24, 2024
MEMORIAL DAY ,”THE MEANING” AS ONE OF THE COMBAT SOLDIERS THAT LIVED IT,
FOR ALL THE MEN I SERVED WITH THAT DIDN’T COME HOME ALIVE, “MEMORIAL DAY TRIBUTE” TO 4 OF THE MANY SOLDIERS I SERVED WITH THAT WERE KILLED IN ACTION. MAY THEY AND ALL OTHERS REST IN PEACE.

(I was asked why I wear my hat most of the time; I replied that I didn’t wear anything, and only family and close friends knew I served. From 1969 to 2017, 48 years of silence. In my run for US Senate in 2017, a man who wasn’t voting for me and was a professor at USM sat down with me and suggested that I bring the men who died to life with my run for Senate; he gave me a hat.)

Last Chopper

We were all nervous; we knew that the LZ was hot and that 1st Calvary got shot up badly in the A SHU valley. They lost. GOD only knows how many Hueys were shot down and killed by a bunch of 1st Cav soldiers. My squad was ordered to take the last Huey out; my stomach ached, my mouth was dry, and I smoked one cigarette after another. One of the second squad’s NCOs came up and told us that he wanted to take the last chopper, that one of his men had a dream last night that he would die if he didn’t take the previous Huey. We didn’t care; if your numbers were up, you would die anyway. We loaded into the second to last chopper and were off. We were only in the air for ten or so minutes, and from the jungle floor, we took hits to the helicopter that killed the right-side door gunner. The sound of rounds hit all over the huey; one game came inside and wounded two men in my squad. What the hell was going on? We were still twenty minutes from our LZ, but the chopper pilot turned us around, and we returned to the assembly area. The chopper flew from side to side, and the smoke was so heavy in the cockpit that you couldn’t see the pilot or co-pilot. We were coming in fast; you could hear all the warning signals blaring, and the chopper was almost uncontrollable. We hit the ground with such force that the struts bent to the bottom of the belly of the Huey, and then it exploded; we were thrown out of the door and fell to the ground; we watched as the pilot and co-pilot fought to get out of the burning bird. My first words were, “We should have stayed on the last chopper.” The wounded men are picked up and hurried to the medical holding area; damn, we haven’t been gone thirty minutes, and the first choppers are coming back from the LZ. Sargent ordered three other men and me to board. I didn’t want to go, but we were off.

My mind drifted away from fear and possible doom; I was so afraid that I retreated into a zone in my mind in another world. My senses are now dead to the world, with not even the sounds of the chopper entering my ears or brain. I look over the valley lit up like the 4th of July, like a sightseeing adventure at a theme park. I could see the tracer, RPGs, and rockets firing from both sides of the valley as we were headed to the ground. The chopper pilot was flying erratically, not to give them a clear shot.

The Huey never landed. We were off; it was gone, and you could see the NVA soldiers everywhere in the grass before landing, so you know it won’t be good. I came alive when my boots touched solid ground. I saw the soldier in front of me take two or three rounds; his blood was all over me as he hit the ground; there was no time to do anything but to start firing my 60; the chopper was gone, and I had no idea where anyone was, I heard weapons behind us that I recognized as American, I looked over to my left. I saw three or four NVA soldiers crawling away toward the American fire. They did not know I was behind them; I made quick work. I realized we were in front of the company and between the two sides, not a safe place.

We started working towards the American fire, but either side could kill us; we came upon a wounded American soldier and tried to drag him with us, but his pain was so bad that he told me to leave him. I could hear American artillery and mortars coming overhead, and the rounds started exploding. I have never been on the receiving end of our artillery, and it is tremendous; it went on for over twenty or thirty minutes non-stop. I saw the cobra gunships waiting patiently for the artillery to stop so they could come in and do their job. I don’t know what happened, but they flew away. All the firing stopped, as in the movie. I see off in a distance what I believe to be American soldiers, the point man slowly working his way towards us; we screamed out to him that we were here; after a few minutes, they got to our position, “What the hell, guys, what is y’all doing out here?” I informed him that I didn’t want to be there. The medic went over to the wounded American soldier but shook his head that he was gone. The Captain walked up and asked me if I was alright, yeah, sure. There were only three of us together, only two of us from the same squad; the others were dead or somewhere else.

We entered the formation at the company’s end and started walking; we approached a Huey after an hour or so. It was all shot up, and the men in it were all dead, burnt to a crisp, except for one dead soldier lying about 20 feet from the downed bird; it was the NCO that took our chopper; they all perished. I pictured myself burnt to a crisp as I walked by; that image is forever seared into my mind. We fought for another three weeks and took some heavy losses. I remember getting on a Chinook chopper headed back to the rear area, knowing that I had a four-day R&R coming Hong Kong here I come; it made the bad go away.

(This was my third time to fly into the valley of death)

(I am standing next to PFC Garver(Kia). He is in the darker uniform. Six months later, the picture was much different.