In April of 1967, I had an experience which almost cost me my life, my freedom, my reputation and perhaps, my own sanity. The events leading up to those faithful moments were not out of the ordinary, for Vietnam duty at that time. We were flying lots of combat assaults in and around War Zone C. We were also running a few missions into the jungles, along the Cambodian frontier area. We had been inserting small units of men into places that were off our Vietnam operational maps. We were deep into Cambodia dropping off guys that were not wearing any military uniforms. They carried weapons made in East European countries and did not appear to have any dog tags on them. We would never be told what they were doing or who they were.

Around the base camp at Phu Loi, I started to feel uneasy about a particular helicopter – tail number 744. It seemed that whenever I walked by it, on the flight line, it gave me chills or made me uneasy. I mentioned this to a couple of guys and was really shocked when they told me that they had the same feelings about the aircraft. Not as strong as I was feeling, but they just did not feel right about this particular helicopter. They were uneasy about having to fly in it. It seems that several others had also picked up on this "feeling". There was just something about this chopper that made most everyone uncomfortable.

One night, I got back to the base camp from flying all day long in the Ho Bo Woods area. I had some hairy moments in a couple of very hot LZs. I was really tried and emotionally drained of all my energy. This was not that unusual, since I had been flying about 15 hours that day. When I finished inspecting my own helicopter and making small repairs, I was told to go see the Captain about an assignment for the next day.

I found out after talking to the Captain, that I was scheduled to be the crew-chief on 744, the next morning, for a series of simple "hash and trash" ( taking out food and ammo to troops in the field) runs to some special forces camps. It was an easy assignment. It was certainly less dangerous than what I had been doing all week. I was ordered to go check out the aircraft and perform a maintenance inspection on it.

I had an immediate sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. I felt fearful as I approached the helicopter. When I reached out and touched the skin of the aircraft, I had an instant inner picture of something that I knew was going to happen the next day. I could somehow feel and see in my mind, this helicopter crashed in the jungles and broken apart in pieces. I could see bodies of soldiers laying out in the wreckage, all on fire and burning. The whole scene was of fire and death. I could feel the searing heat mentally some how. I pulled my hand away from the helicopter. But the inner vision was still there of death, destruction and fire. I knew for sure , without any doubts what was going to happen.

I sat down and tried to think about what to do. I had been given orders to fly on this aircraft. I could not just refuse to go – that would be a punishable offense in the military. Not just some paper punishment, but possible long term jail time for refusing to obey an order in combat. I would find out later on, that it could have resulted in a 25 year to life sentence for me. So I sat there and pondered what to do. I would be putting everything on the line by refusing to fly the next day, but I also "knew" that if I did I would never return again. It was not a matter of being afraid of some combat situation – I knew this was a fatal mission for everyone on it.

There was something wrong with that aircraft. I knew I had to find it. So I spent several extra hours doing the daily inspection. I even asked for assistance from two or three other crew-chiefs. I finally gave up and wrote in the log book that the helicopter was unsafe to fly. I put a "red X" in the log which now meant that someone else had to come and check it out officially. I was determined to ground this ship. I was hoping that someone would find what was wrong with it.

The guy doing the inspection, asked me what was wrong and why I had grounded the helicopter. When I tried to explain why – it just did not sound right. I came off sounding nuts. He checked the entire aircraft any way and found it in perfect order. He couldn’t find one thing wrong. He signed off on my "red X" entry and the aircraft was once again ready to use for the next mission.

I was not satisfied with the situation. My feelings kept growing stronger the more I thought about it. I went to the CO and told him about my concerns – that something was terribly wrong with 744. He thought I was insane or over the edge. He gave me a direct order to be there the next day on that helicopter. I flatly told him no. I refused to fly that ship. I told him to assign me any other mission , on any other helicopter, the next day and I would go. However, I would not get into that helicopter no matter what the consequences of my actions were.

The CO let me know that I was going to have to face charges and possible prosecution for my actions that night. He lectured me about what could happen to me. He warned me in no uncertain terms, that I was disobeying a direct order in a combat zone. I could be facing military prison for the rest of my young life. But I knew what was going to happen. I had to go with my own feelings. I had to trust that what I felt was the correct path to take. I made the only choice I felt I could make.

I went back to my hooch and joined the rest of my flight squad. I told them all what happened. However, they had already heard about "crazy Mac" and what I was saying. It seems everyone knew what I had done and said. I expected some teasing or worse from them all. However, that was not the case. Some had feelings themselves and a few others in the company believed me based on previous experiences – at least enough to give me some benefit of doubt on this. There was one new guy in the squad who did not share that view. He thought I was nuts. He thought I had been in too much combat and was now afraid for my life. His name was Al. He had just transferred in from Saigon, where he left a desk job to volunteer as a door gunner.

Al was having no part of my insanity and was laughing at me behind my back. When I went over to him and got close, I could feel the heat of fire. I could sense death. I do not know how to tell anyone about this feeling I had – but I knew in my heart and mind, that he was going to be killed the next day. I had to hold my emotions back as I started to get tear drops in the corners of my eyes. I looked him straight in the eye and told him that under no circumstances was he to go flying the next day. I told him that no matter what he did, he was not to get on helicopter 744. I told him that if he did go out he would never come back again. He would be killed.

Al looked at me and told me that he thought I was nuts and wanted me to leave him alone. He also said that he had no flight gear assigned and did not have a flight physical yet, since he just got there. Therefore, he was not on flight status. He was not scheduled to go out on anything, let alone my dreaded aircraft 744. He told me to stay away from him.

I turned around and walked back to my own bunk bed, which was just across the aisle from his. I looked back one more time. I told him that if he was asked to fly tomorrow because they were short of flight crews that he was to not go. I got a blank stare back. He walked outside to get away from me. I could feel the tension in the hooch. I was either going to be proven wrong the next day and then have to face possible jail time , or I would be proven right, which meant others would be killed. I really did not know which I would rather have happen – I had a difficult time getting any sleep that night.

The morning came and I was already tired. I dragged myself out of bed and had to face all my buddies looking at me. I guess they were just as concerned about what would happen that day as I was. I gathered my flight equipment and walked down to the flight line where I had been given another assignment. I would be flying combat missions but it felt a lot safer then getting into 744. As we took off the sun was just peeking over the tree tops. We pulled around and I could see below me, that 744 was still grounded. It had was not going anywhere.

We flew about 12 hours that day and had very seen little combat. Just a few rounds exchanged in one hot LZ, but our gunships had attacked the area very quickly, so none of our helicopters were shot down or damaged. So coming back to base camp we were all relaxed. I still had some concerns about my feelings of death and fire, they would not go away. I did not understand why I was feeling them like I was. Helicopter 744 was not flying any missions that day. It was on the ground when we had left that morning.

As we pulled around and made our approach to land at Phu Loi, I could see an empty space where 744 should have been parked. My heart began to pound and I felt fear inside. I just knew already that it had crashed somewhere. It was too late to help them. Too late to save anyone. I knew this already.

We landed. I got out and ran for the flight office to check on the status of 744. I found out that it was over due back, by about 2 hours. No one had heard anything from it since it picked up some soldiers from some isolated LZ and was taking them to another area. No one arrived at that other area. Now 744 was presumed missing and down. I was pissed off and stormed out of the office looking for the CO. When I saw him I asked him why he let that helicopter go out on a mission. He told me not to over react and that he was in charge not me. He did not have to justify his actions to me. He told me that they needed another helicopter and so he gathered a crew that afternoon and sent it off. They only had one door gunner however on it. They could not find anyone around the camp except for the new guy Al, who volunteered to go on his first mission as a helicopter door gunner. They could not find a crew-chief – since that was my original assignment – and they left with an empty seat. 

No one knew exactly where 744 might. There was no radio calls to give any indication or clue as to where a search might be effective. It was several hours past the time they were supposed to be back at the base camp before any kind of a rescue effort was put together. Finally, a helicopter was sent out in a vague direction of where it might be. There was hundreds of square miles of jungles to look through and it was now dark. As luck would have it , for some reason we traveled like we were honing in on a beacon of light. We began to see a flicker of light in the dense jungle miles away. From our high position in the sky we were able to see a greater distance than if we flew lower like we normally did.

As we approached this light, it became evident that it was a fire. The jungle was on fire. We flew over the top of the main burnt area. We looked down and saw below us, broken twisted metal and bodies thrown at random, all over the jungle floor. We hovered over the tree tops, just out of reach of the flames trying to see if there was any movement at all. There was none. I volunteered to go down a rope to the ground and personally check out the site for any survivors, but the pilot did not want to risk the ship or me. It was just too shaky and we did not know if there were any VC waiting for us below. We circled around the crash site several times, hoping that we would see something move.

The scene below us was horrible. All the bodies were burnt and charred. You could see shapes but that was the only clue that these were in fact where once human beings. These were the same images I had already seen in my mind the night before. I felt sick about it all. I was mad because no one had done anything to stop or prevent this from happening. The trip back from the crash site was deathly quiet. No one spoke a word about my predications or what they saw.

The news about what happened was relayed back to the base camp. When we arrived everyone knew what the fate was for the crew of 744. We did not know what had happened but we knew that they were all dead.

It did not take long before the military justice system kicked into action. An accident investigation team from Army Headquarters in Saigon was sent to our camp. They had gone out to the crash site looking for the reasons that it exploded into a fire ball. They could not find anything. They did not find any logical reason for the helicopter to have crashed and burned, other then possible pilot error. However, they had one other idea and that was that I must have had something to do with it.

They took me into a room with a light over the top of my head – just like in the movies about police interrogation. They keep asking me how I knew for sure it was going to crash and burn before it did. I kept telling them my same story, over and over, again, but they did not believe me. They found it impossible to except the fact that someone could possibly know about things in advance. They wanted me to confess to blowing it up and killing all those men. They tried to break me down and confess to their imagined crime. I never moved from my original statements. They became rude and told me that they knew I had done something – but they could not prove it yet. The investigation team had checked with all the maintenance crews. They found out that I could never have gone near helicopter 744, after I had turned it over to the other mechanics to check out. There was no way that I could have done anything, but that was not good enough for the Army. When the investigators left, they refused to let me off the hook. They said they would be watching me and that I had better not do anything like this again.

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