Life Experiences of Bill
McDonald
From the Book
"A Spiritual
Warrior's Journey"
Spiritual Armor
In
April of 1967 I was sitting around on standby. We were waiting for any action
that would require more ground troops being brought into an area where our guys
had made enemy contact. The rest of my helicopter company was participating in
what we called “eagle flights.” A bunch of them would fly troops into suspected
areas of enemy concentrations in hopes of making some contact. Then, helicopters
would quickly drop a backup force into the LZ to overwhelm the opposing forces.
My ship was the command and control ship (C&C) and we had the ground commanders
onboard.
We were supporting the ARVN (Army of the Republic of Vietnam)
rangers out of the Phu Loi area. It was not a very large force, perhaps just 150
men plus about six American advisors. They had been looking all morning for
suspected VC (Viet Cong) elements hiding along the Saigon River across from Chu
Chi; they had made no contact.
Late in the morning we got some frantic radio calls that they were
under heavy fire. They needed help right away. We jumped into our helicopter and
took off with all the ARVN commanders onboard. We headed out as fast as we could
to the hot (under fire) LZ. We could hear all the radio chatter going on between
the helicopters. It seemed that all nine of our ships had taken hits and been
damaged. The gunships were escorting them back to the base camp at Phu Loi. All
of them made it safely back those few short miles, but it meant that there were
no more gunships on station to protect our single aircraft when we landed there.
Worse yet, there would be no one there to rescue us if we got into any trouble.
By the time we arrived in the sky above the LZ, there was a full
engagement of hostility going on below us. The ARVN had stumbled upon a large
group of NVA (North Vietnamese Army troops) who had infiltrated down from across
the border in Cambodia. There was an estimated force of around 500 NVA fighting
the smaller and outgunned, ARVN rangers. The battle was not going well for us at
all. That is when the ground commander decided that they needed to be closer to
the action and wanted us to drop them all off on the ground on the edge of this
hot LZ.
As we began
our descent and were about 20 feet above the ground, all hell broke loose. The
sky filled with red and white tracers (red were NATO ammo and the white were
from Chinese and Warsaw ammo). Each tracer round usually represented that five
rounds of ammo had been shot, every fifth round being a tracer.
On our own
M-60 machine guns, the ammo belts came set up from supply with a tracer for
every fifth round out of the ammo can, however, I had altered mine by making my
own ammo belts for combat assaults. I had added solid tracers for the first
2–3,000 rounds just to make the enemy think I had more firepower than I really
had. Firing off these belts would really light up the sky and make it appear as
if I were firing more rounds than I actually was. I was hoping to get a
psychological edge over my enemy. I do not know if it really worked or not, but
it made it much easier to direct my aim and make quick adjustments; and it did
make me feel more powerful.
As we got lower, closer, and, unfortunately, slower, dozens of
rounds from automatic weapons were pelting my ship. I could hear the pings, but
mostly I could feel the bullets ripping holes in the metal walls of the ship.
The sky was full of tracers. Yet, I had my orders not to fire back since there
were friendly troops on the ground that we didn't want to hit with “friendly
fire” (from our own guns). So, I sat and faced the wall of fire that came at me
from all angles. Everything was directed at our small helicopter, which was
being shredded apart by the impact of the heavy firepower.
When we hit the ground, the ARVN commanders scurried off like a bunch of
rats leaving a sinking ship. Then, one of them stopped and turned around to
directly face me. He pulled his automatic weapon up to his shoulder and sighted
in directly on me who was sitting behind my idle machine gun.
I was looking toward the rear of my
helicopter, checking to see if we had anyone coming at us from that direction,
just as he pulled off a short burst. My pilot later told me that the guy had put
in a new ammo magazine and aimed his weapon right at my chest. There were about
18 rounds in the clip, and he fired them all in just a matter of a few quick
moments.
I had slightly turned my head in time to see nothing more than a
stream of light entering my body. I could feel the impact of something hitting
me hard in the chest, directly in the heart, or what should have been my heart
if I had not had a ceramic protective plate on my chest. The impact threw my
whole body up against the wall of the transmission-well behind me. I sat there
with no air left in my lungs since the punch to my chest sucked out my last
breath. The brunt force of the hit also severed the radio cord to my flight
helmet, so I sat there in total silence with fire and smoke whirling up from a
large hole in my chest protector. For a few short moments, I had no fear even
though I thought I was dead.
Just three days prior to this mission, I had agreed to test out a
new ceramic chest protector. I had been wearing a flak vest, which could not
really stop anything. Now, looking down at my two-day old chest protector, with
smoke still seeping out of a very deep cavity right over my heart, I was not
sure if I was dead or alive. The power of the round had bruised my chest, but I
saw no blood. I felt a dull hurt but no sharp pains. My neck really hurt from
the whiplash when my body flew backward.
The pilot managed to pull the ship back into the air, about 10 or 12
feet above the ground, and we moved as far away from the LZ as we could. Due to
the damage, our ship could not stay up for long. We were able to move only a few
hundred yards past all the fighting before we involuntarily landed and skidded
to a stop. Ignoring my own possible injuries, I rushed to help the aircraft
commander get out. Then, I raced around and helped the copilot out of the other
side of the helicopter. I looked back and saw my left door gunner and blood
splattered everywhere. Red flowed across the nylon seat, onto the metal floor,
and down the outside of the aircraft.
When I got to him (I was on the opposite side of the helicopter when
I saw him) I could see that he was in major trouble. I saw blood running down
his body. There were multiple holes in his neck, shoulders, and all over his
back and butt. I also could see that he was in a great deal of pain. I tried to
do what I could as I thought about the NVA troops that would be coming after us
within a few minutes. I knew time was important. I got him out of the
helicopter, rendered some quick first aid, then put him on my shoulders and back
and carried him to a safe place away from the helicopter.
The two pilots joined me, and we huddled at the edge of a clearing
away from the downed Huey that sat like a big piece of Swiss cheese in a very
large mousetrap! I soon heard the familiar "whop, whop" sound of another Huey. I
looked up in the sky and saw one of our B-model gunships coming down to land. I
quickly dragged and lifted my gunner, running as best as I could to that
gunship. I gently threw his body on the helicopter's floor and pushed his legs
inside. My aircraft commander rushed past me and jumped onboard. I began to get
on the aircraft, but they waved me and my copilot off, saying there was no more
room for us—too much weight. We both stood there, speechless and bewildered.
As I watched
in disbelief, the gunship flew away and disappeared beyond my sight, leaving us
very close to the enemy that had just shot us down. The copilot, a captain, and
I were more than just a little bit concerned about our safety. We knew we were
only just a football field or two away from 500 NVA troops. We also knew that we
could not trust the ARVN forces either, since we had been shot at by one of
their commanders.
I felt that I need to take some kind of action and not just wait for
the enemy to find us. I went back to my Huey and pulled off one of the M-60
machine guns from the gun mount on the side of the helicopter. I also took a few
thousand rounds of ammo. I began the walk back toward the hot LZ where we had
gotten shot up. I just didn’t like the idea of waiting for someone to come after
me. I would rather be the hunter than the hunted, so I put the gun on my hip and
took the battle back to enemy.
The captain was the only
black helicopter pilot in our company at that time. There were so few black
pilots in Nam that I often wondered if it was a cultural thing or racism. I had
assumed that those who had been selected and graduated from flight school had to
be super qualified - even more so, than most of the other pilots.
Now, for him to
survive on the ground with me, he had to become a grunt. Unfortunately, all he
had in his hand was a pistol. It looked really small, and he carried just a
couple of ammo clips for it. We were not ready for any kind of a long battle by
any stroke of the imagination. He was willing and brave, and I figured that was
a lot. So, I decided to go on the offensive and attack. I figured two Americans
against 500 NVA were fair enough odds. I also was hoping that the ARVN rangers
could handle some of them. I was not thinking too clearly, and my adrenaline was
kicking into high gear. Looking back on this idea from the vantage point of old
age, I do not think this was a bright idea at all.
There was a thick tree line along the shore of the river. I wanted to
make sure that the NVA did not approach us from that covered position. I walked
toward it with my M-60 blazing away from my hip. I was killing trees and
knocking leaves and branches to the ground. I was a giant lawnmower rolling
through the jungle. Birds and monkeys were flying and jumping—everything in my
path was falling down and being blown away by the massive firepower from my
machine gun. I was John Wayne in one of his old war movies. It all seemed so
surreal to me. I looked behind me, and sure enough, the captain was still with
me, covering my rear end with his little handgun. What a brave man, and even
more so for following me though the forest.
Little did I realize that after a few
minutes and a few thousand rounds, my gun barrel would melt from the heat. It
became red hot and was smoking, but the bad news was that it no longer worked! I
pulled the trigger and heard silence. It was not the sound I wanted to hear
after I had attacked the jungle with my weapon of mass destruction, cursing and
ranting at the unseen enemy. I wondered if I had pissed off all of them. I
looked down at my gun; the barrel had actually bent at an angle. I had never
seen anything like that happen before.
I looked back at my captain. We both
knew it was time for some intelligent E&E (escape and evasion). We moved out of
the woods, looking for a place where we could become as invisible as possible.
We spent the rest of that day (several more hours) trying not to get too far
from the helicopter because that was where our rescue would eventually take
place.
We had a lot of time to kill (no pun intended) while we waited for a
ride back “home” to our base camp, or anywhere out of there. We finally saw a
Huey coming to get us. I looked up into the sky only after I heard the sound of
the engines and the old rotor blades popping. I finally saw the Huey pull over
the treetops behind us. I now knew how we could sneak right up on old Charlie
out in the boonies. We both ran quickly, not walked, to the Huey and were
onboard before it fully settled its skids on the ground. I felt that we had
overstayed our welcome, and it was time to go home.
Later, a
Chinook helicopter hoisted our damaged Huey out of the crash site and carried it
back to Phu Loi Airfield for repairs. We had the chance to go look at it, and
upon examining it, we struck with disbelief. There were 17 holes in the
transmission-housing wall on the left side of the aircraft, behind where the
door gunner sat. These were the holes that the bullets and fragments had exited
from and into my door gunner’s body. We had expected to see the exit holes, but
we also thought we would find 17 matching entry holes on the right side of the
ship where I sat. In fact, if we took a straight line from where they exited and
where they should have entered, they would have had to come directly through my
body. We, the left door gunner and I, were like silhouettes, our backs directly
in line with each other as we faced off in opposite directions so we could
operate our machine guns on the left and right sides. There was a transmission
and a wall between us. On his wall there were 17 exit holes. Yet, on my side
there was nothing, not one single hole. Nothing seemed to have entered from my
side of the aircraft.
Common sense told us that something was wrong with this picture. We
all knew that the gunfire had come from the right side of the ship. We all saw
the sky, which had been aflame with tracer rounds heading towards where I was
sitting. The facts of what had happened and what we were seeing did not make any
sense.
No one could offer us an explanation of what had taken place. No one
even had a theory. It was just impossible for 17 holes to appear and exit from
one side of a wall without having ever entered the other side. The strange part
is that there is a big transmission sitting between the gunners' positions, and
nothing should have gone through to his side from my direction. The exit holes
were on a straight path from where my chest and body were on the other side.
An Army
safety board investigated and was as puzzled as all of us that lived through the
experience. It was impossible that it could have happened as we saw it happen.
But the holes were there. We saw what we saw. There were those 18 rounds fired
directly at me—one entered my chest protector and the other 17 exited the far
side of the aircraft without ever hitting me. It was as if they went through me.
I can offer nothing more to explain this, except to believe that there must have
been some kind of “spiritual armor” that protected me from harm's way on that
fateful morning along the Saigon River.
#
Copyright 2003 W. H. McDonald Jr.
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