War Stories

The staging down to Solid Anchor to cover for Det One gave me a chance to visit with my HT-8 buddy, John Gana. John was one of six of us jaygees who had come in-country together; me, John, Mike Reid, Det 7, Dave Quick, Det 2, Tony Ortiz, Det 3, now dead, Joe Love, Det 3. John had just recently acquired the sobriequet “Magnet Ass,” according to his O-in-C, LCDR Jim Long, who had been our Fearless Leader at Fort Rucker, Alabama, while we had gone through Army Huey transition, tactics, and gunnery school. Good times. He seemed to attract …

Rockets Our rocket system is very simple. There are two seven-shot pods, one on each side. It must have been originally designed to fire one type of rocket, a 10-pound high explosive warhead (HE). With the advent of a variety of warheads and fusing, it had outgrown its control box. Our system control box has four positions, OFF, SINGLE, SALVO, and RESET. The control box has no ability to select individual pods, or even which pod. OFF means that power is secured to the rocket system. We pulled the electrical power circuit breakers to be sure because it was such …

Excerpted from the book Fire From The Sky by Richard C. Knott Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, Maryland Reprinted with permission of the author. 6 March 1969 was a difficult day for HA(L)-3. It began shortly after midnight when Viet Cong forces began a heavy motor attack on Dong Tam, from which Det’s 4 and 6 were staging. As crews attempted to get airborne, mortar rounds hit an ammunition dump nearby, which went up in a tremendous explosion. The ear-splitting blast of twenty-two tons of minutions engulfed the two helicopters as they were taking off. Door gunner ADJ-2 Vincent G. (Vince) …