REUNIONS
“Where Things That Never Happened Gain Clarity”
I recently attended the reunion of my Pilot Training Class. We were a bunch of very young; many would say kids, who volunteered to be Army Helicopter Pilots back in 1966. The oldest member of our class was twenty seven and was considered a “Father Figure” to many of us. Most of us were drafted and volunteered for pilot training because our fear of heights was less than our fear of snakes. We all knew our assignment would be Viet Nam, a real meat grinder for helicopter pilots.
The needs of the Army were very urgent. We completed our training in about eleven months, received our coveted wings and many of us were standing in Viet Nam two weeks after graduation. The two weeks included travel time from FT Rucker, Alabama to Travis AFB, California, so the time spent at home with the family was measured in days, not weeks. About eighty of our class of around three hundred went straight over. Most of us were assigned to the 1st Cav Div (Air Mobile). It was the first unit in the US Army where the primary means of movement was by helicopter. Everything happened by helicopter, troops were fed, moved, combat assaulted, reinforced and command and controlled by helicopter. The division of approximately fourteen thousand Soldiers had about five hundred helicopters, almost all UH-1, “Huey’s”. The Huey was a boon to combat aviation and the only effective way to conduct operations in a country that had very little infrastructure and lots of mountains, jungle and extremely remote areas. It was, however, made of aluminum and only slightly slowed down bullets. The tactics of the 1st Cav was “Reinforce” when a unit came into contact with the enemy, never pull out. This meant that a platoon, about forty Soldiers, which came into contact, occasionally, resulted in an operation of many hundreds that were injected into the fray, almost always under heave fire at that point in the game.
Now comes the “Aluminum” part. Since we were “Air Mobile” all of those Soldiers were brought in under fire by the Huey. Once they were engaged they needed Medevac and re-supply, all provided by Huey. The aluminum was ineffective against bullets and many helicopters were shot up and a few shot down.
One thing needs to be made clear at this point. The Huey is a fairly large aircraft, over fifty feet long and about eight feet wide in the main fuselage area. We carried a crew of four, two pilots, one gunner and a crew chief who was also armed. A lot of bullets can go through a Huey and not do much damage. Hitting a crew member was not that common. We did however incur a fair amount of aircraft damage, loss of engine oil, hydraulic fluids, engine damage, etc. While serious it often gave us a chance to at least get out of the heavy fire and land someplace a little quieter.
The law of averages, or luck, did catch up with many of us and someone on our crew would be hit. We did have some protection. The pilot seats were armored on the bottom, a little over half of the sides and we wore a “Chicken Plate” on our front. The Chicken Plate was the same armor that was on the seat and was worn like a vest and covered us from about our waist to the top of our chest on our front. When a pilot was hit it was usually in one of two areas, the legs, survivable, or the in the head, “The End”. The crewmembers in the back had less protection, only the Chicken Plate. They usually placed a couple sandbags under their seats to protect themselves from ground fire coming through the floor.
This brings us up September 2009, our reunion. For the most part we had not seen each other in over forty years. A few of us were together on our first assignment; we were in the eighty who were rushed to the 1st Cav Div as replacements. My observations of the eighty classmates who attended:
Observation 1: Father Time could have been a little more gentle to some of us. I guess this is a common observation at any reunion. We had scattered to the winds after our military experience, only a small percentage of us remaining for a military career. Since we were a cross slice of the American populace when we were drafted, that is who we once again became. Our careers covered the spectrum of routine, to successful to not so successful.
Observation 2: There was almost a total lack of “War Stories”. The stories seemed to be around the humorous, the guy who got lost on our Student Cross County Flight and ended up at an Air Force Base a couple hundred miles off course!! The things we endured and experienced during Pilot Training, like building a side walk between our barracks that our commander must have been betting his career on.
Observation 3: A very unique group that I don’t think could be replicated anywhere else. You heard conversations, calm, and quiet conversations between classmates, which were sprinkled with phrases like, “When I got shot down that time”. No more than a busy day at the office. It was not routine, but was certainly not unusual, being shot down several times was the accepted norm. Many of us after being picked up from such an event returned to our unit, got another aircraft, a “Fresh Horse” and went back and finished our mission, back on the job within an hour.
Observation 4: Long forgotten memories were awakened. When a fellow pilot from the unit reminded me he was the one that picked me up one of the times I was shot down. Completely forgotten, not for lack of gratitude, it just wasn’t that significant in the context of the whole experience. Now, in retrospect, a sincere “Thank You’ and a warm hand shake. Good friends, dependable friends, are important.
Reunions serve a purpose; it reminds us of our common experiences and renews friendships that have mellowed from time and distance. Reunions add meaning and perspective to our lives.
Kerry G. Denson
Brig. Gen. (Ret)
September 2009
Lake Mills, WI
