Chapter 4, Easter Tet Offensive

We watched the Easter Offensive from the rooftop of our hotel, and finally hit the sack when it subsided. The next day we went to the officers club for lunch, on the military base at Qui Nhon. We had just ordered two steaks, when I noticed a chopper pilot sitting not far from us. They were easy to spot with their army warrant officer uniforms and shoulder holsters. I got up and went over to his table. After a short introduction, I asked him where he might be flying to, and explained our dilemma of being stuck there. He said that he was flying south to Nha Trang, adding that "if you and your buddy can be on the pad in 5 minutes, I'll give you both a ride there". This was great news and would get us close to our home base at Cam Ranh. His Huey was on a chopper pad sitting right outside of the mess hall door.. We had a Vietnames waitress place our steaks, carrots, and peas in plastic bags and we beat the pilot to the chopper pad.

We stood by as the pilot, his crew chief and door gunner made some pre-flight checks on the Huey. The pilot was a blond surfer type from Los Angeles and couldn't have more than 20 years old. As he walked around the helicopter with his aviator shades, he was the picture of confidence. There was something inexplicable about him, an aura he had that is hard to describe. He was da-man and you could tell he knew it. The next thing he said to Chum and it really surprised me "My door gunner has to fly in the back all the time, and would like to fly up front on this trip. Would one of you like to be door gunner on this trip"? I was kind of taken aback by this question, but Chum piped right up, "I'll fly as door gunner". The door gunner gave him some quick instructions on firing the M-60. The M-60 was an automatic 7.62 machine gun, mounted on a sort of swivel pole, in a back side compartment of the Huey. As we boarded the Huey, the warrant officer pilot, LA surfer, told him"If you see something you don't like, shoot it".He really had us on the excitement program, as we lifted off the chopper pad, I wondered what Chum would shoot.

As we flew over the South China Sea, down the coast line, on a bright sunny day, suddenly the pilot banked dramatically to the right, he had avoided hitting a flock of pelican's. I slid over in my seat with my heart in my throat. The crew chief yelled out" it would have been a real bitch to be killed by pelican's in Vietnam". It was a great piece of flying, and good to hear our pilot laughing as he turned around and looked at me. We hadn't been airborne long when we received a radio diverting us to Tuy Hoa, about 65 miles south of Qui Nhon.

We landed in Tuy Hoa on a helicopter pad and exited the chopper. Our pilot explained that John Paul Vann, had diverted his Huey to make an inspection run. John Paul Vann had flown down from his II Corps. headquarters in Pleiku, to inspect the bridges and other military sites, that had been attacked the day before. Evidently his own chopper was out of service. John Paul Vann was a retired Lieutenant Colonel who was running the war in II Corps, as an employee of the Defense Department. He was the first civilian to ever command US troops in combat. He received the Distinguished Service Cross posthumously, and was also the only civilian so honored. The book "The Bright Shining Lie" is about him. They also made an HBO film about him in 1998. It was an honor that Chum and I met him personally. He wore a white short sleeved shirt and khaki pants, a no-nonsense guy, who seemed driven as he ordered military types about. This was April of 1972, he died in a helicopter crash a couple of months later.

Our pilot told us to cool our heals at the officers club bar, he would be back to continue our trip to Nha Trang. At the end of the bar sat a large Army type field radio. As we sat drinking Heineken's and vodka, the bartender put the radio on the channel of the transmissions from our commandeered helicopter. If any one ever doubted that John Paul Vann was running the war in II Corps, after listening to the radio traffic there was no doubt about it. The one thing that's indelible in my memory, was when I heard him tell a Vietnamese officer, "You tell General - - - -, that if those bridges are not back in by noon tomorrow, I'll have his ass on a carpet in Saigon". The Vietnamese Generals name escapes me now.

Our pilot (think his name was Townsend) returned and told us we would be spending the night in Tuy Hoa. We went to a small VN hotel with a bar. This is where I made a very big blunder. As we sat at a table discussing the days events, I don't know what came across me, but I told Chum I could out drink him. He readily (of course) took my challenge. I woke up with a killer of a hangover and Chum looked just fine. That evening is a complete blank to me. No one could out drink him.

We joined our pilot on the base at Tuy Hoa for breakfast, before our flight to Nha Trang. He had a couple of stories about his inspection with Vann. To me these two incidents contain dramatic examples of happenings in this war, where the hand writing was on the wall, and led to South Vietnam's failure in keeping their sovereignty. He flew Vann to two microwave mountain top communication sites. On one site an American Major was left defending the whole mountain top, by himself when the whole company of ARVN's (Vietnamese Army) ran off, and his Vietnamese officer counterpart cowered in the bunker beside him. He manned the M-60's machine guns and grenade launchers and fought the NVA until they withdrew. Many dead NVA were scattered on the perimeter. At a similar mountain top installation, the ARVN company had ran off, leaving an old Vietnamese papason to defend this site by himself. The papason was a civilian who's job it was too maintain the electric generators there. This old man was not a soldier, but manned the M-60's & grenade launchers. He killed quite a few NVA and held the mountain top by himself. So went the war.

I flew as gunner on the Tuy Hoa to Nha Trang leg of our trip. I could make up something here about us shooting the conical hat off of a VC, but I really didn't want to kill anything, nor did Chum. We boarded a C-130 at the Nha Trang airbase, and flew back to Cam Ranh. I'm attaching a couple of http addresses, that relate to these times.

http://youtu.be/14EHqM7pCto http://youtu.be/F_gJTsRSd38

Hope you save this for his grandchildren, Jack Johnstone