The Original Lancers
Bill Griffith About
a week or more ago Reggie posted some long-lost pics, circa 1969. Most I had
never seen before, so many others from '69 probably have never seen them before
either. There are 19, so I'll bleed them out over a number of emails, add
a bit of FB commentary, and add a bit of my own.
Dan Shea and Reggie
Lancer bird sitting someplace,
BSOM where. Looks like some vineyard though...
Gene Parks with Jerry Cartier,
and someone giving the ubiquitous Lancer hand salute.
No idea what Jerry Cartier is
saying here. Looks like Mike Doris and Terry Willman in the background.
Yours truly and Terry Willman
looking pretty serious. Must have been listening to one hell of a good
"No Shit!" story
Next shot is Danny Busby, Mr
Sakenes, Mr Sparkman, and again Jerry.
Looks like some of these may
have been shot at the same get together.
Mr Sakenes, Mr Sparkman
and Gene Parks.
Again, Sakenes and Sparkman.
I'm not even going to speculate who
OR why the guy with his back
to us looks like someone is holding his head down...?
Yours truly, the Suave and
debonair crew chief that I was.
Tail # on bird is a bit washed
out. Also, I don't recall when the 101st patch started being put on tail; none
on this one.
As I recall, early on we
didn't have Nomex flight suits yet. However a few of us did cut deals with the
Marines when working out of QT and procured a one piece through barter. In the
first pic I posted Reggie was wearing one.
A little beer and horse shoes;
me (Griff) and Mike Doris.
If I'm not mistaken that is
the showers behind us.
Next we have Jerry pulling
OD...Have to take Reggie's word on that one.
D.R. "Doc"
Smith. Maybe somebody just told him "Don't touch anything unless I
tell you to."
When the pic was taken, it was
probably to catch the rainbow over Evans. But we also have our hanger in
progress.
Later, on July 4th
celibrations we had to rush to the rescue when a flair landed on it, setting
the hanger on fire. Also, it looks like the Lancer pad is sporting its fresh petra
prime coating. as it was fresh and did do what it was intended to do, keep down
the dust, it was one hell of a mess till it cured out.
Neither Reggie or I can recall
name of this FB.
We recall flying over it when headed for
the A Shau, and you can make out 2/502 Strike Bravo on the hill.
Reggie recall this being a Chu
Hoi mission with Doc Smith.
Bill Walker I don't remember the name of this Fire Base,
either. But, it looks like one near the lower end of the A Shau, but just
to the east, over the mountain top. Vegel? Brick? We didn't have many missions down that far
toward Phu Bai after about April of 70
Reggie Kenner
I don't remember it being a
Chu Hoi mission when I took that photo. I have a few shots of Doc Smith when we
were on a Chu Hoi mission however.
No matter.
Bruce Nesmith, Reggie,
would you share the photos you have of Doc. I’m sure his wife would like to see
them.
Gene Parks sporting a fresh
"high and tight to the top" haircut
Looks like a 10+ ship headed
someplace(?).
One of our early ah-shits was
the day some an ARVN must have missed the part in their briefing, telling
them to exit the left side only. From Reggie: " Mike Dorris's (sic) ship
flipped over and burned when, on a hillside LZ, an ARVN soldier ran up the hill
and caught the rotor blade. From Randy Gillam: "The ARVN was cut about in
half."
The door gunner was badly
injured and lifted to a hospital (they kept wanting to take him to an ARVN
hospital since he was a dark-skinned Latino guy. He was also about 6'2. I never
saw him again. It was the crew Randy was with that picked up the rest of the
crew with Mike.
The ship burned to ash but
this M-60 was salvaged. It was mounted above the door of our
hootch." I believe there was a bit of a stink about us keeping the
60 and mounting it above our CE hootch but it was still there when I left.
Barry Beard I saw that happen in training not a pleasant
site, and I can’t remember the Candidate's name. Shame on me. There
was no Memorial, there was no recognition, we just kept training. Whomever
took that picture of the flight must have been hanging by his toenails or they
were out of trim!
Gary Bowman Only had to hang out over your 60 just a
little bit for that view from the CE hole. Vibration and low ASA film
caused the out-of-focus.
Reggie's comments on
this first one: "Ford, Mr Snider, Ron Bishop and Danny Busby.
Ford was a PFC. He came along on a flight taking people to Eagle beach and was
in the right-seat. The ship ran up and Ford had the controls. We took off
flawlessly, flew to Eagle Beach and he made a nice landing in a fairly tight
spot.
The AC must have sensed my puzzlement. He said, "Kenner, Ford went all the
way through flight-school before dropping out." Learned to fly and didn't have that 4 year
commitment to serve. Smart guy.'
Kind of a strange colorized
pic of our area shot from the flight line.
Reggie:
"Currahee in '69. Mr Hughes with his back to the camera, SSG Fritz
(glasses) Melcher, my door gunner, Mr Snider, Mr Sutton with the dark
glasses." My 2 cents: Firebase Currahee was established in the A Shau just
prior to and for support of Operation Apache Snow...aka Hamburger Hill. Flew
many, many missions into there. In fact it was on one such time as this pic
shows, the FB came under mortar/rocket attack.
If we shut down when sitting
at at a FB such as this, the helicopter crew usually didn't wonder off too far,
or just stayed in the aircraft, and did a combat-cock for engine start. Did't
even have to "kick the skid," just light the fire, get RPM, and pull
pitch ASAP. That day the PAX we brought in headed for a bunker, and we got the
hell out of Dodge."
It was Currahee that I recall
doing the nighttime emergency resupply sling loads into. As I recall...
corrections gladly welcomed...The FB was situated at one end of the A Shau, not
at all what you would call "on the high ground," and within spittin'
distance of every NVA and VC unit in that AO. And it was always coming under
attack. It was there that I got to see Puff (AC-47) hose down their perimeter
as we ducked in and punched off our sling load. Also, watched the 105s leveled
and firing beehive rounds (flechettes) into their perimeter.
I also got to see Puff in
action albeit from our orbiting position as a flare ship that night. We were
told to orbit off to whatever direction. Somewhere way above us there were nav
lights and then a shaft of red started flowing toward the firebase. We could
see the Foo gas being set off as they were under heavy attack.
Next day it was a whole bunch
of NVA bodies stacked up and loaded into nets.
Bill Walker I may
rot in hell, but that was a comforting sight. “Bodies stacked”
Not sure when, where this was
but it looks like it was one heck of a busy day for all of us. // I don't
have a clue what's going on here. I suspect the ships on the ground
should have followed the photo of the ships enroute to somewhere
Reggie's comment: "Jerry
Lee with Jim Hall beneath. I KNEW I had this photo somewhere.
I remember Jerry was from
Orangevale, CA."