SGT. GREIGO'S FLAK JACKET

"Gord Beaman" wrote in message
...
"Kevin Brooks" wrote:

What he *did* do, at least
sometime during his tour, was position his trusty S&W .38 special
revolver
(which he prefered to the .45, for reasons soon to be obvious) in its
holster between his legs, both to keep it from hindering his operation of
the cyclic and to give some (at least psychological) protection for his
most
favorite personal area...


Did he mention the conundrum of whether to pull the cartridges
so as to remove the stress of having all those potential little
bombs cosied up to 'Big Jim and the twins' with the attendant
inconvenience of not having them in place if needed later ---
vice the stress caused by picturing them so near those unmangled
personal items for now so that they'll be available later if
needed?

LOL! No, I never asked him that one. Being as they were sort of used to
having some pretty nasty stuff flung in their direction with *intent* to do
bodily harm, I doubt he'd have gone that far. I do know he never considered
it worth much--used to joke it would beat dirt as a thrown weapon if there
were no rocks lyin' around. He much preferred the longer weapons, and he was
a pretty good shot. He ditched the M-3 because he did not like its awful
accuracy (see below), then he dumped the shotgun because it had a
hair-trigger and he preferred having a round in the chamber (which may
answer your query), and he figured the usual gyrations and vibrations of his
Huey were not complimentary to that particular combination. He was happy
with the CAR-15.

The M-3 was deleted from his personal use after an event that occured during
a test flight. He was the maintenance test pilot for his outfit (571st
Dustoff), even though he was not "school trained". So he and his crew take
this Huey out for a test flight after it had been worked on, and ended up
cruising around (IIRC, don't quote me on the location) the A Shau Valley
(which had seen some pretty heavy fighting earlier in the war). The crew
chief spies this big honking lizard sunning itself on a rock, and they
decide they want to shoot this lizard (don't ask why--probably for the same
reason they used to fly low over the ocean off Danang and shoot at sharks).
Safety regs be danged, he clambers back into the passenger compartment while
his copilot keeps them over this lizard. He hangs out the door with his
trusty M-3 and proceeds to blast away a full clip in about three bursts.
Lizard just lays there and looks at them. He borrowed his crew chief's M16
and puts a single round through it, killing it deader than a doornail. They
then decided hey, what can we do with a dead lizard? They land (more safety
regs, etc., being danged) and the crew chief and he run over and grab the
lizard and load it on a stretcher. Humped it back to the aircraft and took
off for home. Called the hospital up on the radio and said they had incoming
critical wounded. They covered the lizard up on the stretcher with a poncho,
and he brings the aircraft into the hospital helipad like he is in a serious
hurry. They settle down and the orderlies grab the stretcher and sart out
towards the hospital entrance, but the rotor wash tosses the poncho
off--resulting in one quickly abandoned stretcher (very quickly, the way he
described it). After the orderlies calmed down, they decided to take the
critter on into the surgical area, so they load it back up, recover it, and
the whole scene gets repeated when the nurse jerks the poncho off in the OR.
Bedlam ensued. Irate doctor type hollering about getting that &**^%$ lizard
out of his hospital. Aircrew shrugs shoulders and says, hey, its YOUR lizard
now. Vietnamese cleaning lady steps in, grabs lizard, and takes it out the
door--dinner that night at her hooch presumably had more protein than usual.

Brooks

--

-Gord.