Page 1

Page 1 | Page 2 | Page 3

SP/5 STEPHEN L. (ANDY) ANDERSON

IN JAN OF 1998 WHILE LOOKING FOR SOME PHOTOS FROM VIETNAM I FOUND THIS DIARY WHICH WASN'T REALLY LOST JUST WAITING TO COME TO THE SURFACE AT THE PROPER TIME. I GUESS IT IS TIME.

I wrote this during Aug and Sept 1970 while assigned to A Company, 25th Aviation Battalion, 25th Infantry Division which was located at the Cu Chi Base Camp South Vietnam. At the time this was written I was 22 years of age, very, very lonely and a long way from home in a very strange land.

Today I start keeping this. I don't know how long I'll keep writing. Just have to wait and see.

I sit here thinking of all the people and things I wish I had written about. The ones that have gone home with joy in their hearts because they can leave this God-forsaken place. Also the ones that go back with nothing in their hearts. The ones I mean that are DEAD. The ones that gave everything for their country. I wonder if it's worth it. Let me remember the ones that I can so maybe I'll never forget them.

My first mission in Vietnam was in UH-1H 436. Aircraft 196 had crashed the night of 15 Dec 69. I think that was the date. 196 was a Night Hawk ship with a crew of five and four passengers that dark and stormy night. The reason I say dark and stormy is because that's exactly the weather conditions. The barometer had dropped like a rock because of a storm moving in. There wasn't any moon that night. It was so dark you really couldn't see your hand in front of you. The ship, 196, was sent to a small ARVN position that night because the people thought they had movement. That accounts for the reason the ship was out there on such an ungodly night. As for the passengers, they had bummed a ride to their unit which just happened to be at the ARVN compound. So now we have a ship with nine people going out in pitch black night. then the barometer drops so the altimeters weren't reliable. They checked the area around the ARVN Compound with the starlight scope, saw nothing and decided to land. They were shooting the approach to a strobe light. To make a long story short they did a left turn into the ground. All on the ship except one died that dark, stormy night. I can remember three of the crews names. AC WO-1 Drake, P WO-1 Sotomoto, CE SP/4 Vassuar. They all were killed. The gunner lived but had burns that will leave scars for life. One of the passengers lived for a few days but didn't make it. The rest died. The ground troops got to the ship as soon as possible but couldn't put the fire out. The next day we took the accident investigation board to the site in 436, naturally I went along. The two pilots were still strapped in the seats because they couldn't get them out until the wreckage cooled. It was pitiful. Those blobs of burned flesh that had once been men. I had to help put them into the body bags. I'll never forget that smell. We put them in 831 and thus they started that last long ride home. God bless them. I just wish it seemed worth it.

The next day we had a gunner from B Company killed. He took an .51 in the chest. I never knew him, didn't even know his name. He was just another waste.

We had several ships shot to bits in Jan and Feb but we didn't get anyone killed.

346 took an RPG in the fuel cell in Jan. Don't remember the day, anyway the RPG didn't go off. Mr. Kelly was flying. He landed on the north side of the mountain but everyone got out with minor burns. The ship burned to the ground.

The next day one of B Co. C models had the same thing happen. RPG didn't go off. They landed about two rotor disks behind 346, it looks like they were in formation. The Charley model burned too. Again only minor cuts and burns. The burned spots are still there after all these months. They can bee seen if you know where to look.

March and April were quiet. We didn't even have any ships take fire. May was a good month. A couple of ships wrecked due to mechanical failures. 847 lost power and crashed but nobody was hurt bad. We had two bad ones in May now that I think of it. 058 was shot down in the Bo Lo Woods. Lt. Orr, his pilot and the gunner were killed. The crewchief, SP/5 Asher, made it OK. Don't know what's wrong me, I can't remember the names like I should.

Guess I'll quit for tonight. I have to think. Those people should not be forgotten so soon.

Not flying today. Had to go to personnel to see about my application for flight school. Guess I'll just take it easy today. I'll try to remember those that I seem to have forgotten.

I remember Mr. Harage, Mr. Sminoff, Hunter and I can't remember the gunners name. Any way they had seven passengers and a crew of four. They flew into power lines that cross the river at Long Binh. Everyone except one passenger was killed. Ten people killed because one guy forgot about the power lines. 90% of the ships lost over here are due to pilot error. I have a clipping about the crash. I'll put it in here if I can find it.

NOTE: The following is a the article from the Stars and Strips.

Huey Helo Crash Kills 11, 1 Survives

By Spec. 4 BILL TOLIVER

S&S Staff Corespondent

SAIGON - Eleven American soldiers died and one was injured Friday when their UH1 (Huey) helicopter hit a power line and crashed into the Dong Nai River 13 miles northeast of Saigon, the U. S. Command reported Tuesday.

“We were about two-thirds of the way across the river when I heard two or three loud snapping noises or bursts,” said S Sgt. Daniel Ouellette, the lone survivor. “I wondered what could be happening right in the middle of the river. Then the chopper started falling and jolting and that was the last I remembered until I woke up and found myself on a barge.”

Ouellette told his story to Pacific Stars and Strips over the telephone from the 24th Evac. Hospital in Long Binh.

He said an officer told him Tuesday that a Vietnamese villager in a sampan saw two or three people floating down the river at the scene of the crash but, though he tried to save all three, he was able to hang on to only one and drag him to shore. That was Ouellett.

A U. S. Command spokesman said in Saigon Tuesday that the cause of the crash of the 25th Inf. Div. courier chopper is under investigation.

He said the announcement of the crash was delayed pending identification of the dead and notification of kin.

“I don't know why it was me the villager picked to save,” Ouellette said. “I was damned lucky.” The 25th Inf. Div. sergeant said he was just returning to his unit from special leave in the States.

“There were three of us that weren't strapped in because the seat belts didn't match,” he said. “ I guess we just happened to be flushed out of the copter when it hit water.” Ouellette talked as though he had gravel in his mouth. In the crash, he said, his partial plate had broken and cut up his mouth requiring “a lot of stitches.” Also he had “a lot of pulled muscles in my leg.”

Sources said that a massive day-and-night search for survivors was mounted by troops of B Co., 720th M.P. Bn., which is responsible for the area.

Most of the bodies were recovered Sunday, they said. Monday morning Navy divers located the helicopter which by that time was buried in the river silt. A crane lifted out the helicopter which had three bodies in it and the search concluded Monday afternoon.

“I could never again hold anything against the Vietnamese.” said Quellette. “These people are more considerate of other people than we are of our own.”

On the flight back from the states he said he met one of his buddies that he used to drink with at CuChi.

“When we landed, he said, “Why don't we go right up to CuChi?” and we caught the copter, but we never made it.

I guess I was mistaken, there were eleven killed and one that lived.

There were several other times when aircraft were destroyed but no one was hurt.

One such case was aircraft 147. The new Bn. Co. LTC Drotor and CPT Mosier were making a power recovery auto-rotation in the Plain of Reeds. Things just didn't go like they should, they just simply didn't recover. The ship hit and rolled over. 147 was destroyed but the pilots weren't hurt. They were sure lucky. Shortly after the crash I changed missions. I don't have any use for a man that makes mistakes like that.

Another time we had a 82mm motor round land behind the Night Hawk ship at Tay Ninh. The ship was on the VIP pad waiting for a mission. The crew was sleeping in, on and around the ship. The round hit about five feet behind the ship and ripped holes all through it. One guy, Parrot, caught shrapnel in the rear. The rest weren't hurt. The ship had to be sent back to the world for overhaul.

Flew with LTC Drotor today. Hope I never have to again. We left the Bear Pit to go to the Warrior pad and the tower gave us left traffic but dumb, dumb, took right traffic. Tower told us to land 31, we landed 13. In short our Bn. Co is a bad pilot. We cleared CuChi traffic without running over anyone and started for Saigon to drop General Thurman off at H-3, he's going on R&R. When the Col. tried to call CLIPPER CONTROL he tried to use the preset on the UHF. It naturally didn't work because I haven't set it up yet. The Rocky the Flying Squirrel is trying to teach Just Plain Ted the pushes everywhere so I haven't set the push for CLIPPER and neither could the Pilot. He asked me if I knew it. I told him “no.” I do know but I wanted him to squirm. He never thought to try CLIPPER on FM. He called LITTLE BEAR ops and flight followed with them. When we entered H-3 traffic the tower told us to report right downwind. Ole Dumb, Dumb didn't report anything until we turned final. On top of all that he doesn't have control of the ship like he should. For a guy that is supposed to be a Senior Aviator he can't fly at all. I've seen GOOKS do better.

Put 448 in P.E. today. Should be out in two days at the most. It's the first P.E. so there isn't much wrong with it. I never let much be wrong with it anyway. Bad for my image.

We had a ship get shot up yesterday. 281 was the ship number. The crew was Mr. McDonald as AC, CPT Inglehart Pilot, SP/4 Pope crewchief and I don't know the gunners name. It was his first day flying.

They had made a DUSTOFF and were climbing out of the LZ at Katum when they took AK fire. Mac was hit in the right shoulder by bullet fragments. CPT. Inglehart was shot in the right hand and took a round dead in the chest. His Chicken Board saved him. Pope was hit in the chest also and his Chicken Board saved him too. A piece of the bullet went through Pope's neck but it didn't hurt him very bad. He'll be back to the company tomorrow. The gunner didn't get a scratch.

Mac and CPT. Inglehart made it back to Tay Ninh with Mac working the cyclic and CPT. Inglehart on the collective. They were about half way in when the hydraulics went out. They made a running landing OK. They really did a good job. They will all recover. CPT. Inglehart will take the longest because his hand was messed up kind of bad.

Now for some more of the things that happened and I can't remember the names.

The RENEGADE WOODS. We didn't lose any ships but the 116th lost a gunship with a crew of four. It all started when the gunship went down. The 2nd of the 12th went in to the woods to get the crewchief. The 1/27th Wolf Hounds went with them and a six man Ranger team. The rangers made contact first. There were two of the rangers walking point when a Gook jumped up and shot the lead man in the chest with a RPG. It killed both point men and wounded three more. All in all we lost six GI's in the woods and killed fourth bad guys. The operation lasted three days.

I was flying with LTC Gosney and Maj. Marsh that first day with CSM Bennett as gunner.

When we arrived that day there had been a CIA (Captured in Action). The little bastard shot two of our guys and then gave up. I don't know why the ground troops didn't kill him. Anyway, we went down and picked him up and took him back to CuChi. He really didn't look very mean then. He was dirty, sick and scared stiff.

When we returned to the contact two FAC's had caught ten bad buys in the open. They rolled in on them and got eight of the ten. The ground troops shot and killed the other two. A clean sweep. Lt. Beane and CPT Pearson dropped a FLAME BATH on two bad guys that day. Two more gone to see Uncle Ho.

We put seven hours in that day hauling resupply. When we went back to CuChi that night we carried the two Rangers that were hit by the RPG back with us. I'll never forget the smell or the looks on those guys faces. We had to put them in body bags because no one had had the time to do it all day. One guy, the one that was hit in the chest, was blown to bits. As many times as I've brought people in like this I never get used to it. When we bring NVA or ARVN's in it doesn't affect me much but GI's are different. It's all worth it I GUESS!! I don't know.

About a week after all this happened the 65th Engineers went in with the ROME Plows and a month later the RENEGADE WOODS was the RENEGADE STUMPS. Like hunting rats at home. Find their nest, kill all you can and tear the nest down. Only trouble is these rats shoot back.

I guess I should write about the good things that have happened here instead of all the bad things. The only thing is there haven't been that many good things happen. There are two good things about this place. One is DEROS, the other is Deb. Knowing that she is waiting and by the things I've had to do here our children will be able to grow up free, able to do what they want.

When you see a village that the NVA have been through in an attack you realize just how lucky we are back in the states. I've seen two villages that were overrun. The NVA go through the village and kill or kidnap all the males between 13 and 40. Anyone else that gets in the way is slaughtered. Then they send one of our guys to jail for the rest of his life if he can't prove he was under fire when he shoots someone. What's the use.

I believe that the one death that I've seen over here that bothered me the most was Lt. Tuttle. We picked him up at Saigon one day and took him to his unit at Xuan Loc. Two days later we took him to the 93rd Evac at Long Binh. He had the top right side of his head blown away. It was terrible that he was killed but it bothered me more than usual for some reason. It was two days after we took him in that I realized what was bugging me. His brain wasn't there. Just a big hole in his head. All of him will never get home. May God bless him and all the others.

Then came Cambodia. My first encounter with that place was out by Duc Hoa. It was before the U. S. troops got in on it. There was a blocking force of GI's just taking it easy. A colored guy decided to go swimming in a bomb crater. He jumped in and didn't come up. They fished him out and somehow got hold of us. We went down and picked the guy up and headed for 12th Evac. CPT. Gosney was with us that day. He tried mouth to mouth but the air passage was blocked. He cut into the guys windpipe with a pocket knife. He got air in that way but it was to late. We beat on the guys chest, tried everything. I was feeling so helpless. If we could have been a little faster maybe ______. O' well that's water under the bridge.

I took over General Thurmans mission a week before we pulled out of Cambodia.

They had the ship, 559, shot up twice and the standby ship, 535, once. After I took over the mission we were shot at a lot but never hit. Guess we were real lucky. I saw the last troops leave Cambodia. I took movies and everything. Something to tell the kids about.

We didn't make any Dustoff's while I had 559 until 24 July. Then all kinds of things happened. The bad guys hid a convoy up by FSB Lanyard.

The following is an article from the Stars & Stripes.

Dreadnaught Tankers Aid Rout of Enemy

FSB Lanyard - Reacting quickly, Dreadnaught tankers supported an element of the 4th Battalion, 49th ARVN Regiment recently in a daylight operation that killed 11 NVA soldiers and captured two near the Cambodia border.

Alfa Company, 2nd Battalion, 34th Armor, was conducting a search operation south of Fire Support Base Lanyard during mid morning when two artillery batteries moving north in convoy from Thien Ngon received small arms and rocket propelled grenade fire.

The artillery units, Bravo Battery, 1st Battalion, 27th Artillery and Charlie Battery, 2nd Battalion, 32nd Artillery, called for arty, gunships and air strike support. At the same time the tankers and the ARVN elements moved into the contact area.

Within 20 minutes, contact with the unknown size enemy element was lost and the Dreadnaughts and the ARVN began a search of the area. Shortly before noon they came upon an estimated 150 enemy in a bunker complex.

Artillery and gunship support was again called in for the battle which lasted 90 minutes. With the tankers firing close in support the Vietnamese troops killed 11 NVA, took two others prisoner and captured four assault rifles, two rocket propelled grenade launchers and a light machine gun.

Two ARVN were killed. There were no U. S. casualties.

“It was one of the finest combat maneuvers we've had here,” a 1st Brigade operations officer, said. He praised the armor unit for its quick reaction.

The prisoners told officials that the enemy unit's mission was to make contact with allied forces with special emphasis on ambushing convoys.

The clipping tells about what happened. We hauled the CIA's back to Tay Ninh that day. We took four ARVN's that got shot up back at different times. One of them died on us on the way to 45th Surgery at Tay Ninh. He had a hole in the chest and a bad wound in the head. The bad guys were really set up. Bunkers, telephones, RPG's, AK's, Claymores, the works. They popped the bush on tanks. If they had waited they would have hit the trucks full of ARVN's the ARVN's would really have been hurting. By the way the contact lasted three hours not an hour and a half.

Not much going on since then. That's the way I like it. I've seen enough blood and death. I just want to go home and Love Debi and forget it all.

Well some super brave person got a body count last night. Some BASTARD stabbed one of the DONUT DOLLIES. They haven't caught him yet. The guys that feel like I do had better not find him. Everyone on the base camp is really mad. It would be cool if we had a good old fashion lynching.

I went to Saigon today and called Deb. It was so wonderful I can't put it in words. There is one drawback though. That six short minutes made me realize how far she is away from me and how much I miss her. I sure Love that woman.

After I called Debi I went back to TSN to the movie. I planned to leave before it was over so I could be at H-3 to catch the courier back to Cu Chi at 4:00. The movie was a good one so I stayed until it was over at 4:30. I walked over to H-3 and as luck would have it the courier ship had just landed. I just ran over, jumped in, and away we went. All in all it was a real good day.

They caught the guy who killed the DONUT DOLLIE. They used tracker dogs to find him. I hope they hang him. A man like that doesn't deserve to live.

My day was common. I went out after morning formation and asked Mr. Ca Bam Bam to start my ship to charge the battery. When he pulled the trigger the battery voltage dropped from 27 to 5. I ended up getting the APU to start. That's life.

I had to fly with LTC Drotor again today. I'll swear we get pilots right out of flight school that can fly better than he can. We went down and picked up BG Thruman, Ralph, CPT. Lockwood and Just Plain Ted. When we arrived at H-3 the tower told good Ole Clipper 6 to land in the grassy area short of the yellow “T.” Clipper 6 shot his approach short of the “T” and then proceeded to taxi to the VIP pad. The tower saw him in time to keep Clipper 6 from killing anyone. We finally made it to the VIP pad and picked up the General.

When we entered CuChi traffic C-6 reported left base for the cross. Tower said “Roger,” and gave us wind, DA and said our traffic was an OV-10 on short final lading 22. Good Ole C-6 went plugging on headed for a collision with the OV-10. I told him that the OV-10 was at one and was very close. C-6 just kept on going. Finally the Pilot hit C-6 on the arm and pointed to the OV-10. We then made a sharp right turn and went behind the OV-10. The tower told C-6 to land 22-31 to the cross. That would have put us landing into the wind. What does old C-6 do? He lands 22-13. That meant he had to land with a direct tail wind. We came to a shuddering stop and made it to the Warrior Pad and landed with only 3 bounces. We made it back to the Bear Pit without farther troubles. I don't know how that happened. Lord only knows how nervous that man makes me. It's the first time I've ever flown with someone that scares me. O'yes, he still doesn't know CLIPPER CONTROL uniform push.

I made it back anyway. Tomorrow the old gang flies again. So goes the vacation.

Back to the old grind. We flew 4+15 today. That's OK. It's long enough to make the day go fast but not long enough to be boring.

They had to close FSB Hooter down because of Malaria. They had 50 cases in one week. The reason they had so much trouble in that area is unknown. There is an abandoned VC Hospital in the area. It seems that where there is such a place Malaria is terrible.

Received two tapes from Deb today. I couldn't make it without her.

U. S. Girl Stabbed To Death

SAIGON - A 21 year-old Red Cross worker was discovered early Sunday stabbed to death in her room at the Red Cross billets in CuChi, military officials said Monday.

Virginia Kirsch of Brookfield, Ohio, a “Doughnut Dollie” with the 25th Inf. Div. was rushed to the 25th Medical Bn.'s dispensary where she was pronounced dead of multiple stab wounds.

Officials were tight-lipped about the death, but one said soldiers at the base camp, located about 20 miles northwest of Saigon, were angered by the slaying.

The “Doughnut Dollies” are American girls who volunteer to go to Vietnam with the American Red Cross. They visit fire support bases and outposts taking doughnuts and soft drinks to combat troops.

(A Red Cross spokesman identified Miss Kirsch's parents as Mr. and Mrs. Max J. Kirsch of Brookfield, Ohio and said that the U. S. commander in Vietnam, Gen. Creighton Abrams, had written to them expressing his regrets, UPI reported.

(Miss Kirsch had only been in Vietnam about two weeks at the time of her death, the spokesman said. He said she had been graduated from Miami University earlier this year and had been a part time English and religion teacher at Badin Senior High School in Hamilton, Ohio, before coming to Vietnam.)

Military officials refused to provide any details of the killing, but said an investigation was under way.

They still haven't found the guy that did it.

Still haven't caught the guy that killed the Red Cross girl.

Flew 3+10 today. Real slow for General Thurman. We all, ROCKY THE FLYING SQUIRREL, JUST PLAIN TED, BUTCH and myself have to go to the Generals office at 0830 in the morning. We don't know what for, he just said “Be there!”

Lockwood sure wasn't with it today. He messed up almost every landing. That R&R sure didn't do him any good as far as flying goes. He'll be OK in a day or two.

The Triple Duce had a track destroyed today. It hit a 500 pound bomb. Killed everyone on it. There isn't enough money to get me on one of those things.

The 1st ARVN Airborne found a good sized bunch of enemy equipment yesterday. 1 - . 51Cal with two extra barrels, 1 twin 51's, 1 American .50 Cal, 2 81mm mortars complete, 4 - 60mm motors complete, 40 - SKS's new, 2 - AK50's, 3 RPG launchers, 8 - RPG rockets, and a pile of ammo for all the stuff they found. They also killed 60 bad guys and lost two of their own. The ARVN Airborne are good.

The Deans had a Super LOH shot down at VC Island today. That surprised everyone. The pilot of the OH-58 was the most surprised. He had both legs broken but he'll be OK. VC Island is at Long Binh.

I'm not flying today. I have bunker commander tonight, that should be loads of fun.

We went to the Generals office this morning. We all got Bronze Stars. I don't think I deserve it. I told the General I didn't think I deserved it and he said “ I think you should have it, I'm the boss, and that's that.” What could I say.

Now for something I forgot to write about yesterday. We landed in a rice paddy, let the General and Ralph off and repositioned to the other side of the place where the Grunts were set up. When Ralph and the Gen Gen Came back to the ship the General walked around the rice paddy dikes to the ship. Not Ralph, he had to cut across the rice paddy, through the water. He went about three steps and fell into a bomb crater. One second he was there and the next his hat was floating across the water. I laughed until I cried. The Gen, Gen looked at him and just shook his head.

Slept all day today after guard last night. I only slept an hours or so. Butch and the rest of the crew flew 6+15 today. Hope we fly that long tomorrow.

Guard last night was uneventful. We didn't even shoot once. It was really dull. That's the way I like it. I'm to short to fight off ground attacks. 39 days and I'll be back with Debi. Viet Nam would be unbearable if she wasn't waiting for me.

U. S. Girl's Killer Has Price on Head

SAIGON (UPI) - Military authorities Wednesday issued a wanted bulletin for an unidentified suspect in the murder of Red Cross volunteer Virginia Kirsch, 21, of Brookfield, Ohio.

The authorities who said a “sizeable” reward would be paid for information leading to his capture, issued a composite drawing and a description. It said he was a 23-year-old Caucasian of medium height and build, dressed in light colored trousers, a white shirt and dark jacket. The cloths may be blood - splattered, they said.

Miss Kirsch was found stabbed to death early Sunday at CuChi, 16 miles northwest of Saigon. She had been at the base about a week and had arrived in Vietnam only two weeks before that. She was one of six Red Cross volunteers quartered at a billet under military police guard 200 yards from the Division headquarters building.

Military sources said Wednesday pathologist found no evidence Miss Kirsch was raped. An autopsy was performed Tuesday.

The wanted bulletin issued by military authorities show a drawing of a young man with dark hair parted on the left side and a cleft chin. It said the murder took place just before Miss Kirsch's body was found.

The authorities refused to give other details, including who had offered the reward, how the description had been obtained or whether anybody had seen the suspect leaving the scene of the crime.

A guard was on duty at the barracks when the stabbing occurred, officials said.

Miss Kirsch's body is being returned to the United States aboard a U. S. Air Force plane.

In Brookfield, her sister Mary, 16, said “she wanted to go to Vietnam to do something for the boys. She wanted to help them and the country.”

The girl was one of five daughters of Mr. and Mrs. Max J. Kirsch of Brookfield. They also have tow living sons - a third son was killed in 1958 traffic mishap.

Only flew 2+15 today. General Abrams was at CuChi all afternoon so all the Generals stayed at CuChi.

We made our first DUSTOFF in 448 today. We picked up a GI that had a jeep wreck. He had a head wound that was bleeding a lot but we tightened the bandage and stopped most of the bleeding. He also had a bad cut on his right arm. We put a pressure bandage on it. If we had of been much farther from CuChi we would have had to use a tourniquet. I started to put one on his arm but JR. said there was no need we were just crossing the bunker line. I'm sure he'll be OK. DUSTOFF'S really give me a feeling of accomplishment. The guy would have bled to death if he had been brought in by jeep.

LTC Drotor messed up again today. He had commo take a headset out of each of the Generals ships. They took one out of 444, 395, and mine, 448. There were a whole bunch of visiting Generals here today and the CG didn't have enough headsets to go around. We had enough but only because I stole one from a DEANS ship. BG Green was short one too. Drotor is to report to the CG's office at 1800 tonight. That freak is going to mess around until he gets relieved. I hope it happens soon before he kills someone with his weird flying.

If I hadn't had a PMI at the end of the day today would have really been easy.

The General flew to the 3rd of the 9th area today asking the units commanders if they were having any trouble with POT smokers. If so their opinions on how to stop it or at least slow it down.

We took some big wig, a GS 18, to FSB Kien to continue along the same lines as JR. today. A GS18 is about the same as a LT. General.

No mail from Deb today but I got a late birthday card from Granny and a letter from Mom.

JR. told us an interesting story about mine clearing today. He said that one time there was a terrible problem of mines on highway 8A Southeast of CuChi. They tried several things but the most interesting was the use of water buffalo's for mine clearing. They leased 100 water buffalo from the Vietnamese and drove them down 8A first thing each morning. Naturally several were blown up but everyone involved came out ahead. We had a mine free road. The Vietnamese made out three ways on the deal.

1. They were paid for the use of the water buffalo.

2. They were paid in full for the buffalo that were blown up

3. They also kept the meat to either be eaten or sold.

Then someone decided it was cruel. The newspapers found out about it so they went back to blowing people up instead of the water buffalo.

1st of the 5th, 4th of the 23rd and the 11th ACR mounted a big operation south of Black Horse today. The only thing that came of it was one Cu Choi and two 122mm rockets.

The Bob Cats, 1st of the 5th, Company A, I think, were sitting on their tracks waiting for the sun to come up. Then five NVA come walking straight toward the APC's. The Bob Cat's opened up. They hit two of the NVA but they all got away except the Chu Choi. He just laid beside the two rockets and waited to be picked up. The rest of the day was the same old grind.

Tonight they are having a muster formation to see how many of us are in the company. We are supposed to have 80% by 2130 and 99% by 2330. the bad thing about it is the weather. It's raining cats and dogs. It's really coming a young flood. These people at Bn are real smart. Chances are this is Drotor's idea but you can bet your life he won't be here standing in the rain.

1 of the 5th really goofed last night. They dropped motors on a friendly village and killed three and wounded 13. JR spent the day trying to patch things up. Except for that the day was uneventful.

Butch goes on R&R tomorrow. A guy named Paul Olson is gunning for me while Butch is gone. Paul is a real squared away guy. He didn't say a dozen words all day. I just talked that much more. CPT Lockwood really liked that. He just doesn't like to talk like I do.

Only 33 days to go. I can hardly wait to see Deb. Time is sure going slow. I guess that is to be expected.

Not much happened today. We flew around KATUM, THIEN NGON, and FSB LANYARD today. They made contact but lost it in about ten minutes. After that the bad guys disappeared.

Only 32 days until I get home. Wow, I miss home an Deb. Deb is the most. Received a tape from Deb today. Couldn't understand the last part. Just can't get enough volume out of my tape player. It sure is great to hear from her. She means everything to me.

They have a Jan and Dean special on AFVN tonight. The songs bring back some fond memories.

We picked up a KIA today. The guy stepped on a mine. He was in a body bag so at least I didn't have to look at him on the way back. It is hard to believe that the heavy bag was a living man an hour before we picked him up.

The following is a typewritten report on Accidents from Aug 69 to May 70 which was put out by the Little Bear Headquarters.

DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY

COMPANY A 25TH AVIATION BATTALION

APO US FORCES 96225

SUBJECT: List of all accidents in A Company the last 12 months and the causes (s).

1. August 1969: Aircraft was picking up a flame bath that came unrigged. In his attempt to get away from the flames the aircraft commander struck a water tank with his tail rotor causing loss of control and a crash. During the crash one man (gunner) was killed when he was thrown from the aircraft and then crushed when the aircraft rolled over him. He was not wearing a seat belt.

2. September 1969: Aircraft was climbing at 60 knots A/C at an altitude of 600 feet when the engine failed. The pilot failed to increase the airspeed to increase his rotor RPM which had fallen to approximately 245 prior to touch down. The aircraft touched down hard with a ground speed of approximately 20 knots and was a total loss.

3. September 1969: Pilot was doing abrupt non-standard maneuvers at low altitude. The aircraft was put into a high speed cyclic climb. At the top, at zero airspeed, the pilot executed a 180 degree petal turn and dove back in the direction he had come from. Near the ground the aircraft entered a high speed stall that could not be recovered from and crashed.

4. September 1969: Aircraft was being turned at a hover at night at VIP pad in Tay Ninh. The aircraft was between several other parked aircraft, and during the turn the tail rotor came in contact with the main rotor of one of the parked aircraft. An unsuccessful hovering autorotation was attempted. There was a faulty intercom switch which made it difficult for the pilot to understand the crew chief at times.

5. December 1969: Pilot was making a night circling approach to a single strobe light. The aircraft was flown into the ground due to lack of division of attention by the pilot and A/C. Also no landing light was used throughout the whole approach. It was noted the pilot had developed a psychological problem regarding night flying.