By Rodney Schmidt 1969
Do you know the difference between a WAR STORY and a FAIRY TALE?
A war story starts out not with “Once upon a time,” but rather with “This is no shit!”
(Need I say more?)
This is a collection of jokes, war stories, Vietnam and otherwise, and related incidents. Some are secondhand and thirdhand stories and the truth of them is left to the reader. Others are firsthand.
Some are delightfully funny. Others are shockingly true. A few are almost too horrible and sickening to write, but I feel the world should be made aware of them anyway so they don’t needlessly happen again.
Many have no ending, for the endings were lost with the storyteller.
Here you have it as I heard it, saw it, or hoped it would or wouldn’t be.
Many may not seem to have any logic or reason, but neither does war.
A good deal of it is aviation oriented due to the fact that while the majority of this was written I was serving as a LOH (OH-6A Hughes or “Loach”) helicopter pilot in Vietnam.
Here’s to all the brave and the innocent who can no longer tell “their war stories.”
Pre-Vietnam Briefing
Before personnel deport the United States for Vietnam, they are required to sit through a series of pre-Vietnam lectures.
Some of the lectures were question and answer type, others were military briefing type. But this particular lecture, delivered to new Army pilots just fresh out of flight school, would have brought down the curtain on the Johnny Carson show.
Most of the new pilots had been sitting in on endless lectures for the past eleven months. They couldn’t care less about attending another one as long as they should live. This day, though, they were in for a real treat.
The Captain who was to deliver a lecture went out of his way to start the thing off with a real bang. He donned a cowboy hat and pistol and proceeded to shoot the place up with blanks. It was a good gimmick to start off with. Now that he had the floor, he proceeded to not only keep it and the interest of his audience but also fill the hall with laughter.
His lecture was on his first week in Vietnam.
We were all ears trying to pick up some hint of what we could expect in our near future.
“Well, when I got over ‘there’ I thought it would be a while before I’d get to fly, and that they would sorta break me in easy before they’d let me see any real action. Don’t you believe it, I was up and flying my first day in country. A combat assault yet. We were zipping along low level when from nowhere comes this ungodly roar. My first lieutenant quickly relieved my ignorance and told me we’d taken machine gun rounds. Collective down and we were in a flame. Hey, wait a second, but it was true, no engine. We were shot down. There was no place to land, only jungle trees below. The first lieutenant did a great job, brought us down nice and easy like, right down on top of the trees. I closed my eyes anticipating a hopeless crash through the trees. There was none. We were sitting, balanced on the triple canopy top. I leaned to look out my window only to be met with the sound of breaking branches. What were we to do? If we tried to get out, the thing would surely get off balance and plunge to our fate. If we sat and waited for a Chinook to recover us, he’d undoubtedly blow us through trying to hook over to us. The answer came quickly. Before we did anything, the branches gave way and we plunged through all three canopies. It was dark down there, real dark.”
“Hey, crew chief, how many VC were supposed to be in this jungle?”
“Three battalions, sir.”
“And how many rounds of ammo do we have for our sixties?”
“Eighteen hundred a piece, sir.”
“Three grand machine gun rounds, two M16s, and two thirty-eights. Hey, you VC out there, bunch up!”
Our rescue chopper landed a couple clicks to the right of us in the only clearing nearby.
We grabbed our radios and ran. Between me and that chopper were two pajama boys. “Head down and 38 a blazing and to this day I don’t know if I shot them or ran ‘em down!”
“We all made it out, but others weren’t so lucky. One Charlie (Viet Cong or Victor Charlie) had climbed up on top of a tree and just sat and waited for a chopper to fly over him low level. He lobbed his grenade and by chance it went into the cowling. Not a man survived the crash.”
To catch most of the humor, one had to be there. But that was our pre-Vietnam briefing, or at best, a part of it.
Getting a Head in the Mail
Before we got over here we were warned about being careful about where we left the addresses of our loved ones, and to avoid carrying one’s wife’s address in your wallet.
The unit I finally ended up in even had it written into the SOP not to throw letters from home into the garbage, but rather to burn them to deny enemy access to them to write harassment letters to the special friend.
There is only so much that can be said. But some will never listen.
One hero flying deep over enemy territory took fire and rode his flaming chopper to the earth. He made it to the ground safely and got clear of the burning craft. But here is where our hero’s adventure only starts or ends. He was captured and severely interrogated. He may have held out well. But, yes, he disregarded the all-too-numerous vague regulations. He had his wife’s address in his wallet.
Weeks later, the Army still carried his name on the “missing in action” list. His wife was the first to find out otherwise. She received in the mail a package from him. Don’t even try to imagine the wife’s horror to unwrap her husband’s head.
When word got back to the man’s unit, it didn’t improve morale either. Days later at the scene of the crash, the troopers caught one of the little yellow fellows that they found had participated in the atrocity. After each man in the troop took a slice with his knife, they tied him to a tree and nailed the division patch to his forehead.
Innocent Children
What can be said of children? Cute, curious, shy, mischievous — these terms fit kids all over the world. The Vietnamese kids are no exception. Aside from there being a lot more of them, they’re the same as kids anywhere. Or are they?
Let’s discuss it from a GI’s point of view. Despite the contrary opinion, you will not find a child in the delta suffering from malnutrition. They are overall quite healthy and active. Diarrhea and numerous minor diseases are quite common, but they are so common as to cause no alarm. It’s practically normal.
The war has pretty much put the kids on their own. Any male that is old enough to work is old enough to put on a uniform and is drafted. With the father gone, the mother is left at home to earn the living for the whole family. As a result, she spends her time working very hard, and the kids are left on their own. A seven-year-old girl may be left to care for her baby brother all day while the mother works in the fields or goes to the market.
For the most part, the kids are on their own. They have schools, but kids of all ages can be seen at any hour of the day. It must not be mandatory attendance.
The children may be decked out in black silk pajamas, white school uniforms, just a shirt. Or, commonly in the monsoon season, nothing at all!
Ever since the youngsters can remember, there have been GI’s around, and they’ve certainly got the ingenuity to take advantage of it.
Just as one wouldn’t flash a bundle of bills around on a New York street, the veteran must acquire certain tactics to successfully out master these many little sporty minds.
Let’s toy with an example or two. It only takes any kid just once to see a helicopter crew member open the radio compartment and pull out some C-rations to know there is chow to be had. These seemingly sweet innocent kids can really put on an act. I know, I’ve learned many times over.
A couple of kids will come up to the ship and get everybody’s attention with a few oohs and ohs and some of the sweetest smiles you ever saw. Meanwhile his buddies will sneak up from the rear and proceed to clean out the radio compartment of anything carriable. They get very adept at it. I saw one team who really had their system worked out to perfection. When the clean up crew had the merchandise, the decoy crew would point at the thieves and scream and holler. The crew, seeing they were being robbed, would be off in a hot pursuit. The half dozen in the lift crew would likely only find enough for one or two kids to carry off, but they would all stoop over and dash off just like a quarterback’s bootleg play, and scatter. The crew could only chase one at a time. The race was on. The kids with the goodies would quickly disappear into a crowd, but the fakers would take off on an easily pursuable course. When the angry crew member drew up close, he would stop and throw up his hands to show he had nothing, and all the kids nearby would roll on the ground with laughter. The crew chief would have to laugh at himself.
Of course, our little actors at the front of the ship deserve a reward for helping to defend the ship and are conveniently on their way by the time the empty-handed crew members get back to find it wasn’t a joke after all. Their rations are indeed missing. What mastery of the con game.
If you tell them not to get near the ship, they shrug their shoulders and say, “No lie.” You can push them away, but they will be right back playing complete innocence. All the veteran has to do is pick up a rock and they all understand. If you drew a gun or pulled a knife, they know darn well you aren’t going to use it. But if they see a rock, they’ll back off. Don’t be afraid to use it either. A Vietnamese soldier would not hesitate. If some brat challenges my bluff, he’ll likely dash off with a knot on his head and that ends the kid’s game. From then on, the kids will be kids. When they know you know their games, you can have a ball with them. They’ll be nice as can be and show you their town. After you’ve won their respect, you’ve won their hearts.
Just a word of warning on a much more serious note. Charlie knows how to play the child innocence game, too. Children have been known to slip a grenade wrapped in rubber bands into a gas tank, and hours later, when the fuel melts the bands away, no more chopper.
Some have been known to step off distances for enemy mortar crews to range in on, too.
Use common sense and just walk off a distance from your equipment. If a child goes too close to the equipment, remember the rock. Don’t encourage the kids into your military world, but rather go with them and show an interest in their world. You’ll have made a friend and done more for the cause that you are there for than you’ll ever know.
They are a beautiful people, a wise people, living under the most adverse pressures imaginable. Just remember that these many young Vietnamese, many fatherless, many illegitimate, are going to have to make something of what we leave behind.
Wear That Pistol Low and in the Middle
Another part of a pilot’s typical briefing preparatory to combat missions is the importance of personal body armor. They tell us the usual story of the happy man who has a shattered “chicken plate” (bullet proof chest plate) but a whole chest to smile about. A chicken plate has gone on record as stopping up to a 50 caliber slug. That’s impressive.
Here I must confess that I didn’t wear mine too often, but it felt damn cozy when I did. I tended to be a bit more careless flight wise with it. I sort of dared Charlie to shoot me, right in the chicken plate, so I’d have a fantastic tale of a close one to tell.
To get on with the tale, the US Army does not to date issue a bullet proof jock. Now most men aren’t in the habit of being neglectful of this area, so they are left feeling a bit vulnerable. Now the Army does usually issue a 38 pistol to all pilots, but it is uncomfortable to wear at your hip while sitting in the cockpit. The usual procedure is either take it off or slide it around to the front to hang down your crotch when seated. You should be able to guess it by now. One particularly lucky gentleman has a mangled 38 but a couple kids since to prove a 38 will stop an AK round.
My First Day in Vietnam, or Where’s the Boogieman?
Needless to say, a man has got many apprehensions about Vietnam. After all, it is not a game to the guy who stops the bullet. Add to all this an eighteen-hour plane trip, and arrive in Cam Ranh Bay in the middle of the night and hear just a week ago the hospital got blown up. It is a setting to strike terror into the heart of the dead.
You step out of the aircraft into the damp silence and see guard towers and barbed wire. Those first few steps, if anybody had said Boo, we’d all have been fighting for the top branches of the nearest tree. (We all laughed at it later to build up our courage.)
Then we all filed into a bus that had an armed guard and grates on the windows to keep a grenade from being tossed in. The obvious question at this time is what the hell am I doing here? The feeling inside borders close to nausea, and your heart is beating too fast. Now I ask you, have you ever felt really alone in this world? I guess it is moments like these that life is made of.
Rodney Schmidt Legacy 