Helicopter Revenge!

Over the last couple of days, I have shared with you my hatred for helicopters. This little story is about the 2LT that killed one of those suckers and I got my revenge. Buckle your seat belts as it just gets funnier than hell here.

I had been told the date I was to rotate home and who my replacement was going to be. The Battery Fire Direction Officer was going to move up to the Battery XO position and a guy from Kansas was going to replace him. The problem was that that guy was in a school in Pleiku and he wouldn't be finished right up to the day prior to my leaving Country. For some reason we had a bright and shinny 2LT that was a West Point Graduate assigned to us but they were afraid to let me go and turn things over to him for even a day.

With two short weeks left in country, we made a move down off a mountain top position to one about 5 miles north of Pleiku. There was a dirt road out to us and we could even have hot rations once in a while. Heck, the mess team even brought out one of their stoves and we had hot eggs and coffee for breakfast. Things were pretty good for about a week.

Somewhere near the end of the first week, we got a radio call from Artillery Hill there in Pleiku that a LOH (Light Observation Helicopter) was coming to visit us and they were bringing a couple of honest to god round eyed Red Cross girls. Talk about your novelty. Hell, those bare footed mountainyard women were starting to look good and here comes the Donut Dollies. They would bring cookies and cool-aid and spend a lot of time just visiting with the guys.

We were told that the LOH did not want to stay on the ground there with us and we cold use it to send some things back to Artillery Hill if we wanted. There was one piece of crap 50 caliber machine gun that no matter how hard we worked on it would not work. I told a couple of the men to gather that sucker up and send it in to Battalion Maintenance. They were standing by the landing pad near the edge of the battery position.

As the LOH started in, the 2nd Lt I mentioned earlier grabbed the machine gun, put it up on his shoulder and like John Wayne was marching out the the LOH just as it put his skids on the sand bags of the landing pad. One of the girls jumped out of the back of the bird and started to dash out of the rotor blast. Te other girl was still sitting in the seat by the pilot and watching that Dammed dumb Lieutenant walking right towards the helicopter. The Pilot waived his hands parallel to the ground in an effort to get the LT to duck down and not get hit in the head by one of the rotors. Like the real idiot he was, he bent over at the waist and came forward.

Now how do I explain that the gun barrel was like the top of a capitol T and when he bent over at the waist, the front end of the gun went down like a tetter totter and the back end went up. The only reason the gun didn't break his neck was he had it on the right shoulder and the blades threw it off to his right as all hell broke loose. Helicopters are very well balanced when the rotors are equal and moving fast. Knock a couple of inches off one with something solid and it was one jumpy frog. It hopped up and down and the skids beat themselves through the sandbags while the pilot did his best to keep the bird in one piece. As the blades made their final revolution you could hear what sounded like a gallon jar full of ball bearings poured into a 30 gallon metal trash can. Scrunch, chrunck, blonk, more crunch and a few growls then the sound of silence.

The Pilot jumped out of his seat ran around to where the 2lt was sitting on the ground and pulled his pistol. I swear he was prepared to shoot him but what saved him? Scalp wounds bleeding like a mother made him look like the last man standing in an ass kicking contest only he was seated there wondering what he heck happened. I did hear the pilot give that idiot holy hell for about five minutes and we all watched and had hopes we would get to see someone shot right there.

When the pilot calmed down, he went back to his bird and made sure everything was turned off. He made sure there was no fire and turned the master back on to call his base camp to have them send a bird to take his broken toy home.

The girls spent about an hour laughing with the guys and finally a couple of huey's showed up to take the girls and the broken bird home. I'm sure that a lot of the guys have fond memories of the day the 2LT brought down a helicopter with a .50 Cal Machine gun. I always felt like it was my revenge on the bastards.

MUD