SGT. GREIGO'S FLAK JACKET

"Krztalizer" wrote in message
...
I've seen several references to troops in Vietnam (and probably other
places) sitting on their
helmets

Not a very comfortable seat!

What I saw was helicopter pilots siitting on their flak jackets.

On the rare occasions that they were 1) provided and 2) we felt they were
required, the crewmen sat on them, no exceptions. Once we got into the
doorways
and started our approach to the area where we intended to be more "danger"
than
"in danger", we slipped them on the proper way. When you are wearing a
plastic
helmet, a lot of the allure of a flak vest fades away...

Don't know how the rest of his crew used their flak jackets, but I know
sitting on it was not really an option for my brother when he was in the
cockpit of his Dustoff UH-1D/H in Vietnam. 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...

(The lack of stopping power in the .38 was not of great concern, since his
entire crew also carried other small arms besides their pistols; a veritable
arms bazaar apparently supplied their needs, as at one time or another
during his one-year tour he himself carried a M3 greasegun, a 12 ga. pump
shotgun, and his favorite, the old CAR-15, forerunner of today's M-4
carbine).

Brooks


v/r
Gordon
PS, my experiences in this regard are very limited, but I thought I could
share
what I saw directly.
====(A+C====
USN SAR

Donate your memories - write a note on the back and send your old photos
to a
reputable museum, don't take them with you when you're gone.

(The lack of stopping power in the .38 was not of great concern,

..38 revolver = signalling device and last ditch suicide tool

since his
entire crew also carried other small arms besides their pistols; a veritable
arms bazaar apparently supplied their needs,

Heh. That accurately describes exactly what it was like. Our 14-man aircrew
shop was better armed than most SWAT teams; at various times I flew with my UZI
(still have it) or a .45 (still have it). Worst mistake I made was selling my
M-1a Carbine with underfolding MP-40 buttstock, but my girlfriend thought that
*one* assault rifle was enough, and the price for .30 cal rounds was killing
me. By the standards of our shop, I was practically unarmed LOL Magic had a
frickin' cannon - .44 Mag, for what, we never knew; Danny preferred an
autoloader SPAS; etc., etc. point being that no one considered the issued .38
to be anything other than a suicide weapon.

as at one time or another
during his one-year tour he himself carried a M3 greasegun, a 12 ga. pump
shotgun, and his favorite, the old CAR-15, forerunner of today's M-4
carbine).

Yep -sounds about right.

v/r
Gordon
====(A+C====
USN SAR

Donate your memories - write a note on the back and send your old photos to a
reputable museum, don't take them with you when you're gone.

"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?
--

-Gord.

"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.

snip Death of Liz story

Hysterical, Brooks! Sounds like rotorhead humor to me.

v/r
Gordon
====(A+C====
USN SAR

Donate your memories - write a note on the back and send your old photos to a
reputable museum, don't take them with you when you're gone.

"Krztalizer" wrote in message
...
snip Death of Liz story

Hysterical, Brooks! Sounds like rotorhead humor to me.

Yeah. I wish he was still around; he had plenty of those kind of stories. He
was always the cut-up type, barely made it through highschool, did not score
high enough on the screening test his first go around, which landed him in a
Nike Hercules unit at FT Lewis. Signed up for community college classes,
studies his butt off, had a BN CO who encouraged him, retook the test, and
went off to Rucker. The stories he told me (I was the doting baby brother,
about thirteen years his junior) were usually the funny ones--the lizard
story, the time he bought a little sunfish sailboat from a DEROSing USAF
type, and then transported it back to Danang by sliding it into a Huey, bow
hangin out one side and stern out of the other (he always wondered what any
NVA troopie who happened to see them fly over thought about *that* sight),
the resulting "Regatta" they held back at Danang, where the local USAF
engineering outfit wanted to attend (mainly because the Dustoff guys had
better access to the nurses) and turned a big drop tank into a half-assed
outrigger (and sank it offshore, resulting in the party being interrupted by
an actual rescue flight to hoist the waterlogged "crew" out of the ocean),
the jeep races on the beach (they once wrecked one and just walked away and
left it there). He only talked about actually seeing the bad guys on one
occasion (saw lots of their weapons fire coming his way, but not the
shooters themselves)--they were on another test flight and were at altitude
when they saw this guy with a rifle scurry into a clump of brush. They
orbited over head (way overhead), and his crew chief drops a grenade out the
door, which of course goes "bang" waaay up above this poor guy (no danger to
him). The guy bolts from cover and heads to another clump of brush. They do
it again...and again. Each time this poor guy bolts to new cover. I asked
him why he did not drop lower and just shoot the guy (typical small kid
reaction, I guess). He just laughed and said that would have brought them
into *his* effective range as well.

It was many years later, after I had already gone into the service myself,
that he told me the full story of the evening when he and his crew were shot
down. I believe it was during Lam Son 719, when the ARVN went into Laos.
They responded to a medevac call from a hot LZ, and as he was pulling out of
the LZ after making his pick-up they got rocked by a NVA 12.7mm, trashing
their transmission. So he was low and slow, and with no power--bad
combination in a helo. Ended up dumping it on his side (he was the AC, so
that would have been the right side in a Huey). For many years that was all
I had known. But a few years before he died he told me that as he was going
in, he saw two ARVN's hunkered down below the on the edge of a crater,
eating their dinner. His Huey landed right on top of them--not a darned
thing he could do about it. It still kind of bothered him those many years
later. Maybe that's why he concentrated on telling me the funny stories as I
grew up.

Brooks


v/r
Gordon
====(A+C====
USN SAR

Donate your memories - write a note on the back and send your old photos
to a
reputable museum, don't take them with you when you're gone.

His Huey landed right on top of them--not a darned
thing he could do about it. It still kind of bothered him those many years
later. Maybe that's why he concentrated on telling me the funny stories as I
grew up.

Sounds about right - I have to pick and choose what I tell my kids, because
they REMEMBER!

"Dad, isn't that a Crashhawk flying over there?"

"Uhh, yeah. Please stop calling it that."
"But, you saaaaaaid...?"

"Dammit, we didn't crash - it was just an engine fire, and everyone called them
that! Now, just forget it."

"Ok, dad." slight pause "Hey, look, a Seapig flying over there!"

sigh

Speaking of which, an SH-3H made a 500' pass over the top of my house today -
close enough to read modex number 700 plain as day! Don't see too many
Seapi... err SeaKings any more. Sure beats watching Ghettobirds orbiting
overhead...

v/r
Gordon
====(A+C====
USN SAR

Donate your memories - write a note on the back and send your old photos to a
reputable museum, don't take them with you when you're gone.

Speaking of which, an SH-3H made a 500' pass over the top of my house today -
close enough to read modex number 700 plain as day! Don't see too many
Seapi... err SeaKings any more. Sure beats watching Ghettobirds orbiting
overhead...

v/r
Gordon
====(A+C====
USN SAR

I have some video this summer from Montana of some Seakings doing bucket drops
on a forest fire outside Missoula.


Ron
Tanker 65, C-54E (DC-4)

"Krztalizer" wrote in message
...
His Huey landed right on top of them--not a darned
thing he could do about it. It still kind of bothered him those many
years
later. Maybe that's why he concentrated on telling me the funny stories
as I
grew up.

Sounds about right - I have to pick and choose what I tell my kids,
because
they REMEMBER!

"Dad, isn't that a Crashhawk flying over there?"

"Uhh, yeah. Please stop calling it that."
"But, you saaaaaaid...?"

"Dammit, we didn't crash - it was just an engine fire, and everyone called
them
that! Now, just forget it."

LOL! My brother called them "Tuna Boats". One of the guys he worked with
during his couple of years was a former TF-160 (as it was then called) MH-60
driver--he delighted in teasing him about the 'hawk.


"Ok, dad." slight pause "Hey, look, a Seapig flying over there!"

sigh

Speaking of which, an SH-3H made a 500' pass over the top of my house
today -
close enough to read modex number 700 plain as day! Don't see too many
Seapi... err SeaKings any more. Sure beats watching Ghettobirds orbiting
overhead...

I get to see the VH-3's rather frequently, what with HMX-1 at Quantico being
just up the road. Along with the whopping great 53 models they have in that
glossy paint. Oddly, I rarely see the VH-60's out in this direction.

Brooks


v/r
Gordon
====(A+C====
USN SAR

Donate your memories - write a note on the back and send your old photos
to a
reputable museum, don't take them with you when you're gone.

"Kevin Brooks" wrote:

It still kind of bothered him those many years
later. Maybe that's why he concentrated on telling me the funny stories as I
grew up.

Brooks


N'other'n...thanks.
--

-Gord.