UPDATE: I make a statement at the end of this post about what I was doing when I was 19, compared to my Dad fighting in Vietnam at 19.

Well, I found a picture of what I was doing at 19. See here. I’m the hairy one on the left. I know, no comparison to my Dad.

I was looking through family pictures with my Mom on my birthday when I came across this one of Dad in Vietnam:

I’ve written about Dad’s service in Vietnam before. See here.

Here he is cleaning/loading the M-60 he fired as a door gunner. If you look closely you will see the green strap hanging down from the roof of the helicopter and wrapped around the gun. It was the make shift gun sling they used. I say makeshift because it was a seatbelt from the helicopter.

He would sit on the red cushion with the box of grenades at his feet. He tells me that when they would go out on patrol, he and the other door gunner would sit and lean out the door, looking over the skids with a smoke grenade in their hands. If they saw activity, they would drop the smoke grenade, thereby giving the pilot the location of the activity.

Since they were in a gun ship, their purpose was to protect the flanks of the helicopter on a gun run. As the helicopter would come in for a pass, Dad and the other door gunner would give suppressing fire to the sides to prevent anyone from sticking their head up and firing off an RPG. As the helicopter climbed and banked at the end of the run, the gunner on whichever side the helicopter was banking would provide covering fire.

How they didn’t fall out of the thing is beyond me.

To think, he was just 19.

Compare that with what I was doing at 19….

Dad, if I’m not quite accurate, let me know.