Bronco Pilots: A Romantic and Tragic Journey of Determination and Drive to Success from Grace to Hell and Back

By John H. Pierson Jr.

BRONCO PILOTS

 A Tale of Determination & Drive through Hell and Back

 

A biographical narrative, 'Bronco Pilots', covers the perio

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bronco Pilot Independent
• Release date: Aug 1, 2023
• ISBN: 9781088207352

Book preview

BRONCO PILOTS

Determination and Drive

from Grace to Hell and Back

John H. Pierson Jr.

Bronco Pilots is a biographical account built upon

the life and adventures of a Marine Corps pilot,

from 1957 to 1981, in college and Flight School,

as a Helicopter Co-pilot in Vietnam,

Bronco Pilot Tactical Air Support in Vietnam,

setting a World Aviation Record,

and eventually, retirement from the

United States Marine Corps.

Copyright © 2023 by John H. Pierson Jr.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This book is a nonfiction work. It is an accurate recollection to the best memory and ability of the author. However, some individuals have been renamed and disguised so their actual identities would not be revealed, although the characters may still be recognizable to a few who knew them well.

The actual military-related events and combat descriptions in this work have not been reviewed nor approved by the United States Marine Corps or any other government entity.

The World Record event and description herein have not been reviewed nor approved by the Federation ‘Internationale Aeronautique’ or the United States National Aeronautic Association. However, documentation of the official record event described herein is available in the public record and posted in the Harrah History Center, Harrah, Oklahoma.

Dedicated to My

Best Friends Dave Shore and Lenny Porzio

Dave was my brother-in-law, a dedicated husband, father of three great kids, a great pilot, and one helluva marine. Major David R. Shore died on July 9, 1974, while ejecting from the rear seat of an OV-10A aircraft when his parachute failed to open. I was in the front seat. It was his FAM-00 flight as a reintroduction to the aircraft and procedures. He was coming into his new squadron, VMO-1, from a non-flying billet, and I was leaving VMO-1 to go to VMO-6 in Okinawa, Japan. It was his first official flight in the training syllabus and my last. He didn’t need any training, just re-familiarization with the aircraft and the syllabus. That day was the worst of my life, and the pain of it has been with me for all the days of my life since. Rest in Peace, my friend.

I met Dave Shoo Shore during Naval Aviation Flight School in 1964, where we got our wings in 1965 and were almost immediately shipped off to serve a thirteen-month combat tour in Vietnam and then another similar tour, with less than two years between. We flew H-34D helicopters in HMM-363 and HMM 364 at Ky Ha in 1965-66 and the OV-10A Bronco in VMO-6 at Quang Tri in 1968-69. We also did Bronco initial training together at Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, California, in 1967-68.

During the Bronco training and the second Vietnam tour, we formed what we called the Triumvirate with Len Brooklyn Porzio. Shoo was the ever-present Naval Academy-type leader, I was Goofy in the middle, and Brooklyn was the hero. I miss them both. Including the memories of our times together, the laughter, the long talks, the pain and tears for our dead friends, the drunks, the hangovers, all the good and bad of our lives together.

Brooklyn is still living at the time of this writing, although he might only have one or two of his nine lives left. The rumor mill has him holed up in an underground bunker. Somewhere in Georgia. Maybe Atlanta? He did stick his ears up recently in a COVID Zoom reunion and was easily recognizable as a slightly older, slightly weathered version of his previous self.

In Memory of My Cherished Lady

After 38 years together, Veronica M. Romano,

a.k.a Roni, perished on December 29, 2007, as a result of lung damage, acquired from the administration of anesthesia during hip replacement surgery, as well as thyroid disease complications.

It was the fifth birthday of our grandson, Roman Krishka.

She was the love of my life and a constant inspiration to me and our children. She always believed in, trusted, and supported me,

no matter what.

God bless your soul, my Love.

Acknowledgments

Many thanks to my friend and Editor, Dennis A. Britton

and writing coach, Marcia Gewelber,

as well as several beta readers

and workshop classmates who contributed to this endeavor.

Immense gratitude is due my Oklahoma classmates,

Jan Myers Birsner and Barbara Laster Tucker.

Their special friendship, knowledge, and advice

have been exceptional and irreplaceable

over a span of too many years to count.

Barbara passed on July 30, 2022, during the editing of this book.

I had hoped for redemption in her eyes. But it is not to be.

Rest easy my cherished friend.

Ladies, I know, I should have listened earlier and better. I do not know how I could ever repay your kindness and goodwill.

Finally, to my loyal Argentinian co-heart, Heather Spoliansky,

for her many years of remarkable endurance and tolerance

during this excruciating and seemingly endless undertaking.

Muchas Gracias, Mi Vida! Te quiero Mucho            

Forward

The memoir boom, which seemed to dominate the early 1990s, has slowed somewhat but remains a valued mirror of the times, events, and traumas all of us have experienced.

Many memoirs are clearly great reads but present a sugar-coated peek at the lives of the authors. Others are just wonderful exaggerations of nearly everything.

John Goofy Pierson’s is a warts-and-all page-turner taking us from Boy Scouting in rural Oklahoma to high school, college, and military football fields. The ebbs and flows of football were a major shaper of John’s life. He went to the University of Oklahoma to play football, transferred to the University of New Mexico because of football, and much of his early military career involved football.

But this isn’t a sports memoir because, in college, he discovered a Marine Corps leadership program that took him from close-order drills to seats in the aircraft of war.

And like many of us growing up in the 50s and 60s, romance and, yes, sex were also prominent in John’s life when at the top of the charts was Love Letters in the Sand and later The Doors directing us to Light My Fire! And John lit some fires.

So, buckle up. Get a good grip. You’ll hold your breath as John’s helicopter takes Viet Cong machine gun fire from the jungles of Vietnam, to the time he found himself in the Juarez hoosgow wondering with booze-induced fear if he was going to get out of there alive.

You’ll find yourself becoming a member of the Brain Committee, cheering for John, cautioning John, and being so grateful that he survived to share this terrific story.

By Dennis A. Britton

May, 2023

Dennis Britton is a retired journalist. He spent 25 years at The Los Angeles Times, where he was responsible for national, foreign, and business news. He was also editor-in-chief of both the Chicago Sun-Times and the Denver Post.

Prologue

It was the suggestion of one of my early AA sponsors, in the summer of 1983, that I should write down all the past or present significant events or circumstances which have brought anguish, regret, or pain into my life. The original idea included the concept of ridding myself of bad memories by wadding up the written words and throwing them away or burning them to represent the physical act of leaving behind or dismissing and then forgiving myself for my part in the events. As you can see by some of the episodes, I was not always able to completely follow the suggestion to throw away the physical evidence. Sometimes, when the deepest sadness or most painful regrets sent me into a black hole of depression, I followed the directions entirely, and for the most part, it worked. But of course, the memories are still there on the dark side of the computer. Or these days in cloud storage, and they remain in the recesses of my mind to crop up when least expected. More and more stories are revealed as I peel the layers of memory.

Readers, assuming there will be more than one, should understand that the stories in this book are related to my life as I lived it when I was in my late teens through early forties, during college(s), and as I built a career in the Marine Corps related, as nearly as I can remember, to what happened as much as 60 years ago, or more, when I flashback to my earlier teens. As you will see, I was not always physically present in all the stories, and sometimes, even when I was physically present, in some instances, an alcohol-induced memory loss forced me to rely on the more clear and sober recollections of others. Also, I’ve included some of my favorite stories, in which I have used fictional characters to protect the identity of the actual people. When you read the stories, I think you will understand why.

Fortunately, I’ve found a new way of living. I am now earning the privilege of living a self-examined life, making intentional, meaningful decisions rather than just existing and muddling through. While my life is not perfect, to say the least, I do not live with an expectation of perfection. The brain committee has learned being sober is not just about not drinking, although it is an obvious prerequisite because one drink can lead to one bottle, and one bottle can lead to an extended drunk, and an extended drunk can lead to jail or death. Living life sober is a great adventure and a process through which I travel while learning to live my life better. My greatest regret in life is that I did not find sobriety sooner. I could have been a better husband. I could have been a better father. I could have been a better student. I might have been a better marine. Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda. I know. I shouldn’t dwell on it.

When I was growing up in Oklahoma, I was influenced by my father, Boy Scout leaders, coaches, ministers, and teachers. The most predominant of these became constant reminders of how I should live my life. I never saw any of them drunk or even drinking, as a matter of fact. Oklahoma was a dry state by law when I was growing up in the 40s and 50s. But getting alcohol would have been as easy as finding the ever-present boot-leger, and 3.2% beer was available at a grocery store, except on Sundays. But, growing up, I never thought about drinking, much less about getting intentionally drunk.

When our family moved from the country to the city and the household icebox became a refrigerator, Dad would keep a couple of bottles of 3.2% long-neck beer around so he could have one on a hot weekend after working in the yard. I was a junior in high school when I tasted beer at Dad’s invitation and didn’t like it. It just tasted bitter to me. Also, one of my high school friends, Ron Adkins’ father, had a glass, barrel-shaped dispenser with a pump to serve bourbon into shot glasses stored conveniently around the base of the barrel. Of course, one day, we tried it, and to me, it tasted worse than the beer. We replaced the alcohol we had consumed with water and never touched it again. The one shot we took did not have any effect on me.

As a freshman at OU, I was rushed by a fraternity wanting to pledge football players as a status thing. At a party in the boondocks, they served a poor man’s Bloody Mary, which was made of 3.2% beer and tomato juice over ice, in a wash tub. It tasted good, and I drank so much of it I was sick and threw up over and over for the next two days. I didn’t drink any alcohol for three years after this episode, and I still can’t stand the smell of tomato juice.

Everything changed when I found bourbon and Coca-Cola during my last semester of college. It tasted good, and I liked the effect it had on me. Eventually, it washed away all those goodie-two-shoes advisors from my younger days, and I began enjoying the supposed benefits of alcohol. It acted as a great pain killer. You must have seen movies with the Doc giving alcohol to the wounded warrior before he cut off his leg, right? It’s true. If you can get enough alcohol in your belly, you won’t feel a thing. My favorite mixed drink of all time was Vodka and Valium, although I only did it when I was sent home from a Navy Hospital in the summer of 1974, with orders NOT to mix them. Of course, I did anyway. The combination works great for physical pain as well as bad memories, nightmares, mental anguish, and depression. Until it doesn’t. It always takes more and more to achieve the same effect, and then eventually, no matter how much you drink, it doesn’t work for the mental afflictions. It does continue to work for physical pain. But, in fact, it makes the mental problems worse. I quit the Valium when the prescription ran out. It wasn’t a hard thing to do at the time because, in those days, alcohol was enough. However, the process of getting drunk enough to want to get sober took over 20 years. From the winter of 1962 to the spring of 1983, I replaced everyone on my mental advisory staff, which I call my committee, with whoever or whatever I heard or felt might make me happy or, at least, less sad, or have less pain, or fewer nightmares.

Eventually, my drinking led me to AA, and AA led me to sobriety. Yes, along with several well-qualified and respected leaders, my Higher Power, which I choose to call God, finally occupies the chairman’s seat on the committee and has veto power over proposals by other members. The jerk who used to say, Let’s go get drunk and be somebody, has been long gone for four decades. At the time of this writing, I am celebrating 40 years as of June 1, 2023, one day at a time, and I don’t miss him at all. The VA is taking care of the nightmares and the physical pain, and AA is handling the unforgettable, gut-wrenching anguish, regret, and misery.

All in all, life is mostly good now – better than expected, longer surely, and certainly better than I deserve. I was a pretty good athlete in my youth. Not the best by far, an All-American in Junior College. I was barely an average undergraduate student, with a final 2.001 GPA. Even so, I became a school-trained Marine Corps Career Advisory Counselor, finishing first in my class. Also, nearly ten years after graduation from college, in 1972, I managed to get a double master’s degree in Education and Psychology with nearly all postgraduate A grades for a 3.86 GPA.

I was a decent Marine Corps Officer. But a good way from the best. Overall, I managed an honorable career and medically retired early as a Major in 1981. I turned out to be a pretty good pilot – starting from scratch in flight school, having never even been in an aircraft, much less flown one, to retiring after flying many different types of aircraft, including single-engine reciprocating helicopters, multi-engine jet helicopters, conventional and jet fixed-wing aircraft and setting a World Record for Cross Country Distance in a Straight Line, in Class C.1.f, Group II, in the multi-engine, turbo-prop OV-10A, Bronco.

Contents

Acknowledgments

Forward

Prologue

Brooklyn

The Triumvirate

First Love - 1957

The End of Forever

Temporary Insanity

Spring – 1963

Destination Pensacola - July 1963

Into Action

The Weekender

Third Time’s a Charm

Embarkation

TransPac

Debarkation

Qui Nhon - November 1965

Night Medevac

Routine Mission

Happy Hour

A Lot of Firsts – 1967-68

Detachment Charlie - 1968

The Blue Dragon Brigade

Back in the Saddle

Peace Time - War Plans

A World Record?

The Aftermath

Duty Calls

Far East Again

Sobriety

Reflections – 2023

Brooklyn

T

he siren went off just a few seconds after the first round hit, and we were already running to the above-ground bunker just outside our hut. It wasn’t far, but if there were a round on the way, it would hit before we could all get in. We had not talked about an evacuation plan. In fact, no one had even mentioned the bunker. However, judging from the direction everyone was running, it was obvious they had noted where it was and how to get there.

We were not the first occupants of the building, as it was built a few years before we arrived. This was our first experience with incoming fire since we had arrived only a few weeks earlier. The bunker had been there for a while, but no one had bothered to see what it was like on the inside. The outside was just green sandbags, double stacked to make walls about 18 inches wide and almost four feet high. The sandbags were also double stacked on top of a double layer of Marston Mat to make the roof. The bags were green because it was the camouflage color for the jungle nearby, but we were on flat sand in a treeless area next to a broad river. From the air, the bunkers looked like big, black bullseyes against the creamy sand. The mats holding the roof bags were left over from the instant aircraft runways and taxiways built by Navy Construction Battalions (CB-Seabees). Marston Mat, more properly called ‘pierced (or perforated) steel planking (PSP), is standardized, perforated steel matting material developed by the United States at the Waterways Experiment Station shortly before World War II, primarily for the rapid construction of temporary landing strips. Our Marston Mat and sandbag bunker looked like it could easily take a mortar hit nearby and probably survive a nearby artillery hit, but it looked to me like it would not withstand a direct hit by mortars and certainly would not survive a direct hit by an artillery round.

Diving inside the low, narrow, zig-zag entry into the bunker, I caught Shoo’s heel on my chin. He was barefoot, so no damage was done. We scrambled to find places to sit up against the sandbag sides. The ceiling was low, so tall guys needed to scoot down on the sand a little. It was so dark we couldn’t see each other until someone hit a Zippo to light up a smoke, which immediately raised an objection by a rare non-smoker. Who would have thought to bring cigarettes and a lighter to the bunker? Well, someone did. A quick count, allowed by the short-lived light, revealed there were about ten of us huddled there, on our butts with barely enough room to sit with our backs to the walls and our heads nearly touching the roof. And there could probably be enough room for another two or three if we squeezed in a little more. In total, there were twelve of us quartered in our Quonset hut, also built by Seabees. Usually, one or two of us would be flying, or be on standby to fly, or at watch duty of one sort or another.

We sat there in silence in the dark. There were no conversations in the bunker; someone would occasionally crack a joke or tell a short off-color story, which brought forth maybe a low chuckle. But silence was the main response.Our usual joviality was not present.

We had been asleep, or at least everyone had been in bed with the lights off when the attack began. So, as far as I could tell, everyone was mostly in undershorts and maybe a T-shirt if they had been sleeping in one. So, it was obvious, no one had hesitated to run to safety like you might do for an earthquake to see if it would get worse.

The incoming rounds seemed far away as the sounds came from the other side of the airfield or on the airstrip and seemed of a relatively small caliber, like 81-millimeter mortars, rather than artillery like 105mm or 155mm Howitzers. Occasionally, a larger explosion rattled the ground beneath us like one of the rounds had hit an ammo stockpile or a refueling cell.

After one of the larger explosions, the ground shook, and someone exclaimed, God, I hope that wasn’t one of our planes!

We all seemed to know it wasn’t meant as a prayer. It was more of an in vain comment or wishful thinking. God doesn’t have anything to do with war, right? If He did, war wouldn’t exist, would it?

The wait between incoming rounds made it seem like it would last all night. Every time there was a long interval when we thought it might be over, there would be another volley of fire. As I sat there, listening to the quiet breathing around me and an occasional disgruntled murmur, my mind started to drift away. I imagined the longer intervals between volleys occurred when the enemy troops were moving their positions to make it more difficult for our marine mortars and artillery to zero in and return fire on their location. Then, as my mind drifted toward our marines, I wondered what our perimeter security was like on this sprawling base in the middle of a large open plain next to a broad river, flowing slowly across the flat land as it approached the nearby ocean.

My stint as a Platoon Commander during a previous tour of duty at Ky Ha Helicopter Base in 1965 had been much simpler. My reinforced, 60-man platoon consisted of aircraft maintenance and office personnel from our HMM-363 helicopter squadron. Our perimeter was on the edge of a fifty-foot-high cliff, overlooking a sandy beach of an eastern shoreline about a hundred yards away. The space between was heavily covered with native trees and shrubs up to the base of our cliff and somewhat up the cliff's sides.

A Seabee unit was on our left flank, on a peninsula projecting northeasterly from our front as we faced the ocean. Our right flank was protected along the cliff to the south by another reinforced platoon from a sister squadron. The flat part of the land we were protecting, as part of the airfield, was westerly behind our position on the cliff and was bordered further west by a dirt road. From there, a slope rose about a hundred and fifty feet to a ridge line about 200 yards west of the airfield, and we were protected on the west side of the ridge by a battalion of regular Fleet Marine Force Units. The slope from the airfield to the ridge line contained the tents of most of the air group marines, but our platoon lived in two-man pup tents/shelter-halves at our perimeter defense positions. I knew where every man in my platoon was dug in and where every supporting unit was located next to us and around us.

As a recent round of volleys brought me back to the bunker, it suddenly dawned on me I had not seen any perimeter defense positions or personnel since arriving at Quang Tri. We were on a remote area of the base with the river to our east,and maybethere were patrols through this perimeter area I just hadn’t seen?

The closest thing to ground combat we had seen since our short-term arrival consisted of the Air Group Intelligence Officer greeting us with a fake gas attack to scare us into carrying our gas masks with us at all times. Brooklyn, Shoo, and I were carrying Shoo’s newly acquired armoire’ from our temporary quarters into ournewly assigned permanent quarters when a gas grenade was thrown near us. We were just lifting the huge, heavy wooden armoire over the four-foot-high sandbags, forming the S shaped entry, when we heard it explode. We first felt the impact and then smelled it. Brooklyn immediatelylet go of his corner of the furniture and disappeared, running off into the dark. Shoo and I dropped the rest of the unbalanced piece on the walls of sandbags and began coughing and rubbing our eyes. We soon realized it was some type of tear gas, recognizing the smell from our training days and the fact that we weren’t dying.

Brooklyn soon returned as suddenly as he had gone, brandishing three gas masks. He had been away for maybe only 30 to 45 seconds. He had quickly run to our old quarters, where he grabbed all three of our gas masks and returned before putting on his own. As it turned out, we didn’t put them on and instead headed to the showers, where we could rinse our eyes. If the attack had been real, Brooklyn would have been responsible for saving our lives. It’s just the way he is. He always put others before himself. He was our hero and was one of the most decorated pilots of the Vietnam era.

As we rubbed our watering eyes, Shoo and I were so outraged at the Intelligence Officer we threatened to beat him within an inch of his life. Well, we only made the threats among our outraged selves because the Group Intelligence Officer, apart from being an asshole, was also a major, and we were junior captains.

Finally, there came a longer-than-usual lull in the action, and an all clear was quietly passed among the quarters by the roving security patrols, including an admonishment to continue light security. We surmised, among ourselves, since an all-clear siren was not sounded by the marine infantry and artillery, we wouldn’t be letting the enemy know what we were doing.

But what did we know? While all marines are trained as riflemen initially, we were now pilots. Our weaponry consisted of airborne guns and rockets, which were connected as Tactical Air Coordinators by radios to bigger airborne guns, rockets, and all kinds of bombs, as well as artillery and naval gunfire. On the ground, we were armed with measly 38-caliber revolver pistols with only six rounds of tracer ammunition. We weren’t even supposed to kill anyone, even if we were near the enemy. We were only supposed to fire the tracer in the air so someone would see it and rescue us.

We were stiff and grumpy from being cooped up in the damp and musty quarters, so I stretched on the way from the bunker to the Quonset hut. As I straightened out my joints, I heard the click of the Zippo again and turned to find Shoo lighting a cigarette. He was, of course, cupping the flame to suppress the light. I chuckled to myself as I realized he was the one who had thought to bring cigarettes to the bunker. The pack and lighter must not have been more than a few inches from his sleeping hand when the alarm went off. I don’t think I had ever seen him without a cigarette for more than a few minutes unless he was on the helicopter flight controls with a collective in his left hand and a cyclic in the right. Now, these days, we were flying fixed-wing aircraft again, primarily at low altitudes where extra oxygen was not required, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he was flying trimmed up, with the oxygen and face mask off and a lit cigarette hanging out of his mouth next to the radio mike boom.

I stopped and waited for him, You got another one of those, Shoo?

Sure.He shook the pack and shoved it forward so I could pull one out, flipped the Zippo open, cupped it to hide the light, and lit it for me.

I pretty much knew it was you who lit one in the bunker, Shoo. You always seem to have them at the ready.

Yeah. But it was kinda nerve-wracking in there with the cigarettes and lighter in my hands and being unable to smoke.

I can imagine; I craved it too, but it probably wasn’t as bad since I didn’t have mine with me anyway.

Pretty claustrophobic, too, he offered as we entered the darkened Quonset hut.

Since we had been sleeping earlier, all the lights were off when the alarm sounded. Also, we didn’t usually have the overhead room lights on because we didn’t want to stand out for the enemy artillery to spot. The windows consisted of cut-outs in the curved aluminum siding, which had been replaced with translucent, corrugated sheets made from a blend of plastic and fiberglass, which would let the daylight in, and the inside lighting could be seen from the outside at night. Curtains were not necessary for privacy, but someone had covered the inside of the openings with a dark cloth to minimize our exposure at night. Several guys had small, downward projecting reading lamps near their cots, which did not compromise the blackout.

I had the first bed on the left, just after the wall between our common area and our individual living spaces. Our common area was located at the front of the building. Although both ends of the building were identical from the outside, the one we called the front was on the west end, and it contained a separate room with an old stuffed couch, a couple of old stuffed chairs, a card table with four folding chairs, and a refrigerator.

Shortly after we had moved in, there was an incident in the common area when there came a noise from an explosion, which sounded like a hand grenade. Shoo and I were closest to the door, but Warrior Brooklyn, at my feet on my side of the building, beat us to the door and flung it open with his pistol at the ready. He was prepared to defend us from any invaders who might be following the grenade. When the door flew open, we could see dark red material splattered all over the ceiling and oozing down the walls. My first thought was someone must have gotten blown up in the blast. But we didn’t find a body.

As Brooklyn pushed out the front door, we followed and cautiously crouched behind the sandbags. Of course, there weren’t any intruders, and we soon solved the mystery when a blown-up can was found. Someone had requisitioned a large (#10) tin can of raspberries, which had been sitting on top of the refrigerator for a couple of weeks or so. Apparently, the warm weather and heat rising from the cooling coils of the fridge heated and pressurized the can to the bursting point. I never asked Brooklyn if he had hard ammo in his pistol or if he was carrying tracers like the rest of us pilots, pretending to be warriors. The Raspberry Attack was destined to become one of those forever stories often told at happy hour and reunions.

As I returned to reality, I was relieved to find the mortar attack seemed to be truly over, and eventually, we all settled into our racks again. My rack was aligned parallel along the wall underneath a window, as were most of the others, but Shoo put his perpendicular to the wall with his head toward the outside and his huge armoire at the foot.

I was tired from the events of the late-night attack and fell asleep almost immediately but was suddenly awakened by something like a large stick or bat hitting me. I was sleeping under a sheet and blanket, which I pushed up to try to get my arms and feet free to fight. But I tangled up with the blanket instead and continued taking the hits. I finally managed to get my feet free but felt something cutting my right foot. I thought it must have been the bastards who were attacking the base earlier, and they had come to attack us in our quarters. I also thought the bastards were trying to cut my throat, but instead, they got the wrong end in the dark.

That’s when I screamed. Yeah, I was scared, and I was hurt! I couldn’t seem to get my hands on whoever it was, and I couldn’t grab whatever it was he was hitting me with. When I screamed, the overhead lights came on almost immediately, and Brooklyn also let out a blood-curdling scream. He was the first thing I saw as he moved in a crouched position toward me, pointing his pistol and looking around the room for my attackers.

He must have gotten away, the brain committee interjected. As I looked around, I found a four-foot-long piece of finished wood lying on the floor amongst the blanket, sheet, and pillow. Damn! Now, I’m a fool.

Apparently, the larger, secondary explosions had shaken our building enough to loosen the windowsill above me. It had fallen on me in my deep sleep, and every time I tried to fling it away, it came back down and hit me again. Also, in the middle of the fight, I had stuck my foot into Brooklyn’s fan, which was on a table at the foot of my cot. It was a small, high-speed fan with bare blades exposed without a cage or guard, so it was cutting my foot.

All my hooch mates were up in no time and helping to figure out what had happened. Some were empathetic, but most were laughing at what turned out to be a hilarious story, which everyone on the base had heard about within hours the following day. I still have nightmares about it more than fifty years later.

My hero, Brooklyn, helped me get to sick bay to get stitches in my heel. Yes, my hero! While we were working in the southern part of the I Corps and II Corps on our first Vietnam tour in 1965, our friend Brooklyn was working in the northern I Corps near the demilitarized zone with North Vietnam. Within the first few weeks of our arrival at Quang Tri, Vietnam, he had saved my life and the lives of our hooch mates on three separate occasions. He should have been awarded a Navy-Marine Corps Medal for heroism because it doesn’t matter whether the situations were real or not; they were all perceived to be deadly at the time. Whether it was a gas attack, a hand grenade attack, or an invasion of our quarters, Brooklyn was always ready to fling himself into the midst of chaos to fight and protect his fellow marines. He is, by far, the fiercest and most talented combat helicopter pilot and combat close air support pilot I have ever known. He is the epitome of a fearless warrior, in the air and on the ground.

Brooklyn is shorter than average but with slightly larger shoulders and a rounded form, sort of like a muscular bell pepper, if you could imagine it. Black wavy hair, dark brown eyes, heavy dark eyebrows, and a pleasant round face all seem to both belie and endorse his Italian heritage. We first met in Pensacola, Florida, while we were students at the Naval Aviation Flight School. He was an enlisted candidate, known as a MARCAD (Marine Corps Aviation Cadet), who would be commissioned upon completion of flight school, and I was a Second Lieutenant, going through flight school as an officer, having been commissioned upon graduation from college. He swears we met when I threw him out of a keg party at our beach house on Santa Rosa Island. The story may be accurate, but I do not remember it now. And if it is true, it was probably because he crashed the party. Enlisted cadets, navy, and marine flight students were doing the exact same job the officers were doing. But they did this on much lower pay and were known to be very bold about crashing parties or hanging around bars, hustling drinks at pool tables, or confiscating a pitcher of beer off an empty table while the patrons were dancing. Large parties, like our keg parties, where crowd control would naturally be a problem, were usually easy targets for them.

I ran into Brooklyn again and became friends when he was a Marine Second Lieutenant with his Naval Aviator Wings serving in Vietnam. Brooklyn was one of the most decorated pilots of the Vietnam War era. The first story we heard about Brooklyn happened while he was stationed in Hue-Phu Bai, RVN. He was assigned to a mission called ‘Search and Rescue (SAR) North’ and was flying an H-34D helicopter as a wingman in a two-plane flight. SAR North was a stand-by mission located at Quang Tri, South Vietnam, near the DMZ between North and South Vietnam. The purpose of the mission was to stand by to launch and search for fixed-wing attack pilots who were shot down in the southern part of North Vietnam. The mission was launched, and the pilot was eventually located through communication on his hand-held rescue radio and by visual identification of his parachute lying out on top of the jungle canopy.

The rest of the story is legendary among Marine Corps helicopter pilots of the Dog era in which the Flight Leader, Major Bob Levan, is Dash One and Brooklyn is Dash Two. It goes as follows:

On his UHF radio, the Flight Leader called the downed pilot,

Knight One, this is Ugly Angel Dash One. We see your parachute spread out on the treetops. What’s your status? Are you ready for pick-up?

Ugly Angel, this is Knight One. I see you approaching from the south. I’ve not heard any enemy activity in the area. I’m detached from the chute and ready for pick-up. I’m about a hundred feet above ground on top of the canopy, and I’m ready to get the hell outta here!

Dash Two, is your hook working? Here, the lead aircraft pilot was referring to an electrical wench on the right side of the aircraft, adjacent to the side door opening, which is operated by the crew chief. The hook is at the end of a wire cable on the wench, which can be lowered to haul up wounded or other passengers or cargo when the aircraft is not able to land. In this case, a rescue loop was attached to the hook, and the downed pilot would have been able to stick his arms through the loop to be hauled out.

Affirmative, Dash One, my hook is good to go.

Looks like you’re gonna have to get him, Dash Two. Our hook is down.

Roger, Dash One. We’ll pick him up.

Brooklyn had been holding in orbit off to the side and above the rescue scene, and at this point, he began a slow descent near the top of the jungle canopy to a position above and to the side of the downed pilot.

Dash Two, commencing approach.

"Dash One, roger.

As Brooklyn’s aircraft came close to a hover, about fifty feet above and to the side of the downed pilot, he realized there was not enough engine power available to stop the descent and hold the hover. The thinner air at the higher altitude above sea level, and a lack of ground effect over the jungle canopy, combined to create a situation where the rotor blade angle of attack was too high for the available engine power to maintain rotor blade speed. With the left hand, the pilot must twist fully to the left with a motorcycle-like throttle on the end of the collective, which creates full power by adding fuel to the engine. Pulling the collective arm upward increases the rotor blade angle of attack, which increases lift, if there is enough engine power to keep the blades turning. If there is not enough power to maintain a hover, the aircraft will start to sink, and the pilot must milk the collective downward to reduce the rotor blade angle of attack while maintaining full power with the throttle, to gain rotor head speed, and then, milk the collective back up while trying to keep the rotor head speed from deteriorating. This must be accomplished while maneuvering the aircraft to a better position with the pilot’s right hand on the cyclic and his feet on the rudder controls. In this case, the effort was fruitless. A hover at the required altitude could not be maintained with the power available, and the aircraft began to sink into the top of the jungle canopy.

Looks like you’re gonna have to join me, Angel, the downed pilot remarked.

Not if I can help it, Knight One!

Still sinking slowly, he kicked right rudder to alleviate some of the necessity for power to maintain heading and slipped away down the hillside, hoping to stay above the treetops until he could gain an advantage by getting to a lower altitude with higher density.

You can’t land here, Brooklyn! His co-pilot was obviously having an exciting ride.

The aircraft continued to slip down and into the top of the jungle canopy. (If you are not a pilot, slip means to fly sideways using the rudders. In this case, using the right rudder because, in this helicopter, right rudder pressure reduces the lift requirement on the tail rotor, which reduces the overall power requirement.)

You can’t land here! the co-pilot yelled a little more excitedly and a lot more nervously.

But the aircraft continued to sink, and the rotor blades began to cut into the top of the jungle canopy like blender blades chopping lettuce.

Danang DASC, this is Ugly Angel Dash One on a Search and Rescue Mission for Knight One.

Brooklyn’s aircraft descended below the canopy overgrowth into the tall trees and became invisible from above. He deftly maneuvered left and right and continued to fly down the hillside underneath the canopy, cutting down the small trees with the rotor blades, dodging the big trees, and occasionally bouncing against the side of the hill with his main landing gear or tail wheel.

Ugly Angel Dash One – Da Nang DASC, go ahead.

We’ve located the downed pilot, but my wingman has crashed while trying to extract him from the jungle. I don’t have a working hook, so we are going to need another mission to extract the downed pilot and any surviving members of my wingman’s crew.

You can’t land here, Brooklyn! the co-pilot screamed as the aircraft descended below the upper canopy of the jungle.

Does it look like I’m trying to land? Brooklyn was exasperated at the necessity to explain himself.

Ugly Angel Dash One, do you have the location of the crash site?

Da Nang DASC, Ugly Angel Dash One, Negative. We have the position where they entered the jungle. But I do not have sight of any fire or wreckage.

Ugly Angel Dash One, what is the nearest known position to the crash?

Da Nang DASC, Ugly Angel Dash One, those coordinates are the same as the location we reported earlier for the downed pilot, Knight One.

Roger, Ugly Angel Dash One. Your new SAR mission has been ordered.

Knight One, we have another flight on the way to get you out. We’ll stay with you until they arrive.

Knight One, roger.

Da Nang DASC, Ugly Angel Dash One.

Go ahead, Ugly Angel Dash One.

Da Nang DASC, Ugly Angel Dash One has Ugly Angel Dash Two in sight. He came roaring out from under the jungle canopy about a mile and a half southeast of where he went in. We do not have contact with him. But it looks like he’s headed for Hue-Phu Bai.

Brooklyn’s aircraft was in a bad state. The radios were not working. The clamshell doors on the front of the aircraft, covering the engine, were gone, and the bare engine hung out below the craft like a naked pregnancy bump.