One day during the summer of 1967, after returning from 15 hours of flying combat assaults in the area known as War Zone C, I had one of those most unusual and hard to explain experiences. I had landed safety at our base camp in Phu Loi. Then I spent the next hour or so, performing normal post flight maintenance to my helicopter. All was normal up this point of the day, except for one small hole in the tail section, caused from a single round probably from a AK-47 Russian assault rifle. (I had assumed that it was a Russian weapon, even though we had also seen Chinese AK-47s as well, in the area.) But picking up a bullet hole in the helicopter was not really that unusual of an experience. I had picked up hits before during the long days of combat assaults. I normally never heard or felt a thing at the time and rarely if ever, even noticed any gunfire directed at me. It was just one of those ‘gifts" you found when you stopped to refuel or had a chance to look over the body of the helicopter like I was doing this night.

What made this night different was the feelings I was beginning to feel within myself. I knew something was wrong but I could not put my finger on it right away. I was siting all alone in the dark. The other door gunner had long gone to clean the M-60s and to get dinner. I sat there looking out at the night sky. The stars were everywhere. Every so often there would be a few tracers from the edges of the camp. Some incoming and some outgoing rounds. After being in Nam for a over a half a year I was used to seeing this each night and could see and hear the difference between the them. I was lonely and wondered if that was what I was feeling this night. Nothing seemed to make me feel conformable or at peace. There was this inner turmoil that was telling me something was not right. You could just feel it in the air that night. (Or at least I could.)

I finally put away all my tools and grabbed my M-16 rifle. I started to walk slowly back to my hooch where I was just thinking about how good it would feel to layout on my bunk and close my eyes. I was really exhausted. It is hard for most people to understand how tired you could get from sitting behind a M-60 machine gun all day while flying over the jungles below. The key is that all the time you are sitting there, you are looking for the enemy. You must remain alert to protect your helicopter from being shot down. If you feel asleep or were half-awake day dreaming, you could get your crew all killed. So you spent the entire full day , and in this case some 15 hours long, on the edge trying to stay alert for those few moments of terror when you were under attack.

As I walked into the hooch, that nagging feeling got worse. Something was really wrong and I was close to what ever it was or who ever it was. I put my M-16 in the rifle rack and threw my flight gear onto my bunk. I had my back turned to a group of young men (but then we were all very young men back then) and I could feel something that made me sick inside. It was a chilling and painful feeling. There are no words to describe it. But I noticed that it got worse when one of the guys, got closer to me. I sat down on my bunk thinking about what I was feeling and trying to understand what it meant.

I turned around and saw this guy standing next to his bunk bed across from me. I was staring at him when he noticed it. I got up and walked up to him. I was beginning to feel a dread within myself. I knew for sure that something was going to happen to this young man. Something was shadowing him and I could feel it. I did not know what to say to him so I just blurted it out. I just let the words come out of me without judgment or without thinking or directing them. I just let myself say what came out.

‘You are in great danger and I am not going to let you fly on any combat missions the rest of the week. I am taking you off flight duty for a few days, I want you to spend the time in the base camp where you will be safer.’

Are you nuts. Have you been here so long that you have flipped over the edge or something?" That was about al he could reply to me that is printable – the rest of what he told me was sprinkled with many ‘F’ words and phrases. I could hardly blame him for his response.

The other men all stopped talking and just stared at me. I really think that they all thought I had flown one too many missions and was mentally and emotional unstable. The hooch got really quiet for a few minutes then they went outside to get a beer and talk. I was left al lone and wondered about what I had just told this guy. I do not know where it came from or why but I knew for sure that something was going to happen to him the very next day. I was in charge of scheduling the gunners and crew chiefs so I made sure that his name was taken off the morning flight list.

When I went to bed that night I could hear the guys talking about me. I knew that they had gone and told some of the officers. Sleep did not come that easy even though I was in great need of it. I laid there thinking about what I had said and about my feelings. I trusted them and decided to stick by my words that I had spoken that night and to make sure that this guy was out of harms way. SO the next morning before taking off on my flight I left orders that this guy be given the day off. I did not want him to see any chance of combat.

When I got into my helicopter one of the pilots asked me about what he was told. I confessed up that I had said what was reported and that I really believed that he was in very great danger that day. I think both pilots winked at each other and smiled. Everyone thought I was ready for a rubber walled room in some asylum someplace stateside. The thought of that makes me laugh a little now. Think about it – if they thought you were nuts, then you went home, but if you were sane , then you had to stay and fight in this insane war.

We took off early in the morning as the sun was still peaking over the palm trees and streaking through the patches of fog. I looked back at the company area as we puled up to about 50 feet and could see this guy standing there looking up at me. He was still mad at me and of course, thought I was nutty than a fruit cake. As I looked back at him I could feel the shadows closing in on him still. I did not understand that feeling since I had taken him out of harms way and given him a free day to just relax around the camp.

We had been flying several hours that morning carrying supplies out to a very isolated special forces camp up in the hills. We had not seen much action that morning and it was a rather quiet day in Nam. Then we got a cal to return to our base camp to pick up a dust off (medical evacuation). We were to pick up a wounded troop and drop him off at a MASH unit about 10 miles from the camp itself.

We turned our helicopter around and head back as fast as we could. We did not have a clue as to why there was a casualty at the base camp when there was no attacks that day at all. We landed at the medical unit and they carried out a stretcher. On it laid a man with bandages all over his head and face. He looked like a mummy. His entire face and head were injured and there was no way to see who he was. I help load the man onto the floor of the helicopter and we took off.

While in the air one of the pilots asked me to look and see who it was by checking his dog tags. I reached over and puled them out from the inside of his shirt. I turned them slowly over in my hand - I already knew before I read them who it was. It was the guy I had warned to be safe. The guy who I had tried to save from injury. The same guy that I had failed to protect with my warnings. I told the pilots who it was. The did not know what to say. On the helicopter ride it got real quiet except for the noise of the turbine engine and rotor blades. No one spoke a word to me or to each other.

When we returned back to base camp we found out what had happened to the guy. It seems that he had found a captured Soviet rocket launcher and was playing around with it when it accidentally went off in his face. He had damage to his head and face from the explosion and that was way he was wrapped up in bandages like a mummy.

The rest of the men in the company did not want to talk to me for many days after that. No one understood what I had felt or what I had tried to do. I did not even understand myself. It seems that some people's fate is truly in their own hands and that even if you tried to forewarn them it was really their own fate. I did not feel good about what had happened. I felt like I had failed him. But looking back I know it was all in God'’ hands and in this case there was nothing that I could top change it.