The Team House - MACV-SOG Huey Crew Chief and Door Gunner | Roger Lockshier | Ep. 204

Episode Date: April 27, 2023

Roger Lockshier enlisted in the US Army in April 1966. After completing Airborne (Paratrooper) Jump Training at Fort Benning GA, he was assigned to Aviation Battalion 101st Airborne Division, Fort Campbell Kentucky, December 1966. In December of 1967 the 101st Airborne Division was transferred to Viet Nam. Lockshier was a Crewchief / Doorgunner with the 101st Airborne's Black Angels Huey Helicopter Gunships assigned to provide combat support to the 101st Airborne and 5th Special Forces MACVSOG. He returned to the States in December of 1968. Lockshier was the recipient of several awards: • Two time recipient of The Distinguished Flying Cross • Bronze Star • Purple Heart • Air Medal with "V" Device • 19 Air Medals • Army Commendation Medal • Army Presidential Unit Citation 101st Airborne • Army Presidential Unit Citation Special Forces Khe Sahn • Army Presidential Unit Citation MACVSOG (Special Ops) • Navy Presidential Unit Citation Khe Sahn Lockshier lives in Oxford CT with Barbara his wife of 52 years. He and his wife have two sons, Roger, Jr. and his wife Allison living in North Carolina with their four children Andrew, Lucas, Sophie, & Jude, and Jeff and his wife Jennifer living in Oxford CT with their two children Dylan, and Samantha. You can contact Roger at [e-mail] Grab his book here:⬇️ https://www.amazon.com/We-Saved-SOG-Souls-Airborne/dp/B09NRC4ZB4 Today's Sponsors: SAP Gear (Stately Asset Protection)  https://SAPGEAR.com Veteran-owned company, Stately Asset Protection’s retail store specializes in handmade and unique survivability products. Use the code “TEAM” for 15% off your order! https://SAPGEAR.com Thank you for supporting the companies that support the show ! To help support the show and for all bonus content including: -AD FREE AUDIO -AD FREE VIDEO -Access to ALL bonus segments with our guests Subscribe to our Patreon! ⬇️ https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouse Team House merch: ⬇️ https://teespring.com/stores/my-store-10474963 Social Media: ⬇️ The Team House Instagram: https://instagram.com/the.team.house?utm_medium=copy_link The Team House Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheTeamHousePod Jack’s Instagram: https://instagram.com/jackmcmurph?utm_medium=copy_link Jack’s Twitter:  https://twitter.com/jackmurphyrgr?s=21 Dave’s Twitter:  https://twitter.com/dave_parke?s=21 Team House Discord: ⬇️ https://discord.gg/wHFHYM6 SubReddit: ⬇️ https://www.reddit.com/r/TheTeamHouse/ Jack Murphy's memoir "Murphy's Law" can be found here:⬇️  https://www.amazon.com/Murphys-Law-Journey-Investigative-Journalist/dp/1501191241 The Team Room Reading Room (Amazon Affiliate links):⬇️  https://jackmurphywrites.com/the-team-room-reading-room/ Intro music by https://www.youtube.com/user/RemixSample Want to sponsor the show? Email: ⬇️ [e-mail] #macvsog #vietnamBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support.

Hey, folks, I just want to take a minute to ask you to go in rate this podcast, let the Teamhouse know how you think we're doing, go and rate us on whatever platform you're listening to this on, whether it's iTunes or Spotify or whatever else. Those ratings really help us out, and we really appreciate the feedback to let us know what you like and what you don't like. And if you do like the Team House and you'd like to support us, go check out our Patreon page and you can actually support the stream and well as get access to our team house. and you'd like to support us, go check out our Patreon page, and you can actually support the stream and well as get access to our bonus segments and bonus episodes. Yeah, if you're going to give us a great review, please do. And if you're going to give us a not-so-good review,

why don't you just send us an email and we'll talk about it. Special Operations, covert ops, espionage, the team house, with your hopes, Jack Murphy, and David Park. Hey everybody, welcome to the Team House, episode 204. I'm David Park, co-host Jack Murphy, and tonight with us is Roger Lachshire.

MacVee's SOG, Huey Crew Chief, and Doorgunner wrote the great book, We Saved Sog Souls. And I just, I want to get this right, Roger. You are two-time recipient of the Distinguished Flying Crush. Correct. That's fantastic. I just want to remind everyone

at the top, please like, share, and subscribe to the channel. And if you want to get these episodes ad-free, there's a link to our Patreon down in the description. So back to Roger. So, Roger, tell us

what is your origin story? How did you get the superpowers of being a crew chief and door gunner? How did you grow up? And did you come from a military? family? I do not. I've had uncles that were in the military during World War II and an uncle that was in the 82nd Airborne during the 1950s during peacetime. But no, I didn't come from military family

other than I did have a brother that served in a National Guard and whatnot, older brother. But I became interested in getting into the military early on when, kind of when Kennedy took office. And then when he was assassinated, that kind of resonated, the Vietnam War was kicking in in full swing. And I wanted to serve. And I went into the Army with the intention of going to go. going into special forces. So my recruiter said the only way to go that way is to join airborne unassigned,

which was pretty clever on his part. Sure. So in my naivity, I said, yeah, let's do it. And so I went in. And when I got through basic training, I'm expecting to get my orders to go to jump school and then on my way to SF qualification. However, it didn't happen that way.

I got my orders for AIT down at Fort Rucker, Alabama. And I asked our assistant platoon leader what this is all about. I thought I was going to jump school. And he said, no, you have to do this first. And you know, you get MOS in your background. and then you move on from there. So I did. Went down to Fort Rucker.

Did very well. I maxed out all the schools that were available for me. I was fortunate enough to be at the top of my class through each of the four classes that I attended, the four different schools. And then finally went to jump school. after jump school at the end of jump school right in the last few days i met with the sf recruiter and believe it or not he advised me to hold off he said there's such a shortage in the infantry ranks right now

if for any reason and i don't i don't think there would be but if for any reason you had a problem going through SF qualification, he said, they're going to totally ignore your current MOS and send you right to a straight to a line outfit. And he said, what I recommend you do is, I've seen your orders. You're going to the first airborne aviation unit. And he said, get some months under your belt. Get some experience under your belt so that when you do go for qualification, if you run into a problem, going through SF, they'll send you back to your unit because you're already established and whatnot. So I thought that made sense.

It sounded okay. Wasn't what I was planning, but I'll give it a try. So I did and went to 1001st and absolutely loved being with 1001st. It was an outstanding organization at that time. the opportunities for learning new things, which I was kind of a sponge at the time, and I couldn't get enough. So I did very well there. And we started out with the little whirly birds, the OH-13s and the OH-23s that looked like a, looks sort of like a dragonfly, these small observation helicopters.

Then in the spring of 1967, we got our Hueys. We got our C models. Sea models are gun chips. So it was obvious. We're going to be setting up with gun chips. And I really liked the Ui's. And went to school for, I think it was four weeks, training on the Ui's, went to weapons school

school for training on the mini guns and and the rockets, the rocket pods, the 2.7 rocket, rockets, and I was really having a good time. And in the meantime, during all of this, another opportunity arose. My first sergeant called me into his office and he said, me and my buddy of mine. He said, I've got an opportunity for you. He said, I think you might. You might might be interested in and he said, they're looking for people to qualify to go to a deep diving school that they're setting up. They're setting up a group of Army hard hat divers. And he said, I think you would like that, you know. So yeah, okay, why do we go? And so then he said to me and my friend, he said there's one catch.

He said, if you fail to qualify, don't come back. He said, I don't care where you go. I don't care where you go. You don't come back to my company. We don't have losers. We won't have losers in this company. Now, so, you know, I just want to clarify real quick before we move on. When you went to Fort Rucker, you went there to be a, it's a crew member, right,

for like a helicopter crew member? Well, it started off. The first class at Fort Rucker was basic aircraft maintenance. Okay. So it was fixed wing, you know. And then it progressed into, by the time I did the last training class, I was trained on CH34s, the Sikorsky-CH-34s, which I would later come in contact with, with SOG operating out of FOP1.

But I didn't get Huey training until I got to Fort Campbell until we got those ships. So, yeah. So going back to just going back a bit to that train, I said, sure, you know, I'll go for it. I said, but you're going to have to give us time, time to train. You know, we don't know what the training is going to involve, but it's going to be endurance. for sure, and it was going to be tested on base at Fort Campbell. And we had about a month to prepare. So he said, take whatever time you want.

I'll assign a Jeep for you guys just to use to go over to Kentucky Lakes and train your ass off. So I thought it was a pretty good opportunity. He said that the way it looks is this is going to be a very, very exclusive unit. and they're going to be stationed out of California. Part of your training is going to go through Bud's training, but it's not a training to knock you out. It's a training. He said, once you're accepted, it's a program, you're in.

If you pass the testing and you're accepted, you're in. They're not going to try, you know, it's not training to break you. It's training to teach. And so we finished there, and he said, said, he said, okay, the CEO wants to see you two now. So we went in and met our CEO. He said the exact same thing that our first sergeant said. He said, you know, you're sure you want to do this. And we said, well, yeah. He said, okay, well, I wish you luck and I think you'll do well. He said, but if you fail, disappear. You don't come back here. So anyway, make a long story short.

We trained and trained and trained. We took the test, and we were well prepared for the test. It was endurance tests, endurance testing. Endurance, distant swimming. There was endurance underwater holding your breath and, you know, treading water and that sort of thing. Nothing spectacular, but most of the guys that showed up for the testing, most of them failed. And so we passed without any issues whatsoever. And by that time, it was around the end of July.

Early August, orders came down through the division. All orders are canceled. The unit is going to Vietnam in mass. So that took care of my deep diving experience. So yeah, then I was selected as part of the advanced party to take two of our gunships along with all their weapon systems, plus one Jeep, loaded into a C-133, which most people have never heard of, but they're like a C-130 on steroids. They're no longer in service. They were replaced by the 5A's and the 17s and stuff.

But at the time, at the time, they were massive. They were big, big turboprop. aircraft. So we load our aircraft on that, our two gunships, weapons, my buddy, another crew chief, and one lieutenant. We loaded on that aircraft and we made our long six-day journey over to Vietnam. Now, this was, how long had you been at the unit this point in time? It was just under a year. I was. I went to Port Campbell to the 101st, January 1st, 67, and I left there December 3rd or so, first or second or third, and headed over to Vietnam. Now, is this the secret trip?

Yes. Okay, can you tell us like how you were, if there was briefing about that and how that went down? No, there was. we were going over as like I said as an advance party we were going ahead of ahead of our battalion so yes we had briefing and we had to at that time we there was no such thing as subdued insignias and stuff so we we had to take a black magic marker and black out black out our insignias and our name our name tag and the US Army and stuff with a black magic mark marker. And we were told you do not interact with anybody along the way. This is a highly

classified movement. And so that's the way it's going to be. And you understand that. Well, yeah, okay. So we leave Fort Campbell. And we end up, our first stop was Travis Air Force Base in California. And it was dark. we get off the airplane and here's this massive, I mean massive banner, 30 feet long or whatever. Welcome 1001st Air Force Air Force. So we thought so much, so much for the security. Right. And so that kind of set the tone. And we had a good time there. They treated us great. We were only there overnight, but the guys at the Air Force base there, they treated us great. And then we moved on and next stop was Hawaii and so on.

So you get your two birds, right, and your Jeep and you get to Vietnam. And did you guys know what you were going to be doing at that point in time? Well, I didn't know that I would be involved, end up being. involved with Saag. But I did know, obviously, you know, we were a gunship going into combat. Right. You know, gunship crew going into combat. We knew, you know, we had, we had practiced and whatnot at Fort Campbell on the firing ranges and all that sort of thing. And, you know, yeah, we knew we're. And what year was this? 1967. Okay. So, yeah, we're still pretty early in the war. It's early in a war. Yeah. And,

And like I say, being a gun ship, the only reason for the existence of a Huey gunship is for a gunfight. So we knew what we were going into, and quite frankly, we were pretty excited and pretty pumped about being able to put our skills to work and to help people out. I mean, the only time we would get scrambled or the only time we're going to fly is because somebody's in trouble and we need to shoot it out or, you know, run a convoy. But it turned out that there weren't that many convoys that we ran. And there was a whole lot of firefights that we ran. So, yes, I knew what we're getting into as far as that goes. So what was that like for you when your first combat mission out? Because they had, they had substantial.

anti-aircraft, the NVA did. Yes. Well, I didn't run into that until later, until we ended up at Camp Eagle at Wayfouby. And when we started running operations with SOG, that's when that's what happened. But before then, our missions were primarily, you know, in Vietnam within the borders. While we down south in Benoit. Our first base camp was in Benoit, which is only 30 miles north of Saigon, a little northwest. And we were running missions for supporting the 101st Airborne ground troops and some of the other units. And we started running a few missions with for special forces up in on the border areas. We ventured into Cambodia a few times to run some ops and that's where we made our connection, let's say, with special forces.

And so we ran a lot of operations down there. First time I got shot down was down south. It was right after the Tet Offensive. And then the beginning of March of 68, we moved north to Camp Eagle and started our intense relationship with CCN, primarily F-O-B-1 and Kaysan until Kaysan closed. And then Mylock, when Mylock opened up Milak camp launch site, which was up in a Quangtree area. Now, when you first got into country, you had like the best personnel. Your door gunner was squared away, right? Yes. Well, when we first got in country, there was an influx of new personnel. We had some infused, because the entire division went to Vietnam in December of 67, our DeRos was going to be all the same, basically the same time a year later. So naturally, we had to, the division had to work that out. And we had an infusion of people into our unit.

And at the same time, we, you know, there were people removed from our unit. And yes, my first partner, actually my first real partner, my second door gunner, the first one that I had didn't work out. I just, I just didn't feel quite comfortable with him. It was a good kid, a very good kid. He ended up flying with the CNC aircraft for one of the generals aircraft, the assistant commanding general. But unfortunately, this spec 5, he lost his life a couple months later, hopping over our helicopter

revetment and getting clipped by a roller blade and killed him instantly. So he was technically my first door gunner, but that was only a very short period, no more than a couple weeks maybe. But then, yeah, then I got my partner in, a guy by the name of Steve Harper. He was already a combat infantry vet from First Brigade, 1001st Airborne. He was a machine gunner, M60 machine gunner as a ground troop. he knew the weapons like the back of his hand. And he was my partner. We were closer than close to say, to say the least.

Well, I was actually talking about private loser. Okay, private loser. Yeah. Yes. He was never, he was never an assigned door gunner. Okay. He was one of the ones infused into the unit. and it was it was very obvious very quickly that his prior unit saw an opportunity to get rid of this dirt bag

and apparently told him about flight pay and combat pay and all this kind of stuff and he jumped on it but this guy this guy was he was he was unfit to be in the military nonetheless none than to be in an airborne unit. I mean, that was just disgusting. Yeah, private loser. You talk about your first flight out with him when you guys start receiving fire and I guess he's got the M60

sitting in his lap. He's like buckled in. Yeah. Well, yeah, I mean, we handheld, we handheld our M60s. We didn't use them mounted. We didn't use bungee cords. I mean, we just, we held them. And I felt and I was the

unofficial line chief from early on. And I just felt we had more mobility, just free holding those, freestyle. And anyway, yeah, we, I had to take him out on a mission. And we ended up in a firefight. And I'm out in a skid's firing away. And I can see nothing's happening.

You know, I can, there's no trace coming from the other side. other than the mini guns. And after we made our first gun run, I turned on the intercom. I said, what's wrong? And he said, there's something wrong with the M60. And I, you know, I didn't believe him to begin with.

I didn't want him in my aircraft to begin with. So I said, give it to me. We'll switch. So I took it and I told the pilot, listen, I'm going to fire off a few rounds. And, you know, I fired off. There was nothing wrong with the weapon. And so when we got back on the ground, I said, what the hell is going on? And he said, I don't know, it's the gun. It was the machine gun. It didn't work. It wasn't work. And don't blame me and all this and that. So I told him to

clean, all right, clean the weapons while I take care of the aircraft. Well, he didn't, he didn't wouldn't tear it down. He didn't tear it down. And his excuse to me was that, well, they're not, they're really not dirty. So I said, I don't give a shit if they're dirty or not. I want you to strip them down. And this is what we do. And he said, and he just ended up refusing. So I started filing complaints with our first sergeant and told him how he's got to do something about this guy, because he doesn't belong with us. He's no good. He's useless.

And he's going to get somebody killed. I mean, when you're in a gun ship and you're in a firefight, if somebody doesn't, if one person doesn't pull their weight, you are in deep trouble. Because you're vulnerable. I mean, those helicopters are extremely, extremely vulnerable. It doesn't take a lot to penetrate the skin. I mean, you can put a pellet gun through the. side of one of those. So anyway,

one thing led to another, and I get into it in the book. But we ended up we ended up getting rid of them. Yeah, sort of with a bit of prejudice because your partner, like your buddy,

he pulled the private loser pulled the gun on him, right? Yeah. My partner there, Steve, he was a professional soldier. He was a no-nonsense, maybe hardcore, you know, but he was excellent. And he, when we were off, we had downtime, he liked his Jack Daniels. And he doesn't.

Yeah, exactly. So he came back into our hooch one night a little bit, a little bit tipsy. And he banged into this loser's bunk. who his bunk was almost directly across from mine, like a little diagonal from mine. And a verbal fight ensued. And Steve was ready to pop this guy. And this loser came up with one of these curled handle noseguns

and stuck it right in Steve's face and said, I will shoot you MF and whatnot. Oh, boy. Yeah, and so Steve, never wanted to back down. He leans into him, and he said, do it, do it, do it. And so I got a hold of Steve.

Some other crew members got a whole of this loser. And we quieted things down. And so that night, and I, like I said, I knew my partner, knew him well, even though we'd probably only been together a couple weeks. I knew him very well. And I believed in my heart that he wasn't going to let go of this tonight, that night. So I switched bunk. Steve's bunk was a few bunks down from mine near the other end of the hooch. I switched with the guy that was going to sleep next to him.

And he said, he's what the hell are you doing? I said, I'm going to babysit. I said, because I know what you're going to do if I don't watch you. And so this really bothered Steve. It was working on him over the next few days, really, really, really bad. And he just kept saying, I'm going to kill that son of a bitch. He said, I am not going to let him get away with this. And I said, Steve, you know, you're going to calm down.

I said, you know, anything happens to him right now with you. You're going to jail, man, you know, let it go. And he said, I can't. I just can't let it go. So I decided that on a way of handling it. And this character had a bad habit of not buckling up when he got in a hit. He didn't do anything right. And one of the things he didn't do right was he didn't buckle up.

He didn't put his monkey strap on. And every crew chief that he flew with had to tell him, buckle up, buckle up. Of course, he didn't have to buckle up because he wasn't going to get into any combat situation. I guess that was what it was in his mom. He wasn't going to put himself at risk. But anyway, I decided that, and I'm not proud of this part, but it is what it is, and it was what it was. So I decided that the next time he flew with me,

I wasn't going to tell him to buckle up. And if he didn't buckle up, the first gun run we made, I was going to kick him. right out and be what it was. So Harper wasn't too happy with that initially. And I said, Steve, no one's gonna question this. We all know this guy has a bad habit of doing that. No one's gonna know.

If it happens something with you, then it's not gonna fly. So reluctantly, he said, okay. Well, the day came, he's going to fly with me. So we're down on the flight line, and I looked down the flight line, and here comes a jeep, full bore, down the flight line. It's top, first sergeant. He and I were very close. He looked after me all the time.

I can talk to him about anything. thing. He was just a real straight shooter. He'd come down to the flight line and Harper's in the Jeep with him, my partner. And he gets out of the Jeep and he was livid. I mean, he was ripping mad. And he said, Chief, he said, I know what you're going to do. And it's not going to happen. And I said, you know, I played stupid, which pissed him off even more.

I said, I don't know what you're talking about. And he said, you know damn well what I'm talking about. He said, I'm not going to let you ruin your life for some piece of shit. And so he took Private Loser, told Harper to take the flight. And I asked Steve, I said, what did he say to you on the way down? He said, nothing. He said, he pulled up outside the hooch. He yelled at the top of his lungs for me to get my ass out there.

And he said, so I don't know. I don't know how we found out. And to this day, I don't know how we found out. But we did our mission. Before we left, he said, our first sergeant said to me, he said, Chief, you get back from this mission, you come straight to see me. He said, we're going to have a talk. That's okay.

So when I came back, I checked out the aircraft like I always do, make sure it's mission ready, and went up to see him. And he may be way outside for, I don't know, five or ten minutes. I told the orderly, the clerk, you know, that he wanted to see me. He said, oh, yeah, he knows. He said, but I don't know what's going on. He said, but he is in a bad, bad mood. He said, I don't know.

He said, I don't know what's going on. And he said, he's been making calls all over the division all morning. And he said, he is just in a very bad mood. And so finally he came out and he looked at me and he just said, follow me. So we went up to the mess hall and we sat down and he said, I don't want to hear a word out of you. He said, just listen to me. and I'll tell you when you can talk. So he went on to say, to tell me that he said,

I told you I would take care of it. I told you to give me some time. He said, you didn't wait. You weren't going to wait for me, and you were going to take things into your own hands. And I said, well, Tom, I did wait. I said, but I couldn't wait any longer. And he said, well, he said, I got him transfer.

He said, and you're staying here with me until he clears the area. And he had Harper wait in the, in his, in the CO's tent, until this character was shipped out. And he said, don't ever do something so stupid like that again. So that was it. That's how we get rid of them. But all the other people that were infused were really good. We're really good. We had some outstanding people come in to the unit.

Old school NCO. I like it. Let me, I got to give a quick shout out to the sponsor for tonight's show. It's a sap gear. Sap gear makes all sorts of like really interesting stuff for our secret squirrels out there. Even people who are not necessarily in the military or in the intelligence community, people who are in non-governmental organizations, aid organizations, people who travel abroad, all sorts of things to help you with escape and evasion. They make a lot of like escape and evasion necklaces and bracelets that can help you escape restraints in that sort of worst case scenario. But also a lot of things like that we'd call like signature reduction today. They have a lot of digital security items. Yeah, like we love their stuff. They have the Jedberg little patches, which I really like, which are the RFID tags that you can, you know, transfer stuff to. They make all types of, I mean.

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Yeah, you'll find something that you like that, I promise. So go to sapgear.com and you use the promo code team house and you'll get 20% off your order. So again, sapgear.com and use the promo code team house to get 20% off your order. So, Roger, what was your typical mission profile? Does you guys only respond to troops in contact, or would you fly support a lot of times for movements? What was your typical day like? Well, typical day until I got involved with Saad was, you know, again, it could be supporting a medevac. It could be flying support for troop movement.

for a convoy, but also when a unit was in contact. That was most of our activity was when someone was in contact. And in the early days, the first couple months that I was in country, I did a lot of flying out of the area of Somme Bay. And we lived, we had cots that were just set up in the open air, in the dirt, and we slept under the stars while the mortars and the brackets would be tossed in at us. But most of the time in that area, we were going to take care of firefights. We were going to, people were in trouble. And it was a mix-mash of NVA, Via Kong. So on Bay region is real close to the Cambodian border.

And the NVA were able to slip it in and out of Vietnam very easily in that region. And it would raise havoc along the way. So that was kind of a typical day. Typical day could be anything. It could have a wide range of things because we were on call. and it could be night during the night as much as during the day. It was 24-7. Once we moved north, things changed, and they changed in a wild way.

We got involved with CCN, and at that point, more of my missions were happy, with SAAG. And you asked before what it was like the first time we got shot at with anti-aircraft. It was one eye-opener. Let me tell you. It was the first time we ventured into Laos and they're firing at us slow-moving helicopters with these air bursting cannons. And to me, and I describe it in my book, that, I mean, it looked like a scene out of World War II, with all these airbursts going all around. And I remember thinking to myself, what the hell is this? I didn't know we're going to run into this sort of thing. And lots and lots of heavy machine gun, the 12-7s and the 14-7s and stuff.

just all kinds of all kinds of stuff that they would throw at us so yeah and a typical day running sog was not a typical day by any stretch but it was uh it was it was quite a it was quite an experience and one that uh one that we dedicate ourselves 100 percent to we had early on in May we had some issues with another gunship group

that when we had to use a heavy fire team for SAG which consisted of four gun ships, two R2 and two from another unit altogether. It was a disaster.

It was a disaster for all of us. The other gunship team pulled away at the last minute when we were under heavy contact that the team on the ground was on the verge of being overrun. And we set up a gun run using the four gunships, which is a, you know, a large racetrack. But when Our wing ship broke behind, you know, we made the first pass. Just as we break, we start to break left. Our wing ship starts their gun run, and that protects our, you know, our pull away. Because once we go belly up, the only thing we had to protect ourselves was the door gun, one door gun.

I mean, you're totally vulnerable. That's when you're most vulnerable. So when our wing ship started making his gun run, before he finished his gun run, these two other gunships pulled away, said they were running out of fuel. Now, they're the same aircraft as we had. Our gunship and us nearly, I mean, we nearly got shot out of the sky. and the people on the ground were left with this big open gap of coverage, of air coverage. So we ended, we did, we regrouped real quickly. We did get the team out successfully. When we got back to FOB1, CCN, FOB1, and Fubai, we met with the commander,

of F-O-B-1 at the time was Lieutenant Colonel Roy Barr. And we met with him and several other team leaders. And we told him that, no, my fire team, we discussed this ahead of time before going into the meeting. We told the colonel that we really, really want to work with them and continue to work with them. but we're not going to work with them unless it's exclusive 1001st airborne gunships.

If we need more gunships, more than the two, we get them from the 101st. Nobody else. And we explained why. And he knew what happened out there because he's monitoring the radios for the extraction. And we didn't know how he was going to respond. We're kind of new to the neighborhood.

And he said, and we told him, if you agree to what we're asking for, then we make a commitment that we will never, ever leave a team behind. And there had been several teams before this time that had been left behind and lost. He said, that's fair. That's fair enough. You know, you got it. So from that point on, we were committed, and we stuck by that promise right up until the time that I got shot down in Laos. Our gunship got shot down in Laos in the process of getting a team out of a near impossible situation. We did get the team out successfully.

Unfortunately, we got left behind underground in allows or all. But a typical day in SAG is not, well, is not like any other typical day, none whatsoever. We were, my fire team, we were going out on a daily basis, either putting a team in or pulling a team out. And the way we viewed it was if we put a team in, that's our team. And when the time comes, it's our job to get them out. They finish their job. Now it's our job. And we have one job to do.

And that is to get them out for whatever it takes. And we lived by that. And we survived by that too, by being maybe overly aggressive at times. And there were times that we would attack straight on their 12.7 dual guns and go after them straight on. And pure aggression was winning the day every time. Because there were overwhelmingly superior numbers. I mean, we're in their backyard where there could be hundreds and at times thousands. And we just got a little small fire team group and group of warriors on the ground.

So before you moved, before you got involved with CCN, when you were still flying for the 101st, you got, that was the first time you got shot down, correct? The first time I got shot down was back in the Samba area, yeah, supporting elements of the 17th calf and the 101st, yeah. We got shot down over a so-called friendly village. Can you tell us what that experience was like getting shot down? What were you guys doing at the time and what led to those events? And what was like for you? This was during the aftermath of Tet. I mean, you guys, as warriors know that battles like the Tet offensive, that wasn't a one-night or two-day deal.

So that lasted for several weeks. And it was overwhelmingly a success for the Allied troops, and particularly the U.S., but anyway. It was during the aftermath of TAT. We were operating in Samba, like I say, supporting elements of the 101st Airborne and the 17th Cav, and some various Arvin units. and the NBA had taken over this village just south and east of where we were at Sond Bay. And it was heavy, heavy fighting had broken out between the NBA and the 101st ground troops. So we went, we got called. We went to the area.

And we were told that the village, as we approach the area, there was a road. At one end of this road, there was a village of six or eight, ten houses. Then it was a span of openness, open road and, you know, jungle and whatnot. And then another village, about the same size. We were told to be careful and not fire into the first village. Those were friendly. Those were all friendlies. So when we got there, we caught a platoon or more of NBA running down this road en masse.

So we set up on them and we made a gun run on them. And as we're passing over this friendly village, like ants coming out that got stirred up, here's the NBA and full regalia, full uniform, just like the ones that were running down the road, they come out with their AKs at full blast at us. Now, we're only, you know, we're only a few hundred feet. above them and we're totally vulnerable. I mean, you know, we're not firing. And we took a lot of hits.

We took a lot of hits. But there was still a mission at hand. I mean, we still had these NBA to continue with. And we took down a lot of them on our first gun run. And we circled around, make a second gun run. This time, we're not going to spare the village. And we're picking up a lot of vibrations in the aircraft. I mean, I could feel it.

When you have a main rotor that gets damaged, you can feel the vibration like in your body core. You can feel it. And if it's a tail rotor, a high frequency vibration, you feel it in your feet. It's like getting tingling in your feet. And I could feel both. I could feel both going on.

I could smell fuel, which, you know, which it's never a good thing. So we made our second gun run. We lit up that village. I mean, we really, we poured rockets and mini guns and door guns into it. We got the remainder of the NBA that were still semi in the open, some were diving for cover,

and we got to second them and the second village as well. But we were starting to, it felt like we were gonna shake ourselves apart. and alarms are going off in the helicopter. We took more hits on the second pass. I don't know. You say what's going through your mind? When you're in a firefight, there's,

I mean, you've got the adrenaline pumping. You're so hyper-focused on what you're doing. You know, you just deal with it. You just deal with it. I wouldn't say there was fear involved. The fear would set in later when the adrenaline seeps back into your body and you start to feel the fatigue. And that's when the reality of what just took place.

That's when that kind of sets in and you feel it. We did make it back to our little air script, our dirt air script, made a hard landing, but nobody got injured. Our helicopter, I had counted 38 holes in the helicopter. The main rotors were shot. The main rotors were shot up. The tail rotor was shot up. There were holes in a lot of place.

A fuel leaking out. So your post-flight check, you're like, yeah, this one's not good to go back up. Yeah. I'll take we can buy this one. This one's not going to fly. So, yeah, that was the first time we got shot down. And I will say that the battle was continuing to rage over in that area. And I could hear our quad 50s firing.

And you know that's a bad situation. when you've got those things just going non-stop. And now they're starting to ferry the wounded Americans and they're coming in on medevacs. And the fellow who was piloting my aircraft at the time, he was an ex-SF guy. He was a medic for 12 years and went to flight school, became a pilot.

His medical instincts kicked in, and we were triaging the wounded as they were being brought in. And there were a lot of dead, a lot of obviously dead. And others that were, you know, termed KIA, but weren't covered up. So we would be moving, we started, Harper and I and this fellow Whitaker, Mr. Whitaker, we were moving the wounded and the bodies around. One of the soldiers that was bodies was predetermined KIA. We were, Harper and I were carrying him on a stretcher over to where we were. we were putting the KIA. And Mr. Whitaker, he looked over and he said,

wait, wait, wait, wait. So we stopped and we put him down. And he started, you know, checking him out. They started giving him CPR pumps. And he said, leave this one here. He says, I got this one. I don't think he's dead. And he stuck with it.

He stuck with this guy. We were loading up the wounded onto Chinooks on the CH47s. We loaded this fella on along with Mr. Whitaker who didn't leave his side. He stuck with him. I don't know what he saw in this guy because he was dead. He left, went to the field hospital with them, and then a couple hours later or a few hours later, He returned and we asked him, how do you make out?

And he said, they were able to stabilize. Wow. They got him stabilized. And I asked him, I said, what made you, what made you, you know, zero in on him? And he said, I don't know. I honestly don't know. He said, just something, just something told me to help him. And that's where I think his SF training and all his experience just kicked in.

And here, the guy's walking around maybe today, but certainly, you know, during that time after he recovered, not knowing how dead he was and how this man, unknown to him, saved his life. Unreal. He should be. Yeah, I mean, if anybody deserves a, like a, a soul. soldier's medal or something. It was him that day because he just was relentless. He would not let this guy go. And yet, I mean, there were so many others that, you know, that were dead. So that was by the end of the day, by the time the fighting stopped.

I had kind of like, I don't say like, not blackout portion, but everything kind of blurred together. for a few hours there. But when it quieted down, I sat down on the ground with my partner, and I looked at him, and I said, Jesus, Steve, you're covered in blood. And he said, oh, really, look at yourself. And I looked down, and, I mean, just mud and dirt and blood just covered. Both of us were just covered.

So that was a hell of experience for getting shot down. We didn't get hurt, though. That's amazing. What was your logistics like? When you had a bird that was that shot up, did you have to swap it out? Did you guys have enough in country to get it back up to speed quickly? Well, yes.

That helicopter had to be hooked back to base camp, to Benoit. a schnuck lifted slinged it and brought it back and it was out of commission for a couple weeks and that was it we only had at that time we only had six gunships for our aviation battalion we had six gunships there were two commanding control aircraft that the general and assistant commanding general flew on And that was it. I think there were a couple loaches, but we just had six gunships. That's amazing. So what precipitated your move, your move like CCN?

Was the entire element moving up there, or were you being tapped? Yes. Yes. The entire element, the entire division moved from Benoit in the southern area. The entire division moved up to I-Corps. at way is called wayfoubi. Camp Eagle was located halfway between the city of the city of way and the city of Fubai. That was Camp Eagle. That was our new base camp and just outside our base camp, a very short distance was FOB1. And so we continued to you know to work with them

and then more and more working with them. And I ended up basically I was flying with F-O-B-1 or K-SON during the day and then flying missions, firefly missions or patrols, search and destroy missions at night with the 101st, and then back to F-O-B-1 or K-San in the morning and do it all over again. And how did you guys first, Like, did you know about Mac v. Sog at the time? And how was your introduction to them?

Well, our first introduction was when we were down at Sound Bay. There was a launch site or an outpost on the top of Sambay Mountain. It was a ASA relay station. But there was also a small group of SF up there. And we didn't know they were SAG at the time. We didn't know what was going on. But we knew that when we were asked to go across the fence, to go over into Cambodia with them, that at that time,

they just said, you know, you guys don't have to be involved with this. These are kind of classified operations. And if you don't want to be involved, that's fine. But we weren't going to turn anything down. But when we got up north, then it became very formal. Then it was formal. Then it was the non-disclosures, the 20-year non-disclosures,

the explaining to us that if we were to get shot down and captured, in Laos or North Vietnam, that if we didn't get pulled out immediately, we were on our own, that the U.S. is likely to deny that we're part of any kind of authorized military action or anything like that. But again, I mean, you know, we were young. I was 22 at the time and as the rest of us and it's like, yeah, okay, well, we had to, when we went on missions, we had to leave our dog tags at the talk, and if it would be one, or if it was K-San or Mylock. Our wallets, you know, so there was no real identification on us. We were also told that if we were captured, we were going to be treated as spies.

And, you know, it's not going to be good. That you probably aren't going to survive. You'll probably be tortured and before you're killed. But again, it's like, yeah, okay, well, where do we sign? But, you know, to put things into perspective, by this time, we felt that we truly felt that we were very good at what we did and we worked as a team our gunship was a team we didn't we didn't switch out we switched out co-pilots not pilot or crew chief and door gunner we didn't switch out we stayed as a team and as such we're very very

effective when we were in the midst of a firefight nobody had to say anything other than the pilots say, we're going to make our gun run and break left, or we're going to break right, or we're going to go straight. And he would not vary from that regardless of what was happening on the ground, and regardless of what we were taking. Because he knew that if he varied from that, I mean, I was going to be out on the skids. My partner would be out on the skids on the other side. If he varied from that pattern, he's able to throw us, you know, one of us out of the aircraft off the skids. So, but there was, you know, we worked as a team.

We were very, very effective. We fought very, very aggressively as a team. And, you know, we felt that there was a need and not the guys that were going out on the teams, the RECON teams, that they were going out to do a job. At least what we could do is bring them back when they finished their job. And that's the way we saw it. And that's how we developed the strong relationship. Was there, you know, obviously you're sort of serving two masters right now, right? You have the 101st and, you know, in any other conventional units.

And then you also have the MACB SAG. Like, how did that work in terms of scheduling you guys and who got priority of fires and things like that? Well, I'm not absolutely certain on how that scheduling went, but I do know that once we started working with SOG, that was a priority. That was a priority. Now, of course, there are exceptions. And an exception, for example, in August, beginning of August, August, August 4th, the 1001st Airborne Division made a massive, massive assault into the Ashaw Valley. And we were part of that. We had to be part of that operation.

We were supporting the insertion of troops throughout the Ashaw. So, I mean, it would be exceptions like that. But other than that, our priority was in support of SOG. And especially if we had put a team out and it was a team out there that we were like responsible for. That, I mean, that was the priority. That was a priority. And, of course, if something when Camp Eagle came under attack, which it did on different occasions. Well, then, you know, our support was there.

But then again, that would be at night. And we weren't running stock. I mean, we couldn't. We didn't have the capability of running across the border at night. How many gunships did the division have at that point in time? Well, we started out with the aviation battalion having just a six, as I described it. In early July, early to mid-July, the 101st Airborne Division transitioned to the 101st Air Cavalry Division.

And there were several, several gunship companies and slick companies, transport companies, and reconnaissance aircraft all infused into the 101st. And at that time, we had around 20 gunships. to the division. Now, I don't know the exact numbers. There were several, there were several transitions that took place during the summer of 68 with the 101st. But I was rarely at base camp. I mean, I'd be at base camp overnight, usually, if I wasn't spending the night at one of the SAAG launch sites. So I wasn't there during the day, rarely. So all these things were happening, and I was oblivious to the transitions that were taking place.

We moved my company unit, moved locations within Camp Eagle three times, once, twice after the first initial spot. Both those times, I didn't know we moved until we got, till we got back at night and found that my tent, the tent that I was with. with my unit or Patoon was in a whole totally different area and all my stuff was moved over. So, you know, these things were happening and a lot of things happened that command was changing because the way the division was evolving, commanders were changing and whatnot. So, you know, a lot of that I was totally unaware of and really didn't care. And so with, you know, the estimated 20 gunships, would all of them work with SOG or was that? Okay.

No. No. Those, the gunships that worked with SOG were our initial six gunships. And that was it. But it would be two at a time. Normally two at a time. On rare occasion, when we would be working with a hatchet force. for SAAG, then we might use a heavy fire team using four gunships.

But usually it was two. And after the 4th of July, when my gunship without May went down and was destroyed along with the four men on board, Then I was assigned. I was given a new gunship, and it was a hog. It was a called aerial artillery platform. We had a 40-millimeter cannon in the nose and two 18 shot rocket pods, one on each side. And we carried, when we got that, I boosted the ammo box for the 40 millimeter from 250 rounds to 500 rounds and continue to keep our door guns. We carried

1800 rounds of door gun where you know normally in country a gun ship might carry 750 rounds or so at a time. But we when we were on operation it was and it was a firefire fight breaking out. I mean, we had to, you know, give it all to get a team out and we couldn't, we couldn't run out of ammo before we got a team out. That would have been disastrous. So we carried we carried that much door done. And many, many, many times, we came back with those things empty. We carried extra barrels for the M60s because we'd have to dump them occasionally is they would just get cherry red and have to just dump them. So we would carry spares on that.

Now, was that still that the aerial artillery platform, was that still a Huey or was it a brand new type of? It was a Huey. Yeah, it was a Huey. It was a C model. But it was because of the weaponry, it was, you know, so-called termed aerial artillery platform. which it was a pretty potent, pretty potent armament for a helicopter that size.

I mean, it was a lot of firepower, tremendous amount. And so what was that like for you now? So you've been firing, I mean, you've been flying these hot missions to the point where you got shot down. You've been flying, you know, for conventional military who are hooking and jabbing. And now you're inserting, you know, these small teams. in very hostile territory, how was that for you? What was that like? Well, what was it like?

It was pretty unnerving at times. I mean, a lot of times unnerving for the team, unnerving for me for what the team was going through. More often than not, when we extracted a team, it was under fire. And we're talking a team of three Americans and maybe four in DISH or five in Ditch being assaulted by dozens or hundreds of hardcore NBA. So I think the stress for me and for us was that the fact that we couldn't fail. I mean, if you fail, if you fail, your friend's lives are at stake.

You know, these guys, they have no other, there's no other option. There's no other option. Either we get them out or they never come out. I mean, it's just as simple as that. There is no other thing. So I think, I think, I think, I think we felt a lot of empathy towards the team members and that there were sometimes that I know I felt that, you know, can't we do more? I mean, why can't we we do more? Are we doing enough, you know?

So it was, it was stressful in that way. stressful that in the fact that you don't want to fail. You don't want to let them down, you know, because it's not just a matter of, well, you know, we'll try again tomorrow. That's not going to happen. Yeah. That's not going to happen. You're talking where seconds, seconds count, not hours, not minutes, but seconds can make the difference. And we could see from the air, we could see what was happening to the team. We could see the dozens in the difference. And we could see the dozens and dozens of NVA trying to wipe them out. So, you know, there was, it was, it was that sort of thing.

And that's why, I think maybe it's why we were as successful as we were, it's because, I don't know, you have, you have a camaraderie or a brotherhood that, again, I keep going back to the statement of they went in there in the backyard of the enemy. They did their job. They've been down there for two days, three days, four days, five days, whatever it might be. Now they've done their job. They did what they set out to do. Now, all we have to do is get them out.

you know, so, yeah, it's, you know, looking back and talking to a lot of the people that I interact with over the past, you know, 10, 12 years from SAG. And a lot of times they'll say, you know, why did you do it? Why? You were doing it over and over. And I said, well, what other choice? What are the choice do you have? You know, I mean, we're, we're, we're. you were there to do a job. You did your job. At least we could do is do our job. So that was kind of the attitude. That was the feeling.

You know, it's been, it's come out. I mean, I think Jack's even written about this. We've talked about it with other guests that McVSog was compromised in Saigon. That basically every time those, the fact that that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that it was successful at all is a testament to how amazing the people involved, the men involved were. Because it was, because the, the Vietnamese knew, the North Vietnamese knew every time they were going to go in, where their mission was. Like, in retrospect, like, does it make sense? I mean, you put in a six-man team or a seven-man team,

they should not automatically have a company's worth of North Vietnamese on them. Right. Right. Yeah. I talk about that a little bit in the book. I'm in the process of a second book. And I get into it into a little more, a little more detail in the second book, but it was very, very obvious.

By around August or so, we started really seeing some coincidences, if you would, and it got worse. It got worse. By the time, let's say October or so rolled around, we were using multiple LCs. We were doing false insertions. we were doing false second insertions and going to a third LZ. The team during the briefings would only announce formally that went to Saigon. They were only announcing the first LZ or maybe even the first and the second.

And we were also convinced that there was a mole in the system, somewhere in the system, Because, you know, when you're, when you see Laos back at that time, I mean, it is a massive, massive, not wasteland, but just jungle. I mean, it is just massive. And how could they, how could they be there? At each LZ. Shooting you at each LZ. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. And, but then it did. They pretty much tipped their hand, the NBA government, pretty much tipped their hand late in the year. I don't know if it was October, maybe early November, somewhere around that time. They were calling out team members across Radio Hanoi and some of the broadcast station. They were calling out their names. They were calling out the team name. They were calling out the team name.

we know you're being inserted. We know you were just inserted. They were calling out members. I know there's Don Volkan told me how they were calling out his name. Don Wolken, you're on the mission. This team, I mean, it's pretty clear. But where? But where was the leak?

When we were in Mylock, I had an encounter with a Vietnamese black market vendor that set up shop at the end of just outside the fencing, the wire of Mylock. And in my mind, I was convinced that this guy was a spotter. I don't know if he was or he wasn't. But it was around those times. He was an elderly man, but not old, old. He was of military age, but on an older side of it.

And I was just, I couldn't understand why we were letting them set up their little black market stand right outside of a top secret launch site. So, but it was what it was. and the teams were still able to get in. I mean, the North Vietnamese were not stupid by any stretch. They were starting to string piano wire between trees and proposed LZs, where it could be used as an LZ with nothing, other than Claymore's pointed towards the center of the opening from the trees, you know, where a helicopter would activate it. There was just too many occurrences where the NBA were waiting.

And a lot of times they waited until the air assets left the area when they'd move in on the team, which was another problem for sure. So can you talk about, I know that, you know, it was a rough time for the minute. It was a rough time for the aircraft. You talk about losing a King Bee in Laos. Yes. Can you talk about that a little bit? Yeah.

The King Bay pilots were phenomenal. They were just incredibly skilled, incredibly. incredibly brave and they were used with SOG a lot, a lot. And on one occasion, we were supporting a hatchet force, I believe it was Red Devil hatchet force in Laos, not deep in Laos, but just beyond the Ashaw Valley into Laos. And in the talk before we left on the mission, the flight strategy was laid out. There had been a lot of NBA movement in the area where we were going, where the hatchet force was.

A hatchet force was up on a hill, one part of the hill on the northeast side of the mountain. and there was like a overhang outcropping. And below that outcropping was where the NBA were suspected to be concentrating. And so we set up our plan that we would fly. It would be us. And then the King B would be. flanked to our right on the fly out. And our wing ship would be also flanked to the right,

but not as far out as the King Bee. So the King Bee would be actually the furthest out. And our pilot made it very clear to the King Bee pilot that we're going to sweep around in a northerly, northwestly manner, and approach the, the hatchet force flying from west to east. And he needed to stay on our right side the entire time

because we would keep ourselves between him and the NBA. Now he was carrying a load of ammo, explosives, food, water, and also, carrying with him was a guy by the call name of Robertson, Sergeant Robertson. So we're getting out there, we're approaching the area. On the ground, the radio communicator said that be advised, we still think there is an element, you know, located in that over-overhang area. So we told us.

and we're going to approach from the west to the east, and the King Bee will be on the east side of our flight. As we approached the area for some unknown reason and very, very out of character, the King Bee pilot broke formation and flew to the eastern side of the us. So in other words, he put himself in direct line of this overhang. And just as he did, I mean, I can remember looking out and think, what the hell is he doing? And erupted a massive amount of ground fire, including an RPG that hit this, this CH34, and the thing just exploded.

And it went down the side of the mountain on fire, had a secondary explosion when it ended at the bottom. And everyone on board, there were no survivors from that. I mean, it was nothing, absolutely nothing left. And, you know, it bothered us as the crew a lot that that happened because, was, you know, we're supposed to be protecting. We're there to protect. That's our sole job. We have one job to do, and that's protect.

But again, I mean, he broke, again, don't know why, but he broke the pattern and flew directly where he should not have flown. And we lost that King Bay and that Sergeant Hartley Robertson, who was in the news on and off through the 80s and 90s by impostors from Vietnam. You remember. Yeah. Even as like, you know, maybe four years ago, there was a French guy claiming to be a MacV survivor from that aircraft. But just as you described, I mean, there were people who saw that aircraft like go upside down, go into the jungle and explode.

there's unfortunately there's there's there's no way anyone survived that yeah I know and I responded several years ago as an eyewitness report on no survivors from that from that crash and there certainly there certainly wasn't I mean it was a horrible horrible it was a horrible so yeah we lost we lost the king be there but but that's not to discredit the King V pilots, they are phenomenal. They were absolutely fearless. If they would have any fault whatsoever, is that they were very reactive.

And to me, sometimes they might get a little tunnel vision where that's their target, where they're gonna go, and they're gonna get there. And sometimes it would break pattern to do so. And when the firefight would break out in the midst, they would laughs into Vietnamese. And we didn't know what the hell was going on or what they were saying. What are my favorite stories? I think John Mayer told this story about how they were in a king bee.

And however they were coming down on the parking apron, there's a CH-47 Chinook coming down. And so they're coming at each other. And everyone's like, hey, you might want to veer out of the way. And the pilot's like, this is South Vietnam. he's helicopter in south vietnam he gets out of the way and plays chicken with him until the 47 pulls off that that would that sounds about right they were they were a riot i'm telling i mean they were they were they were a treat to fly with because they weren't going to back away there was no question about it um you know sometimes with the uwee slick um sometimes the pilot would

hesitate, let's say, and pull back and we'd have to, you know, reset up and go, you know, talk them down and whatnot and go back in. But no, not the King Bees. I mean, you had to stay on your toes because they might do things a little bit differently to get the job done. And we like to stick to a pattern. That's amazing. I had a question. So let's go into when you got shot down. Because your book starts off with you and the harness. So can we talk about that?

Yeah, sure. This would be the third time I got shot down. Oh, my gosh. The second time was in a bad area, too. It was in the Ashaw Valley. right in the area that a few months later became known as Hamburger Hill. But anyway, that was the second time. The third time I got shot down was deep, deep in Laos.

We had put a team in on September 22nd. We put a team in. They were supposed to be there to three days maximum. So they went in heavy on ammo, light on food. Well, it turns out the weather didn't cooperate. And to make a long story short, if I can, they were there seven days. Exhausted. Exhausted. Hungry.

And the weather finally broke. each day we're trying to break our way into Laos, but we couldn't get much past the border because of the weather that was so socked in. I mean, we couldn't see anything. It was just, you know, cloud cover from, you know, 6,000 feet all the way down to the ground. But when we finally got a chance to get in and get them, we went out. It was on September 28th. We left Mylock. We started taking a lot of anti-aircraft fire just right after we got into Laos headed past Co-Rock Mountain, which is a demarcation point pretty much. Co-rock Mountain, by the way, is where the NVA had their artillery on track. and was bombarded and kept Kaysan under siege. That was Kau Rock Mountain.

But we flew by there all the time when we're going into Laos. And right after we passed CoRock, we started taking a lot of anti-aircraft fire, a real lot. We got out to near where the team was, and we could see. the team had been discovered. They had been hidden for six and a half days. And while they were and they were hunted for those six and a half days, they had been hunted down. But they were able to evade the trackers, the dogs, everything. But they got discovered. One of the brew apparently when they started making their way to the LZ. One of the brew coughed, and that's all it took.

And they were now in hot pursuit. So it turns out this area was a massive grouping area for the NBA, massive, an area that held thousands. So the team makes its way to the pickup point to the LZ. And as we're making our way to the LZ, we could see, now we're probably a mile away at this point. We could see hundreds of NBA on a dead run headed in that direction. So I started opening fire and taken down as many as I could. And my partner, Scott, on the other side, was doing the same thing.

When we got to the LZ, the small team was fighting off the NBA that were right there, right on that. They were just fighting them off. we lined up with the slick. The slick had was a new new pilot for SOG. And it was with the 1001st Airborne Aviation. But he wasn't accustomed to this, this type of action. As we're coming in, we slowed our aircraft down. to pace the de-acceleration of the slick so that, you know, we're staying right alongside of him,

almost coming to a hover as we're engaging the NBA that are starting to rip us apart. And we stayed on it. We just kept pumping everything we had into the NBA. the last minute the slick was just a few feet off the LZ and he panicked and he pulled pitch and pulled away from the LZ. And now the team is the team's just it's there. And we circled back and we were shocked at what happened. Our pilot, a fellow by the name of Jim Whitman, who was, you know, he was my pilot the whole time running sock. He called across the radio and to the slick pilot, and he said, you know, he said, what the

hell happened? And the pilot said, I can't go in. So I'm going to get shot down if I go in. and Tim Schoff, who was the team leader on the ground, he came over the radio, he can hear what's going on, he came over the radio

and said, if you don't get me out now, we're never coming out. And which was a fact. So, Jim Whitman keyed the radio again. He said to the slick pilot, and he said, listen,

if you don't go win and get that team. I'm going to shoot you down myself. And he said, listen, he said, this is what we're going to do. We're going to do it like we did last time. We're going to put ourselves between you and most of the NBA fire. We're going to, you know, we're going to guide you, guide you in. So she said reluctantly, he said, okay. And we set up our run. And this time, we got hammered so bad. We got hit so, so bad. And at one point, it felt like we ran over a speed bump.

And I found out later that in one of the other slicks, the SF medic said it was a 37 millimeter round that came up and hit us. But it didn't explode. So it must have been because you know, probably high altitude settings for the cannon or whatever.

But it did throw some shrapnel around in a piece. Went into the heel of the co-pilot who was sitting in front of me. And we got ripped really, really bad. We were shaking.

Our helicopter was shaken so bad. And now I could smell fuel. I could smell hydraulic fluid. Covey came across and said, we were going by the call sign of hair like rabbit. I said, Hair lead, hair lead, you're on fire. You're on fire.

So I leaned out and I looked back at the engine. And sure enough, I mean, we're on fire. There are flames coming out of the cowling. But we're still with the slick. We're still staying alongside the slick. and still putting down a lot of fire. However, the slick called a Mayday and crashed. Oh, man.

We followed the slick right up until the time it went in, and we were losing power the whole time. And we, in front of it, where the slick came down, about three or four hundred yards in front of the slick. It was a big open field area, and there were four NBA longhouses. And it was like a regimental headquarters area or something, a main holding area, a main NBA area. So when we saw that, our pilot said, let's dump everything we've got left into those

long houses. And we did. We're firing the remainder of the 40 rockets. The 40 millimeter were pounding away, just nonstop. And Scott and I are just emptying our door guns into it, just nonstop as we're losing altitude. So we're coming down, but we're still firing. We're still fighting this thing. And so the long houses are exploding. We were hitting them dead on and it looked like ants coming out of an ant hill. So we were taken down dozens of NBA and we crashed into a bamboo thicket. I got knocked unconscious. And, oh, before we crashed,

I tried to call my partner, Scott, to see if he was okay. Our intercom was shot out, and I tapped him and mouthed to him. Are you okay? And he looked at me and he said, yeah. He said, but he's going like this. And so he's going.

So I reached up and here's a big gash across my flight helmet. And I thought back, oh, yeah, I remember. My head got snapped back when we were. The speed bump. No, not the speed bump. It was separate from them. Oh, really? It was around.

It was a round. A round had hit it. I remember it's my head snapping back, but, you know, in the, in the midst of everything that's going on, I mean, you're just, you're just operating. You know, you're just doing what you're doing. So, but then when we crashed, I got knocked out. Scott got thrown out of the helicopter a little bit. He had his monkey strap on, but it slipped some. I got knocked out. I got slammed against the back of the.

the co-pilot seat. And interesting enough, I got out of the helicopter and I'm hurting real bad and a little wobbly. And I look down on the floor and here's my watch. I had a Seiko watch laying on the floor. The band was snapped. That snapped off. And next to it was my St. Christopher medal that I wore with no chain. I don't know where the chain was.

So I just, I grabbed them balls, you know, put them in my pocket, looked at the aircraft, and I, I couldn't believe the condition. I mean, it was, I'd never seen anything shot up so bad. There was, in the cargo area where Scott and I were, there was not a space any wider than maybe a foot that didn't have holes through it, through the ceiling, through the floor, through the back wall. And I mean, I was thinking, how to hell? could, how could that be? I mean, I should be full of holes here. How can that be? And so we went into our, our SOP, which we had rehearsed in case of such an event. And that SOP was on the right side of the helicopter, just behind the cargo compartment, was a small compartment that held a survival kit. Scott was, his job was to grab that survival kit.

And my job was to zero all the radios. The pilot's job was to grab the maps and any other intel that printed intel that he had and grab that stuff. Then he'd get out and I'd go around the front of a helicopter and open up the avionics and just shoot up all the avionics and the radios and all. I tried to destroy as much as I could. So we did that. And in the meantime, we can hear the NBA coming. So we started, Scott and I, we had our M60s,

and we started just firing in the direction of where we could hear them charging. And they had to be really pissed off of what's been going on, you know. We could hear the impact. We knew we were finding, finding targets because we'd hear the screams and whatnot. But they were firing at us high for some reason. I don't know. Maybe we're on a little elevated area where we crashed. And so now we're on the ground.

The slick that was carrying the, that picked up the team. We had another chase ship that was able to get them. It not only got the seven-man team, but it got the four crew members from the slick, loaded on with the four crew members of the chase ship. Now, they're heavily overloaded, but they got out, not a scratch on anybody. Roger, do you know if that slick that went down? Did it go down because of the gunfire? Or did it go down because, okay.

I didn't know if it went down because the pilot panicked or if it. No, no, no, no. He got shot down. Okay. He was right. He was going to get shot down. But, you know. Yeah.

But you had to try, right? But he had to try. Well, there was no options, right? Yeah. There are no options. Yeah. You don't just turn your back on your, on your guys. So anyway, now we're on the ground.

There's one more chase ship with the SF Medi-com board. And they're way up around 7,000 feet planning on never getting into the action. It was also a new pilot, a new fur sog. And I've actually had conversations with this guy in recent years. and he told me he was up there eating a banana figuring that he was not going to get involved with anything you know he's just going to gain some experience of what's going on and the next thing he knows he's being called covey's telling him to get down there and so our our gunship wing ship made one pass at the NBA that are trying to

to get to us and had to leave. I know they were running out of fuel because we were, you know, we were getting low. So he made one pass. It slowed them down a little bit. And all of a sudden, when we're just kind of making a determination whether we make a run for it or we stand our ground, here's this slick hovering above us, about 20 feet above. He can't land. There's no place for him to land. So he throws out for McGuire rigs. Now, my partner and I, two weeks earlier, were practicing using these with one of the slicks that had them. We were flying around my lock hanging on these McGuire rigs just for the hell of it and just for the experience, what it was like and have some fun and whatnot.

These McGuire rigs were the very, very first McGuire rigs. There were nothing more than a thin, half-inch rope with a woven canvas woven loop in the bottom, like a child swing has the loop. you had to hold on to them, hold yourself on, otherwise you'd invert and fall out. But nonetheless, so they threw the four ropes out. Right after that, Sergeant Crawford, Dick Crawford, nicknamed the Fat Quack, he comes launching out of the helicopter, and he's on the ground with us. Now, for years, he always claimed that he got shot out out of the helicopter. You know, the helicopter moved and it threw him out.

He said, because nobody would a fool would go down there under those, in that situation. Well, you know, I know better. He's a hardcore medic. He didn't know what the situation was. He didn't know how much, you know, how much, you know, how much. we were wounded, how badly anybody was. So anyway, now he's on the ground. We didn't need him, but it was nice that he came down.

But the only problem is we've had four rigs and we have five guys. Now, Crawford in my book, I was being very, very kind to him. And I said he weighed about 175 pounds. Well, Crawford didn't weigh 175 pounds since he left the eighth grade. He was a couple hundred pounds, if he was anything. So anyway, we're underground. Scott and I are firing to the NBA coming, trying to get to us. And we put on our McGuire rigs, and Crawford looks around and none for him.

So he ties himself to me. And Scott, my partner, who had practiced wearing these, flying with these, he put it on backwards where instead of the rope here, he's got to get like this. So hold on. Now, Scott's favorite weapon, his personal weapon that he carried was an M79. We got into rigs and I kept the M60

with a length of belted and our co-pilot who didn't know what the hell was going on. This was his first SOG mission, this Richard Chapman, his very first mission. And he thought the rope was too long. He didn't realize what the deal was. So he cut his rope.

And Crawford yelled out on, what the hell are you doing? You better retie that. So he retied the rope. and now his rope is a little shorter. But anyway, we got into the rigs, the Maguire rigs. And the pilot, he's under a 12.7 millimeter is zeroed in on him

and just nonstop shooting at him. And he wisely, he turned the helicopter, so it was facing the, the 12.7 to give us a smaller profile and some miracle he didn't get hit and he kept his cool again this was his first time and as he's lifting us up we got up about 60 75 feet we hadn't cleared the bamboo yet and the NBA charged into into the clearing below us I let go a burst from the M60, and I dropped three of them. Scott, others were starting to command.

Scott fired one round off the M79 and got the others that were coming in. And it bought us enough time to clear the bamboo and to start our long trip back, which was a whole... other story, a whole other story in itself that that was one miracle after another, after another on our trip back. So funny story years later, Crawford always would bitch to me that I'm the reason that he's deaf, that he can't hear out of his right ear. And I would tell him, You're ungrateful, you ungrateful guy. You give up your hearing to save your life, but that doesn't count.

So our trip back is a whole chapter in the book, which is, again, it's one miracle after another. And just to tell you that while the pilot in the slick above us, first came to a hover. His low fuel warning light and alarm went off, which meant he had 20 minutes of fuel. We had almost an hour to get back to anywhere safe into Vietnam, not even to Mylock, just to get across the border. And his low fuel warning light and alarms were going off.

And we hadn't even got off the ground yet. God. That's it. And while you guys are elevating so that you can clear the bamboo, like you're not just the helicopter, but you guys like there are anti-aircraft rounds going off all around. Oh yeah. Oh, all around. All around. And they they followed us. Their communications up in that region were very, very good. And they followed us all the way until We crossed over into Vietnam, which was, you know, 45, 50 minutes. They followed us. One would stop for a few moments, and then another one would pick us up.

Now, the interesting thing is some of their anti-aircraft was radar controlled. These guys were knocking down 105s. They were knocking down fast movers. They were knocking down Jolly Green Giants. They'd been knocking down Cobra's. Coburn gunships, all kinds of Uies. But they weren't getting us. And here we are, just putting along like a snail.

Our slick could only get about 55, 60 miles an hour airspeed because of all the drag and the elevation, we were up 8,000 feet. So, yeah, it was just one miracle after another. and it was one hell of a day. Do we have questions for Roger? We have, first off, Kim Kipling, our friend Kim, yeah, who wrote a great book on Dutch Warranga. Warranga, yep, and was on the show. But he said, Roger is an amazing degree of humility.

This is a guy who repeatedly climbed out on the skid of a huery, radically maneuvering in combat to clear jam, He is a genuine hero. Thank you, Kim. Thank you. And then we have, let me get there real quick. We had one question. Do we have anything from Patreon, D? Okay, let's see here.

From Michelle Ann, thank you very much for the very generous donation. Have a drink and toast the loss of our recon team Alabama, May 4th, 1968. date. My dad was the lone survivor and ultimately spotted by a pilot after three days on the run. Thank you to all of those pilots. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Unreal. Yeah. Amazing. We have one question for Patreon. Norm asks any tips for helicopter student pilots? Well, what was the question? Any tips for helicopter student pilots? It's a great air you're a great aircraft to fly.

I mean, there's nothing like it. They don't have a very good glide pass, but they're terrific. Enjoy them. Don't fly into NBA fire. Yeah, try to avoid that at all cost. So, I mean, Roger, I know we only kind of like scratch the surface of your career and what's in the book. We really hope people will go out and pick up your book. By this book, you owe it to yourself.

We Save Sog Souls. It's a fantastic, you haven't read anything like it. You find it on Amazon right now. The link will be down in the description below as well. Roger, what's the second book that you're working on now? Well, the second book is part of it, or at least the second half of the book, is going to be about missions that I was involved with. from the air and the viewpoint of team members on the ground, what was happening to them at the same time.

And I've got a few good stories that have come to me and I've been working on. So that's going to be, that's the second half, excuse me, second half of the book. And I'm finding it to be very, very interesting because for example, the mission that I just talked to you about, where we came out on ropes. In the new book, I have a chapter talking about what Tim Schaff and his team were going through on a day-to-day basis at the same time, but I and we were going through in our attempts to try to get them. And of course, it culminates at the major firefight at the end. But it's stories like that.

There's another chapter that's going to be in a book about a phenomenal mission one like no other. And I mentioned this mission in the first book about three POWs. The new book, this chapter, is going to be about what was going on at the ground after we dropped the team off and what they were doing, how they went about capturing these POWs, capturing taking three POWs out of North Vietnam. I mean, this is just absurd. Yeah. And what was happening with them, what they were going through, and then our communication with them and what we were doing on our end. So, but the first half of the book is about what inspired me to get into the military.

I talk about basic training, which was a little bit different, to say the least, I had a quite psychotic drill instructor. I'm not going to give too much away, but he ended up spending his career in military prison. I go through a little bit about Fort Rucker, you know, what we were doing there. And then jump school, which was very entertaining. I love jump school. And it was such an entertaining group of cadry.

There's just a couple of funny, funny stories. And unfortunately, one very sad event that happened in Jump School. So it's that. It's leading up to Vietnam, my time with 1001st, stateside, and then other missions in Vietnam. And I've been able to gather information from some of the people that I flew with back in the day that I have not communicated with in 50 years.

Wow. So, and one of them was a career aviator and, you know, officer. So there's some interesting things, and that's what the new book. And I hope to get it by the end of the year. When that book comes out, please reach out to us and we'd love to have you on another time to talk about it. We'll plug it.

Okay. You bet. Anytime. Anytime. I'd love to come back anytime. Yeah, it'd be great. Roger, I'm just curious, you know, the Huey's phased out for the Blackhawk. And then, you know, you, there are all kinds of weapons platforms now. And now the Blackhawks are getting phased out by the Bell Valor. How do you see, like, did you like, I don't know if you followed them closely after you left. Did you like the new web? the new systems that were coming out, did you, did people speak favorably about the Blackhawk compared to the Huey? And what do you think of the Bell, what is V280, Valor? Yeah, I'm really, I don't know enough about the new aircraft to speak intelligently about it. I have seen the Blackhawks. used by the 160th.

I was very, very fortunate to visit with them last May, and they were just phenomenal to me. And the weapon systems are very, very, very unique. So, you know, I don't know, it's just, I didn't like the copras. Not that they weren't good, they were excellent, but the crew chief wasn't on board. you know, and that was a big part. And I've had COBRA pilots tell me that they really, really needed that door gun capacity,

which was not available. I mean, with the cobra, you're straight into a target, and that's it. You don't have the side, so much the side coverage and, you know, rear coverage when you break. But, you know, things evolve. And they, you know, they usually evolve for the better. I like the little birds that the 160th have. I think those are a treat. I mean, those are, I would love to fly one of those.

Roger, thank you for coming on the show tonight. And we'll do it again when the next book comes out. We'd love to have you on again. Thank you, everyone, for joining us tonight. Really appreciate it. And we'll be back on Friday with Christopher Miller, who's the former Secretary of Defense. And we're excited to talk to him as well. Tell them, Roger, I mean, again, thank you so much, man.

You're welcome. Very, very welcome. I thoroughly enjoyed working with you guys being here. And like I say, anytime, anytime. Yes, and you're not so far away. So if you ever come through the rotten apple, please let us know. Okay, you got a deal. Thank you, Roger.

All right, guys. We'll see all of you on Friday.