Rattler One-Seven: A Vietnam Helicopter Pilot's War Story

Chapter 14–Realization

C H A P T E R 1 4 REALIZATION March 9th, 1971 Dear Mother, Hello and I’m fine believe it or not. Been flying so much lately. We just don’t have enough pilots. I guess you’ve been reading about the war. It’s really bad. Everyone is getting shot down or shot up. I just wish that they would of waited till June to start this operation. I don’t want you to start worrying, because I’m ok and if anything ever did happen, it wouldn’t help by worrying. I have over 1200 combat hours now. Sure could use a vacation. By the time that you receive this, I will have less than two months left. I’ve been getting the letters real good and I really appreciate them all, it’s just that we are so tired and pushed; it’s hard to get off a letter. I hope you understand. It’s really hard to believe that I will actually be leaving this place. All I can say is that it’s been a long year—soooo-long. I feel that I say the same thing every time that I try to write, but it’s really hard to find something to write about. I found it hard to understand how they could have forgotten about my helicopter and me, sitting out in the field, but they had. I decided that I would forget about building all those flight hours, and so I put in for my R&R (Rest and Relaxation). I had not planned on taking one, but after LZ Delta it seemed like a good idea to get away from Nam 171 172 R A T T L E R O N E – S E V E N for a while. All that action was getting too hairy for my blood. The next day I went up to the orderly room and put in for my R&R. The company clerk told me that it would take about a month to get my orders. Oh well, a month was better than nothing. Several times when we were out flying in the field, my crew chief, gunner, and I would sing our favorite song from Hee Haw: “Oh where, oh where are you tonight? Why did you leave me here all alone? I searched the world over and thought I found true luv, you met another an TH—th you were gone.” We felt this song summed up our feelings about life. Other times when I started our descent into an LZ during a combat assault, I would hear Callahan come over the intercom and start singing the song, “Please Mister Custer, I don’t want to go, forward ho.” 23. Pat Callahan sitting in front of a first platoon hootch. You could not of asked for a better gunner than Callahan. (Photo courtesy of Pat Callahan.) The first platoon had a lot of good crew chiefs and gunners. The pilots would spend a great deal of time with their crew. My gunner, Callahan, was always talking about how he was going to buy this new Yamaha motorcycle when he got back to the states. He carried his dream picture of that motorcycle cut out from one of the cycle magazines . It was a green Yamaha 650 Special. He never did buy one when he returned home, but I had heard so much talk about how great a bike it was, that when I got home, I went out and bought one. I heard that Vietnam caused more “Dear John” letters than any other war in our history. I felt that these Dear John letters gave us a good indication of how our society and its attitude toward sex, loyalty, and devotion were changing. We had a lieutenant in our platoon that was in his early twenties. He was an easygoing, nice type of guy, who was always talking about his wife. One day he received a letter from her, and it was not the type of letter that he wanted to receive. Overnight we noticed the effect that her letter had on him. There was nothing worse than getting a Dear John letter from your wife or girlfriend and not being able to go home to try to resolve (or dissolve) your relationship. I really felt sorry for those guys. As for this lieutenant , he suddenly turned very inward and started...