cradle the length and width of the Cobra belly, being extra careful to stay clear of the tail rotor.  That tail rotor works like an 1,100 horsepower vertical weed eater, which can turn a man into a pink cloud in an instant. 

     “Once the troops had built the sandbag sidewalls up about three feet high for lateral stability, the Aircraft Commander was eventually able to set his bird in the makeshift sandbag revetment and shut it down.  Since so many aviation units had stood down by that late in the war, it took two weeks to get a replacement Cobra skid assembly delivered in country.

     “The million-dollar attack aircraft was saved, but that Aircraft Commander was never again allowed to fly in country.  He spent the remainder of his tour filling out maintenance forms and records.” 

“Yeah, Tony,” I responded, “but I want you to tell me a story about you.  What was the craziest thing you personally experienced?”

“Well, I suppose that would be one afternoon in mid-1972, at the finish of a long day of ‘ash-and-trash,’ resupplying the companies in a Korean regiment of their Tiger Division.  We were returning to our base after more than eight flying hours, after over 40 direct combat support sorties.  It was …”

“Wait,” I interrupted.  “What do those words mean?”

“Right, my young civilian friend,” Major Tony replied.  “I forget you don’t understand all the Army jargon.  ‘Direct combat support’ is the term for our missions flown to support the combat troops out in the field.  DCS means we weren’t under enemy fire at the time, and we didn’t have Cobra gunships flying cover for us.  But we were still in bad-guy country, flying over territory where we could take fire at any time.”

“All right, then.” I replied, “but what is ‘sorties?’”

“A sortie is one take-off and one landing of an aircraft on a combat mission.  For an Air Force bomber or cargo crew, a sortie might last ten hours or longer.  When we Army guys were flying single-helicopter ‘ash-and-trash’ missions bringing rations, water, ammo and mail to the troops in the field, a sortie could be ten minutes or less, just the time it took to fly from the regimental logistics pad up to a company of troops on a pinnacle and land to off-load their supplies.  Then another sortie back to the pad, to pick up a load for another company.

“On a typical DCS day, we would do that all day long.  We got really good at landing heavily loaded on mountain pinnacles in turbulence, and the troops were always glad to hear the famous Huey WOP-WOP-WOP as we were bringing them stuff they really wanted.

“So back to my story.  As the Aircraft Commander, radio callsign Ghost Rider 8, in the left pilot’s seat, I was letting my new-guy co-pilot get some extra stick time flying us back.  I decided it was time to light up the cigar I had been carrying in my pocket all day long.

“We were cruising home at 2,000 feet above the terrain, straight and level, with 80 knots of airspeed whipping through my left-side window.  True story.  As I put the cigar in my mouth and started to look for my lighter, out of nowhere a hand reached in through the open window, flicked a Zippo open and lit my cigar.”

“WOW!!” was the simultaneous exclamation from everyone at the bar listening to this story.  “How on earth could that happen?”

Major Tony took a long sip of his beer, paused, then replied.  “My crew chief, riding in the left rear well of the Huey, had seen me reaching for my cigar.  So he unbuckled from his station, climbed outside the helicopter and walked forward balanced on the skid up to my window, and reached inside.  He told me he just wanted to see the look on my face when he lit my cigar.”

Thanks to Zandy.  In memory of Bill and Terry and Eddie and Jerry

From 1972 till 1975, the First Cavalry Division at Fort Hood was an experimental test bed for the US Army, trying all kinds of innovations.  The division was called TRICAP [Triple Capability] because its first brigade was an armored brigade, the second brigade was the Air Cavalry Combat Brigade, with three different types of aviation units, and the third brigade was an airmobile infantry brigade.  When I took command of Charlie Company, 8^th Engineer Battalion [“SkyBeavers”] in 1974, it was organized and equipped as an airmobile combat engineer company which directly supported the third brigade. These airmobile troops are transported to the battlefield by helicopters from their own division unlike airborne troops that jump out of airplanes flown by the USAF.

     During 1975 the Army converted the 1^st Cav to a conventional armored division, with three brigades of mixed tank and mechanized infantry battalions.  On paper, C/8^th Engineers was reconfigured as an armored engineer company, with M-113 armored personnel carriers as squad vehicles for each of the nine combat engineer squads.  In reality, creation and conversion of the division’s airmobile infantry battalions to mechanized infantry took up all the M-113 APCs in the Army’s stateside inventory.

     Eventually, the Army learned that the North Carolina Army National Guard had a cannibalization lot of old M-113s they had junked for new APCs years ago.  So, the NCARNG transferred nine of these old junkers to Charlie Company, Skybeavers.  I was fortunate to have the finest maintenance section in the whole 1^st Cav, but even so, it took my guys several weeks to get all those old rags off deadline and operational. 

     Next mission was to qualify my tracks and their crews in their new equipment.  First step was taking my engineers to the range and qualifying them on the nine M-2 Cal .50 machineguns that came with their APCs. 

     Finally, we had to demonstrate the amphibious capabilities of the tracks by taking them swimming. Fort Hood has a designated track swimming site located on the banks of Lake Belton, many miles from the cantonment area of main post.  I submitted my training plan for the upcoming week through our S-3 Operations Officer to the battalion CO to swim our tracks Thursday morning. 

     On Thursday morning, as we were forming up in the motor pool to move out, my second platoon leader rushed up to me and said excitedly, “Sir, we don’t have to go all the way to Lake Belton to swim the tracks.  I found a perfect place, and it’s really close to us.” 

     I made a command decision on the spot, and said, “OK, Rob, show me what you found.”  So, our convoy moved out, with my second platoon leader in his Gama Goat (a six-wheeled semi-amphibious vehicle that my platoon leaders each had) leading my jeep.

     Behind us came my two other platoon leaders and our nine resurrected APCs. 

Each track had a driver and the squad leader as track commander.

     My lieutenant led us to a beautiful pond about 200 meters in diameter, just a few miles distant from main post, with a really fine ramp for entry and exit.  The most important item to check on APCs before taking them into water is to ensure that the hull drain plugs are installed good and tight.  Many an officer has seen his career dissolve when he discovered that APCs without drain plugs sink to the bottom in about 20 seconds.  I wasn’t going to make that mistake.

     After final drain plug checks, we began swimming the tracks, one at a time, starting with my second platoon.  Gently drive into the water, steer forward about 100 meters using the tracks for propulsion, turn around, and drive back up on land.  Mission accomplished.  Next track.  Everything was going smoothly.

     With just one APC left to swim, I told my first platoon leader, my senior lieutenant, to go ahead and take everyone who had finished swimming back to the motor pool to begin the post-swimming maintenance.  I would bring the last APC in myself as soon as we finished.

     Before he rolled into the water, the last track commander told me, “Sir, my bilge pump ain’t working.”  I told him we were just going in and out, so that wouldn’t be a problem.  So out he went.

     About 75 meters into the pond, his track began to turn left.  Confused, I watched him swim two circles.  Then he stopped, and began to reverse, re-tracing the circles he had just swum.  When I finally signaled him to idle the engine, he hollered to me, “Sir, we threw the left track.  With only the right track working, all I can do is go in circles.”  Meanwhile, with no working bilge pump, the APC was riding lower and lower in the water.  He continued telling the driver to go forward and reverse, hoping that something would enable him to get to shore.  With just my jeep, there was nothing I could do but watch.

     About this time, we heard the” WOP, WOP, WOP” of the division commander’s helicopter landing behind us, and out stepped the two-star general, followed closely by my battalion commander.  Unbeknownst to me, the division staff had forwarded our swimming exercise to the Commanding General as “training highlights.”  They had flown out to Lake Belton looking for our swimming exercise and were quite unhappy not to find us.  Just by chance, the pilot had seen our track in the pond.  Surprise, surprise!!

     In the 30 seconds it took me to describe what was happening in the pond, I could see steam rising from my colonel and the general.  They walked down to the edge of the pond and offered a few inane suggestions on how to get the APC ashore, just in time to watch the M-113 abruptly sink to the bottom.  Fortunately, my track commander and his driver escaped and swam for shore.

     It turns out the pond was the Fish and Wildlife fish hatchery, completely off limits to all military traffic.  When the M-113 sank, about 50 gallons of diesel fuel got released and killed some 30 million baby fish.  My battalion CO was severely embarrassed in front of his Commanding General.  That was not one of my better days as a commander.  That single ‘aw shit’ wiped out several hundred ‘atta-boys.’  But we all survived.

     I had made the command decision to change the swimming location without telling my chain of command.  Everything that could go wrong did go wrong.  I owned full responsibility for everything my company did or failed to do and took my ass-chewing like a gentleman.

     On top of that, the 50 gallons of diesel completely contaminated the entire fish hatchery, and the USDA wound up spending $2.3 million in remediation expenses [in 1975 dollars].  

     Here are the leadership lessons:  

1.  My battalion CO never burned me for that.  He certainly could have.  All he ever said to me was, “I wish you hadn’t done that.”  [I continued in service, getting accidentally promoted two more times after this event.]

2.  The Division CG never burned my Engineer battalion commander, who went on to pick up two stars of his own.

3.  The Division CG got his third star when he left the Cav.

4.  That lieutenant was the best platoon leader I ever had, and I maxed all his report cards.  I don’t know where he ended up.  [No one but he ever knew why I made that fateful command decision.]

5.  I spent the rest of my time at Fort Hood being known to 42,000 troops as the ‘fish killer.’  

     Stuff happens in training.  Sometimes you survive, sometimes you don’t.

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, Kenny, have you ever done anything with any other military branches?”    

*     *     *     *     *     *

I was talking with an Army guy sitting on a barstool across from me in my bar, named Nick’s FARRP, in Fayetteville, North Carolina.  Captain Kenny Wayne has told me lots of stories about his time as a paratrooper here at Fort Bragg, just outside town.  My Uncle Nick, who served three tours as a combat helicopter pilot in Vietnam, opened this bar, the FARRP, after he had to leave the Army because of cancers he got from some chemical over there.  When he finally died, he left his bar to me.  My name, by the way, is Gil Edwards.  Since I know nothing about the Army, I am always asking questions of the Army guys who hang around here in the FARRP.

*     *     *     *     *     *

“Well, Gil,” began Captain Kenny, after draining his mug of beer, “the first thing is to get the terminology right.  The word ‘branch’ means one of the different career fields in the Army, such as infantry, armor, artillery, or in my case now, engineers.  If you are talking about the other parts of our military forces, the proper term is ‘service.’

“There are three military services:  the Army, the Navy, and the Marine Corps, plus the Air Force, who are almost military.  So that makes four, unless you count the Coast Guard.  They only come under the Department of Defense in wartime, where they serve as part of the Navy.  Coast Guardsmen are taught that their service is ‘that hard nucleus around which the Navy forms in time of war.’

“Hey, Peggy,” Captain Kenny went on, “could you bring me a refill on my beer?”

Miss Peggy is my manager of the FARRP.  She is the widow of an Army helicopter pilot who was a close buddy of my Uncle Nick.  Her husband was shot down on his third tour in Vietnam.  When my uncle opened the bar, he asked Miss Peggy to be his manager.  She actually runs everything here, but at least she lets me hang around, so I can pester these Army guys. 

“It’s kinda confusing,” Captain Kenny continued, “because the civilian oversight of the military services in the Pentagon is organized with three Defense Departments, working under the Secretary of the Army, Secretary of the Navy, and Secretary of the Air Force.  The Department of the Navy oversees the military services of the Navy and the Marine Corps, plus sometimes the Coast Guard.

 

“So, Gil, I think your question was, have I ever worked with any of the other services?  Thank you very much, Peggy.”

“Right, Kenny,” I responded.  “Sorry about the wrong word.  Have you?”

“Well, Gil, I have made over 60 parachute jumps from Air Force aircraft.  The Air Force works closely with the Army for tactical airlift, including parachute drops, troop and equipment transport and special supplies, as well as close air support from the Air Force fighter guys.  We call them ‘Zoomies.’”

“Gil,” interrupted the stout older guy sitting next to Captain Kenny, the one I knew as Chief Rod Jordan.  “The various services are really different in a lot of ways.  They don’t even speak the same language.  Take a simple word like ‘secure.’ 

“If you tell a sailor to secure a building, he will turn out the lights.  If you tell a soldier to secure a building, he will lock the doors.  If you tell a Marine to secure a building, he will post a platoon on guard around it.  And if you tell a zoomie to secure a building, he will buy you one.” 

“Yeah, Gil,” added a tall Army guy I knew as Major Tony, sitting on the other side of Captain Kenny at the bar.  “Take the machine that pulls a train.  The Army calls that an engine.  The Air Force calls it a locomotive.  And the Marines call it ‘choo choo.’ 

“Or take the helicopters that Chief Rod and I fly.  To the Air Force they are known as ‘rotary wing aircraft.’  Army guys call them ‘choppers.’  To the Navy they are ‘Hee-loes.’  But Marines just point in the air and grunt ‘uhhh.’” 

“Hey, wise ass,” replied Chief Rod.  “Don’t make fun of my Marines.  They have more determination and willingness to sacrifice than any other service.  I flew in support of them during the Tet Offensive in 1968, and they poured out their blood and guts retaking parts of I Corps in Vietnam.  They may do things the hard way, if that is what they are ordered, but guaran-damn-tee they will pay whatever price is required to accomplish their mission.” 

“If you old-timers would allow me to answer the lad’s question, I’ll go on,” resumed Captain Kenny.  “The main time I worked with the Air Force was on my first tour here at Fort Bragg in 1970.  Back then I was an Armor lieutenant assigned to 1-17^th Cav, the airborne armored cavalry squadron of the 82^nd Airborne Division.  The squadron designated me an Air Movement Officer (AMO), so I attended a two-week course run by the Air Force.  They taught me how to plan and prepare Army units and equipment for deployment on Air Force cargo aircraft, primarily the C-130, a stout four-turbine prop plane with incredible tactical versatility, and the C-141, the four-engine jet cargo plane.

“Our cav squadron had twelve Sheridan light tanks, but there were no training ranges at Fort Bragg large enough for tank gunnery qualification.  So that April our entire squadron deployed by air to Camp Pickett, in south central Virginia, for thirteen days of tank gunnery qualifications. 

“The Sheridan is a very light tank, but it still weighs over 17 tons.  The maximum load for those early model C-130s was 35,000 pounds, almost exactly the weight of our Sheridans.  Because I was AMO qualified, I was supposed to supervise the loading of our tanks, one each on twelve Air Force C-130 aircraft. 

“During the AMO course, I had learned how to calculate the dimensions of all the Army vehicles, as well as the clearance dimensions of all the Air Force cargo aircraft.  Checking the technical manuals, I compared the height of a Sheridan’s highest point, the tank commander’s machine gun mount, with the clearance between the back of a C-130 cargo floor and the top of the cargo ramp.  To my astonishment, I found that our tanks were two inches too tall to fit through the C-130 cargo ramp.

“Fearful that our tanks would rip apart the Air Force cargo plane, I rushed up to the Air Force loadmaster who was supervising the first Sheridan getting loaded into the aircraft.  Breathlessly, I told him the tank was two inches too high to fit into the C-130.  The loadmaster replied, ‘Thank you very much, lieutenant,’ and continued directing the tank up the cargo ramp into his bird.

“In fear that the steel machine gun mount would rip apart the aluminum C-130, I watched the tank slowly climbing the rear loading ramp.  As my tank continued up the ramp and began to cross the point where the angled ramp meets the flat cargo floor, the road wheels of the tank track compressed about three inches.  With almost no room to spare, the tank cleared the ramp and proceeded into the aircraft.  Completely chagrinned, I kept my mouth shut for the rest of the loading operation.

“When all twelve C-130s had been loaded with our tanks, they began to take off.  With the Air Force crew members plus the tank drivers and their gear on board, the cargo aircraft were actually loaded slightly heavier their legal rating.  Each aircraft used every foot of the Pope AFB runway trying to get aloft, and they barely cleared the fence at the base boundary as they struggled to gain altitude.

“In those days the Air Force was just starting to receive the gigantic cargo jet called the C-5A.  One was assigned here for the ACE Board to develop Army jump procedures for the aircraft.” 

“Wait a minute, Kenny,” I interrupted.  “What does ‘ACE Board’ mean?” 

“That’s Airborne and Communications Electronics Board, a special Army organization located at Pope AFB, just on the other side of Fort Bragg.  Their job is to develop Army doctrine for working with new Air Force equipment.  Every type of cargo aircraft that comes into the Air Force is required to be certified for Army parachute operations.

“Most of our troop training and tactical jumps are from the C-130.  To jump from the -130, troops are taught to vigorously jump ‘up and out’ of the side doors, so they will clear the tail of the airplane before their parachutes deploy.  It is usually a pretty rough exit.

“But jumping from the Air Force cargo jet, the Lockheed C-141, is totally different.  The -141 has a blast deflector in front of the jump door, so it requires a weak exit.  You simply step out the door and drop.  It is the most beautiful jump in the world. 

“When Lockheed designed the C-5, they used exactly the same jump door as the C-141 had:  same dimensions, same blast deflector, measured exactly the same distance back from the nose.  When the ACE Board began jump testing the C-5A, to be safe they started with dummies.  They put the test dummies out the door with a weak exit, the same that works so well with the C-141.  Trouble is, the C-5 is way longer than the -141, so with the jump doors so far forward, the dummies smashed all the way down the side of the aircraft, ‘bam-bam-bam-bam.’  Live jumpers weren’t going to like that very much.

“So next they tried the vigorous ‘up and out’ exit required for the Lockheed C-130.  The dummies were ejected directly into the jet blast of the huge turbofan engines of the C-5, where they and their parachutes were incinerated.  That wasn’t going to work either.

“After months of unsuccessful testing, the ACE Board decided to use a half-and-half technique, a weak-vigorous exit.  This time, the dummies were sucked into the jet blast, where they were incinerated, then flung back against the side of C-5, where they left flaming scorch marks as they went ‘bam-bam-bam-bam’ all the way back.

“Finally, the ACE Board gave up using the jump doors.  They got some Green Beanies from 6^th and 7^th Special Forces Groups to jump one time from the tailgate of the giant bird.  Trouble there was that the C-5 was never designed to have the tailgate open during flight, so the aircraft became highly unstable. 

“The Air Force screamed they would never allow that again, but the ACE Board replied, “Never mind.  We accomplished our mission, which was to jump-qualify the C-5 with live jumpers.  Now we will never jump the damned bird again.”

In memory of Bill and Terry and Eddie and Jerry

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!!!