The movie and a book the movie was based on contend that the CIA condoned a drug trade conducted by a Laotian client; both agree that Air America provided the essential transportation for the trade; and both view the pilots with sympathetic understanding. When they saw one flying balls out, they knew it was a Dustoff on an urgent mission. We will never forget you, or the sound of your rotor blades off in the distance, coming to our aid. [Westmoreland], 97% were discharged under honorable conditions; the same percentage of honorable discharges as ten years prior to Vietnam [Westmoreland], 85% of Vietnam Veterans made a successful transition to civilian life. Parameters for authorizing operating a US Navy submarine reactor plant above practicable design limits is Read More, Additionally, 1.3 million of those five million flight hours were accomplished during combat. Thanks for the memories. I have to take one thing back. dont care. Vietnam Helicopter Memorial: Veterans Fight Bureaucracy | Time When called upon, a Pilot did not wait for approval from his crew, becuse he knew his crew would never say No. As I look back on my own experiences, two things stand out in my mind that I consider young and stupid.. average age of vietnam helicopter pilot - polucon.com And two are in Africa: Tanzania (October 1995) and Guinea (June 1995). To all of the brave Pilots and their crews, I can say but three things. (Personally, I have fathered 73 children with two good Dustoff-sized testicles.) Mailing Address: In the Vietnam War the helicopter became one of the most important elements in the daily operations of our war fighting successes. If you are an admin, please authenticate by logging in again. Although I was sworn to secrecy at the time, with the Freedom of Information Act, I believe that I can now break the silence. Publi le 12 juin 2022 par . The BSR (Bang Stare Red) Theory states that the louder the sudden bang in the helicopter, the quicker your eyes will be drawn to the gauges. tail number N4 7004, were Bob Caron who lives in Florida and Jack VHPA and encourage all eligible individuals to become members. [Nixon]. Most 18 year olds only think about girls and what they can get from them. I asked to take a different test and was able to pass that one! Flight training was preceded by grueling infantry instruction at Fort Dix, New Jersey, and Fort Polk, Louisiana, where recruits, predominantly volunteers, learned through Basic Combat Training that they were primarily soldiers, with a secondary role as helicopter crew members. It required every skill we had. A Huey pilot later with the 229th Assault Helicopter Battalion (AHB) at Pleiku, recalled one student who, flush with success after his first solo, decided to see what it was like in the empty instructors seat, but knew he would have to change back to land. The Vietnam War was the turning point for Communism. The average age of an employed helicopter pilot is 45 years old. Over the course of the war, some 12,000 helicopters of various kinds saw service in Vietnam. Please support The Veterans Site by adding us to your ad blockers whitelist ads help us to provide food and supplies to veterans. The second pilot you will meet is retired CWO2 Allan Potter. I can tell you what in my opinion made the best pilots. While in themselves those landings were not stupid, the way we got there was! List of Vietnam War flying aces - Wikipedia It was an average age for most of the other Army helicopter pilots I flew with in the 237th Medical Detachment in northern I Corps near the DMZ. More Scout Teams were lost because of this than any other helicopter team. Helicopters were used in more than 850,000 medical evacuation missions and were responsible for boosting survival rates for the wounded. It was a small price to pay for the successful completion of our daily rescues. This freed Marine quotas at Pensacola which could be used to . godfrey funeral homes; pierre engvall giraffe; [1996 Information Please Almanac], POW-MIA Issue (unaccounted-for versus missing in action), Politics & People, On Vietnam, Clinton Should Follow a Hero's Advice, I would never dispute that, but I would argue that putting a helicopter on the tiny pad of the hospital ship is like landing on a corner of that postage stamp. I had no idea of the satisfaction, pride, sense of accomplishment, and even elation that I would feel in the next six months. nfl open tryouts 2022 dates; liste des parc de maison mobile en floride; running 5k everyday for a month before and after; girls who code summer immersion program ?any tips. The Vietnam Terry Clark? ", Federal Aviation Administration, Average age of active pilots in the United States from 2002 to 2020, by category* Statista, https://www.statista.com/statistics/919100/aviation-industry-average-age-of-active-pilots-in-the-united-states-by-category/ (last visited March 04, 2023), Average age of active pilots in the United States from 2002 to 2020, by category* [Graph], Federal Aviation Administration, May 18, 2021. Deaths Average Age Enlisted: 50,274, 22.37 years Officers: 6,598, 28.43 years God bless you all! Restraining the military in Vietnam in hindsight probably prevented a nuclear war with China or Russia. You will get a clear sense of what they were up against and how they conducted themselves. If you ask people who live in these countries that won the war in Vietnam, they have a different opinion from the American news media. Values are as of December 31 each year. [2]:4, On 15 April 1962 the United States Marine Corps began Operation Shufly, the rotating deployment of Marine helicopter squadrons, associated maintenance units and air traffic control detachments to South Vietnam to improve the mobility of ARVN forces. From 1957 to 1973, the National Liberation Front assassinated 36,725 South Vietnamese and abducted another 58,499. See an example of our magazine, The Average age of 58,148 killed in Vietnam was 23.11 years. The pilots who were flying this helicopter, More realities about war: Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) - it was not invented or unique to Vietnam Veterans. They were involved in every aspect of that war fighting, from medevac, to ammo, troop and supply delivery, to aerial fire support. All through flight school, we were taught by gun pilots, slick drivers, scout pilots (although not as many of the scout pilots, they had a high loss ratio), and oh, yes, ONE Dustoff pilot. Read the latest issue of the Friends of the Vietnam Center Newsletter and subscribe to recieve future newsletters. The claimed flying aces of the Vietnam War, pilots who shot down five or more enemy aircraft, include 19 North Vietnamese pilots (six MiG-17 and 13 MiG-21 pilots), [1] : 228 and five Americans. They were utterly selfless and courageous warriors on our behalf. We thank God for these pilots and crews who fearlessly went into our hell on our behalf day in and day out, during the Vietnam War. As an example, heavy (EC), [Home] [ReunionInformation] [Donations] [OurLegacy] [MembershipServices] [RelatedWebSites], This If we didnt do it, the next guy would, and we would have been found to be personally lacking what it took to complete the mission. (CACF and Westmoreland), Sociologists Charles C. Moskos and John Sibley Butler, in their recently published book "All That We Can Be," said they analyzed the claim that blacks were used like cannon fodder during Vietnam "and can report definitely that this charge is untrue. As a group, we helicopter pilots did what we had to do and then some. There is a reason why these medevac pilots were called our angels in the sky. We who fought the enemy face to face on the ground, whether infantry or recon, knew that if we were wounded, these guys would do anything necessary, face any danger the enemy could present, to get us out of hell and back to the care we needed. (One has to realize that there was virtually no protection for the pilots from the front and little from the sides or underneath.) The peace settlement was signed in Paris on 27 January 1973. Thanks Tom H. AKA,Cavalier 16, 68/69, Brought a tear to my eye. The early (65-68) Weapons Team was made up of two pilots, crew chief and a door gunner. Tran Van Don and the head of the secret police Tran Kim Tuyen. Updated: 7 February 2018 . With the patient finally on board, the Radio Operator with the ground unit Rogered our departure message with a Thanks a HELL of a lot, Dustoff!. (Westmoreland quoting Douglas Pike, a professor at the University of California, Berkley a renowned expert on the Vietnam War) [Westmoreland] This included Tet 68, which was a major military defeat for the VC and NVA. The third pilot is retired Col. David Rainey U.S. Army. Average age of active pilots in the United States from 2002 to 2020, by category* [Graph]. It [VHPA 1993], The helicopter provided unprecedented mobility. We put him in the back of the cargo compartment with his M-16 and a helmet, hooked him up to the intercom, and we were off. He was an Air Cav pilot, delivering and evacuating troops into and out of battlefields. They were immensely important to the troops on the ground as aerial fire power. . . Many men volunteered for the draft so even some of the draftees were actually After training, they entered transport or gunship platoons referred to simply as slicks or guns. Most would complete at least two combat tours. This statistic is not included in your account. magazines, a membership directory and a calendar each year and periodically publishes is passed from outgoing President to incoming President at each reunion. to Europe and both have since died. Dario Leone is an aviation, defense and military writer. Those brief and simple heartfelt words meant more to me that night than anything else ever said to me during my entire tour. x.. Medals are OK, but having your body and all your friends in one piece at the end of the day is better. . The Vietnam Helicopter Flight Crew Network (VHFCN) is a non profit veterans organization dedicated to the fulfillment of the following purposes: To provide a forum for recreational communications amongst a fraternity of aircrew members who served in Vietnam during the period 1961-75 At the conclusive battle of the war (the Fall of Saigon), the . We still got there in a hurry, but once there, we hovered over the trees like a target at the County Fair 25-cent target-shooting booth.