Dr. Randy Hinds, a Vietnam veteran who now serves as chief information officer and professor of information systems at Kennesaw State University, was the master of ceremonies Oct. 7 when a restored Huey helicopter visited campus as part of a documentary film project, In the Shadow of the Blade.

Vietnam-era helicopter lands at KSU as part of national tour

by Rick Woodall

Nearly three decades have passed since the end of the Vietnam War, but the familiar outline of the UH-1, or Huey helicopter, has yet to fade from the American consciousness. To the contrary, the Huey has become an enduring symbol of that particular era in American history – both for soldiers who took part in the conflict, as well as people back home who glimpsed the aircraft only on television and in films.

"They were everywhere," recalled Dr. Randy Hinds, a pilot in Vietnam who spent the majority of his time flying two types of helicopters, the Huey and the OH-6, as a member of the U.S. Army’s famed 1st Cavalry Division immortalized in the Mel Gibson film, We Were Soldiers. "There was never a time, that I can remember, that you didn’t hear a Huey flying someplace."

Not even a driving rainstorm could prevent Vietnam veterans, members of the KSU community and other invited guests from attending the Oct. 7 landing of a restored Huey helicopter on the Campus Green.

On Oct. 7, members of the college community, area veterans and invited guests had the opportunity to see first-hand the machine Hinds remembers so well. A fully-restored Vietnam-era Huey landed at Kennesaw State University and spent several hours on the Campus Green as part of a series of flights across the country commemorating and celebrating the heroes of that bloody conflict, which ultimately resulted in thousands upon thousands of American casualties and deaths.

The flights, which began with an Oct. 2 liftoff from Fort Rucker, Ala., are being staged as part of a documentary film project, In the Shadow of the Blade. Along the way, Arrowhead Film and Video is collecting stories from veterans for use in the documentary.

Hinds, now the chief information officer and a professor of information systems at Kennesaw State, spent three decades in the Army before retiring with the rank of colonel. He did one tour of duty in Vietnam, and was getting ready to go back when the U.S. government began calling the troops home. During his time "in country," Hinds performed a variety of missions in the Huey, including command and control exercises, ferrying troops to and from the scene of battle, laying down cover fire for troops on the ground and, perhaps most importantly, getting wounded soldiers off the battlefield as quickly as possible.

"It was an incredibly rugged aircraft," Hinds said, adding that the controls were very simplistic, by today’s standards. "It could take a lot of punishment, in terms of enemy fire, and just the way we as pilots punished it trying to avoid enemy fire.

"It always seemed to bring you back," he added. "I guess that’s what I recall as the pilot of the aircraft."

For many soldiers, the Huey was both the way they arrived at their units and the way they left once their tour of duty was completed. In the case of those wounded in battle, the Huey’s ability to get in and out of tough situations often meant the difference between life and death.

"If we did not have the Huey in Vietnam, our casualty rate would have been much, much higher," Hinds said. "There’s no doubt about that."

Even now, 34 years later, Hinds vividly recalls his first combat mission, an emergency ammunition run conducted in the dead of night, with nothing more than a flashlight capped with a red lense serving as the drop point. Hinds, who was monitoring the Huey’s instruments for his command pilot, said the weight of the load nearly pulled the vehicle’s rotor into the surrounding jungle before the drop could be completed, putting the aircraft and the crew in extreme jeopardy. The vehicle remained aloft, however, and afterward, Hinds had two thoughts: write a letter of thanks to Bell Helicopter (the builder of the Huey) and make this entry in his diary, "Boy, this is going to be a long year."

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