Working with the ARVIN (Army of the Republic of Vietnam) troops was always a dangerous assignment because you could rarely count on their support when things got tough. You just never knew how they would react to certain combat situations. One spring day in 1967, I was about to find out just how they would react to being attacked.

It was a perfect weather day in Nam – warm sunshine, no rain and just a hint of a gentle wind. It made flying a lot more comfortable for my gunner and myself. That was because we had all the doors off the helicopter and were sitting facing the outside weather. There was always that breeze from our rotor and the forward air speed of the aircraft, but on some days there was rain and it would blow in on you, just enough to make you damp and chilled.

We were doing some rather easy hash and trash missions (re-supply missions) up along the boarder area with Cambodia. We got a radio call asking for us to go pick up several wounded ARVIN troops in a remote LZ, not too far from where we flying. The pilots changed course and we headed to the LZ. The only thing we knew about the situation was that it was under mortar attack. They had a few wounded men that need to be taken to a MASH unit. Nothing too much out of the ordinary – almost a routine ‘dust off" (medical evacuation) so we were not expecting much trouble since the LZ was secured by 300 ARVIN troops. The estimated attack force, was only just one VC mortar team which was dropping rounds at random in the LZ. I figured we would be able to fly in at tree top level undetected until the last few hundred yards. We could then just drop down so they could throw on the wounded. It would only just be a matter of a few seconds before we would begin lifting out of there. We would certainly be out before the mortar team could scope us out and lay some rounds on our aircraft.

We pulled over the last few trees and dropped quickly to where they had popped yellow smoke. We hit the ground hard. A few medics began to load some wounded troops on board. It was going very slow. Then I looked out across the LZ. I could not believe what I was seeing. Almost half of the troops had panicked. They began to run for our little helicopter. Before I could do anything, several dozen of them where at the helicopter and trying to get inside it. They began pulling off the wounded to make more room for themselves. I turned to look at the left side of the ship. I could see my gunner trying to keep his own seat from being taken away.

They had all turned into animals. They were stepping on each other and the wounded. They fought to get inside the small aircraft. All was beginning to fall apart in the LZ. The pilots were trying to pull up on the collective and get some lift off the ground. However, we had dozens of men inside and more hanging onto the landing skids. More keep coming at us, until we were completely engulfed with bodies of panicked men. It was an ugly sight. there was no way we could leave that LZ. We were like a large insect being devoured by an army of hungry ants!

Meanwhile we had been on the ground long enough for the mortar team to begin zeroing in our position. They started dropping rounds closer and closer. They had enough time to walk the rounds up , adjusting about 10 yards at a time. The rounds were hitting so close, that you could feel the impact of the explosions because they made the ship shake each time they went off. Time was critical. We had to get out of there or get out of the helicopter before a round hit it.

The pilots were shouting on the intercom to shot these guys or do whatever it took to get them out of the aircraft. My gunner and I were not about to shot any of them, so we began kicking them and pushing them off the helicopter, as the ship struggled to rise off the ground. There were so many of them and they just keep hanging on. They were afraid. You could see it in their eyes. Some had even pissed in their own pants. These ARVIN troops were going to stay in that helicopter even if it meant all of us crashing into a tree top.

We were finally able to lift a few feet above the ground. The pilots decided to swing the tail rotor around in a circle a few times to stop the advancement of other troops. So they swung the tail of the helicopter around with the tail rotor turning like a buzz saw. The troops fell down and jumped out of the way. No one that we saw was cut up or killed. Then we turned the craft around the other direction and chased away several more dozen men that were still trying to get on board. In the mean time, my gunner and I had been shoving and throwing off as many of them as we could. It was a fight inside the back of the chopper. These guys were not going out without a fight. The were screaming and hitting and crying. It was an ugly sight.

Finally, we were able to lift above the LZ to a height of about 8 or 9 feet. There were still several men hanging onto the skids, so we stepped on their fingers and kicked at them until they fell back to ground. This effort allowed us to pull up a few more feet. We then headed across the LZ as rounds were exploding behind us and were hitting where we had once been sitting.

We still had a over flow crowd on board. We needed the full length of the LZ to get enough transitional lift to just clear the tree tops at the end of the LZ. We were lucky that we did not have a full tank of fuel, because we couldn’t have carried any more weight and made it out of that LZ.

Back on the ground , the wounded were laying scattered about. They had been walked over and stomped by their fellow troops. I checked inside the helicopter and saw, to no surprise, that not one of the wounded men had made it out with us. We have risked our lives to evacuated their wounded, then not one of them was being taken to the MASH unit. In fact, they laid back in the LZ, more badly hurt (some were possibly even killed) as a direct result of the panic in the LZ.

I looked around at these South Vietnamese soldiers. I was totally discussed by what I saw. They were huddled together and some of them were crying. These men were of the same blood and race as the VC, who would fight you to the death. I did not understand how different they could be. It angered me to be there fighting "their war". I had no respect left for them or for the South Vietnamese in general after this day in the war. They showed me that they did not have what it was going to take to win the war. My reasons for being there; to help the South Vietnamese stop the communist aggression, were shatter in one long afternoon. I would never have the same zest and enthusiasm for the war effort again.