From
other Lancers
These pages will contain e-mail messages that
express our Lancer spirit and emotion.
From Brian Bailey: 
Into what darkness goeth thou young warrior,
spear in hand and courage high? Perhaps to your doom, perhaps to glory?
Gird well your loins and hold high your pride; and know full well that
those who remain behind hold you in highest esteem, for you are the
salvation of that which they hold dear.
Your courage, your blood will pay ransom
for their tranquility.
And if fate should have you pass then into
their memory, indeed into their song will tales of your gallantry forever
be told, and you will be honored as if still among them.
And for those who remain, hold true to this brave heart, he who has sacrificed
for you, and set aside a time to remember. Mark a day to honor those who
have stood in harm’s way, so that you may live life to its fullest.
But take caution that with the passage of time
you do not become jaded and soil their memory with those things politic,
or that which is based in greed, instead hold true to the reverence deserved by
these young
warriors and pay homage to what they have given.
Even as time allows in the hectic
performance of each day, pause, and remember those that have gone into
the fray so each of us can live fully and without fear.
These are the warriors of our land, those
that do the unthinkable, bear the unbelievable burden of our societal
decisions, and oft times receive only the harsh judgment of those who
cannot discern politic from duty.
Brian Sends:
Lancer 33
SOA 2053-GL
SFA A2975L
From Bruce Pusey:
Flight,
At one point in my life the word brotherhood was just another word with some
abstract meaning, that indicated to me that a few folks got along with one
another fairly well. A year or so ago, I started hanging out with some local
Vietnam vets and some of their friends from different areas of the country and
the word brotherhood took on a whole new meaning for me. I thought I had it
pretty well defined.
It meant that grown men really were allowed to hug one another.
It meant that a member of the brotherhood didn't look down upon you if you
cried like a baby.
It meant that a brother was willing to babysit you for your first trip to the Wall.
It meant that you find it very easy to overlook faults in a brother that you
would not tolerate in someone else.
It meant that you could look a brother in the face and say, "I love you,
you ugly f**ker."
Yeah man. I had that word pegged now. I knew all about brotherhood. After all,
I was living it, wasn't I?
This past weekend I received a little further education. Kevin Moore and
Richard Crandall came to spend Memorial Day weekend in DC with me. I had no
idea how intense and overpowering this word "brotherhood" could
become. The word still means all those things listed above, but it also means a
few others.
It means that you panic when you can't find the hat that your brother gave you.
It means that a little tear comes to your eye when a brother gives you a pin
that says "Camp Evans" .
It means that you walk a little taller and hold your chest out a little farther
when three of you are walking around gawking at the sights in Washington.
It means that you no longer need help at the Wall because you are surrounded by
help.
It means that when the conversation lags, you don't feel a need to talk because
silence is OK too.
It means that good-byes are best handled quickly.
Welcome Home you ugly f**kers. I love you.
Bruce
Sent in by Dennis Souza:
Thoughts Worth Reading
A story tells that two friends were walking through the desert. During some
point of the journey they had an argument, and one friend slapped the other one
in the face.
The one who got slapped was hurt, but without saying anything, wrote in the
sand:
TODAY MY BEST FRIEND SLAPPED ME IN THE FACE.
They kept on walking until they found an oasis, where they decided to take a
bath. The one who had been slapped got stuck in the mire and started drowning,
but the friend saved him.
After he recovered from the near drowning, he wrote on a stone:
TODAY MY BEST FRIEND SAVED MY LIFE.
The friend who had slapped and saved his best friend asked him, "After I
hurt you, you wrote in the sand and now, you write on a stone, why?" The
other friend replied "When someone hurts us we should write it down in
sand where winds of forgiveness can erase it away. But, when someone does
something good for us, we must engrave it in stone where no wind can ever erase
it."
LEARN TO WRITE YOUR HURTS IN THE SAND AND TO CARVE YOUR BENEFITS IN STONE.
They say it takes a minute to find a special person, an hour to appreciate
them, a day to love them, but then an entire life to forget them.
o not value the things you have in your life. But
value who you have in your life!
First, a letter from John Donaldson to Gary
Yates about how important it is to recognize that we all had made a
contribution to the effort, and we were all heroes.
Gary,
You know I revere you as one of the most heroic
of all the Lancer pilots. I don't know of any other that actually received a
real MACV/SOG plaque from those guys. To have such respect for Gary Yates, the
pilot that was very responsible for their lives, it proves beyond any
definition that you are a real hero. Hell, the U.S. Army Special Forces SOG
declared you a hero!!
Face it. You are a hero among heroes. We looked
up to A/C's as almost God's when we were peter pilots. I must admit I am amazed
it doesn't seem that I didn't see as much and do as much as the other pilots
have written on this web site, but I know I did some very heroic deeds for the
man on the ground, and I will write about them often.
An interesting aspect to all of us is that
almost every day we were assigned to single-ship missions. We were it most of
the time. It was you and the Chief and life or death. We each developed our
survival command techniques. You survived and you kept your crew and customers
alive.
I have had 'exactly' the same feeling that you expressed,
and I want to share with you an email conversation I had with Mike Jacobi. I
had wondered since 1971 if I had made the 'right' decision about a missions he
and I were on. He was a Captain, and I was A/Cing one
of his orientation flights. We landed in a 'green' PZ within the perimeter of a
platoon. We were seated firmly on the ground and things were so lax that I
hadn't even ordered the Chief or gunner to lock and load. Hell, we could see
Evans from the PZ. It was just in the rolling hills west of Evans. Suddenly,
two bad guys appeared from the ground about five feet from the A/C side of the
aircraft, each emptied an AK-47 clip at us and a fast and chaotic fire fight
ensued. All of us friendlies were so surprised and shocked that all of us
"f****d up" in my mind. There was probably friendly fire injuries.
The grunt in the floorboard just behind my seat, the proverbial strap puller,
took enough rounds to spatter blood on the back of my neck and helmet. I thought
I was shot. The chief though he was shot and believe he had shot some
friendlies and I believe many of the rounds came from the friendlies that hit
us. The bad guys were between us and the friendlies. The bad guys were
perforated. I made some decisions that I played over and over in my mind for 28
years. Did I do the right thing? Was I a good A/C to have done what I did. I
ignored procedures and commands from the tower and landed at the MASH pad even
though we had taken rounds and the tail boom was wet from fuel.
Was I a bad pilot? Was I and my crew heroic
when we braved 51s just to get sodas and mail into a fireballs? Your damn right
I was. Was I and my crew hero's when we braved popping in and out of clouds to
get important radio equipment to Hickory? Yes we were. Was I and my crew hero's
when we hovered around out in the A Shau at 2:30 in the morning in zero-zero
trying to find and extract an recon team? Your damn
right we were. Was I a hero when tools were sucked into the engine, it exploded,
and I got my crew and the aircraft safely to the ground in seemingly impossibly
circumstances. Yes. Hell, I was a hero spending 900 hours in the air over
I-Corp with enemy sights on my aircraft probably 60% or more of the time. Yes.
Was I and my crew hero's when we flew, just crew, deep into Laos to try to find
a downed fast mover pilot. Yes. The list goes on and on as it does for each of
us.
Your list is long Gary Yates. You, and all of
us, are great American Combat heroes. Those you looked up to as
"more" of a hero to you were no more a hero than you. There were even
younger and less experienced pilots that looked up to you the same.
Face it! You have hero status and that is
verified by myself and all the other bona fide heroes in the air and on the
ground.
Here is some of the conversation between Mike
Jacobi and I. It was a boost and a turning point for
me.
Mike: [email to Lance] .....Does anybody
remember who was with me when we were picking up a dog team in the hills just
west of Camp Evan's and a guy jumped up just a few feet away and stitched the
side of the aircraft with an AK-47? A couple of Pact's were wounded, and
our fuel line was nicked. They greased the guy, and we took off and when
we landed at the medivac pad on the west side of Evan's our aircraft was
covered in fuel, and the Doc put our wounded on hold while he beat on the chest
of an drug overdose case trying to get his heart
started again......
ME:...
Do I have a surprise for you. I was the A/C on the mission where the (one or
two) bad guys stood up from underneath the elephant grass and let go at us. You
were flying because I had a bad hangover. We circled the LZ which was on the
eastern slope of the hills just west of Evans. The unit on the ground popped
green smoke and you acknowledged green.
I believe we could almost, if not see Evans
from the LZ. This may have even been your first or near first peter pilot ride.
We had a dog team on board and some other packs and stuff. It was a day of go
to LZ A, pick this or those up, take them to LZ B, then C then D and so forth.
It was all supposed to be green and cold. The platoon unit of the LZ where we
got shot up opened fire, and the Crew Chief on my side opened fire. The bad
guys were in between. There was some friendly fire injuries, maybe even some
KIA. You pulled pitch immediately. I had some trouble getting you to give me
the controls, but you did. I wrote it off to shock. We had a fire light, I
thought I was shot, and we had at least one bad wounded. His blood was blown up
on the back of my neck. We were losing fuel; the CE could see it.
The tower cleared us for an emergency landing
on the runway and had called out the crash trucks and ambulances, but I chose
to land at the MASH pad. The Crew Chief thought he was shot (but had slammed
his back against something trying to bring up his 60 to firing position. The
dog knocked his master out of the aircraft and to the ground. One guy had one
leg on the cargo bay floor with something he was putting in or taking out. The
sudden lift off broke his leg.
I think I was flying at the time we landed on
the MASH pad and shut it down. You may have been flying because I thought I was
shot in the back of the neck. I and the Crew Chief were checked out and there
were no holes. We were told that if we hadn't come directly to the MASH pad,
the guy or guys in the back wouldn't have made it.
I refused to fly the aircraft back to the
Roundtable. Maintenance sent over a crew, checked it out and flew it back. We
rode back in a jeep or truck. I was chewed out from one side and down the other
for landing or 'emergency landing' on the MASH pad because of the condition of
the aircraft and shutting down on the pad was bad. I definitely broke SOP
and I knew it. Becker let me have it with both barrels and threatened me with
an Article 15. I told him to send me to jail or send me home....
MIKE:...
John, I had an occasion to talk to an officer from the ground unit maybe a year
or so after the incident [of us being shot up inside the supposedly secure
perimeter]. It could have actually been the unit CO I talked to; I can't
remember for sure. I do very clearly remember the context of his
conversation and that was the gross incompetence of security up there on that
hill that day [enemy penetration right in and among our infantry]. Were
our guys lazy? Tired? Didn't they follow any of the
fundamentals? You see, there was a failure, and failures do happen!
I remember pulling pitch as the rounds were going off ..... and that's a
judgment call in and of itself. What if we made it up over the trees ...
and no more. At least we were on the ground when the s-hit the fan.
And what if we hadn't moved ... would he have gotten us then?... the enemy was
with-in.
Bad combination. As far as your deciding
to land directly onto the MASH pad .... somewhere out there a guy is still
alive because you did it. Its one of those
deals where you make your own calls and accept your own judgment...
internally. It just goes with the turf. I sleep better than my wife,
and so should you. And nobody else was up there in that cockpit but
you ... and me.........How old were you, nineteen, twenty years old?
ME: ....Thank you for you words. Yes, it was you and I, and we made it. I was 20 with
9, 10 or 11 months in country. I don't remember the date of the incident - do
you? Even the month would help. I am researching and the closer to the actual
date we can come, the higher the probability is that I can find the
information, if there is any.
It may be that I can find the guy that was
saved and meet him. I would like to remember the crew chief and the gunner. I
want to know what happened about friendly fire. If anyone died should I find
the families and maybe help put it to rest for them. An
what of the injured, maybe talking to them can help put things to rest for
them. I feel rather strongly that anyone in that moment of chaos will remember
it for the rest of their lives. I believe, besides myself, that one or more
others
might be able to put it to rest if they just talked to someone else that was
there that day. I don't know right now if all of these meeting I am pondering
are from guilt or a desire to heal. I remember the Crew Chief coming to me with
such sadness and guilt on his face that he may have shot some of our guys. I
wonder how he made it through that guilt.
For many years I went over and over the many
decisions I made as an aircraft commander. I what if'ed
myself into a depression.
I was a good aircraft commander. I made
decisions that saved lives and I would have lain down my life even to bring out
the body of another American. I took chances, but they were calculated. I
wasn't a great officer, but I was a great pilot. I should be satisfied with
that.
That day, there were so many things happening
at once. The aircraft was dangerously hit and could catch on fire at any
moment. I even seem to remember an intermittent fire light and some other
warning lights. The grunt in the back was dying quickly. I thought I was shot.
What had happened to my neck was that I jerked my head to the left
instinctively
to look at the noise and my neck popped just as the grunt behind me on the
floor took the rounds. His blood was splattered onto my back and when I rubbed
the back of my neck and looked at my glove, there was blood. I felt guilt because I thought that maybe it was concern over my wound
that pushed me into the decision to go to the MASH pad. The Crew Chief even
thought he was shot. I even remember purposely landing hard at the MASH pad. I
wanted anyone observing to know there was big trouble. I even felt guilt over
that maneuver. I believed it wouldn't cause any damage, or maybe I wanted some
bent skids. I don't remember. I seem to remember fire extinguishers being used,
but I don't remember any fire. I think we believed there was one and it went
out on it's own. God, what
if that helicopter had burned on the MASH pad. It seems I remember the MASH
unit was a tent and we landed fairly close, or did I land back from the pad and
the tent. Do you remember?
Maybe it was EVERYTHING that pushed me into the
decision to go to the MASH. I remember calling an emergency to Evans tower and
they cleared all traffic from the pattern and called out the trucks. I told
them we had wounded. I even seem to remember the tower warning me to not land
at the MASH and that I must land on the runway. If they did, I don't
remember getting whacked officially for it. Maybe someone covered my ass on
that one. I calculated the distance and time it would take an ambulance to go
from the runway to the MASH unit. It was too long and that
amount of time would probably have meant death. The Crew Chief was telling me
the guy in the back was shot up bad and was going fast. I
made the call and did what I felt was the best thing to do. I remember you and
I doing our job together in the cockpit. I think we even discussed putting it
down or taking it in.
I don't know if you read that I put anything
negative on you about this incident. I did have some negative feelings because
I thought you were in shock and wouldn't let go of the controls and were flying
us into the trees. Now I know you had the controls and got us the hell out of
there. I know now there was no reason to have any negative remembrances of you.
I felt much guilt over that incident. Maybe I unjustly transferred
some of it to you. We both reacted and we made it home and a life was saved. I
now have the opportunity to put this to rest because I actually talked to the
man in the right seat from that day.
Reviewing it in my mind. You knew I had a
hangover. You were flying the aircraft. Any investigation would show that the
pilot with the most experience was on the controls. I didn't know that until
now. My hangover was there and I carry guilt for
that. I seem to remember telling you I had a hangover, it was probably
obvious, and that once I got the aircraft out of the revetment, I turned it
over to you. My hangover didn't affect the mission. It probably gave you some
additional anxiety, but that additional anxiety may have affected your frame of
mind. Maybe that anxiety helped your quick reaction time because you were more
vigilant. Until 1985, that was just one of my countless hangovers. I am a sober
now and each day I fight to stay that way and each day I win.
It is amazing to me that I was really the green
pilot in the cockpit compared to your background. I was cocky and belligerent
and by that time in my tour, I was waiting to die. I believe I wasn't going
home alive. I made a conscious effort to giving the right seats as much experience
as possible. They were making right seats into left seats quickly because we
weren't getting enough replacements and the VNAF were getting the parts and the
new aircraft. I wanted every right seat to have the best chance he could have.
By that time I had taken on the role of sort of a combat instructor pilot, and
I even thought I was teaching this new green peter pilot something that day.
Were you a Captain? Boy, was I cocky. I was training a Captain. I bet you
thought I was just another young Warrant that thought he knew it all,
especially with your background. I must admit at this point that I did
treat RLO's different than new wobbly ones and I don't mean I treated RLO's
better.
That day, I thought I was shot. With your
experience, you made the best decision under extreme adverse conditions. In
hindsight, God was watching over all of us by putting you in the right seat. He
may have put me in the left seat because he knew I would ignore SOP and go for the
MASH pad. He knew I would grab the aircraft away from you and take
over the situation as it was my responsibility as the A/C. I knew every nut,
bolt, noise and capability of that particular aircraft. I had no idea you had
prior experience. Until your message, I thought you were a green pilot on his
first mission. Maybe I had to think that in order to do what I did that day.
Someone probably knew from the night before that I would have a hangover the
next day and they put me with you because you had experience and would handle
things.
God was watching over all of us, especially the
guy that was severely wounded. We were the right team, with the right
experience, in the right place at the right time. Yes, God only knows what
would have happened if
we had done something else, but we didn't.
With Respect and Admiration..........
MIKE: ....
John, you need to say "I forgive you" .... to yourself. It'll
make you feel better .... and there's nobody else out there. A kid runs
with the ball instead of passing it or misses a basket .... it's all
instinctive and mostly physical, but guilt? ... does that really enter into it?
And oh by the way, how good was his training and how good did he play the whole
game? How about the whole season? And what about all of the
other aspects of his life, outside of sports?
Flying [and crewing] is both mental and physical and aviators were the only
group I can recall who peer reviewed each other for promotion with-in the
cockpit. Nobody made "Aircraft Commander" until the other AC's
felt like they could handle it, and no other branch of the army had anything
like that, that I am aware of. And when someone new like myself came
along, we still had to learn the area and ground troops and .... prove
ourselves .... to our peers, and nobody else. Not some BS chain of
command. But to our peers. Unimaginable, when you stop and think
about how the army typically operates, and I dare say that only a bunch of
aviators would operate that way. This system existed because, if you
played the game long enough .... somebody was always going to get killed or
injured .... it was the nature of the work, and you had to be a hard-core
combat aviator before you could even hope to keep those loses to a
minimum. And if you were put right back out there into that environment
again today, and if you flew long enough, other casualties would occur.
You can't beat the casino!!!! A whole army wanted you dead!!!
And by the way, my recollection of you was as a hard-core combat hardened
"Aircraft Commander" in every good sense of the word, and you should
feel proud about your service....
------------
Gary, maybe this helps.
John Donaldson
Lancer 14 and damn proud to be considered a Lancer - the unit full of true
combat heroes like Gary Yates.
This submitted by Steve Crimm, Lancer 43
FLYING WEST
I hope there's a place, way up in the sky,
Where pilots can go, when they have to die.
A place where a guy can buy a cold beer
For a friend and a comrade, whose memory is dear;
A place where no doctor or lawyer can tread ,
Nor a management type would ere be caught dead;
Just a quaint little place, kind of dark, full
of smoke,
Where they like to sing loud, and love a good
joke;
The kind of a place where a lady could go
And feel safe and protected, by the men she
would know.
There must be a place where old pilots go,
When their paining is finished, and their
airspeed gets low,
Where the whiskey is old, and the women are young,
And songs about flying and dying are sung,
Where you'd see all the fellows who'd flown west
before,
And they'd call out your name, as you came
through the door.
Who would buy you a drink, if your thirst should
be bad,
And relate to the others, "He was quite a
good lad!"
And then through the mist, you'd spot an old guy
You had not seen in years, though he taught you
to fly.
He'd nod his old head, and grin ear to ear;
And say, "Welcome, my son, I'm pleased that
you're here."
For this is the place where true flyers come,
When their journey is over, and the war has been
won.
They've come here at last to be safe and alone,
From the government clerks and the management
clone,
Politicians and lawyers, the Feds and the noise,
Here all hours are happy, and these good ole
boys
Can relax with a cool one, and a well-deserved
rest;
This is heaven, my son......You've passed your
last test!"
***Anonymous***