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Ready, Willing, and Able: Life as Helicopter Pilot aboard a Frigate in the Gulf of Tonkin
- Dartmouth College Press
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Ready, Willing, and Able Life as Helicopter Pilot aboard a Frigate in the Gulf of Tonkin ---------------------------------------------------------robert (bob) parkinson : u.s. navy N ot exactly burning up academics at Dartmouth, I graduated with the class, but was unsuccessful with applications to graduate school. Reclassification to the front of the line in the draft and receipt of a notice to appear for a physical for the Army were sufficient for me to declare to Mom and Dad that I needed to join the Navy. On September 15, 1964, I asked for the keys to the family car because I was going to Seattle to join the Navy that day. Not knowing what the Navy would do with me, I suggested to Dad that he be prepared to come and get the car because I might not return home. At the end of the day I was sworn in as an E- 5. I reported to Officer Candidate School in Newport, Rhode Island, on November 15, 1964. I think we were paid about fifty dollars a month while at OCS. In the following four months I regained the discipline for time management, follow- through on assignments, and restoration of the athletic acumen that got me to Dartmouth in the first place. I finished high enough to be sent to Naval Aviation Training in Pensacola, Florida, arriving in March 1965. Pensacola has been and still is the mecca for naval aviators. It was also the place where girls went to meet the finest male specimens that our country could provide. Most went through the flight training earning the wings of gold while remaining single. Not this one. Was I one of those specimens? Not sure, but two months into the year of flight training I proposed and in another two months was married to Trish on my birthday, July 10, 1965. This was done at a time when being married was an anathema— Corvettes were more attractive. However, you have not met Trish. In June 1966 I received my gold naval aviator wings and was sent to Robert (Bob) Parkinson : 105 Helicopter Combat Squadron One in San Diego. Trish and I had arrived at the doorstep of a naval career. For you historians, recall that the Vietnam conflict was starting to escalate rapidly and that many of us who joined the armed services were destined to serve in and around Vietnam for many years. Preparation Arrival at Helicopter Combat Support Squadron One (HC- 1) was relatively uneventful. I wanted to join the Navy Huey detachments in the Mekong Delta, but those slots had been filled. I asked to be a pilot on a Search and Rescue Detachment (CSAR Det.), flying off the Navy ships positioned to assist the Navy and Air Force combat missions going into North Vietnam. The flight training was centered on the UH- 2 Sea Sprite, which was small enough to land on the decks of Navy frigates and cruisers at the time. In addition to the flight training, we received small- arms training with the Marines at Camp Pendleton and Survival Evasion Resistance and Escape (SERE) training in the foothills east of San Diego. In those days the SERE training was relatively realistic. I got a bloody nose from my obstinacies to the prison camp facilitators. I also learned that I had a strong will to survive. Aircraft conversion, weapons familiarization, and SERE survival all completed by September, I was deployed with a senior pilot and twelve maintainers in October 1966. While there were jet passenger aircraft available at the time, the Navy chose to send us to the Philippines by C- 118. Mind you, this was a proven aircraft, but it was slow. As I recall, the flight plan took three days to get from San Diego to NAS (Naval Air Station) Cubi Point in the Philippines. We took more than a week because we had a delay in Hawaii as a result of running off the end of the runway on takeoff for our second leg to Wake Island. Having a few extra days in Hawaii was not a bad deal. We arrived in Cubi Point intact as a team to become familiar with our H- 2 helicopter. We immediately set about training in the tropical environment and enjoyed the freedom of very few restrictions on our altitude above the terrain. At this time we knew of a few rescue missions that had required penetration inland into North Vietnam, all receiving small- arms hostile fire. We practiced...