(Originally published, 07 June 2000)

Prologue: Recently, at a Memorial Day picnic, a good friend commented that I might consider writing a “Logbook” piece about my father’s flying experiences in Vietnam (thanks again, Olieman). It was an intriguing idea, but one that was not easily done. I collaborated with my brother John to try and make sure the facts (concerning the incidents mentioned) are correct. Using his old Army logbooks, numerous documents, and our collective memories, we verified that the information is as accurate as we can piece together. The rest is my bit of “literary license.” I felt that only three people would ever be qualified to write this. One is gone, and I simply beat the other to the keyboard.

“Images, Again….”

 The Minnesota countryside was rushing past the window, blurring everything into a ménage of colors. As I listened to my teenage son’s tales of recent baseball heroics and computer game victories, I thought of another young man —a boy from thirty years past, also sharing a drive with his father. Like my son, this lad was also in the first years of his second decade and was blessed with the same interests and general “clueless” outlook that one must have at his age. He, too, dreamed of sporting triumphs, battles won, and faraway lands conquered. My memory banks took me to a moment from three decades prior, and I remembered a kid listening to his father painfully blather on about stuff that he couldn’t care less about, and was rapidly becoming extraordinarily bored.

I thought of that day, and I was transported to another father-son drive that held two major differences: first, I was the youngster awash in the “clueless” outlook, and second (as mentioned), my father was the one endlessly rattling on about something as he navigated the vehicle north on the German Autobahn. At that time in my young life, our family was enjoying our second year overseas as my father flew his helicopters from an Army base just outside of Munich, Germany. We had spent the previous year in the ancient city of Nuremberg and had recently relocated 100 miles south into Bavaria; life was good.

The trip in question involved a 75-mile drive northeast to an automobile factory in Regensburg to retrieve some parts for a sports car he was rebuilding. The mysterious part was that my brother and I were invited to accompany him on this three-hour round-trip adventure, for he had made the trip a few times before, but it would always be a solo mission. Why this trip was different was anyone’s guess, but a few minutes into the drive, we discovered that there was indeed an ulterior motive behind our invitation.  We were both rapidly approaching our “vulnerable” teenage years, and he had decided to initiate us into manhood with “the talk” on this very day, on this very drive. As he rambled on about things that made no sense at all (I wish now that I had listened better), my mind began to wander as all young minds do. I was discovering that at the tender young age of eleven, I could not care less about love or girls, or “where babies come from,” or whatever the lecture was supposed to be about. My mind turned to better things to think about…like helicopters.

Let me back up a bit.

My dad was about the best damn father a young boy could draw. He was all the things I needed him to be, and this allowed my stock to be damned high in the little-boy world pecking order. He was tall, handsome, an Army officer of the finest order, but most of all, he was a helicopter pilot. Those funky flying machines were still new in the modern lexicon of things, and most “regular” folks knew they flew differently from airplanes; they just had no clue how or why. This made the people who flew them almost “mystical” in their abilities, evoking thoughts of the heroes who rode dragons in fantasy novels. How they did it was anyone’s guess. The fact that they did it … was, well, awesome. When he would enter my world in his olive drab flight suit (his combat boots announcing his arrival), those bigger than life silver aviator’s wings on the left breast, and his ready-made smile for me and my siblings, he was a hero in the first degree.

(This is the smile of a man who loves what he does for a living. The picture shows his room in the “hooch” he shared with some other pilots during his time in Vietnam. Even during the pain and chaos of war, a smile is still a smile, and it showcases my father’s basic personality …. He was generally a very happy person.)

I had stopped my daydreaming, battling to ignore my dad’s lecture, long enough to see that we had pulled over at a rest stop to eat breakfast. He was unpacking the PB&J sandwiches he had made for us at 0400 that morning (why did every trip have to start before dawn?), and was unscrewing the cap on his coffee thermos as “the talk” continued. I was not hearing a word he was saying, or at least, trying desperately not to.

This had gone on long enough, and I could take the boring lecture no more, so I did it, I asked, “Say, Dad, what did you fly over in Vietnam again?” His hands stopped working the cap on the thermos, his face lost its usual animation, and his eyes stared blankly as if they were seeing something that only he could discern. The year was 1967, and with that one innocent question, I sent him back to hell.

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The noise of the rotor blades slapping against the hot, wet air above the jungle filled my helmet, adding to the chaos and confusion.

“Shut up, Ben! Shut the hell up!” “But Mr. Ball, did you see that? Did you see that? Dragon One went down…. he crashed!”  Of course, I had seen it; I was looking right at him when it happened. Jesus Christ, how did they expect us to be doing this?

“I saw it, damn it, I saw it….” This was turning into another bad day for the 81^st   Transportation Company. We had deployed out of the old French airstrip at Pleiku with a four-ship, landed in Ban Me Thuot to pick up some ARVN Rangers, and were now taking their asses up country for God only knows what. This piece of crap, Shawnee, was just not meant to be flying in the mountains when it’s this hot and humid, but a few months ago at Schofield Barracks, the Army said get yourselves and your helicopters over there, so here we are.

(The Vietnamese soldiers weighed far less than the Americans, so more could be packed into one helicopter…and when the weight of the machine was critical, this was a very big thing.)         

Dick was leading us on the leg up north, and had elected to fly at 1000’ to stay under the overcast. The G2 guy had briefed us that any AAA en route was to be a non-item. We would be echelon, right, and I was flying second in the formation, right next to Dick; my callsign was “Dragon Two.”    And now this…  How can this be happening? Dick was in the right seat, allowing Bob to fly in the left to gain some aircraft commander time, and I was looking right at him as he smiled back and shot me the finger. Out of nowhere, big orange tracers came out of the jungle and BAM! One hit their cockpit, and all I saw was a cloud of pink where he had been sitting. It must have been a large-caliber weapon, maybe 51 caliber, for after the first round hit Dick, the next several just shredded the cockpit, and they nosed straight in. There was no way that anyone could have survived that.

(They called it “the chopper killer” for good reason.)

“Ben, you and Jackson, find that gun! Harry, mark the crash on the map, get your ass on “Guard” freq, and tell them what happened!”

“OK, Bill, keep my shit together here, I’m leading this mess now, so start flying like you’ve been trained….

“Dragon Flight, Dragon Two, I’m up lead, let’s hard left 30 degrees, and Di Di our asses outta here!”

“Christ, I can’t think about this now, fly this thing! What’s Vne again? 128 kts…that’s right…get the nose down, and get to that speed…. But Dick and I had gotten our wings together back at Wolters, and just like that, he was dead. How would they tell Maryland? And if it happened to me, how would they tell Shirley and the kids? God, I’m beginning to hate this God damn place…”

“Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.” -Inauguration address, 20 January 1961, John F. Kennedy

We had been “in country” for about four months now. The duty piloting these “flying bananas” around Oahu and the islands was damned cushy, but that came to a screeching halt last October. “Where the hell is Pleiku, South Vietnam?” That’s all we could think about when the orders came down. President Kennedy had committed more “advisors” to the Republic of South Vietnam, and we in the 81^st were tasked with getting our machines over here, setting up camp, and doing just what we had been training to do… transport stuff. People, cargo, we didn’t give a damn, you needed it hauled, we hauled it.

(The H-21 Shawnee was very unsuited for the crucible of Vietnam. For every 1 hour of flight time, 11 hours of maintenance were required to keep it in the air.)

I was feeling about a million years old, and even farther from home than I ever thought possible. Shirley had taken the kids back to Colville, Washington, to live with her mother, and I was having a hard time remembering all the good things in life, especially after seeing the crap I had seen here. The more agony and death I saw, the harder each day got, and by now, the days were beginning to run together. The worst part is that I was starting to feel numb about it all, and that was scaring the hell out of me. I knew that to get through this, the trauma and pain would somehow bury itself, but that might come years from now, or it might come next week…. All I know is, it would not come soon enough. The mission two weeks ago was the worst I had seen, until today, that is.

(There were credible reports…my dad confirmed them, that occasionally they would come back to an LZ with another load of ARVN soldiers, and the ones they had dropped off an hour before were now shooting at them. They would just overfly them in the LZ, and head back to the ARVN base to drop off the dudes they were carrying at the time. His comments were that, in his opinion, the South Vietnamese soldiers were either very good, or very bad… no in between.)

It was another Ban Me Thuot run, just like today’s. After we had picked up the ARVN troops (with a few of our “advisors” mixed in), we launched and headed toward the central highlands. The VC and any resistance were (again) briefed to be a non-factor, but (again) that proved to be a bunch of crap. Would they ever get their Intel stuff figured out? We had to do some pretty fancy “pilot stuff” to get these things airborne. It was hotter than a summer day in Dallas, and if not for the ability to do a rolling take-off (and get our ass into translational lift ASAP), I think we would have had to kick about half the troops off. That single Wright-Cyclone was straining to get those blades turning and our butts into the air. But I will say that when we did get up and going, our three “four ships” were a pretty damned impressive sight. Look out, Charlie, here we come.

(One of the entries in his logbook showed a day in Vietnam where he made 23 (twenty-three!) takeoffs and landings! I would bitch in the 757/767 when I had to do three or four!)

Operational secrecy seemed to be non-existent…otherwise, how they knew we were coming is beyond me, but they did. To go to all the trouble they did to shoot us up, they had to have known we were coming. I don’t remember the name of that little village in the middle of the jungle, but it was tucked damned far into the hills, and that “one way in, and one way out” operation gave me the creeps from the moment they mentioned it in the briefing. All I remember is they let us come in, drop off the troops, and then the shit hit the fan. They opened up on us like they were hosing us down at the car wash. Ben was yelling and saying something about little kids, and I was wondering, “Why the hell isn’t he shooting back?” I quickly glanced out the right side, and I could not believe what I was seeing! They had grabbed a bunch of women and children and had them standing in front of a gun emplacement! They were all wailing and screaming and trying to get away. Shit! Now what do we do?

Ben was yelling at me from the .30 we had in the right forward door. “Mr. Ball, what do we do? Do I shoot? Do I shoot?” They were giving us hell, and I could see that the ships in front of me were taking some hits. Then the one directly in front of us started wobbling just as it was pulling pitch to leave, and at about 15 feet, it rolled to the left and hit the ground hard. It looked like an explosion at the toothpick factory…pieces went everywhere.  But still no one was returning fire. Those damn women and kids, and those damn bastards using them for cover.

It happened precisely at that moment, and why that moment in time, I don’t know. I guess you could say that I just snapped. The yelling over the radio, Ben screaming in my earphones, the noise of the ship going down in front of us, our ship bucking from the rounds hitting us…. I don’t know why I said it, but I did — and it will haunt me for the rest of my days.

“What did you say, Mr. Ball? Say again, Mr. Ball! I can’t hear you!”

“Fire, Ben, fire God damn it….” The noise of his .30 caliber was their epitaph, and I wrote it…. I fought with the controls of the helicopter and felt the tears as I thought about my own kids.

 That was two weeks ago; this was now.

O.K., Bill, get your ass back in the game.”  

 “Dragon Flight, Dragon Two, the mission is still a go…. repeat, still a go.” Dick was down, but I couldn’t think of that now; we still had a mission to fly, and by God, we were going to fly it. “Dragon Flight, form on me,” I heard the replies, but was thinking about a million miles ahead of the program. Harry had received a reply on the “Guard” frequency, and someone was inbound to try to kill that gun and find Dick’s ship, so that box was checked. We still had to get our asses to the LZ, drop these yokels off, and go home.

Home. What a name for that stinkhole where we park these things. “This ain’t Kansas To-To” was the first thing out of my mouth when we arrived, and boy was that the truth. All the comforts of home, eh? I guess if you live in a run down “double-wide” trailer, with a bunch of homesick guys, in a place where its 100 degrees in the shade, the “two-stepper” snake bites you, you take two steps and you fall dead, and people on the other side of the wire want to kill you…then, yeah, I guess it’s like home.

(The yellow-bellied pit viper… the infamous “two-stepper.”)

 And “Shaky Jake,” I still don’t believe that one. He gave the best damn haircut, and the shave he would give you with that straight razor; way better than any of us could do ourselves. A local guy, middle-aged, with lots of jokes and “laughing and scratching” with him while we were getting “fixed up,” as he called it.  Then came the night the VC mortared us for an hour, they breeched the wire, and blew up a couple of the helicopters. In the morning, when we all went around to see what had happened, there was “Shaky Jake” in his black pajamas deader than a mackerel. We got wide-eyed, looked at each other, and grabbed our throats. How many times had we all had that blade next to us? Shit, this was a crazy war.

O.K., there’s the LZ. Doesn’t look hot; let’s get these things in and out fast.

“Dragon Flight, Dragon Two…. LZ, twelve o’clock, three klicks. Looks cold, but keep your eyes open.”

“Harry, keep clearing the left side. Ben, you, and Jackson keep your eyes open, and shoot anything that moves…you hear me?”

Okay, watch the descent rate. Speed looks good; keep the rotor rpm in the green. Winds from the right a little, no activity in the LZ, but what the hell does that mean? Down! O.K., boys, get your asses off this thing; I want my butt back in the air! What? “Three” is taking hits from the rice paddy on the right? Shit! 

“Ben, do you see the gun? Ben!”

It was then that I felt the impacts of the rounds hitting our bird; it was as if we were in a trash can and someone was banging on it with a baseball bat. We took some rounds into the cockpit, glass flew everywhere, but most of them hit behind us, and Ben wasn’t answering the interphone. I tried Jackson at the other door, but he must have been busy taking care of Ben. No guns working for us, and we are getting our ass kicked… this was not looking good.

(Flying echelon right over one of the countless muddy rivers/creeks of the Central Highlands of Vietnam.)

Instinct is a fascinating reflex, for it allows you to do things without cognitive thought. I was in a daze when I looked back and saw that the ARVN Rangers were gone. I brought us to a hover, and it was then that I saw him. He was about 100 meters at our 1 o’clock position, still shooting at us, but he must’ve emptied his magazine, for he turned and was running down the dike toward a village about a half a klick away. I don’t know what I had planned to do, but I pedal-turned toward him, gently lowered the nose, and slowly began to pick up speed. Harry was yelling something at me; I glanced to my left and saw his mouth moving, but I heard no sound; it was as if I were stone deaf. I had no idea what I was thinking … probably that we would get a gun going and shoot his little VC ass, but any calls to the back were going unanswered. I just instinctively steered toward him.

It has been said that when a man fights a war, he is not committing murder; he is killing to stay alive. That might be a true statement, but I will live in eternity seeing his eyes as he ran down the dike, glancing back over his shoulder. He had dropped his weapon and was just running. Running like he had looked into Satan’s eyes himself.

We could barely feel the thumps as the forward rotor disc began to strike him….

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 “Dad…dad! Did you hear me? Are you OK, Dad?”

  “Yeah, son, yeah, I heard you….”

                                                         

We finished our trip that winter day in Germany, and he said nothing of the incidents described above.

The crossing of the mysterious barrier into “manhood” for my brother John and me came neither on that journey nor any others we took with him in an automobile. For myself, it came as the result of a lifelong journey with him as my father, my friend, and my trusted advisor. He was the driving force behind my life in aviation, and he continues to be the yardstick by which I measure myself daily.

Epilogue: My father returned from South Vietnam in the spring of ’63. He had several Air Medals in his footlocker (he said they were for picking guys up that had been shot down…he said they asked for volunteers, and he simply raised his hand…nothing more, nothing less…my guess is that there is INDEED more to those incidents), but he had taken no physical damage. He retired from military aviation in the late 1960s when he received orders to proceed to Ft Rucker and attend the CH-47 Chinook School, with the stipulation that he would return to Vietnam upon completion. He had served as a combat medic in the Korean War and as a combat aviator in the Vietnam War. He decided his days in the Army were done, for it seemed that two lifetimes of killing and suffering for this gentle man of peace was more than enough for him.

He didn’t talk much about his time spent in either of those two horrors, but when he did, the above incidents from Vietnam were about all he shared. He only told my brother and me when we were much older, I’m guessing, thinking that we were mature enough to handle it. He (thankfully) kept it from my sisters, and as far as I know, my dear Mother.

Shortly before he died in 1993, I shared the book “Chickenhawk” by Robert Mason with him. It’s renowned as the Holy Grail of books about being an Army helicopter pilot in general, and in particular about flying combat in Vietnam. When he had finished reading, I asked for his opinion. He mentioned that he loved the parts about the early days of pilot training at Ft Wolters, Texas, as he had gone through his initial flight training there. After retirement, he had worked at the very same facility as a civilian helicopter instructor contracted to the Army. Then he paused and said he didn’t like the parts about Vietnam because they “brought back too many bad memories”.

Although, like many veterans, he wrestled with insomnia most of his adult life… I noticed that shortly after reading the book, he could no longer sleep through the night, any night. It breaks my heart to think that maybe when he closed his eyes, wishing for sleep, it was not to be, for he found himself looking into the terrified eyes of someone else.

“My dearest father,

I sincerely apologize for reopening those old wounds. I know you buried those thoughts and feelings in a deep place, wishing they would never return. I’m so sorry for giving you back that pain…you know I never meant to do that. I pray that your flying now is above peaceful lands, with warm days, and gentle breezes.  I miss you, Pop.

You’re loving son,

Bill”