Family Jewels

Of all things to be watching and to get inspiration from on a Sunday...I was watching Gene Simmons (from the 70s Rock Band KISS) in his reality TV show. During the episode I was moved to tears. He was visiting Europe for a tour and during that time a young kid had written him a letter wanting to meet him. It wasn't because he was an American Rock Star legend, but because of his mother who was a Holocaust survivor. The episode showed a lot of history during that time and many wise words were shared. Especially that of realizing our history is so important. It is important to understand where we came from and who are parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents were. They are a part of who we are...or rather, we are a part of who they were.

Today, I was finally able to read some stories that have recently been emailed to our family. I have seen the short versions on my phone, but wanted to take time to read them when I had time to sit in front of a big screen computer and could digest them. They were stories about my Dad in Vietnam and some of the experiences that he went through. I've also known he was somewhat of a hero and a little valiant, borderline crazy when he was younger. :) They are really good stories and worth reading. Not only because he is my Dad, but because he represents many, many military men and women who have not only fought for the freedom of the United States but for freedom around the world. I told a guy at work that my Dad got the Silver Star and Purple Heart--he was an ex-military guy--and he was really impressed. I didn't really know what they were, so I asked him. He said you had to be really, really good to get those kinds of things. Hope you enjoy them as much as I did. The following story isn't written by my Dad, it was written by someone who served with him.

A short history of some of the events that took place in the ranks of the 173^rd Assault Helicopter Company in Vietnam, 1971

By Ken Huston

I joined the Robin Hoods (173 rd ASH) in January 1971 as they moved to Dong Ha, just about three miles south of the DMZ. One of the first people I met was Jay Lane, a fellow pilot and aircraft commander in my platoon. Jay and I had a lot in common since we were two of the few who were married and didn’t drink. As a result, we didn’t chase women and hang out in places of ill repute in the local community. We usually spent our time on the base and got to know one another.

Our reason for going north to Dong Ha was to participate in Operation Lam Son 719. This was the mission into Laos to cut off the Ho Chi Minh trail. There were no American troops on the ground during this operation, just South Vietnamese troops supported by American helicopter crews. Our company Arrived in Dong Ha with 26 helicopters and in the 45 days of Lam Son 719, 17 of those were lost, either shot down, crashed, or so badly damaged that they had to be sent to Red Beach (China Beach) for rebuilding. In the two months that followed, 5 more helicopters were lost; two of those were with Jay at the controls. Not to insinuate that he was a bad pilot, in fact he was one of our best pilots if not the best.

I was lucky enough not to have been shot down during my whole one year tour of duty, but that was not the case with many of our comrades including Jay. Jay was shot down three times, including once right in front of me.

Jay’s first bullet riddled episode was during the 45 days of Lam Son 719. During a lift mission into Laos, his Huey was so badly shot up that he barely made it back to a South Vietnamese fire base. The aircraft had to be sling loaded out for rebuild.

I am not sure of the sequence, that is to say, which one came first of the next two times that he got shot down, so I will tell it the way I remember it. Jay was working alone on a re-supply mission for troops in the field. Typically with a large unit in the field, it would take many trips into a field landing zone to haul in all of the beans bullets and water needed to support combat operations. The repetitive return to the same LZ is often the thing that ultimately results in the loss of an aircraft. The VC see a helicopter coming in to land over and over and decide to infiltrate one or two men close enough to get a shot off either with small arms or with their favorite weapon, the rocket propelled grenade (RPG).

At the time of this incident, our company had decided that we were in a secure enough base that they wanted us to turn in our hand guns every night and check them out in the morning. On the morning in question, Jay being Jay, decided not to check out his weapon and so was unarmed. After many trips into the same LZ, the inevitable happened. The Infiltrators fired two RPGs. The RPGs hit the aircraft at the joining point between the Tail Boom and Fuselage. The tail boom was completely blown off as the aircraft was about fifty to a hundred feet in the air on takeoff. At that point it became a controlled crash. Jay got out but some of his crew members were seriously wounded.

Jay asked one of the infantrymen on the scene for his 45 cal. Pistol since he was unarmed and the infantryman was badly wounded. After risking his own life to save a fellow soldier by returning to the burning helicopter for the first aid kit that was necessary to save the life of the wounded, he ministered the first aid. He organized the crew and carried the seriously wounded soldier on his back through the jungle, sometimes low crawling through the grass to a more secure area and eventually making their way to the infantry lines.

At one point they heard movement in the grass coming towards them. Jay was convinced that it was the enemy coming to take them as prisoners. When he went to chamber a shell in the .45 he discovered that it didn’t even have a clip in it! His next plan was to throw the pistol at the face of the first VC that came in view and hopefully surprising him to the point of getting his rifle and shooting his way out of there. Finally the grass parted and he saw it was the Americans; the ground troops that had been separated from Jay’s party when the crash and fuel cells of the helicopter blew up.

The third time Jay got shot down was right in front of me. We had been doing what we called “Eagle Flights”. Eagle flights were a specialized way of finding the enemy. With a battalion size force in reserve at a nearby airfield, we would go out with a gunship acting as a scout helicopter and two Hueys with a squad of troops. The gunship would select an LZ and orbit overhead while the two Hueys landed to drop off the troops. The troops would then scout the area for 15 minutes or so. If they didn’t make contact with the enemy, we would pick them up, take them to another LZ and do it all over again. If they did make contact, we would call back for reinforcements and the entire Battalion would descend on the LZ to take on, and hopefully overwhelm the enemy.

We had been doing this operation all day long with no results and late in the day, with Jay flying lead and me in Chalk two, we headed into an LZ that was too small for a proper combat assault with two helicopters so we staggered our landings 30 seconds apart. Jay would be lifting off as I was on short final. Jay landed and his troops jumped out as usual but as I got on short final, he wasn’t taking off. I slowed my approach waiting for him to lift off but he never did. Then I realized his rotor blades were slowing down. His engine was shut down.

I thought he must have had an engine failure, so I eased into a position to his left rear where I could land next to a huge boulder about ten feet high. His crew were gathering up their guns and equipment and we waited for them to come back to jump on our helicopter. Our troops had jumped out to join their squad providing security. I wondered why Jay hadn’t called to say what his trouble was and I tried to call him several times with no reply.

Then as I had just landed, Jay had gone back to his helicopter making a second May Day call saying that he had been shot down. His first May Day call was never transmitted because, unbeknown to Jay, part of the bullets from the enemy fire had shot out his FM radio.

At that point when I realized he had been shot down I immediately abandoned my landing because, with Jay being shot down I was violating policy by going in before radio contact could be established and an assessment could be made of the situation.

Finally, I was cleared by C&C to go in for the rescue. When they jumped on my helicopter Jay grabbed a drop cord and plugged his helmet in. I said “what happened”. He said, “I got shot down! A lone VC with a machinegun jumped out from behind that boulder and opened fire on us”! The boulder was the one I was sitting beside. I think I over-torqued the engine getting out of the LZ!!!

As it turned out, while Jay was on short final, the VC stitched the bottom of the helicopter down the middle, with the first bullet hitting the FM radio in the nose of the helicopter and the last bullet hitting the engine fuel control governor. The engine failed but Jay made a perfect autorotation to a smooth touchdown so flawlessly that I didn’t even realize it was anything but a normal landing. We then called in all of the infantry. They searched all of the countryside and found nothing. As far as we know it was just one lone VC with a machinegun and he immediately left the area. They never did find him.

Jay cheated death three times and left for home as I recall, in June, 1971.

Kenneth D. Huston

CWO4 Retired, U.S. Army