Today is Veterans Day.

To all the Veterans out there I want to say thank you from the bottom of my heart. Several of my readers are Veterans and I want to thank you personally: Crotalus, Cullen and Tree Hugging Sister (and hubby). Thank you for your service to this great country.

I want to dedicate today’s post to my favorite veteran, my dad.

My dad enlisted at the tender age of 19. He and my uncle figured they would join so that they could kick some commie butt. So they enlisted together. In order to be in the thickest of the fight, dad wanted to be in Special Forces.

A funny thing happened though. On his service exam, he scored highest in office type jobs while my uncle scored highest in mechanical ability. Who needs test? The U.S. government must have tossed them in the trash or mixed them up, because they assigned my father to be trained as a helicopter crew chief. Even though he barely knew which end of a screw driver to hold. On the other side of the fence, they assigned my uncle to military intelligence. He spent his tour in Panama doing radio/phone/satellite intercepts.

Anyway, my dad went through basic and then headed over to Fort Rucker, Alabama to be trained on helicopters. He finished his advanced training and since he had requested Special Forces, they sent him off to Fort Benning to begin jump school.

In November of 1965, the first major engagement of the Vietnam War between U.S. and regular North Vietnamese troops took place in the Ia Drang valley. This battle was the first large scale battle to utilize the helicopter as the principle means of insertion and extraction. The movie We Were Soldiers Once… And Young was about this Ia Drang battle.

Due to the excessive losses and because the U.S. high command saw the potential effectiveness of airborne assaults, replacements were needed to re-arm and to bring up other units to combat strength. As a result, my dad was called out of formation and put on a bus with other young men. After awhile, they began trying to figure out what was going on. It soon became apparent that each of them had qualified as a helicopter crew chief. Dad had to say goodbye to his dream of being in Special Forces. The Army had other plans.

My dad began his tour of duty in Vietnam in February of 1966. After a few weeks of getting his feet wet, he began daily operations as a door gunner on a Huey gunship (Gunship 579).

His unit was A Troop, 1st Squadron, 9th Calvary Regiment, 1st cavalry Division.

As I have written before, his Troop was the recon arm of the Squadron and his Squadron was the recon arm of the Regiment. That made him the tip of the tip of the spear for the Division. They would fly every day that the weather permitted. First scout helicopters would go out and fly around until they found the enemy. Then they would call in the gunships. If the gunships could not take care of the situation, they would call for their infantry platoon (the Blues) to be inserted on the ground. The gunships would then fly cover and perform gun runs as requested by the guys on the ground. They did this every day they could fly.

The past few years, my dad has begun to open up to me and others about his experiences in Vietnam. It has helped that he found out that his squadron has a reunion every couple of years. He was able to reconnect with men he had not seen in almost 40 years. I have been able to ask him pointed questions about operations and tactics. The overriding feel I get from these conversations is that it is amazing that any of them survived.

He told me about when they were shot down and the cavalry came to their rescue just before they were overrun. He told me about March 30, 1966 where the Blues platoon was almost wiped out.** He recalled how he felt that day, hearing the cries for help on the ground. He told me that they could not kill enough of the NVA to make up for the rage/sorrow they felt at the loss of their men. He told me about when LZ Bird was overrun. How they flew missions all day and night and made gun runs where they could. Again, he related the feeling of hopelessness for the men on the ground. Listening to the radios, they heard as one by one they fell silent. He told me about flying under the incoming artillery during the fight for LZ Bird and that he thought his number was up that day. So many memories. Things that I can not even begin to imagine.

I was privileged enough to attend one of his reunions last year. I met with men he fought with and was in awe as they told their stories. They are heroes, every one of them. I heard the story of one mission where a pilot was gravely wounded and slumped over the controls. Before the co-pilot could take over, he was killed. The door gunner in the back reached up to the front, dragged the pilot from his seat, crawled into the cockpit and flew the wounded bird back to base. I saw the pictures of the brave door gunner in his blood stained flight suit. I asked my dad if the pilot lived. He told me that he had and he was standing right next to me. I was able to shake his hand and he smiled as he looked at the picture. Had that really happened to him 40 years ago? You could see that time had not erased that memory from his mind.

I met the door gunner who took a shot to the front right of his helmet only to have the bullet come out the front left of his helmet. It had done a u-turn around his head. He had the helmet with him with the two holes. Story after story.

To my dad I want to say thank you and to the men he flew with and fought with I want to say thank you. You are all heroes and the men who did not come back are even bigger heroes.

Thank You!

** I hope to one day write about that terrible day. I think they lost 16 or 17 out of 32, plus several slicks and gunships with their crews. It was a tough day for my dads unit.