Thread by @ahzoov

Today, I'd like you to meet some friends of mine.

First I'd like you to meet Warrant Officer David Caplan. He was my roommate in advance helicopter flight school. Polishing our boots was a daily chore, until we became Senior Warrant Officer Candidates. Then we could relax.

At our graduation, his parents showed up. I had no family who could make it, so his mother pinned my wings on my chest.

I arrived in Nam before Caplan, but when I'd heard he was in country, I passed a greeting onto him via one of his friends from his new unit.

He was already dead. On one of his first missions, a night mission, flying co-pilot in a Cobra, the pilot got target fixation and broke too late from their run. The rotor blade struck a tree and they flew into the ground.

This is Barnett, or Thomas Barnett, but we knew him only as Barnett. Nicest guy you'll ever meet. Always smiling. He was often my copilot and I broke him in. He told me that he enjoyed flying with me more than with anyone else.

Our unit got a call that ground troops were under fire. I arrived on station w/ the maintenance officer in my front seat (the aircraft was acting funny) only to find 5 or 6 51 cal anti-aircraft guns, a lot of machine guns, & at least a company of small arms all shooting at us.

We tried our damnedest to silence them, got one of the anti-aircraft guns & as we were calling out, May Day, May Day, Barnett & his pilot were on their way to cover us & take over. Except they were quickly taken out, crashed, and burned in the same field we'd landed in earlier.

They were both rescued, but Barnett had been paralyzed and died in the hospital the day after I flew down to visit him.

I wrote an essay about this that was once required reading for seniors at a few high schools: wellnessjourneys.org/2018/01/12/its…

Now I'd like to introduce you to William Wallace and Jerry Gillett. Wallace was a "scout" pilot and Jerry (shirtless) was a truck driver.

We had been flying the Hughes LOH (Light Observation Helicopter, or LOACH), but the Army made us test the Bell Jet Rangers . . .

telling us we had to pass them. Some rumor about how Lady Bird Johnson owned stock in Bell. The LOACH was one hell of a machine. I've seen them roll up in a ball on the ground and two warm bodies hop out. The Jet Ranger? not so much.

Jerry wanted to be an observer and he went up with Wallace for his first ride. They clipped something as they were low-leveling and the aircraft just got crushed. Both were killed. The last thing I remember about Wallace was him showing me pix of his brand new wife.

Now I'd like you to meet Jim Elkin. Jim liked to wake up to a long Pall Mall first thing in the morning. One thing about flying Cobras in Nam was that dying of lung cancer never entered our thoughts.

Jim had been awarded the Silver Star while still a co-pilot, because after a scout had been shot down, hopped out and ran thru gunfire to grab the pilot and observer, and get them back to the ammo bay doors of the cobra and then to safety.

I had just returned from R&R and we were in the final days of our invasion of Cambodia. We got a call that they were down. Their Cobra did what Cobras do sometimes: it flew itself into the ground. That was the second Cobra we'd lost that way since my arrival in country.

His co-pilot was our future platoon leader, Capt Wm Binder II, who had just arrived in country.

They were both killed and the chopper was not recoverable, and so the cause of the crash was never known.

Finally I'd like to introduce you to these two young men, Joseph Spence and William Yount. I was one of the Aircraft Commanders who helped to break them in and taught them everything they'd need to know. They were both good friends and they both told me I was a natural teacher.

Christmas Eve of 1970 was a day I never got to experience. I'd left Vietnam on Dec 23rd and arrived in the states on Dec 25th. My last day in Nam I called my unit to say my goodbyes; both Spence and Yont were there in operations. We wished each other good luck.

On Christmas Eve, they were called out to protect a fire base that was being hit and never made it home.

At Fort Rucker, Alabama is the U.S. Army Aviation Museum. There is a special memorial there with a young aviator looking up to the heavens, surrounded by the names of every trooper in aviation to lose his life in Vietnam.

This plaque to our unit was hung there during a reunion of our unit at Mother Rucker.

At one of our reunions, we were honored to have Joe Galloway, the journalist at the first major battle in Vietnam, the Battle of Ia Drang. history.com/shows/vietnam-…

He says, "Every war story from Vietnam starts and ends with a helicopter ride."

I'd like to end this with Galloway's famous talk, God's Own Lunatics. The images are from our unit.



Welcome home, my brothers and sisters. Today we honor those who didn't quite make it, and who will remain forever young in our thoughts.