” My dad said, “Yeah, get it serviced.” So, I took the car down and at the car dealership was a brand new Jag XK140 in the showroom. You know, it was red. It was beautiful. And so that night at dinner, and we ate every night at dinner with a suit coat, a tie, and a shirt on every night. That was old school uh Eastern European family.

And that was my mom was my mom was to my right, my dad was there, and I was here. And uh that’s how we ate. And there was very little conversation. And then at night he asked me um he asked me how the how’s the car and I you know what’s it what what needs to be done. I said nothing. It’s in great shape.

I said but but I’d like there’s a new car there and I I want that. I want that. And he looked at me. He said wait a minute. What’s wrong with your car? And I said nothing. and he said that’s the end of this discussion. So I was miffed to say the least. So I uh said okay we’re okay. So the next day um we had a summer cottage up on um uh um place called Brewster which is up at Cape Cod.

It’s just the opposite on the inside across the the inlet across the uh way was provin uh not province town was mar uh where the Kennedys lived. Uh anyway, we were on the poor side back then the poor side. Anyway, it was town called Brewster. We had a summer cottage there. So I told my mom the next morning I said I’m going up to Brewster to the cottage and which I normally did and I said I’ll be up there a couple weeks.

So I um went got my buddy Lee Dots. Lee Dots was about the one of two friends I had in the whole town we lived in. Little town called Graanby. Now it’s a big town but back then it was nothing. And I said, “Let’s go up to uh Lee. Let’s go up to the cottage.” “Okay, let’s go.” You know, he’s back from college. And so, let’s go up there.

So, we drive up there and the next we partied a couple days and um you know, the Cape Cod’s party place. And then, so I said um you know, I’m still brooding over this. So, I got in the car and I drove up to Boston and I went to the um I said, “I’m going to I’m pissed. I’m going to join the military.” So, I’m a pretty smart guy.

I’ve been on the dean’s list. I’m pretty pretty book smart. Anyhow, and um I went and took uh to the Air Force, took the test, impressed them. I happened to have a a at the time a private pilot’s license. And so the recruiter, you know, he said, “Oh yeah, you know, you come in the Air Force, you’re private pilot, you’ll be an officer.

” Well, I didn’t have four years of college, but you know, he stretched it. Anyway, so I go take the physical and go down to Boston, take the physical, and I bombed it. And the reason is when you fill out the physical you have to check if you ever had infantile paralysis po and I did. And also um you ever have any other major surgeries? I said yeah I was born with a cleft pallet.

I have no roof to my mouth so I talk funny. And then um of course I had had an appendidectomy. And then I’ve been in the hospital cuz I collected venomous snakes and I once put my hand in looking for some copper heads and about three or four got me and blew my arm up. So the guy looked at me after I got the physical.

I go back the next day. I’m ready to go. And he said, “I can’t take you.” I said, “What?” He says, “You’re 4F. you bombed the physical. I said, “Oh.” So, I was dejected. So, I walked out and the recruiting station was not just one, it was a floor and it had the offices. And the next office I walked by was a Navy. So, I went in there.

So, I go up there and I said, “Hey, I want you take take this test.” Well, I’d already taken it now. I’m going to max it. maxed it. This guy’s gone. Well, what do you want to do? And I said, “Oh, I got a private pilot’s license.” I, you know, oh, well, you can become a pilot like that. You know, I’m going to send you down to have a physical.

So, I go down, same place. Don’t lie. [snorts] Filled out the same thing. The next day, I go back up there. He says, “You bomb the fiscal.” you know. So anyway, the story goes the next day I went to the army. Same when the army didn’t have a flight program then and they said same thing. You bombed it. So that the last shot I walked by the Marine Corps and I’m going to tell you weighed about 135 pounds, had the worst case of acne and was not a Marine.

[laughter] I walked in and I went up and recruiter was at the desk and I he never looked at me. He was reading something he kept and I stood there in my mind for 20 minutes probably for 30 seconds. Finally, I put my hands on his desk and I just put him down there and said, and he never looked up and all he said was, “Take your freaking hands off my desk.

” He looked up at me and I probably would, you know, he probably just shook his head and he said, “What do you want?” And I said, “I want to join the Marine Corps.” So he said, “Good luck played into this.” Great luck. So he said, “Okay, take this test.” I took the test. Well, I’m an ace. I can do the temp. and not against the Marine Corps or the Army, but if you look at the average IQ, they’re on the bottom scale compared to the Air Force and the Navy.

So, he was impressed. I whacked out this thing. And I said, you know, I got private pilots like, “Oh, yeah. Well, we can we can fix you right up. We can, you know, when can you go?” And I said, “Immediately.” And he said, “Okay, I got to get you a physical.” And I said, “Well, there’s a problem there.

” I said, “I’ve been down to the Air Force, the Navy, and the Army, and they keep telling me I’m 4F.” And he said, “Do you know why?” And I said, “Nope.” So he gets on the phone and he called one of them, and so then he said, “Okay.” I hung it up. So he pulls out the form I’m going to have to fill out at the um physical place. And he said, “Okay, you see this? Do not check any of this.

do not tell them about your acting appendecttomy, but you don’t have to tell them about anything else. They won’t catch it. So I said, “Sure.” And he said, “I can’t send you back to Boston. They know you. So I’m going to send you to Springfield, Mass, which is the western part of the state. You got transportation.

I got a car.” So I said, “Okay, tomorrow I’m going to be there in Old Dark Hunter.” So I drove there, passed the physical came back. He said, “When do you want to go?” I said, “Immediately.” So he said, “Okay, be here.” I think it was two days later. And so in uh June 19 um uh the actually first part of July um 1960, I joined Uncle Sam’s Misguided Children.

Now, the reason that he took me, I figured this out. I don’t know if this is fact when I have friends of mine that became recruiters. And apparently they have a quota and he was probably dateless and desperate. And so he said, “This is the end of the month and I haven’t met my quota and here’s somebody that’s vertical.

” And so off I went. So I went back told Lee Dots Lee I said we the keys the car you got to drive me up to the train station Boston two mornings from now I join the Marine Corps. He said what? I said yeah. I said stay at the house long this you know he as long as you want. Then when you drive back take the car to the house and leave the car and give the keys to my mom.

But she asked me where I am told to join the Marine Corps. Yeah. So, I’m down there at boot camp at not that long, couple maybe a week and a drill instructor comes and calls me and you know you’re in a state of shock. I mean, you’re just and I was smallest guy in the platoon. So, I was a house mouse. Now, there’s good reasoning for the house mouse takes care of the DI’s room besides all your stuff. You take care of the DI’s room.

You have the keys to the um to the we’re in quanset huts. Had the keys to the three quanset huts. And um uh I had to watch and uh nobody else did. And there’s um they take the smallest guy because they he needs the most buildup physically. And I didn’t realize that then. But anyway, I was the mouse. So he di call me mouse. Get in here.

You don’t have a name. You’re a mouse. And you get in here. He said, “Come with me.” So we go up to the colonel’s uh battalion command, Lieutenant Colonel. And uh maybe it was a major. Anyway, we went up there and he said, “Yeah,” he told me how to report. I didn’t know what was going in. I walked in there. My mom and dad are sitting there with the CO.

[gasps] My mom and dad have uh quite a lot of political clout within the uh Democratic Party in Connecticut fair and I’ve done a lot of thinking about this over [sighs and gasps] 65 years thinking about this. My mom and dad were socialist and um the Democratic Party was the best, you know, definitely not Republican.

So, the Democratic Party was where they went, but but they were on the left of that. And my mom did a lot of fundraising. Um we had a big house. She had a 6,000 square ft house, hippic place. She did a lot of fundraising for the party in uh Connecticut. Anyway, so there they sat and I go in and I think it was major and he said um you know, private, I’m going to give you five minutes with your folks and you’re going to decide whether you stay in the Marine Corps or not.

Cuz they were using political. Uh our lawyer was a guy named uh our our lawyer was a guy named Anthony Armando who was the lieutenant governor. He was also our lawyer Anthony. [laughter] Anyway, so um there I was. I was standing my mom’s crying. My dad, what did you do? And I said I joined the Marine Corps. I’m not leaving.

I dug my heels in the sand. I’m not leaving. I love it. [laughter] I still can’t believe I love it. So anyway, off they went. The guy came back said, “Go back.” And uh I went through boot camp as a house mouse. I graduated boot camp. Went from there Paris Island, South Carolina to u [gasps] uh c um camp lune actually camper for infantry training.

And then I went to um to um Camp Loun. And then uh I was an 0331 machine gunner. And so then I was attached of fifth marines. Uh and I did three and a half years with him. And the truth is I liked it. I liked the discipline. I like the camaraderie which I wasn’t really familiar with because I only had you know one friend really good friend in private school and two in uh where I was. So I really enjoyed it.

I didn’t mind being out and all that. Come time to reinlist the reinlistment guy comes down there and I said look I want to go aviation. So he said okay you know realist. So I reinlisted I did three and a half as in the in the corrupt work and then relisted for aviation. So um I flown around in helicopters as a grunt and I said you know this is this I can do this.

So, I joined the Marine Corps and aviation and when I uh got sent to NAS Memphis, Tennessee, you take a battery test and I wanted to be a mechanic. That’s because mechanics flew. And unfortunately, um I uh because I had a first class FCC license because I fool around with radios back in the old days.

Vacuum tube theory. just before transistor. I know nothing about it now, but the old days was tubes and it was very basic and uh so I said, you know, I don’t want to be I don’t want to do this. Well, the Marine Corps said, you’re going to be a aviation electronics tech. So I went to school for 40 weeks.

[sighs] So the one of the reasons I did well, two reasons. One, I had a background. I had a jump on everybody. I knew how to read resistors. I knew vacuum tube theory why it worked. So I was ahead of the game uh with them. Then the second thing was [clears throat] the the top two graduates of the class got choice of duty station and everybody else wanted jets.

I want jets. doesn’t want jets. I wanted helicopters. Now, the difference is jets are clean and everything’s clean, pristine. Helicopters, everything’s leaking oils, hydraulic fluid, you’re dirty, you’re living in the field, and you get to fly with them. And so, I went to um I I finished um second in my class.

And the kid that finished first was a kid from uh Buffalo, New York. were right outside of Buffalo named um um Collins TC Tomcat Tom Col Tom Tom Tom Collins. Anyway, his brother was in Marina helicopters as well at New River, North Carolina, which is Camp. So he said, “I’m going there.” So I said, “I’m going there. We’ll we’ll go together.

” And um so we I ended up there and I landed there and I um uh this is early 64 and uh I landed there, [gasps] checked in and went to the main main part of it called Mabs. And we what my job was was I was in a little conx box air conditioned and they bring me radios and I worked on um small FMA uh arc 44s and um I worked on UHF radios those and once in a while radar sets and uh that’s what I worked on for about uh probably six eight months.

I hated every minute of it. hated it. [gasps] And so I wanted to get out on the flight wing. So I had bugged the first sergeant enough to transfer me to a operating squadron. And he did. And I went to HMM 162. And that was a H34 squadron. H34 is the helicopter that if you ever saw the um well I don’t know there was a movie in in San Die TV show in San Diego with a helicopter where they you sit high you sit very high and they get in below it it’s called H34.

So I went I got transferred to that squadron. So when I got to the squadron, they said, “Okay, your avionics, you’re going to work in a shop.” Now the shop’s different there. You don’t repair the radios. All you do is troubleshoot the airplane, pull the radio, put in a new one, send the radio back up the way. [gasps] So at least I was on the flight line.

So when you get off of 4:00, we’re in the States. Get off at 4, you’re good till the following morning. But we had a night crew. So what I did was I get off at 4 and I went to the guy running the night crew, the sergeant. I said, “Look, I want to learn to be a mech.” And he [clears throat] looked, you know, to this day probably, he probably drinking somewhere laughing about me.

You know, you want to be a mech, you got you got a clean job. You got an air condition. And I said, “I want to be a mech. I want to learn it.” And so he said, “Okay.” So I worked at night crew for about uh seven, eight months, including I made a cruise uh we made a med cruise which was seven months.

Plus I made a cruise to Norway which had already been to Norway twice before as an infantryman which is above the Arctic Circle in the winter time. It’s called Snowflex. And believe me, [gasps] yeah, it’s ridiculous. It’s just brutal. But anyway, um enjoyable. Let’s just say that. Uh finally, I got the uh the uh maintenance officer, I guess some of the sergeants told him about me.

The maintenance officer called me in and said, “Look, if you want, I could put you out on a flight line.” And I said, “Yeah, but you know, I’m avionics.” And he said, “What we’ll do is put your avionics at night and you work flight line in the day.” I said, “I’m good to go.” [sighs and gasps] So then we got a cruise to uh now this is early early 65.

We got a cruise to um uh it’s called a Vas cruise. you go down to all the islands, Puerto Rico, Barbados, you hit all the islands. So, we go down there and I primarily work for this guy who was um an Italian kid from South Philly and I I forgot his name. I wish I knew his name cuz he taught me more than anybody in aviation’s ever taught me.

[gasps] And he was brutal. I mean, for the first two months I worked for him, all he don’t touch anything and you just clean and then I he taught me how to safety wire. I knew how to safety wire. Not to his standards. Everything was done by hand and he’d check and if it wasn’t it depends on the gauge of the safety wire, how many turns, if it wasn’t right, he’d cut it and say, “Do it again.

” The guy was brutal, but he was good and he taught me. Well, we were down in um outside of uh I want to say we were outside of Jamaica. Dominican Republic Civil War broke out 65 and um we were the nearest thing to it. We’re on a ship with a battalion landing team of Marines. They said get there. So immediately now you have crew chiefs when planes are putting the guns on.

They need a door gunner and uh my uh the guy I was working with says you’re my door gunner and so and which was normal cuz you’re a second mech. You’re going to be the door guard normally unless you refuse to fly then they’re going to put you in night crew. Anyway, so what I did was I flew uh down there as a door gunner for about um the whole time down there.

So when we come back to the states, when we come back, he was getting discharged and the maintenance officer called me in and said, “I’m going to give you a secondary MOS, military ox classification as a mechanic, which was unheard of to get it by OJT.” A lot of people say I was the first to do that. People that I know say you were the first ever to to go from a high MOS ranking.

You went down and didn’t got it OJT. So I became um I got that and he said plus I’m going to give you that’s your airplane. You’re the you’re the crew chief. I was in hog heaven. I was on flight skins. I had my own plane. I could work on it from dusk to dawn and dawn to dusk and back again. I I I love that. So I was in that plane for um till uh the first part of 66 and um squadron next door was HMM262, Bill’s Bastards and they were getting ready to deploy to Vietnam.

I went to my first sergeant. I said, “I want to go. I want to go to Nam.” And he said, “What?” He said, “Yeah.” I said, “That’s where I want to go.” And so he said, “Okay.” So he transferred me over there. I get over there and they said, “Well, you’re avionics. You’re not qualified in a jet engine helicopter.

” So get avionic shop. So I went back to avionics. So, back to night crew. I’m helping them out and I worked at it. So, I stayed in avionics and me and the avionics chief did not get along. He was an old World War II guy and he felt that um he had his hands full with me. Let’s just say that he had his hands full with me.

[gasps and snorts] And um the first place I checked in with a handlebar mustache and that drove him nuts. He had shaved and and uh oh yeah, he didn’t like me a bit. And um then he when he found out I was working at night, you know, he said, “You want to work at night, you work with me at night. You’re not going to work with them.” But anyway, I worked with him.

So I I worked. So we get deployed to Vietnam with his H46s. That’s a tandem. Looks like a shinook, but it’s a baby shinook. It’s twothirds the size. And so we shoot on over to Nam. And uh I’m a door gunner on aircraft, the commanding officer’s aircraft, Echo Tango 50. I’m the door gunner.

And even though I’m avionics, I’m the door gunner. uh because not everybody in this squadron wanted to fly in a combat zone cuz they were shooting at us literally. And so I uh was flying. So um what transpired was um uh we had a mission one day in the uh south. We were landed at a place called Kiha which is just south of Chubai which is about um probably uh I don’t know [snorts] 60 miles south of Daang.

And so we were working there and uh we were working south of there in the um and up in the mountains. And we were taking a marine recon team of um a heavy recon team of uh six Marines in our aircraft and five and the one behind us. We were going out in Indian country, pretty far out there. [gasps] So we go out there and um the pilots, the executives officer, a guy named um uh Major Greg Corless who retired out a major general.

Greg Corass was the pilot. Co-pilot was a guy [gasps] by the name of Captain Wayne Julian, retired Lieutenant Colonel in Texas. Um, so we go out and uh in the briefing we’re we’re going to put them on this side of this hill and they said, “You got to be careful cuz there’s booby trap 500 lb bombs booby trapped on this and we don’t want to set one of them off cuz that’d be the end.

[gasps] So we’re going to go in there. So how we’re going to do is go in there. They’re going to first plane’s going to set down, put the ramp down, and we’re going to count to 15. No, nothing fired. Then they’re going to they all run out rather than just land and run out because we knew this is going to be a problem.

We had no gun support, just the two aircraft. went in there and landed and before we could put the ramp down, there was a machine gun nest and I was on the left side of the aircraft and on the uh probably when looking to in the front of the aircraft 12:00 at the 2:00 position and he ra through the aircraft. Everybody was shot in the aircraft but me.

Um the Greg Corass was shot in the arm and uh Wayne Julian was shot to both legs. The crew chief was shot um first in the leg and then when he fell the way he rolled they he got shot in the back. And then the six recon men were all shot and one was shot between the eyes. A big redheaded marine big guy.

He had red hair and wore Buddy Holly glasses on him and he was a machine gunner. He was shot. I was the only one that wasn’t. [gasps] It happened like this but it’s slow motion. And I turned around cuz I was facing I turned around and looked and one of the bullets had gone through the number one engine fuel line which is about that big around and it had went straight through and was spraying fuel from the back of the aircraft to the front.

So I ran back unfortunately stepped on body stepped on these guys hand just stepped on there and grabbed this line and held it and then we all had scarves. I took my scarf off and John Wayne and tied it like that and then pulled this machine gunner back. He was on the end of the ramp and pulled it back and waited for us to get out of the LC.

We could not get out of the LZ without the enough fuel going in the engine. And apparently me covering this fuel line gave enough fuel that Major Corus was able to pull us out. We’re on the side of a hill and all he did was pull us out and we drove to the ground to the valley and got enough fair speed to get flying.

One of the things that happened was [sighs] all the communications in the whole aircraft was severed. I don’t know I I I can’t remember exactly how but lines were severed. So there was no communication within the aircraft called ICS and no communications to the outside. So our wingman comes and sees us bailing out.

So he comes and wetss his team off. Now be I don’t remember this but the I’ve read enough about it. Apparently between the time we were shot up and the time I went back to hold the fuel line. I went over to um Dave Langois. He was screwing his gun 50 cal and saw who was shooting at us. And I unloaded 50 R.

There were 50 rounds. I unloaded it and apparently I nullified according to Wayne Julian. I’ve talked to him. He said, “You nullified your shooting.” Null stopped what was going on, [gasps] but I don’t remember that. Anyway, so we’re flying back and I pull this guy back and I look and his pack is smoking smoke and we’re I’m in fuel up to probably up past my ankles.

It was spraying at the aircraft. So I, you know, you had your your marine, take out your KBAR and I [snorts] cut the pack off and I threw it out and it went out the back ramp and we were about a,000, no, not even that, probably 600 ft off the ground and before it hit the ground it exploded.

Our wingman’s behind us and he sees this and he thought we were taking air burst. So he’s calling, you know, all you know, they’re taking air burst. Anyway, we couldn’t maintain altitude. So, we went up the valley to the end of this valley, which was probably [gasps] 5, seven miles, and we landed at a little Arvin outpost that had two or three 105 uh artillery pieces in it and literally landed hard.

And as soon as we landed, I put the ramp down to get the fuel out. And then I started dragging out the wounded. And I went up to the finally walked up to the front. Julian, Captain Julian couldn’t get out because he was shot in the legs, both legs. So I had to go outside, open the door, pull him out that way.

And then Major Coritz came out and he said, “Uh, you know, start taking triage. We we were in a there were no Americans at this little place we were at. And so um and he they had a medic on board. So he was working. So our wingman lands. What happened? [laughter] So Greg Corless, he’s the exo. He tells the wingman tells the co-pilot of the wingman to get out of the plane.

He’s we got to go back and get the other team members. So I said, “I’ll go too cuz I know where they are.” And he said, “No, you stay here.” So just before they lift it off, you know, don’t tell me no. I hop in the plane and I and off we go. So there’s a door, the 50 cows here, there’s door here that’s front of the plane.

And so I’m standing in the door and um we’re rolling in and to pick up to pick up the um the crew members the the rest of the recon team and uh their team calls assigned recon team was basketball and I’ve tried to find guys on the team over the years. I have tried to find anyway. So we land now. We’re firing up shooting like crazy.

The guys on the ground don’t know why cuz everybody the MVA were dead. There were four dead [snorts] in machine gun nest which I found out later. But anyway, we pull we pull them out. We bring him back and um so we land and uh because he got to pick up the uh co-pilot uh that we left and I tell uh Major Corless I’ll stay with the aircraft and or the Vietnamese will steal everything out of it and I’ll get it ready cuz it can’t fly out.

We’re going to have to sling load it, bring in a big helicopter to pick it up, take it home, cuz it had a 51 hits in it, 51 bullet holes in it. And uh there was there was a lot of damage. So I spent, you know, don’t worry, going up, I’ll stay here with it. Well, he spent the night with it, which was sort of spooky cuz not only the NBA, but there’s the arvin all around me and I’m the only American and you know John Wayne.

You could talk all you want about John Wayne. That wasn’t my day of being John Wayne. So the next morning we pick up the aircraft and I’ve got it all ready except taking the blades off. I didn’t take the blades off. I can’t. It takes four people to take the blades off, but I got it all ready to go to get out.

So, we swing it back to Kiha. We get back to Kiha and we land. [gasps] Um, and so, um, they I go once I get out of the aircraft, the aircraft lands, I go over to the aircraft and I’m I’ll never forget this. I was just sitting on the ramp. Sitting on the ramp and it was finally hitting me. Well, all now, you know, everybody comes out and they’re kind of bullet holes.

I’m thinking, “Oh, she, you know, and um Dave Langlo was a good friend of mine. I mean, the crew chief, he he was we’re squadron mates. He was good. Dave and um the best man at my first wedding was a kid named Jimmy Axton. He was there and he came and put his arm around me. Next thing I know, the sergeant matron comes up and says, “Hey, you know, um, Sergeant White, [gasps] um, Bill Shad, the Colonel Bill Shadri wants to see him.” I said, “Okay.

” So, I go out. So, just before I get in, um, a guy, Master Master Sergeant, um, uh, er Smith grabs me and he says, “Don’t say a word. Do not say a word. We got you covered. I don’t know what the hell he’s talking about. So, I walk in report and there’s the m uh avionics chief right there. Um and I’m not going to mention his name, but he’s deceased now.

And um um he and I didn’t like each other. Let’s just say that. Anyway, so um I go in a report and he said, “Uh, Sergeant White, you’re here um uh for an article 15,” which is a um you know, and I said, “Yes, sir. What’s the charges?” And he said, “Uh direct disobedience of a lawfully given order in a combat zone.

” Now, I’m not a jail house warrior, but I’m pretty smart. I’m thinking, hm, this is in a combat zone this up. So, uh, he says, um, what do you want to do? And I said, I want to I want to general court marshal. I, you know, I’m not going to take the article 15 minutes your guilt. I’m going to. So, I said, “What are the charges?” And he said, “The charges are that you didn’t on my helmet.

You did not take I have big yellow letters. F you communism. And he said ma the master gunnery sergeant avionics chief told gave you a direct order multiple times. Take it off. And so I said well sir he said you got anything to say? And now this is the day after I’ve been shot to crap. So I looked and I said, “You know what? Um, if he had done his job in World War II in Korea, I wouldn’t be here right now.

” Which my CO my CO Bill Shad have been in Guadal Canal. He’d also been at Korea. He was 27year Marine, full burn. And I was telling him, “This guy didn’t do his job.” And he looked at me and he said, he said, “Well, um, before you sign the papers for a general court marshal, here’s what I recommend.” And I had with me Master Montgomery Sergeant M um assistant maintenance chief uh er Smith was in Northern California now.

Old guy got to be in his 90s. And he said he said, “Uh, Master, uh, Master Sergeant Smith recommends that, um, you tone down your helmet. I’m going to transfer you out of the avionic shop and you’re going to be my crew chief and I want my airplane back up.” Do you? I said, “I’ll plead guilty to that.” And um so I walk out and I’m no longer in avionics.

I have my own airplane. Unfortunately, Dave Langley never came back to the unit. He was shot up that bad. But I ended up the commanding officer’s crew chief. I’ve never been through a school or B school as a medic mechanic. And I was a a twidget they call electronics guy. But I crewed. Subsequently that two guys I knew did this same thing I did.

They crosschained in Vietnam to become mechanics and flew. And one of them was very very very good friend of mine uh Red Logan. He became a a mech too. But anyway, so um I flew my ass off and that includes case on and all that. And um just before um uh probably the spring of 66, I went out on RNR and Jim Axton, Jimmy Axton, my best the best man, my wife, Jimmy and I, he he was an avionics and he was corpal whenever he could fly with me.

So he said we were uh we were on flight skins and we both got uh RNRs to Hong Kong and I said let’s go let’s they are going to Hong Kong raise help [gasps] you know. So, we go there and we um as a side note, we go to Hong Kong, Jimmy and I, and um we come back and my planes at the time was in a 100hour overhaul.

So, it wasn’t ready to go back up to Quesan. So, uh it was going to be like a day or two. And so Jimmy said, “I’ll I’ll go up to Kesan and when we get when you get up there, we’ll swap. I’ll be your gunnery and we’ll swap.” Fine. So he took off. And uh later that day, I was working on the plane and uh s Major Ralph B. Holmes came out to me with John Aly. John John.

John had a real high voice, weighed 230 lbs, who was Marine heavyweight boxer. and he and I on and a few of us we’ve got into it. [laughter] Yeah, we were great. Loved the guy John. He’s passed away now. Anyway, John [clears throat] John and Major came down and so we lost a plane and Jimmy was killed and broke me up.

Uh so anyway, the reason I bring this up was years later I uh was uh in the Bay Area and I um a uh a news crew was doing a thing about Vietnam veterans and they talked to me and they said basically it’s a quickie and they said what’s the best time or what’s the worst time Vietnam? The worst time was lo was a Jimmy Action.

So I talked about it and then I thought you know that was stupid. Jimmy’s folks who live here. He’s from Oakland. So I think I’ll call him and tell him, “Look, I don’t want you to watch TV.” And this guy comes on that t start talking about your son that was killed. [gasps and sighs] So um I uh called information.

There was two accidents living in Oakland. one at 123 N Street and one at 189476 116th Way or place or something. And I said, “Well, I’m going to Oakland is a racially divided city.” So I said, “Well, I’ve got all what I’m going to say on a 3×5 card because I know it’s going to be emotional and I’m an emotional guy.

” So I said, I’m going to try the other one first cuz I’m sure it just went, two, three nices where they live. So I dial the phone and pick up little girl answers the phone. I hear kids playing and this little girl’s voice said, “Hello.” And I said, “Yeah.” I said, “My name’s uh Jim White and I’m looking for the family of uh Jimmy Axton.” And he was with me in Vietnam.

And the little girl’s voice said, “That was my son. and about killed me. Anyway, I had a great talk with her. Told her what I what I I had talked about. I said, “I don’t want you to watch TV and or have a neighbor say somebody’s talked about Jimmy on, you know, she she was real nice.” And at the end of the conversation, she says, “If there’s anything I can do for you, here’s a woman that lost her only son, her only son.

[gasps] Is there anything I can do for you? Let me know. And I mean, well, of course, my 3×5 cars seem they were worthless. So, when in the talk, I said, “You don’t really know who I am.” And she said, “Yes, I do.” And I said, “No, I don’t think so.” She said, “Yeah, I have your picture on the maple.” And I thought, “What? you have my picture on the manage.

She said when Jimmy’s effects came home in his camera, the last picture was when you and him were together at the airport at Hong Kong ready to come back to the Viet to Nam. So that picture was taken basically a day, two days before he was killed. And I’m gonna tell you that. I mean, I’m haunted by that. I’ve had losses, but that one haunts me.

Jimmy, he’s just his smiling face. California kid, pure 100% California boy. Had a black uh uh GTO. um 65 um GTO chrome rims. I mean, yeah. Anyway, so uh go back. I um I get caught. We’re out on the ship. We deploy out rotate on the ship with the battalion marines. We’re going up to the DMZ. And um so we’re on the ship and uh the uh we’re having awards and decoration ceremony and I’m not into that.

I had a big old handlebar mustache. Uh I uh always had a little bit too long hair and I don’t do prep for metals. I don’t I don’t That’s not me. I just don’t like it and and I hate it. So we’re on the ship. Well, I’m a captive audience on ship. So, so we got a Andy ceremony. So, the squadron fills out and we’re on this deck and it’s gone.

It’s a we got our aircraft shoved in the back and [gasps] and uh so they line us up and all of a sudden they wind me up and I’m right next to uh um the colonel and the major and then me and then a captain and or major and a c I’m what the hell’s going on here? Why am I here? [gasps] You know I I told m you made a mistake. I’m in the back row.

Anyway, he [clears throat] said, “No, you just stand there.” So, the guy that’s presenting the medals is a guy named Victor Kulak, three star general, a legend, a legend in in the Marine Corps. And at the time, he was a senior Marine of the Western Pacific. [snorts] He was based out of Hawaii. He was about 5’4.

His son ended up the comedon of the Marine Corps. His kid ended up fourstar, but he was um about 5’4. And in Marine Corps, you never when you report, you never look at a u somebody in the eyes. You look through them or over their head, you stare, you know. You know, so I got the top of this hat. So he gets in front of me and he says, uh uh gives me this medal.

And the medal was I I’d already want some medals from the Marine Corp, but this is a big one because it was a distinguished wine cross. And my claim to fame was I was the first enlisted Marine to receive a distinguished wine cross since um Vietn since World War II. It was a huge deal. Huge deal. They had cameras and all this.

Anyway, so I’m standing there and he says he gives it to me and I’m looking at my certain major. I keep looking because can’t look down at this general. I’m looking and he asked me certain way what do you want to do in the Marine Corps. And so I said, “Sir, I want to be a flying peeon.” Now, the flying Dons were World War II guys that were sergeants that never got commissions that were pilots.

And we had one our ser maker command pilot. Flew World War II as a flying sergeant. Korea flying sergeant. Couldn’t fly fixed wings anymore. They put him in helicopters. These guys were the And I didn’t know it at the time. I knew there were very few, but at the time we were down to less than 20 in the whole Marine Corps. [gasps] Anyway, I said, “Uh, sir, I want to be a flying peon.

” And he said, “You flying peon? What?” You know, he said, “What what makes you think you could do that?” And I said, “Well, I have a commercial fixing license. I have worked my time. I’d gotten my 160 hours. I have a commercial fixing license.” He said, “You have four years of college?” I said, “No, sir.” He said, “Well, you could go to NAVCAT.

Are you married?” And I said, “Yes, sir. Can’t go to NAVCAT.” So, he said, “And we’re not making” and my sword major standing right next to him. He goes, “We’re not making any of these son of a anymore. We’re trying to get rid of them.” [laughter] Now, my belief, and I don’t know if this is a fact, but my belief is that Kulak and my sergeant major knew each other.

They had to back in the old corps cuz the old corps wasn’t that big. But when World War II broke out, there was only 1,200 officers in the whole Marine Corps. There was only 17,000 enlisted men. So if you’re in aviation, you even reduce that by at least 90%. Everybody knew everybody. [gasps] So he said, “We’re not making any more of these sons of B.

” I’ll never forget that these sons of and we’re trying to get rid of them now. Sergeant Major the Sergeant Major, you know. Anyway, [clears throat] so he says, “Here’s what I’ll do. I can transfer you to the army. They’ll take you as a warrant.” So my thought was, oh, I’ll take this, go do minimum time in the army, come back to Marines, transfer back, I’ll be a Marine pilot.

I said, yes, sir. So basically, I forgot about them. We’re at Kesan. There’s a siege going on early this uh fe January, February, well March, April. uh the siege and um it was bad. It was it was horrible. Um every air we had 24 aircraft and in the first 30 days we lost 28. We went through aircraft that quick.

Now you got to figure there’s we moved from four man crews to five. meaning you had two door gunners and a crew chief and you were okay. So we had one aircraft we in our squadron where we lost 22 men meaning we were taking guys out to Kesan to work on damaged aircraft and they were shot down and gone. So Kesan was an so it was tough.

Um you land there um you land there and um to pick up wounded at the strip and they had to run to put them in there because we take incoming or they they watched us when the helicopters coming in. Our CO at the time was a guy named um Dave Dave Voltov A L T H O FF from Phoenix, Arizona area.

Um he became the Marine Aviator of the Year. He received three silver stars in less than three weeks. He’s the guy that figured out or he made he made a thing called the gaggle on how used to be we’d go into an area to resupply hill 881 861 north south we’d go in one plane would go in land and they had the thing zeroed in land throw out the ammo the water replacements who pick up the medevac and peel out and you were going to get shot up pretty bad up in there.

In fact, we like I say, we lost we lost 28 aircraft and um um [snorts] uh in in our first month flying there, we it was horrible. We only had 24. They were replacing bringing aircraft up from other squadrons. We didn’t have time to mark their markings off. We get them in the morning, they’d be flying that afternoon out there. So, it was tough.

And for a crew, for a group of guys, 256, 260 guys, we put in long hours, especially at night with a red flashlight fixing them. But, uh, great guy, unbelievable. Um, so if you were going to go to Quesan, you were going with HMM262, the Flying Tigers. You were going there and uh with us.

And if you were coming out, you were coming out with us, whether in a body bag or or a medevac, you were coming out with us. Anyway, um it was so bad. um that you just didn’t have time to think. And we were running on and trying to when you couldn’t the at night we everybody was underground underground bunkers and rats. The rats didn’t eat us.

They ate what we threw there. But you be sleeping in and I’m telling you these rats were this big. They come up on you. get the hell away from me like that. I mean, it was it the conditions and I’m a sort of history buff made me think of um World War I, the trenches. It was horrible. And um they had us they had the highland, excuse me, they had the highland and they were we were taking direct rocket fire and uh um artillery fire from North Vietnam.

That’s how close we were. It was direct. So when the planes would come in, they even got a C130 coming in landing. They hit him with a motor. Boom. killed half the crew in the C130. Got so bad C130s couldn’t come in and deliver cargo. So what they did was come in low level, pop out a parachute and slide across the It was Yeah.

And the grunts on the ground. I I guys tells me he’s a case on vet, he’s got total respect cuz I’ve been there. So anyway, in uh late February, uh I’m flying and you say, “Hey, White, you Dave Voltos on his cruise ship.” He says, “Hey, grab your stuff. You got to go back to uh to Kong Tree, our restaurant place.

” I said, “Why?” And he said, “You just going back there.” He said, “You got to go back see Sarn Major.” So my mom had been fighting on and off cancer and I’m thinking uh this emergency wave I can see this. So I go back there and start major says no. He says you’re going to Okanella for discharge.

You’re going you’re going to be a you’re going in the army. And I said wow. General Kak followed through his as they taken all the notes and followed through. So I get up to Okanal, I get discharged, golden butner get sworn in and there’s five of us. There’s myself, a marine staff sergeant, um two squits, a Navy guys, Air Force guy.

we will all have uh commercial licenses. So they said you guys will all go back to the states. So he said uh when they’re were processing they you know all the guys say what can I get leave? Can I get leave? Well when they come to me they say how you know how how much leave you want. I don’t want any leave. Just send me back.

Get me let’s get this done. I want to get back over here. And so, um, we, um, I got orders back to, um, [snorts] to, uh, to, um, I forgot the base, Fort Poke, Louisiana. And from there, I’d go right into the flight school thing, uh, helicopter school, uh, program. Well, I get there and I’m I’m the square peg in the round hole.

You didn’t go through the You haven’t been through boot camp. Marines don’t go through other people’s boot camp. You people go through Marines camp, but we don’t go through. Well, um, we’re going to have to figure out what the hell to do with you. So, while you’re waiting, um, here’s what we want you to do.

you come in ahead and check in [snorts] um every morning just come by see the first shirt you know I said well my grandmother lives up here in East Texas which is about uh 2 hours 2 and a half hours away can I go see her [gasps] okay call in so I did that for about a week and my grandmother and I weren’t close until then and then it was great I loved it more than a horse tal and I mean, one horse down in East Texas, Minnola, Texas. And u side story, I met the guy.

I’m pumping gas and uniform when I get there. I’m pumping gas and the sheriff or actually the chief of police, two policemen, the chief, he drives by, sees this guy in uniform, and he swings around. And this old gas station, the old kind of gas station with a lid, you know, on it. [snorts] And there and I know my grandmother’s next street to the right.

So pulls up behind me, gets out, and [clears throat] you know, it’s typical southern sheriff, but he’s policeman. Walks up. He said, “Where you going?” And I said, “Oh, going up here to my grandmother.” He said, “Um, who’s your grandmother?” And I said, “Uh, Miss Burks.” He said, “Miss Burks. Which one are you?” And I said, “Uh, I’m Maggie’s boy.

” And he said, “Maggie’s boy.” Oh, okay. He said, “Well, good.” He said, “I’ll follow you up there.” And he followed me up, make sure. So when I get out, I’m going up the walk and my grandmother had like five acres and four oil pumps in the back. [laughter] That’s her income. Four oil pumps back. Anyway, um so he says, “Uh, if you’re in town, come on in the morning for breakfast.

We all meet at the cafe and the do drop in, you know, cafe about whatever time.” I said, “Sure, sure, sure.” Friendly. So I spent a couple days with my grandmother. So then I go down one morning I said I’m going in town and actually I took her pickup. She had a 1951 Chevy pickup old pickup and I said I’m going to take it in get your oil change tires and and I actually put had new tires put on her.

She never serviced it. I took it in. So, I go into the cafe and there he is holding court with four or five other oldtimeers. The banker and I mean the banker. The bank was the size of this room and a couple other people. And so, hey, come here. He said, “This is Maggie’s boy.” And uh they all knew Maggie. So, they started telling stories about my mom.

Turns out the chief of police went used to date my mom in high school. This is this is a great story. [gasps] So, he’s telling me about her. My mom is u my dad’s 58. My mom’s 62. They’re both deceased, but it was it was a funny thing. My mom was very outspoken, vocal. My dad never said a word. To this day, I and I used to tell him, she said, “You be at the synagogue tomorrow morning at 9:00.

” and and he said, “Yes, ma’am.” And showed up. I I mean, that’s not true, but I I like to think it was, cuz she was a true Texas woman. Let’s just say that. Anyway, so um he says, “You know, your mom played basketball.” And I said, “Well, I wouldn’t be surprised. She’s a big girl. You know, she’s tall.

She’s slender tone, athletic. He said, “Yeah, and you know what’s amazing is in the county after the basketball game, they go out and back and settle.” And I never saw your mo mom lose a fight. And I thought, Jesus, my mother you’re talking about. years later, I’m on the back patio of our house and tipping some scotch and I said, you know, mom, I I visited grandma and um I was an officer there.

I said, I visited grandma and she Yeah. Did you have a good time? I said, a wonderful time. And I forgot the cop’s name. And I said, ‘You know who I ran into there? You know who’s the chief of police? And I mentioned her name. and she looked at me and he said, “Yeah, he told me all about you [laughter] and she gave me a look and my mother gave me that look. That was it.

” And I said, “Yeah, okay.” She went to her grave. [laughter] Never mentioned it again. Never. But anyway, long story short, I go uh back to the base. Sergeant uh first sergeant says, “Hey, I don’t know what the hell we’re going to do with you, and you screwed up the whole program. Maybe a month before we can get you into the mix.

” So he says, “Um, I I says, “So what the hell do I do?” And he said, “Well, you know, what do you want to do?” He said, “There’s nothing here. I can’t you.” I said, he is a master blaster, master jumper. said, “Can you can you weasle a way where I can go to jump school and come right back?” And he said, “You serious?” I said, “Yeah.

” So he said, “Yeah, I can. Let me make some phone calls.” So he sends me to jump school. I go to jump school and I know I’m going right back and go to flight school. Finish jump school. And when I’m finished, I go to see the first shirt. And I said, you know, I’m he says, I talked to the other first short in Louisiana and you’re nothing’s come down about you.

And I said, oh Jesus. I said, can at that time ranger school was 3 weeks and was right there. [snorts] It’s a week there and you just walk around and try not to get lost in the in the southern pines. There’s no distinguishing marks. So everything’s got to you can get lost easy indirectly. You can’t there there’s no mountain to look at. No, you know.

So there was a week there, a week in Dega, Georgia, and a week in um in uh uh Eglund Air Force Base area uh swamps. Well, I don’t have a problem with hot weather swamps. I’m not afraid of snakes at all. I collected them. That’s not it. But I’m going to tell you, I’m afraid of heights. I know you jump out of planes, you know, you’ll fly, but I’m afraid of heights.

going going up a ladder right here. I think about it. I So anyway, I said, “Well, I’ll go to Can you get me into Ranger School?” And I think it was three bottles of bourbon, I think, is what it cost me to give him. And I got to Ranger School, finished Ranger School, come back, and he said, “Um, okay, here’s your orders.” And I looked at him and it said I said wait a minute these aren’t the flights boys said these come down.

So I got assigned to an infantry unit as a grunt infantry sergeant and uh on a frag to Vietnam. So I go to Vietnam now I’m infantry and I go there and I was I went to first battalion sixth infantry the 198th um um so I go there and I’m I check and I tell him look I’m not supposed to be here I’m supposed to be in flight school and that first sergeant said yeah sure next go you know you’re a sergeant go down so I go and I go out in the bush for a couple months almost three months.

And lo and behold, first sergeant GS me, you know, you get on the helicopter, you got to go back. What do you want, Top? He said, “Hey, you were supposed to be in flight school. We got orders to send you back to the States for flight school.” So, I’m think I just did three months and just, you know, it’s a grunt, which I respect those guys, but I’ve been a Marine. I’ve been a machine gunner.

I didn’t like playing machine gunner. I didn’t or I was a sergeant then. I just didn’t wouldn’t be to be a grunt over there. So, I go back. I go through flight school. I graduate flight school and uh I get sent back to N right right away, which is okay. I have to say I enjoyed it.

So, I get to Vietnam, get off, and everybody’s in shell shock. I’m I’ve already done 19 months in Vietnam. I did four months in Dom Rep and then I had done three just under a week under three months with the army as a grunt in Vietnam. So we get off and um in uh down by Saigon. We go to 95th repo and they march it like cattle in there and I finally get up. I’m a wobbly one.

I got my wings and I got my uh in fact I used to I have multiple set of wings. I have my I have my pilot wings and I have my of course my jump wings and I CIB which is all army but I also have on top of that ring combat air crew wings which are illegal to wear there. You’re supposed to wear them there but I they’re combat wings.

I wore them before I got to CIB. So, um, I get up to the table, the major looks at me and he says, “You return?” And I said, “Yeah.” He said, “Where would you like to go now? Everybody else is going here, you’re going there, you’re going, “Where would you like to go?” I said, “I want to go as far north as you can send me up by the DMC.

” I said, “I know that area.” I was a marine in that area. I know that area. So he turned around, looked at the map, and he said, “There’s there’s a union up in Dong Dong Ha,” which I know Dong Ha flew out of there. Dong Ha is about 2 miles from North Vietnam on right on the uh Benhai River just down from Quaviet.

So I said, “I’ll take it.” Well, he said, “Okay.” You know, why would you go there? you know, because the stories about the DMZ and NASA DMZ and um and I core are different. Vietnam’s basically three different landscapes. There’s the DMZ, there’s the central highlands, and then there’s the Delta. And basically fighting there is three different styles of fighting.

And if you talk to most people, they’ll say, “Send me down south.” You don’t hear anybody say, “Oh, send me as far north as you want to go.” You got Anyway, so I go up there and I check in and um so when I check in, this is amazing. I check in and they said um [gasps] the colonel he was promotable to general meanings he’s got the peas waiting to become a general.

Uh we’ll see you in a minute. And what are those wings? And what’s that handlebar mustache and what’s that patch? Now the army wears combat patches. The Marine Corps doesn’t. Once again I cheated for a combat patch. I could wear I legally could wear the second marine aircraft wing or the first marine aircraft wing or the 198th army.

Okay. But I wore the first Marine Division patch because the first wing patch and his his second wing patch, they look like crap. And nobody know what they are, but they know what that first Marine Division patch is. and he looked at it and this was the S1. He was um uh he was a major I think maybe a lieutenant colonel, maybe a major.

He looked at that and he said, “How old are you?” Cuz it says Guada canal on it. As I was up here with the first marine division before you knew where Vietnam was, which just ticked him off good. So, you know, I started off on the right foot there. So, I go in to report and I walk in and the colonel was waiting for a star is a black man.

And I never heard of a black full colonel, never mind one who’s going to be a general. So, Rosco Cartwright stands up. He’s about 6’3, shaved head and um we welcome aboard and this guy was non nonsense guy and uh he said you know you want to fly for me and I said yes sir what have you he said okay welcome aboard so we were flying three different at that time two different kind of aircraft we’re flying O23Gs G’s don’t mean guns this is the bubble aircraft that looks similar to what you see on MASH.

This was a Korean War aircraft and a trainer. And we were flying these in combat. Now, if you lose an engine in one, you immediately look between your legs cuz that’s where you’re going to land. They land like a rock. And they’re a gas. If you take a bullet, they’re not they’re not um jet fuel. A gas has a much lower flash point.

and uh they’re gone. [gasps] So, we had uh six of those and we had six O6s which look like an egg and uh so I wasn’t checked out in the six. So I immediately got checked out in the six and um uh we flew those and we flew bas basically ash and trash for about maybe two months and I went to the colonel and I said colonel Cartwright um we take a rocket fire every night so let’s try this let’s run a early morning VR and a late evening VR.

We don’t have we can’t count on anybody doing it for us. So, let’s equip two aircraft to do that. That means put a minigun on it, put a door. [gasps] And so, I and I said, I’ll I’ll run this operation. And he said he went along with it. So we started doing the VRs and um uh we I flew for him for seven months in the DMZ of YVRs.

My platoon leader was a guy named Jim Mitzky, Captain Jim Mitzky. He was a a ada aerial defense artillery ADA guy from um little town called Harold, Texas up by the panhandle. His mom was the um get this right. I think his mother was the post mistress and ran a county store. It’s a one-horse town. Anyway, Jimbo was the um he went to uh I think he went to college in Oklahoma on a football scholarship.

Anyway, great guy, wonderful guy. Big Jimbo. So, um Jim extends and says, “I’m out of here. I’m going to extend and fly cobras for um AR, aerial rocket artillery, because um the units there were three units. Charlie Battery was the Griffins. They were flying for special forces in Dalos, North Vietnam, long range MVOG. That’s their mission.

So Jim and I talked about it and he extended. I extended 3 weeks later, went to the same unit, checked in. He’s my platoon leading. So, and I’m going to see him this August. And I haven’t seen him since 1970. And as I’m looking forward I’m really looking forward to it. So, uh, uh, just before I leave, um, the unit to go to flying for the Griffins, just before I leave, we were doing a we we’d go out early in the morning just very light and go into the DMZ. Really? Right.

And actually we I cross the DMZ go into North Vietnam no more than a a mile no more because that’s Indian country and if you get shot down there your hands you’re really in a mess. So I went out there one morning and um I had a high high aircraft over me and uh I went out there and we were looking for rockets and what have you.

Coming back across the ridge line. Now this is rolling hills. So we’re I’m low level loaches. I like flying very low. The propensity of getting nailed from a oneshot Charlie is there but nothing like if you’re a thousand feet everybody can shoot at you. So my theory is go go low and as fast as hell. Relatively in a scout position, you’re doing 40 miles an hour, not fast.

And we’re good enough that I can actually trace a blood trail. We hit NBA. I can trace their tracks and depending on the moisture, if we’ve had rain that let’s say the day before and there’s no rain in that in the footprints, I know those are very fresh. Or if it’s in the morning and there we had heavy dew that night before, there’s nothing.

I can I can tell you within reason now how old the foot tracks I’m not and this is not me this is this is scout pilot talk now we can we’re pretty good at scouts so I’m coming back over ridge line and there was a machine gun set up on the backside when I came over he got me from um the backside rake my aircraft graph and I took um I think 31 hits if I remember.

I blew out my w my windshield and my control my uh um my instruments going that way. I took three three hits in the armor seat and my crew chief door gunner um kid named uh Langshan was gutshot fell out but he was on a monkey core and he fell out and to this day I don’t know why but I even took a one round up by the compressor in the engine I kept flying anyway I flew it back to surge landed and um uh the point as soon as I landed the fuel was coming out. I mean it was dead.

That was it. And so I said, you know, it’s getting hairy up here now. So, um the very next morning I went back out and um I I knew where the enemy was, that ridge line. So, I went back there and I was going to come around and get him from another way. And uh so we and my I had a new creature and I told him, “Look, this guy, he’s on this ridge line somewhere.

” He caught me from the back. So, we’re going to attack the ridge line from perpendicular, run down the side of it, and you soon as you see it, you throw out the smoke and and he has a 60. And I said, “Rake it.” And then what we’ll do is we’ll turn around and then we’ll come in where the smoke is directly at him and um I’ll use my minigun.

So anyway, um they got us pretty good. Neither of us were hit, but the aircraft was all every bells and whistles. It wasn’t going to fly any further. So, I got it about um maybe a click and maybe a click and a half away when I drove it into the ground. Just wouldn’t fly anymore. And poof.

So, my wingman picked me up, picked me up, called in, said, “Hey, White’s down. Lost the aircraft.” And I told told him, “Get another aircraft ready. We’re going back out.” And so, I had the same crew chief. We went back out with a different aircraft. And now we got um we got uh um couple cobras from the cal came up to help us. Um and so I went and we marked it and I got blasted again.

And this time I made it closer to the base before I drove it into the ground bed. Like I said, bad day. Anyway, my wingman picked me up. High ship came picked me up. I said, “Get another one ready.” So we got we went out a third time and the cobras were working the area. They did a great job. So then when they they made you know they said go ahead and go in there and check.

So I went in there to check and I believe God this guy he had the nine lives of a cat. Man he just blasted the hell out of me. So, I made it back to my first aircraft and literally the two aircraft when I crashed it and this was a good crash. When we finally got out of the plane, we were uh less than 500 ft from the first aircraft that I had down.

So, I get in the plane, my wingman comes in, gets us, and we go back and I get another airplane. When I land, [gasps] Colonel Cartright standing there and he said, “Come here. You to the club.” And I said, “Wait a minute, sir. I know where they are.” And he said, “They know where you are to the club. I can’t afford you.

You’ve already cost me three aircraft this morning.” And so, uh, two days later, I my paperwork was in. I got transferred to flying Cobras. This is the This is the why I never went even thought going back in the Marine Corps. I’ll go to Flight Cobers and I go, “Our unit had our unit had three platoon and we had to keep one platoon, four aircraft assigned to special [sighs] um uh SOG, which everybody thinks is special operations group.

That’s not what it was. It was studies and observation group. The reason that was to keep the press from understanding what we were doing. They thought we were, you know, bunch of green berets, you know, with calculators or with slide rules. It’s funny as hell. But anyway, we were we signed 26 pieces of paper saying that uh we couldn’t talk about what we did, nothing for 25 years and and the unit and until Ronald Reagan, he opened it up.

Until then, you couldn’t tell anybody you were SOG and what we did. So, SOG basically is real simple. um studies and observation group was part of OP plan 35 which was a CIA operated with the joint chiefs of staff mission where we did long range re long range reconnaissance some pilot recovery some the air force didn’t like it and I’ll talk about that later some um uh shady um psychological warfare items, but primarily uh P snatches where we try to get their P get high ranking members of the North Vietnamese forces so we can interrogate them. Anyway, this was um

to take place in not South Vietnam in Cambodia, Laos, North Vietnam, parts of Burma, and the five southern provinces of China, Indian country. Now, you got to be honest, helicopters couldn’t reach China. Otherwise, we’d have been there, but we couldn’t reach it. The SOG was broken down to different layers.

As far as our our concern was there was CCS, CCC and CCN. CCS is command and control South, which is basically all operations in Cambodia. CCC was basically northern Cambodia, Southern Laos. CCN was middle of Laos, North Vietnam. So our job was to basically insert recon teams. Recon teams were usually usually two or possibly three [gasps] Americans [snorts] and three to five um mercenaries.

And these guys were um they could be Chinese nuns. They could be um uh the Montyard people which were the greatest. I mean I can’t say enough about those guys. Just wonderful people. Um and loyal to us to a fault. I mean to a fault. It cost them their lives. But um they got paid. Um our special forces guys, you can be a green beret got sent to uh Vietnam and you couldn’t volunteer for sock. They came and asked you.

It was a very small group of guys. Very small. Probably less than uh the whole war. A thousand. Very small. very compartmentalized. Um, our teams, if we were putting a team in, let’s say at this spot, the team that’s down here maybe 15 miles away, didn’t even know about that team. So, our package included four cobras from our unit four transport helicopters usually from the 101st Airborne.

Slits His [gasps] uh usually one fact or maybe two air force facts. CVY. Now, if a recon team got in trouble and they called what’s called a prairie fire, that’s the worst thing. They’re surrounded or whatever. Prairie fire. Once they called prairie fire, that went up on guard. Every aircraft, fixed wing, bomber, every was to stop their mission and go to them.

So literally when they got in trouble, they could literally instantly get 20 or 30 fast movers on top of them. The problem is they’re dropping bombs that versus us. We’re shooting rockets. We can we get down and dirty with them. Literally down. I I literally I can throw a pair of rockets in between uh 25 ft whereas a bomber he’s trying to hit the top of the hill.

So I’m not against the air force. The Air Force did a great job, especially when you get things like Spectre gunships and like those are at night, uh, where they can just circle around and just hose the area or the in the early days it was Puff the Magic Dragon, but we fired rockets and we were good at what we did. We were damn good.

Um so we kept four aircraft one we had three platoon. So the rotation went is one platoon would go up to um CCN one platoon would be on red regular missions for that day and one platoon would be on standby. So that’s four aircraft, but each platoon had six aircraft. So the two aircraft that were not being used were being serviced.

[cough] So if you have, but not everybody volunteered for CCN because you had to sign papers and we had guys that said, “I don’t want to fly.” I have a very good friend of mine who lives here in the state of Washington who was a Griffin who did fly CCN, but if you asked him, he would rather not. He didn’t want to fly CCN.

But he did fly it. But we had pilots that said, “I don’t want to CCN. I’m not signing a papers. I’m not going to do that.” Here’s what happens. If you get shot down, they don’t get your body out. and they [clears throat] notify your family you were lost at sea, body not recovered because we weren’t there. my flight time, my flight records for CCN flights, which for me I flew 100 140 hours a month and probably twothirds of that was CCN and that’s all blacked out just redacted redacted redact that’s hey that’s it that’s the name of the game you signed

paper and the guys fluid constantly. Rick Freeman, myself, um Tim Mitzky, um Mock, uh Gary Gluth, um Crusty Garrison who lives here, uh up here in Kell Falls. Uh we um we flew our ass. We loved it because when you took off, you knew you were going to shoot. You knew you were going to We knew we were going to shoot.

Plus, it was free fire area. We weren’t in Vietnam. We didn’t need clearances to shoot. Just if you saw somebody running around in a field down there, we knew where the recon teams were. He wasn’t one of us. Just take him out. No harm, no foul. It was for a gun pilot. It was the best. I didn’t have to get clearances or anything.

Plus, the camaraderie you built with the recon teams is huge. You save a team, when they come back and they get out of their aircraft, they run up to the Cobras and you’re you’ve got the windows open and you’re cooling down the engine, they come up. I’ve had a guy come up and kiss me. Said, “I owe you.

” [gasps] I was flying a lot and uh we um I um recon I was working a recon team was in trouble and we were working the Cobras and I was flying a boat and um after um the um Cobras ran out of they ran out of ammo and they they were making dry passes and the um the uh recon team had two um critical guys critically.

And so um what I did was I said, “You know what? Screw it. Let’s go. You know, let’s shoot all your ammo in the plane that the um my door gunner just shoot. We’re going in cuz and then just throw them literally throw these two kids in the plane. Anyway, we took um I don’t know, a dozen hits coming out and um and uh you know, invariably the Loach is a great aircraft that could take a lot of hits and it if you crash it, you roll it in the ball and theoretically walk out.

Anyway, um you know when you anytime [clears throat] you take hits and it blows out the the window, you figure that I can I can touch the front screen right there. So when you’re taking hits that close anyway CNC who couldn’t get in, it was a very tight spot. They were going to have to actually if they could get a Metevac Huey in there, they were going to have to take them out on a um uh hoist and that figure that’s five, seven minutes and there’s two that he would have never guy would have never made it.

I mean the um the gunfire was that radical. So, um, you know, I went in there and and you know, CNC told me, “What are you doing?” And I said, “I’m going to get him.” And he said, “No, you know, wave off, wave off.” And, you know, don’t tell me to wave off. You know, I um So, I went in and got him. And um um so I got him got a metal, big deal.

And a cup of coffee. I don’t drink coffee. I’m a tea drinker. Oh, for anybody interested in the history, they ought to read about this guy. They Everybody talks about great Americans. There’s a guy that just passed away here last year named Billy Law. Sergeant Major Billy Law. W A U G. You ever hear of him? Billy W.

I gave him his ninth Purple Heart. I shot him in the ass. He was on a recon mission as a strap hanger. That means extra extra guy. They were in to pick up a uh they were in there trying to snatch a um P on an engineering unit. They were building a road or something. And so Billy just in there he Billy went in to get collect souvenirs. That’s the truth.

So he’s out there collecting all this crap. Anyway, the NBA got once they get on the ground, they’ve only got they’re only going to stay there. There’s not a recon team to stay there for couple days. you know, the guys to get in there, snag the snag a prisoner, get one intel, and be out. So, they’re going to be on the ground less than an hour. That’s it.

Maybe an hour and a half, but really less than an hour. The key. So, Billy’s out there grabbing and all of a sudden the NBA gets their stuff together and they start charging. And I’m rolling in and I see all these NVA and you can, you know who they are. You see them running up the hill chasing this one guy.

And all our guys had an orange panel on their top on their hats. They didn’t wear helmets on their hats so we can see who they were. And so I just went and rolled in and shot a bunch of of 19 pound uh 17lb head rockets in between and then try to ease them into this Russian group. Well, apparently some of the shrapnel ended up in the backside of Billy.

So when the aircraft of Jolly Green come in, picked them up, then we got a team. Okay, we need a team. Okay, get a head count. Make sure everybody is accounting for it. Got a team. Okay. And then they tell you we got one WIA. So you everybody who WIA then they don’t come out on the air and say Billy, but they say their strap hanger. Well, we know it’s Billy.

So, we get back to clone tree. They dump him off. He’s had 18 surge. He’s laying on a concrete thing in triage and he’s, you know, they’ve cut all his stuff off his neck and then they got this orange stuff they put on there and they’re starting to pick out trapnel. [laughter] I landed refuelled and came back over in the Jeep with a couple other guys to see him and I walk in.

I said, “Damn, Billy.” what happened? And he looked up at me. He said, “When I get up here, I’m going to kill you.” And I said, “What?” He says, “You shot me.” I said, “I didn’t shoot you.” And he said, “Yeah, you didn’t.” I said, “No, I didn’t.” He said, “When you flew over me, my my crew chief used to put under my aircraft sneaky in white letters.

” Sneaky white was my call sign. And he said, ‘When you flew over me, he said, ‘I after you shot me, you flew over me and I could see it’s your aircraft and if I could have, I would have shot you. Yeah, I love Billy. Billy was a surrogate father to me in the service. He taught My wife will tell you right now a lot of times I’ll tell I’ll say something.

I’ll say Billy taught me this. Yeah, Billy taught me. He’s just a unbelievable guy. Anyway, so I flew with them for um about 15 months and then when I um an operation called Lom 719 took place and this was the last big operation in Vietnam. And what it was basically was uh we we when I say we the aran forces were going to go and all the way through and cut into um Laos along the Ho Chi Min road.

They were going to cut it and it was a great idea. The problem was twofold. Congress had prevent would not allow had prevented Americans from going into Laos. We weren’t supposed to be there. So we could not have Americans on the ground with the Arbans, but we supplied the air power. So we had I’ll never forget this.

We had a thousand helicopters. picture that going that way going west at one time. Okay. And and if you ever read, there’s a a book by uh Keith Nolan who he’s passed on, but he and he wasn’t a vet, but he was he would did his homework and about um lumpsum 719. There’s several good books about it. The lum it was a disaster. And the reason is the fair.

The Arvin dropped the ball. Not all the Arvin units, but a lot of them turned tail. Plus the NBA knew we were coming or they knew they were coming. They were ready for them. Anyway, um when Lam 719 happened, they shut off SOG said no more. So the first day at Lamsung 719 cav unit um lost I think u they lost after Major Newman came down and saw me the night the next day and say hey sneaky uh you want to fly scouts again for me said I lost three of them yesterday and I I need somebody so I said sure under the condition that when I’m done with you

this operation I come back flying cobras cuz I’ll go back special forces. And he said, “Sure.” Well, little did I know that was the end of special forces totally because it was the end of the war. Anyway, so I go and I fly scouts loaches from back in the flying loaches and uh this time in the Laos, which is really wild.

Um the NBA were all over the place shooting. I mean, it was just unreal. But, um, it was I know it was exciting. I don’t want to say it was enjoyable, but yeah, it was exciting. I mean, we got back, but we lost a lot of guys. L some 179 was tough. After that I stayed around flying um for a cab unit for um about five 6 months and then I came back to the states the end of the war.

So I came back went to Fort Bragg took flight physical and bombed it. I’m deaf in my left ear and uh couldn’t pass flight physical. So I got out and there were no jobs to be had. And about 3 months later, I got a call from a friend of mine and said, “Hey, I want to go back over to the Far East.” And I said, “Yeah.

” He said, “Well, Air America’s hiring.” And he said, “I put your name, they’re going to call you.” So, I went back with AA and problem with AA, it’s it’s like a union thing. I was last I was last out. I was my last in first out. So when they quit, so hands up, I have like 15 months with a because I was one of the last guys they hired and I was one of the first guys to let go.

[gasps] So I ended I did that then then um I came back to the states and really couldn’t get a job. There were no aviation jobs. Couldn’t get a job. worked for the railroad for a while and um got a call and said, “Hey, you want to go to South Africa and I said, “Sounds good.” And so I went for the fellas.

I went back and uh went over to South Africa, flew out of Jberg, South Africa, Johannesburg, flew for a year and um flew a fix wing a um I was co-pilot on the DC3 doing night parachute drops in the Rhodesia Zuabe now, but we were fighting the Marxists. We weren’t, but the zealous scouts were and we were uh the avi we were aviation support for them till the uh South Africans got their stuff in order.

And uh it was really pretty interesting because uh it was wasn’t just Americans even though we were fellas had hired us. We get there and we go under them and you know I flew with guys from Belgian, from uh the Netherlands, from the England. Um >> [sighs] >> uh I flew, you know, different these guys are they’re out there, you know, Terry and the pilot pirates type of guys. They’ve been flying.

So I flew for them for a year. I liked it. Got paid in cougarans. local grants was pretty good. Living was real good. Came back to the states and um um had a um just hated the states, hated the people. I mean, there was still the backlash of Vietnam veterans. Um applied for a couple jobs and they said, “Yeah, Vietnam, you know.

” So, I ended up with some oil companies. I worked for some oil companies flying for them in Alaska. Vietnam experience was the best and the worst times of my life. Um, I made friends that are my friends today. I don’t have too many civilian friends. Trying to think. I probably don’t have any. I’m a loner, but not when I’m around my friends.

My best one of my best friends is a guy named Sweet Griffin. Rick Freeman. Rick and I can sit in a room and not say a hundred words and have the greatest discussion in the world for three hours. That’s just the way it is. Um, it was a defining moment in my life where I feel I accomplished something good. We may have lost the war.

We didn’t lose the war. The politicians lost the war. Vietnam. The lesson learned was politicians need to stay out of the war business. And more importantly, and this is what I’m proud of being a Vietnam veteran, is that we are not allowing our country, i.e. politicians, but our country now to mistreat the veterans that have served in subsequent battles.

If anything, we have become a strong voice for Huh?