Year 1969

Major Robert Wright began the year as CO and relinquished command to Major George Venti in May. He was followed by Major Kenneth Loveless who assumed command in November.

In the 1968-69 period the imbalance of commissioned officers finally came more in line with authorized levels for the first time. However, instead of too many majors and captains there was now a shortage. Most of the platoon leaders in late 68 and early 69 were Lt's rather than captains and there was at most one other commissioned officer in each platoon. Of course, as always the real backbone of army aviation was the warrant officer aviator and the shortage of commissioned officers had negligible impact.

Some of the facilities at Dong Tam left a little to be desired. The revetments were ready, but the barracks, buildings and creature comfort areas were not. The barracks were framed and were slowly being built by a civilian construction company. Officers and enlisted alike scrounged plywood, nails, fans, and whatever else to make it "home". WO Glenn LaPlante had some construction experience and undertook the task of constructing an officer's club (bunker). It was roughly a 20 X 40 foot structure with 3-foot earth filled walls and a 4-5 foot earth roof. The key was the 14" by 14" by 40 foot timber that LaPlante was able to "procure" for the main beam. It was engineered as a bunker but was finished inside as an officer's club complete with bar (made from bowling alley lane material). The enlisted men had to make do with a GP Medium tent for a club. It had a few picnic tables and garbage cans filled with ice and beer. Rank had its privileges! For some time, the enlisted men also had to shower in a 40 knot wind underneath a conex filled with water, using globe valves for showerheads and wood pallets for a floor.

The maintenance facilities at Dong Tam were good. The Vultures had a large open front hangar with the shops on the lower level and offices on the second floor. Very nice but unfortunately a strong wind blew the entire roof off one day. There was also a wood frame mess hall with all the comforts of home. The supply room and motor pool were the only facilities housed in tents. However, the dust at Dong Tam was terrible. It got into everything. When it rained there would be 6-10 inches of water in the company area. Then the sun would come out, quickly dry the ground and it was dust all over again.

For some people at least, things were different in the Delta-and a lot hotter. According to WO Dave Bonifield, "Flying out of Phouc Vinh, I had received fire a few times but never taken a hit (I agree, not all were so lucky). In the Delta, receiving fire was an every day occurrence and hits were incurred almost every day. By the time I left, I think we counted that my ship, that I had picked up new (Old 520), had taken nearly two hundred hits in less than six months."

Many of the Vultures felt the 9th Infantry was more efficient than the 1st Infantry. Their tactics were certainly different. Many 1st ID operations involved large multiple battalion -size insertions with 60 of more aircraft. However, most CA's by the 9th were much smaller and more ad hoc. Specifically, the 1st ID would plan each search and destroy mission in excruciating detail. Which battalions (companies) would be inserted where, which artillery batteries would support, when fire would commence and cease, PZ, RP and LZ times. Nothing was left to chance or ad hoc coordination. All of this information was disseminated to supporting units (aviation and artillery) the night before for planning and execution. Vulture operations, in turn, would prepare maps with flight paths, times, formations, coordinates, etc. and brief and distribute before the mission. Some felt the VC had the technology to intercept this information and ready themselves for many of these missions-whether to combat them or to avoid them. Often times insertions were made into a cold LZ based on hot intelligence. In spite of this, the 1st ID would stay the course and wander around the jungle with no one else there.

The 9th ID, on the other hand, would not make complex plans and their operations tended to be more spur of the moment and in response to the latest developments. They based their operations for the day on new, fresh intelligence. The 9th flew CA's virtually every day (as opposed to the 4-5 days per week in the 1st ID) and the Vultures often had to ration "blade time". For CA's, the Vultures were normally tasked to put up 10 slicks, one Smoke ship, one C&C and 4 gunships.

Based on the battalion commander's intelligence, he would send his Air Cav teams out early in the morning to develop what he thought might be hot spots. If the Cav developed something, he would have the Vultures insert troops. If not, he would move to another location. The VC in this area were smart. They quickly realized it was much more efficient to shoot helicopters (not necessarily the Cav) and evade the infantry. As a result, the Vultures received fire routinely and the downing of one helicopter meant that 6 or 8 infantrymen would be out of action. Rather than being extensively preplanned as in the 1st ID, insertion planning by the 9th ID was accomplished on the fly as it was happening. The battalion commander would select the LZ, C&C would coordinate PZ formation, RP time LZ coordinates and formation, suppression, artillery, brief the guns and slicks, and do the mission; all generally within 15-20 minutes. It was quick and very effective.

If the infantry on the ground did not made any significant findings after being on the ground for a couple of hours, they were pulled out and taken to a new location. All of this generally in 10 ship (company size or smaller) elements. The 1st ID, on the other hand, often did battalion and even brigade-sized insertions. Very big and cumbersome!

While the 9th ID's tactics were effective, there was also a downside. Relatively small troop units (often just one or two platoons) were sent out in the field, sometimes with little or no artillery prep in the LZ's, to essentially locate the enemy by drawing their fire. Once VC or NVA troops were located in this manner, the US troops were frequently pinned down and had to hold off the enemy until reinforcements could be brought in. For the infantry on the ground this was obviously not conducive to a long life. Some felt they were being used as "cannon fodder" and morale suffered.

On New Years Day, the Copperheads supported the 191st (Boomerangs) on a CA and were returning to the roost when aircraft 64-14160 (AC WO David Harmon, WO "T.O." Jones, CE SP4 Daniel Wright and Gunner SP4 R. J. Gardner) had a tail rotor failure. WO Harmon picked out a rice paddy for landing but touched down in a right crab and the ship rolled over and beat itself to death.

In early 1969 the 407th TC Detachment and 450th Signal Detachment were absorbed into the 162nd and the name was officially changed to the 162nd Assault Helicopter Company. The 758th Medical Detachment was absorbed by the local compound medical staff.

During Tet 1969, the VC hit Dong Tam at all hours of the day and night with mortars, rockets and sometimes 75 mm artillery rounds. Dong Tam had been built by dredging silt from the My Tho River a couple of years earlier and the soil was very fine and soft. Mortars and rockets left craters 3-4 feet deep.

A sad event occurred on February 4, 1969. SP4 Benjamin H. Binegar was "flushing" water through the engine of a ship that had just returned from a mission. The cowling was open and he was kneeling on the engine deck spraying water into the engine and suddenly stood up into the moving main rotor blade. His skull was crushed and he died that evening. SP4 Binegar was a crew chief who had been in country for almost 18 months. He was due to go home in a couple of weeks and had been taken off flight status (against his wishes) so he could have a relatively safe job during his remaining time. He was helping out on the flight line when this incredibly senseless accident occurred. God rest his soul.

On February 28th the Vultures were supporting the Second Brigade, 9th Infantry on a CA near Ben Tre. While on the ground at Ben Tre after refueling, the gunner on 66-16151 (AC WO. H. W. Schmid, WO Marion Jaroz, CE SP4 Whitney Kloman and gunner SP4 E. L. Andras) heard a slight knocking coming from the transmissions area. The CE took off the side panel and the noise stopped so they took off to rejoin their flight. About five minutes later WO Schmid felt a knocking in the cyclic control and turned to go back to Ben Tre. A minute or so later the cyclic was ripped out of his hand, going in a jerky, circular motion. He grabbed the cyclic but could not control it, even with hydraulics off, and the ship began a right spiraling descent with increasing bank. The aircraft hit the ground nose low and pinned SP4 Kloman under the wreckage. The ship was destroyed and all four crewmen were injured but not seriously. Luckily the ship did not catch fire, and a nearby Chinook was called over to lift it off the CE.

Many of the missions with the 9th Infantry Division involved small single ship Eagle flights-almost like LRRP insertions. The Vultures and Copperheads were kept busy inserting squad-size units who searched an area and if no VC contact was made they were quickly extracted and reinserted elsewhere. When contact was made, the Vultures would bring in company or battalion size units, often on standby at Binh Tre, to surround and attack the enemy positions. There were also many small company-size CA's using six slicks and two gunships on multiple sorties.

Sometimes supporting the Mobile Riverine Force involved unusual activities. Two of its battalions were housed on LST's moored in the My Cong River and another battalion housed in the 'Tiger's Lair' south of the River. In the words of Cpt Dennis Montgomery, "Lifting troops off of the LST's was always an encounter. First, we had to learn to talk Navy, e.g. 'you have a green deck, land port.' No one was ever sure what that meant. Also, the LST's tended to align with the wind; this caused us to have to constantly land and take off in a crosswind. Got a little exciting sometimes."

The 2nd Brigade, and the 162nd, operated primarily in Kien Hoa province, a relatively small area southeast of Dong Tam. However, this was the historic heartland of VC activity and almost all CA's were hot. One pilot recalls going into 17 different LZ's in a single day and being shot at in all of them.

Due to the nature of the 9th's operations the Vultures carried out multiple CA's every day, day in and day out, with few breaks. The pilots built up an incredible amount of flight time and the routine became rather numbing after a while. Lt Mike "Rock" Pacifico reported logging 1,568 hours of flight time during his tour with the Vultures.

One day in early 1969, WO Chuck Carrillo, who had recently arrived in country, was flying on a CA with his platoon leader Lt Mike Pacifico. On a hot extraction near Ben Tre WO Carrillo was on the controls as they cleared the trees around the pick up zone. Just as he turned the controls over to Lt Pacifico, a round came through the floor, travelled the length of the collective, knocked off the little light post on the collective head, hit the instrument panel, ricocheted up through the glare hood, hit the upper window frame near the OAT gauge and then dropped into his lap. He sat there stunned with his mouth and eyes wide open and then looked over to see Lt Pacifico grinning at him. Lt Pacifico said "It's going to be a long year, Chuck". He was right!

On March 2nd, the VC hit Dong Tam again with a particularly heavy mortar and rocket attack and bracketed the operations/orderly room. SP4 Mike Rush, on duty as CQ runner that night, recalls seeing a rocket explode roughly 50 feet outside his window. Luckily there were no serious casualties among the Vultures. However, a sister unit (the 191st) took a direct hit on their operations building, killing the CO, XO and four others. The 191st CO, Major John Petrie, was a former Vulture who had previously been CO of the 407th TC Detachment, the 162nd's maintenance support unit.

In late March, during one of the frequent nightly mortar and rocket attacks, the VC made a lucky hit on the main Dong Tam ammo dump down near the river. There was a spectacular fire works display for almost 2 hours. Two Navy Seawolf helicopters were taking off near by at the time and were blown out of the air, killing everyone on board. The next morning there was unexploded ordinance all over the south side of the compound.

Another incident, or rather series of incidents, occurred early in the year that should be noted. 1Lt Jim (Stork) Niemi managed to crash 4 ships within a period of a couple of months, destroying almost $1 million worth of aircraft. In the first incident, he was on a CA and was to land in a water-filled rice paddy. He planned to do the infantry a favor and hovered over to a dike so the troops wouldn't have to jump into the water. However, the instability from the troops unloading caused the ship to hit the dike, roll over and beat itself to death. Luckily, there were no injuries.

A few days later Lt Niemi was departing a PZ with a load of troops and took a round through the engine. He autorotated and settled into trees after stopping his forward airspeed, again with no serious injuries. Later, Lt Niemi was on a CA and came into a rice paddy PZ too hot. He flared, his tail rotor dipped into the water and the aircraft crashed into the PZ.

On another occasion, while landing in a PZ, Lt Niemi's rotor wash set off a mine under his tail boom, severing the tail boom and causing the ship to pitch forward with the main rotor slicing through the troops he was to pick up. Two or three troops were killed instantly.

Early in the year, Cpt __?__ MaDill (AC), WO "T. O." Jones (pilot), SP4 Bonds (CE) and SP4 Donald Gembe (CE) were flying gun cover on an CA east of Dong Tam near Ben Tre. They had discovered and partially sank with door guns a motorized sampan in the initial assault. Cpt MaDill, on his first day as AC, wanted to destroy the sampan's motor and came in low to mark the position with smoke. As was his habit, Cpt MaDill was flying flat out at 120 knots and everyone on board was intently searching for the sampan. They were all looking out the side of the ship and not paying much attention to what was in front of them. All of a sudden they hit some trees, shattering the chin bubbles and shearing a rocket pod completely off the ship. It was a miracle they didn't crash-they were probably saved from flipping over by their high speed. Cpt MaDill's AC orders were pulled for a couple of months because of this incident.

Also one day in early in '69 aircraft 67-19520 (AC WO Dave Bonifield, WO Lou Dinnan, CE SP4 Van Travis and SP4 Dorn) was inbound on the first lift of a hot CA near Ben Tre when the ship began to yaw. As WO Dave Bonifield recalls,

"The copilot was flying and things were a bit nervous. We started some slight yawing and the copilot told me he thought something was wrong. In between all the distraction I just told him it was his feet and calm down. He said no there is a problem and the yawing got worse. I took the controls just as the engine quit. I thought we had been shot down and called that we were going down. We made a perfect autorotation into a rice paddy full of water. Smokey immediately came in and started putting a circle of smoke around us. Our six infantry troops hit the ground and immediately engaged in a small fire fight. The rest of the flight circled back to drop the rest of the troops in our LZ and one slick stopped to pick up our crew. The CE, gunner and I grabbed radios and ran to the slick only to find that the copilot was not with us. I ran back to the ship. The copilot door was still closed. I opened it and the copilot was still sitting there frozen, with eyes as big as saucers. When I opened the door he jumped out, unhurt, and we both ran to the other slick. There was a lot of shooting, but when 520 was hooked back in it had no hits. The engine failure was due to a bleed line being left finger tight after an engine wash the night before. It had been a rushed preflight and I missed it. SP4 Van Travis sat down on the ramp and cried. The 1st Sgt was pretty upset, but I told him I didn't think he needed to say a word."

A rather embarrassing incident occurred in early 69 when a Vulture slick was working with Navy SEALS. WO Dennis Klein was peter pilot and Cpt ______ was AC. They picked up the SEALS and received a briefing on a Navy barge anchored just offshore near Ca Mau. Two Seawolf gunships provided gun cover and also served as C&C, guiding the Vulture slick (a D model), who was at treetop level for the insertion. The gunships told the Vulture ship they were coming up on the LZ, to slow down and begun flaring. Without seeing the LZ, the AC began flaring and ended up still over the treetops with no forward airspeed and no lift! The ship settled into the trees and crashed. The aircraft was destroyed but luckily no one on board was seriously injured.

Many people fondly recall "Doc" Barefoot. He was the last CO of the 758th Med Detachment and moved the unit to Dong Tam where it was folded into the 214th Battalion medical facility. He joined the army late in life, having been drafted at age 44 and forced to close down his medical practice. Once when the CO, Major Venti, did not permit crew members pulling guard duty the next day off, Doc Barefoot grounded them all for the day.

On another occasion, after a "morale building" banquet for all of the officers, nearly every pilot was struck down with a severe case of diarrhea. Only the officers were effected which may have been a form of retribution since the enlisted guys should have been invited also. Most likely, some swamp water found its way into the feast, and every latrine around had someone heaving from both ends. It lasted for days and very few pilots could fly their missions. Doc Barefoot did a great job in ministering to the group and finally pulled everyone though.

Unfortunately, hygiene was sometimes not that great and conditions were somewhat primitive. When the Company first moved to Dong Tam, the new mess hall did not have adequate dish washing facilities so some nice monogrammed plates and dishes used at Phouc Vinh remained in storage. The mess hall used paper plates and plastic silverware instead. When Major Venti took command he found the dishes one day and, over the objections of the mess sergeant, put them into use. Shortly thereafter, half the company came down with another severe case of diarrhea, and they went back to paper and plastic. In the early days at Dong Tam toilet paper became very scarce and something of a luxury item due to the frequent bouts of diarrhea and dysentery.

The mess hall at Dong Tam was often neglected and did not have a senior NCO as mess sergeant much of the time. Food was often cold and there was no food available for the crews who worked at night. Men were often forced to scrounge around for cold C rations. At one point, frustration boiled over. Many people recall SSG Raymond Fitch, gun platoon sergeant, who threw his plate of cold food against the wall behind the serving line one day. Shortly afterwards a senior NCO was brought in as mess sergeant and food improved dramatically. The Vultures managed to obtain steaks from the Navy on a few occasions and even had had a few BBQ's.

On a mission in the Ben Tre area in mid-1969 WO Lou Dinnan was supporting the 9th Infantry and was to drop something off on a Navy Tango boat which had a small helipad on its rear. This was his first experience with small river boats and no one told him to keep the skids light. Instead, when he landed on the boat he put the collective down and the weight of the aircraft pushed the gunwales of the boat below the waterline. As the boat began sinking WO Dinnan quickly took off and went on his way as if nothing had happened.

There was another interesting event around midyear that many will remember. There was an island in the river a couple of hundred yards south of Dong Tam that was the site of a Buddhist Monastery. Often the 162nd aircraft landing at Dong Tam would fly directly over a Temple (where the so-called Coconut Monk resided) and a large platform where orange-robed monks often gathered. The Copperheads had been joking for some time about scattering the monks by dropping a CS grenade on them. One day, WO "T. O." Jones, a Copperhead AC, decide to do just that. As they returned from a mission, WO Jones instructed his CE and gunner (SP4 Donald Gembe and PFC Bounds), to get ready with a CS grenade. As they flew low over a large crowd of monks, they dropped the grenades square in the middle of the group. They all got a kick out of seeing the monks scatter like rabbits, some of them even jumping in the river. Unfortunately, it just so happened that a US two star general and group of war correspondents were visiting the monks at the time. No one got the tail number but they did see the snake on the nose and figured out it was a Copperhead ship. Major Venti, the CO, was hauled before the general and ripped up one side and down the other for over an hour. He came back to the roost mad as a hornet but none of the Copperhead crews flying that day would admit to being the guilty party.

On June 23, the Vultures were on a 10 ship lift in 2 flights of five south of Ben Tre. They dropped off the troops and returned to Ben Tre to await a call for pick up. WO Dennis Bankson, who had been in country five months, was taking his AC checkride on the lift and was tail-end charlie of the second flight. The infantry encountered no enemy and returned to the LZ for pick up around noon. No one realized it but the VC had followed the infantry back to the LZ, surrounded it and prepared an ambush for the helicopters they knew would come to pick up the troops. As the second and last flight came into the LZ they began taking heavy fire from all sides of the football field-size LZ.

WO Bankson loaded up his troops but as the last ship in the flight he had to wait until the other ships took off to make sure they had not left anyone in the LZ. Just as he dumped the nose over and applied power to take off, a mortar round landed very close to the ship and shrapnel hit WO Bankson in the head and neck area, wounding him severely. The ship pitched backwards, with the tail hitting the ground and probably severing the tail boom, then pitched forward and began to spin. The AC slammed the ship to the ground and most of the crew and infantry on board took cover behind a nearby dike (at least one of the troops was hit in the head and killed by the rotor blade). However, WO Bankson could not release his harness and was trapped in the ship which was taking heavy fire from a tree line 30-40 yards away. Realizing the pilot could not get out of his seat, the crew chief (although wounded himself) ran back to the ship, pulled the pilot seat release handles, tilted the seat back, slid WO Bankson out of the harness and helped him take cover behind the dike. They were picked up by a slick after 15-20 minutes and WO Bankson was medi-vac'd to a hospital at Long Binh and later back to the US. The crew chief, a Hangar Rat filling in for the normal CE that day, was hit with shrapnel in the thigh and was also medi-vac'd back to the US. The rest of the crew escaped with no injuries.

In August 1969, the 9th Infantry Division stood down and the 162nd along with a sister unit, the 191st AHC, were reassigned to the 13th CAB and relocated to Can Tho. There were no large US ground units remaining in the Delta and US aviation assets were decentralized and organized around the ARVN units they supported. The 13th CAB became Task Force Guardian and primarily supported the 21st ARVN Division whose operational area extended south and southeast of Can Tho down to the coast. ARVN units in the Delta tended to do fewer CA's than US units and on a smaller scale, or at least smaller than the 1st Infantry. The smaller number of CA's allowed for a greater variety of other types of missions. The majority of assaults were battalion size operations. ARVN units also depended very heavily on gunship support for their far-flung outposts and to a lesser extent on artillery.

(I NEED MORE INFO ON 1969 and the 9th Infantry period??)

The move from Dong Tam to Can Tho was very interesting. Rather than "everybody in the trucks and follow me", most of the men and equipment were loaded onto Navy LST's. They cruised down the My Tho River and up the Bassac River, taking three days to reach Can Tho. It was a memorable trip, seeing the river and the people who lived on it, face to face, rather than flying over them. The Vultures also got to see how the other half (the Navy) lived. The crew of the ship had good food, showers, nice beds and other facilities-and very few bad guys shooting at them.

The facilities at Can Tho were a few steps down from those at Dong Tam. Instead of wood, 2-story barracks, the unit lived in GP Medium tents for over a year while permanent facilities were built. Living in a tent was not ideal, especially in the Delta. Dirt, dust and mud (in the rainy season) were everywhere as were the mosquitoes and bugs. The mosquito nets quickly became clogged with dust and the fine dust was constantly in and on everything. In fact, some folks felt they lived like gypsies and wondered who the Vultures had ticked off to deserve such conditions.

There had been enough space at Can Tho airfield to accommodate one AHC in permanent facilities. Supposedly, the CO's of the 162nd and 191st met at the Officers Club just before the move and flipped a coin to see who would get the wooden buildings-the Vultures lost! However, as consolation the 162nd got the H models and the 191st took all the D models, a prize much appreciated when coming out of tight LZ's. (Because of the low elevations all of the few remaining D models in Vietnam were sent to the Delta).

The mess hall at Can Tho was not too bad, at least initially. Many of the night crews remember the split pea soup that always seemed to be the standard fare late at night. Even today, former SP5 Mike Rush says "whenever I see or smell split pea soup I always recall the late nights at Can Tho." He and others also recall the bread the Vulture mess hall began purchasing from a Can Tho bakery shortly after the move. They soon noticed a variety of bugs and weevils baked into the white bread and complained about it. The bakery resolved the problem by switching to whole wheat, making it much more difficult to detect the baked-in bugs.

At Can Tho, the 162nd and 191st usually alternated between CA's and ash & trash missions on a weekly basis. The Vultures and Copperheads would do CA's one week while the Boomerangs and Bounty Hunters would do them the next. On the off week, the Vultures would do ash & trash while the Copperheads went hunting-recons, hunter killer or Delta Six missions. The Delta Six missions, run by the 164th Combat Aviation Group, required the Copperheads to operate similar to an Air Cav unit and use their C models as both loach and gunship. These were fun missions that everyone enjoyed-although a bit scary on occasion.

On November 4th a Copperhead fire team was covering a CA near Vi Thanh and landed at the strip there to refuel and rearm. On take off the wing ship, 66-15215 (AC WO Barrie Springer, Lt A. N. Rufca and CE SP4 F. J. Bell) used the entire runway and barely managed to get a few feet off the ground. Approximately 200 meters past the end of the runway the ship settled into a rice paddy traveling about 50 yards with its skid in the water. It then hit a dike, shearing the rocket pods off and rolling on its side. The crew escaped injury but the ship was destroyed.

One day in November just after Major Loveless assumed command, WO Fred Auger recalls being called into the CO's office and handed a piece of paper, pen and envelope. He hadn't written home in two months and his family had contacted the Red Cross to see if he was still alive. Major Loveless not only chewed him out but also made everyone in the company write home that same day. With the mind-numbing day in and day out routine some people just lost track of time.

Memorable Incidents

Other memorable incidents that occurred during 1969 include:
· Several men can never forget a haunting scene when their slick picked up a 9th Infantry trooper who had both legs blown off. He was conscious and talking to the CE. He said "I'm going to die"-and then he died.

· Lt Dennis Montgomery and Lt Lee Paynes were extracting troops south of the My Tho River and Lt Paynes was hit in the foot by a tracer as they came out of the PZ. The tracer entered the bottom of his foot but did not exit the top. The round remained in his foot as it burned out, causing intense pain. Lt Paynes was evac'd to Japan and then back to the US.

· While supporting the Mobile Riverine Force, Vulture ships often had to land on little assault boats that could not support the weight of a Huey and the boat crews routinely neglected to lower their antennas, which caused some confrontations between the respective crew chiefs; the boat's and aircraft's.

· During a gun run on a village, SP4 Don Gembe, gunship CE, stood out on the rocket pod and grabbed a VC flag from a pole attached to a hooch they were working over (luckily, no booby traps!).

· Lt Dennis Morris, 2nd platoon leader, recalls standing by for a CA at the Ben Tre airstrip one day with the rest of the Vultures. As they waited, a C-123 on a defoliation mission caught fire and made an emergency landing at the strip. The 123 called in when 5 minutes out but the Vultures could not clear the runway in time so it landed parallel to the runway. The 123 touched down streaming flames, ran through a minefield into a flooded rice paddy and partially sank in the muck. A very memorable incident!

· Virtually everyone hated the single ham and lima beans meal packed in each case of 12-meal C rations. However, there was one WO who enjoyed this particular meal, at least for a while. One day after polishing off a ham and lima beans lunch his ship took off and shortly afterwards he "barfed" out the side window. Unfortunately, the CE (SP4 Tom Barnes) was blasted with the slightly used ham and lima beans.

· A pilot was wounded 4 times by the same bullet. A round came through the chin bubble, went through his foot, through his calf and then thigh and finally hit him in the shoulder.

· Many remember the occasion when, at an Officer's Call shortly after assuming command, Major Venti proposed changing the name of the company from "Vulture", a dirty bird, to something more befitting an army aviation unit. Needless to say, he was hooted down and it was all down hill from there.

· Some may recall the time when WO Tom Broadbent's brother, an Air Force jet jock from up north, came down and flew as door gunner with his brother. Most fun he ever had!

· According to recent visitors, Dong Tam still has a "snake pit". It's the home of a tourist trap snake farm.