HiFlyer

I would tend to disagree only to the basic point of choosing between aircraft. Based on my experience (I've flown all the Cessna, Piper and Diamond single engine aircraft discussed here plus several others), and what I know about the AF training process (as a former T-38 IP) and IFS, I really don't think it matters much what aircraft you fly. The whole point of IFS is to introduce you to the Air Force training system...the way they do things. Much of the stress is on the ground procedures...classroom learning, flight standups and EP exercises, customs and courtesies, etc. Certainly you have to be able to fly to the satisfaction of the civilian instructor corps, but that's only a part of the process, and their standards are pretty much basic FAA PPL standards (with perhaps a little more emphasis on precision). The fact that you have time in the DA-20 is nice for a flight or two because you're familiar with the cockpit, but the aircraft does not fly that much different from either the C-150/152 trainers or the C-172/Piper PA-28 series...the latter only being slightly "heavier" on the controls due to their slightly heavier construction. Any flying time will help, any right seat time will help slightly. Switching from yoke to stick will not be a significant issue and I seriously doubt success at IFS will be significantly affected by which aircraft you fly prior to arrival. If you can, fly a Diamond (20 or 40) just for a personal comfort and familiarity, but if there's no Diamond, any light aircraft will do. Books, people...get in the books!!! THAT will make a difference.

I don't doubt their talent, but.....been there, seen it, vomited, left the area....

Even Bob Hope would screw up on those tours! He came to Chu Lai in 1970 with his USO tour and put on a big show...Connie Francis, Les Brown and the Band, Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders, etc. They were filming it for one of his big TV specials. The outdoor amphitheater was right next to the helipad for the 91st Evacuation Hospital, where the Dustoffs would bring casualties in from the field. During the show then had several emergency runs from the field straight into the 91st with wounded grunts, and the noise inturupted the show. He got pissed and stopped the show several times, complaining about the interuption and calling for someone to stop those "damned eggbeaters". I can assure you the TV watchers at home didn't see the loud boos and people walking out of the show!!

I don't think "this Lucerno guy" gave a hoot about the people flying them. That was just his excuse. It was all about him!

I had a similar adventure with a guy (a Major) in one of my former commands. He was absolutley psychotic about being "right", and could not accept the fact that his opinion might not be the only one that counted. Every action taken by people in his shop was critiqued by him according to his personal interpretation of the regulation or policy. When he was counseled about the problem he responded by beginning a minute-by-minute log of all the people who were after him and every action he observed with a reference to some incorrect action they had taken. His wife made an appointment with me and I saw her, expecting to discuss the problem, and she showed up with a four-inch thick binder of notes about all the people spying on them and trying to keep her husband from getting the "truth" out. After an hour of discussion I still couldn't figure out exactly what it was that "the truth" was all about, but whatever it was, he was right and everyone else was wrong. The psychiatrist at the base hospital had a long word for it, but basically he just "Had to be right"...his psyche couldn't accept the possibility that he could be wrong about anything. He finally retired a few months later. I had two subsequent calls from one of his neighbors trying to get help from the Air Force. The guy was video taping all the neighbors and their kids, following them around, apparently trying to prove he was correct in accusing them of being rude to his children. I politely pointed out that it was a civil problem and stayed well clear!!

My history as a T-38 IP was very similar to Red Fox. Ignoring the bean counting of the training history (which is important...don't misunderstand me), the issue really boils down to this: is the guy gonna hack the rest of the program (and career) or not. Is this just a temporary issue, or is he clearly beyond the boundries of the program. Flying time is expensive, and every hour he eats up is one not available for someone else. Sure, with 50 extra hours and a dedicated IP, nearly anybody can get through, but that's not the idea. There's an expectation that you should be able to fly out the syllabus and succeed within a pretty narrow window. History says if you can't, you will probably continue to have problems the rest of your career, and that's dangerous...not just for him, but for the people around him. So, by the time you've gotten to the 89, you've already had several extra flights and lots of extra help. A magic term or clever arguement is not the real issue. Its the long view that the decision maker has to take. Here's another angle I've told before. My T-38 flight had three Guard/Reserve guys that were all, frankly, terrible pilots. Mediocre to poor performers in every aspect, lots of extra rides, extra hours or instruction, hours of extra sim practice on basics, and barely getting through. Nice guys, but just not particularly suited for flying. Two were going to F-100s, one to an A-37 unit. We tried to wash them out for their own good, but couldn't. We finally asked the DO to write to their unit and recommend transfer to a crew aircraft to get some more time to "grow". Two units refused, one unit agreed and put their guy in a KC-97. Before unit upgrade training was over, one F-100 guy and the A-37 guy were dead. The KC-97 guy lived to a ripe old age. It isn't pleasant, and I hated to see guys lose their dream, but sometimes it's necessary to "call a spade a spade" and sit someone down to save lives!!

It may not be all that sinister..it might simply be taken out of context. In fact, I don't know of any such study either. If the committee asked him for a study confirming the 187 number as satisfying the DoD requirements, I think the correct answer would have been "“To my knowledge, there are no studies that demonstrate that 187 F-22s are adequate to support our national military strategy.” There are studies to estimate what the AF might need but not one of them specifically validates the 187 number (which is really a force of 183, because four are replacements for four lost aircraft). Using a perfectly innocent and factually correct statement out of context to support a political arguement is a classic Washington way of doing business. The AF has not been secretive about its belief that 183 (or 187) is not what they'd like to have. As for why its 187? Not because either the AF or Sec Gates chose the number, its because thats the number as of the last Congressional appropriations act. Gates just decided to not ask for more.

Here's the difference in a nutshell. In the 70's, the military leadership (at least at the unit/base level) frequently sought to protect the people from themselves. Sure, we had cops outside the clubs, but when you came staggering out the cop would usually (as long as you were cooperative) say, "Hey there, Lt, why don't you call a buddy and get a ride." As long as you were reasonable and complied, they pretty much left you alone. Now, the emphasis seems to be to apprehend and punish. It doesn't seem to me that there's much incentive to support the base leadership in sustaining the club system when their objective is to arrest rather than protect. Just my opinion...

Yep, that was certainly part of it. The other nail in the coffin was a little earlier, when the bean counters in the AF (or was it our friends in the Congress who started it) decided that the MWR facilities couldn't be sustained with DoD funds (i.e., prior to that, the building was AF property and maintained with appropriated funds; after that decision the MWF facility had to generate the funds to pay for electricty, and other utilities, and other sustainment costs. Costs went up, quality went down, O clubs and NCO clubs were consolidated to save facility costs, MWR facilities that were used by many people but didn't generate a large profit were closed (for instance, base stables in many cases), activities that were heavily used by a smaller number of people but generated "profits" were drained of their money to finance poorly operated or money losing facilities that were more PC (many base aero clubs were badly hit by this, particularly when the base commander was a non-rated guy. The result was that they killed the cash cow.). Too bad. When I was a student at Willie and an IP at Laughlin, the clubs were going concerns. We partied there all the time, the places were packed, and the money was flowing into the system. The same at Beale, Patrick and Hurlburt. And Cannon, well... at Cannon, where else could you go??? Now the same people (at least those in the same positions) that killed the system are whinning that the "customers" need to support the system...but they've made it virtually impossible to do so. God help Walmart and McDonalds if they ever hire those idiots.

Usually its the year that production lot was contracted for...might be a year before its actually built, a little longer before it shows up on the ops ramp (but varies with the aircraft and its complexity).

Its about time. They were old, bent, and sucked big time when I flew them....and that was in 1968. However, they really were great aircraft for their intended purpose, and I think the tandem seating was a nice feature in a basic training aircraft (except when I would screw up bad and the IP would quietly reach over and pinch off my oxygen hose). There were more than a few times as a T-38 IP that I wished I could have gotten my hands on the stud in the other seat!!

Its interesting that he shows up here in a post labled as a douchebag, and one week later gets fired. Maybe there's a connection???

HerkDriver. Sorry for the poor manners...I shouldn't have remarked inside your comments. My bad form.

This touches what I think is another very real issue (perhaps the basic issue underlying all of this, and the one that causes so much political controversy)...exactly what is the definition of an "enemy combatant" as applied to a non-state actor who belongs to a group espousing Jihad (or any other group declaration of war) against the state actors? Is a Taliban who supports AQ in Afghanistan a terrorist, or an "enemy combatant", or a violator of Afghan civil law? How does the international legal system view the members of an AQ cell in the HOA? I think we will constantly have problems dealing with these people until there's a consensus on that issue. Otherwise one segment will treat it as a civil legal issue, while another treats it as a military combatant issue (sort of) and these arguements will go on forever.

Well, you're correct. I wasn't clear enough in my original statement. My observation was intended only toward the point that the "expert" (Mr. Spenser)predicted SOLDIERS would be giving Miranda rights. I still believe that to be a totally wrong conclusion. What the administration did was to direct Law Enforcement officials to read terrorist combatants the Miranda rights, when they are apprehended by LE people (I'm not sure how the CIA fits into that, since they're not LE people...maybe when they turn them over to the FBI). The real issue, I believe, is that the international community hasn't figured out what to officially do with non-state actors. In the past, the national and international system recognized two types of people: civil criminals, and state-sponsored military personnel. The former were dealt with under criminal law, the latter with combatant law (Geneva accords, etc). All of a sudden we have a group of non-uniformed, non-state actors that don't fit in either catagory, yet declare war on states or portions of society and are captured in military operations, not law enforcement operations. The biggest part of this debate revolves around how you catagorize them. If they're criminals, then you apprehend them (military can do that), and turn them over to law enforcement agencies who apply civil legal procedures (including Mirtanda), if you can find a civil procedure that applies. If they're combatants, you detain them as prisoners of war until the war is over. But, if the war goes on for decades (possibly generations) that approach begins to have serious problems. The fact is that nobody knows what to do with them. So far we have declared them "enemy combatants, but that hasn't really worked well. You could always execute them, of course, which would satisfy some of the emotional aspects of the issue, but technically you'd now be guilty of murder under existing international (and U.S. civil law). You're damned if you do, and damned if you don't. As for U.S. laws and rights, they DO apply to non-U.S. citizens, IF they're brought to the U.S. and charged with a criminal act (or even civil actions) in U.S. courts. But every time we get there we're up aganinst that nagging problem again...what exactly is the crime, and what part of the law is it that applies? I don't know the answer, but I do know the entire international community needs to figure out something pretty quick. We're releasing pirates in the HOA because the people who capture them have no legal authority to do anything with them, we have a prison in GITMO full of people we don't want, but can't release, can't try, can't give away, and can't kill. Its a mess! Sorry, if (as the "expert" suggests) the military is to "arrest" people in a civil law sense and bring them to the United States for legal procedings, then Posse Comitatus will certainly be an issue (the defense counsel that will have to be provided will certainly try to bring it up) because the military is being used to support the U.S. civil justice system. I'm not saying it is clear cut, or that I support it, only that it will be a serious question that someone will have to answer.

This is a typical case of poor or creative editing by the media. If you read the article you'll find that neither Pres Obama nor anyone in his administration said any such thing. The first paragraph states: "An author and expert on Islam is concerned that President Obama's decision to suspend military tribunals being conducted at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility could lead to a policy where U.S. soldiers might have to read captured enemy combatants their Miranda rights on the battlefield." (Translated) ....some author, of some other publication, says he thinks that something else Obama did might someday lead to some unspecified policy where some (number unknown) U.S. soldiers in an as yet unidentified set of circumstances, might need to read rights to a captured combatant. That's an awful lot of "ifs", and conjecture by some self-titled "expert", especially since one of the first things that might have to change are the "Posse Comitatus" laws, since they forbid U.S military personnel from acting in a civil police role, and the Miranda Law applies to the police. Its all a bit of a stretch for me!

While I agree with a lot of this discussion (I'm a CSAR fan, too) I think it misses the mark a little. The issue is not whether or not CSAR is good, its whether in a declining economy (meaning declining funding available for the military) you should spend a large amount of money for a useful mission you might occasionally do in the future, or for an equally useful mission you do every day and will continue to frequently do in the future. The SECDEF's point, as I've seen it expressed by knowledgeable people around my area, seems to be that he doesn't have enough money for everything, so is there a way to cover 80% of the mission space using existing assets (perhaps augmented a little and with more specialized joint training, if appropriate) and re-allocate the five or six billion dollars to other equally worthwhile projects that can't be done in another way? He hasn't make that decision, by the way, he only asked the question and told his people to look into it and come back with answers in September. That's his job...asking tough questions. You have to remember that his background is largely in "doing" ops, not "preparing" for possible ops, so he tends to hate to compromise current ops by holding/investing assets for possible stuff in the future if he doesn't have to. It will be interesting to see what the study outcome is, but the comment by the Coast Guard seems to support the idea that AF CSAR is already a "joint" event, and is counted on by many for more than just the odd deep mission to grab a pilot. We're in the midst of another similar discussion on another program generated by a "senior" who believed one DoD program was just a convienience for another agency and had little military utility. He was unaware of its widespread use throughout the DoD and COCOMs for dozens of key missions on a daily basis. Sometimes when you fully explain what is really going on, instead of just the "30 second sound bite" info, opinions are altered and decisions changed. I hope that is the case here...MEDEVAC and CSAR are both great missions, but in my opinion only overlap a little (and I've been heavily involved with both over the years, including FAC'ing for deep SAR missions and hauling critically wounded GIs out of "indian country" in a UH-1.

Yeh, they could loiter just fine with their internal fuel and a big belly tank. In fact, the limiting factor, as I recall, was oil, not fuel. The old PW radials used lots of it. The airplane carried a 32 GALLON oil tank, and usually ran out of oil before the gas was gone. I think an eight hour mission was not an unusual mission for the Spads at Danang. Of course, they were a little slow so a lot of that was coming and going, but they could probably put 6-7 hours over target in most situations, maybe more.

Actually, I don't have a journal (I wish I did), but to me some of the stuff is as clear in my mind today was it was 40 years ago. Ask a WWII vet from D-Day or Pearl Harbor if they've forgotten any of that. Unless they have medical issues with memory, I'll bet they haven't! Up until he passed away in 2006, my father-in-law, who was in Hawaii on Dec 7th, could still relate virtually everything that happened at Wheeler Field minute by minute. When you see all the Pearl Harbor movies and see the two P-40s that took off to attack the Japanese, he was one of about six P-40 mechanics at Wheeler that recovered the two P-40s from the deployment airfield, armed them and gassed them up, and launched them against the second wave. During the first wave he was sitting on the roof of his barracks shooting at them with a Lewis gun (old .30 cal machine gun) while his bunk buddy ran ammo from the locker in the basement (which they had to break into because the armory NCO wouldn't unlock it without a signed order from the commander! They punched him out, tied him up, and broke in with a fire ax). His third friend disappeared at the onset of the attack and they couldn't find him anywhere. After the attacks were over and they started searching, they found him up in the top of a big banyon tree...he was the first one out the door, about 30 seconds ahead of Paul and his buddy, and apparently a bomb went off next to him and blew him up in the air. He fell into the top of the tree and was lodged there (dead, of course). I visited Wheeler a few years ago and took pictures for him... the tree and barracks (now an admin building) are still there. Later in Europe (according to Paul), he had the distinction of being one of the few people to best Gen Patton in a one-on-one "discussion". He was a P-38 line chief for the 402nd FS and Patton showed up to personally oversee the confiscation of all the gas in their fuel dump so he could give it to his tanks. Paul cornered him and asked him which of the two armored regiments the 402nd was supporting (they were a CAS unit, not an air-to-air unit) should he call and tell that they weren't getting any more close air support courtesy of Gen Patton. Patton called him a dirty sniveling SOB, but let him keep half the gas. What Patton didn't know was that because he (Patton) had already been over to the other squadron first and the warning was given, Paul had managed to sneak one of his tankers out of the area and Patton's guys didn't know it was around, so Paul actually got half the gas in the dump plus another 4000 gallons in the hidden tank truck! He said the truck was more valuable than the gas...they would get access more gas in a few days, but without the tankers they couldn't store it. What I do have is about a thousand 35mm slides (thats about 700 shots of triple-canopy jungle which apparently meant something to me at one time, and 300 that I still recognise), a few letters I wrote to my family and retrieved, and one old audio tape I recorded on a mission. Of course, if I was to try to recount many more war stories, the quality would begin to tail off dramatically, as most of the days weren't as memorable. I'm probably good for a couple more shorter stories, but the biggies are about used up.

THe OVs that are left are very hard to maintain...they're about 40 years old and I'm told parts are very hard to find (needing special buys that drive the costs up and out of sight). There are a few we sold to others still flying, but they would be hard to get back since they're in use and fairly effective for the mission those countries use them for. They don't want to give them up without something to replace them, and if we're going to do that (replace them), why not just keep the new ones and let them keep the old ones. The Skyraiders are even worse, since most of them are around 60 years old! I think they'd be money ahead in the long run to buy a new airframe with modern engines and avionics.

That is absolutely incredible!!

Some may be. Others look a little too tall and rugged, but there are several islands out there and I'm not sure at this time which one we landed on, except that it had a small airstrip at one end that we used. It was many years ago and times have changed for them as well, I'm sure.

More wartime tomfoolery... When I initially arrived at Chu Lai in Sep 1969, I checked in with my unit and got settled in my quarters (the usual "SEAhut"...a 16x24 plywood hooch with walls of plywood and wire sceen, and a corregated metal roof), the walked over to the "officers club" to see what was going on. I was amazed to find a guy that I went to Jr and Sr high school with (Clyde), who was now an Army Captain and the Ops Officer for an Army helicopter company at Chu Lai (flying CH-47s). We re-engaged over the next few weeks and began to hang out a little. He took me along with him when I was not on duty, and I got a little stick time in the CH-47 as well as going with them on some of their resupply operations. It was fun and very educational for me. The other contingent I ran into was a group of Red Cross "Donut Dollies" and a couple of female Army Special Services girls who lived in hooches across the street from us and ran some programs on the Americal main compound at Chu Lai (Chu Lai was home to the Americal Division HQ as well as the Marine MAG 12 (A-4) and MAG 13 (F-4) aviation units). After a month or so I was quietly approached by Clyde and asked whether I wanted to go on a "special supply run" on the coming Sunday. I said sure, and was told to keep it quiet, dress for a beach party, and bring what I could find for refreshments. On Sunday I showed up with some beer and wine at the appointed time and place (at a lightly used pad near the supply dump at the south end of the old aluminium runway at Chu Lai)) and discovered about ten of the girls, several other guys from Clyde's unit, and a few crates of "supplies"...some looking legit, some resembling coolers of beer and soda on ice. A few minutes later Clyde arrived with a CH-47. We quickly loaded up and departed out over the South China Sea. It turns out that about 15 miles off the coast was a small island called "Cu La Rae Island" (although my spelling is probably not too accurate at this point), which had a small Vietnamese Navy lighthouse station, and a small fishing village, along with two spectacular white sand beaches on the north and south sides of the island. We off-loaded the supplies with the lighthouse guys (two local navy Petty Officers and their families) and then set up shop on the north beach next to the village (predominent winds from the south made the north beach nicer, although it was only short walk to the other side at that point on the island if the winds changed). The island was virtually removed from the war, and resembled a poster from a vacation advertisement. The people were very friendly; we bought fish and crab from them, "donated" some extra rice, sugar, salt, cooking oil, etc. and they cooked the food for us while we spend the afternoon on the beach. It was incredible. About 1800 we packed up and flew back to Chu Lai. We did it again whenever the weather and supply schedule worked out...probably a half dozen trips during my tour. Once, we even picked up a few nurses from the 91st Evacuation Hospital at Chu Lai...along with a water ski boat that the hospital people had sequestered away at their location. The 91st Evac was out on a little rocky point on the water between the old aluminium runway and the Americal HQ compound up on bluff to the north, and the commander had somehow acquired a small boat and outboard motor from somewhere (in Vietnam, stange things happened) and kept it in the cove below the hospital buildings. I believe it was used for "shoreline security", usually with a driver and two lookouts (one in the boat, one on water skis). Again, war is hell...

Okay. Another one, a bit longer..... One evening at Chu Lai late early 1970, we were sitting around beginning our daily “debriefing” in the boss’s hooch. The “debriefing” started when the last mission of the day was over and the gin was pulled from the refrigerator. However, within a few minutes of starting this evening, the phone rang. It was the duty officer at the Americal Div TOC (Tactical Operations Center), who informed us there was a serious TIC (Troops In Contact) situation north of us and wanted to know if we could launch an aircraft and help. By then there wasn’t any of us who hadn’t had a little to drink, but we weren’t too bad off, so the two soberest guys, in this case me and another guy who had been the last flyer of the day, were selected and split for the TOC. It seems that a Cav platoon (the 1st Cav had companies assigned to many of the other straight leg infantry divisions in country to act as scouts) was driving down the rice patties on their way home when they went by a small rise and took some fire. They returned fire and the situation began escalating. The location was about 15 miles north of the provincial capital at Tam Ky, and only about five miles from the 196th Inf Bde HQ base at “Hawk Hill”, out in the middle of a fairly wide open tributary area south of the Hoi An river valley and west of Highway 1. Given the open area and proximity to Hawk Hill, it was a little bit of a surprise to everybody that we’d get such a stiff response. In fact, I suspect the NVA guy who panicked and fired the first shot at the Cav guys didn’t survive long…his boss probably strung up the guy!!! The Cav guys, mostly riding in their M113 APCs, had backed off a little and started to circle the little rise…a small tree covered spot maybe 200 meters by 300 meters as I recall. That’s when the shit hit the fan and the bad guys opened up with the heavier stuff… first small arms, then RPK light automatic fire, then RPGs, then mortars, then 12.7 mm heavy automatic stuff. It got worse and worse. By that time it was getting pretty dark and the Arty guys started putting flares over the area from Hawk hill, which had 105s and 155s, so that kept visibility from going to zero. I took off about 2200 with the other guy in the back to act as a safety observer (we rarely flew at night, and when we did we flew dual so someone in the back could watch the dials to make sure we knew which way was up and keep notes while the front-seater concentrated on the fight outside. By the time we got there…about 2230….there was an overcast deck at about 1500’. No moon that night…it was big time dark! The Cav had been reinforced by a few more APCs from Hawk Hill so they had about 20 APCs around two sides of the rise with about 200 grunts spread around. Not an overwhelming force, but with the APCs and their mounted 7.62 guns, enough to keep whoever was there fairly well pinned down. The 196th Bde commander was now calling the shots, and decided (like the Army usually did in such cases) to back off some more and apply liberal amounts of Mk 82s and Arty. [i point this out because the AO to our north was a Marine Regiment area. They would have gathered the troops and tightened the circle. I saw it done several times on my tour. Both were generally successful in solving the problem, but I think the Army took fewer casualties getting to the solution!] We got the Cav back about 3-400 meters and started checking in Marine A-4s (MAG 12) from Chu Lai about 25 miles to the south. They had heard about the fight too, and had launched a couple of 2-ship A-4 flights armed with 12 Mk82s on each airplane (the Marines rarely waited for I-DASC in Danang to call in such situations…they just took off and called airborne). We briefed them and started putting them in, but by then the cloud deck had lowered to about 1000’AGL and it was hard to get bombs on the target. Their Mk82s were slicks, and the shallow delivery either landed short or long, or skipped off the ground and exploded on the next bounce well past the hill. After two or three runs, I sent them home. They weren’t getting bombs on target, and while they were flying the artillery had to stop, so the bad guys were actually getting a break from our fire rather than getting pounded. Finally, a couple of F-4s showed up with Mk82 high drags and 750 lb napalm cans. I can’t remember if they were Marines (MAG 13) from Chu Lai or AF guys from Danang (the “Gunfighters” from the 388th TFW). I managed to get them all on target, (more or less), but the clouds kept coming down and they finally had to leave. It was probably down to about 800’AGL…way to low to be safely dropping stuff in close proximity to friendlies. Of course, all this time the Cav was pouring automatic fire into the rise, and the bad guys were shooting everything they had at anybody they could find. Tracers were flying and ricocheting everywhere. I was staying off to the east of the battle trying to stay out of the way so the arty could shoot from the north and south, but it finally got to where I couldn’t see well either due to the slant angle and the lowering vis in the evening mist. About 2300 we gave up and went home because we couldn’t get fixed wing air into the site, but the Army still needed eyes in the sky, so the Bde sent an OH-6 down to Chu Lai and when I landed, I got on the "Loach” and went back. I was sitting in the left seat with an M-16 and a bag of white phosphorus smoke grenades, with an Army WO named “Crash” Quintero flying from the right side. [He got the nickname after getting shot down three times in five hours trying to chase down a couple of VC in a tree line near Hawk Hill. None of the OH-6s were badly hurt, but he had to keep breaking off and dumping them into Hawk Hill someplace with oil lines shot out or something similar…but that’s another story]. We spent the next few hours flying around the rise, occasionally darting in so I could throw a WP at an area where we saw a weapon position or a group of bad guys, then either working in Army Cobras or calling in 155s from Hawk Hill to take out the target. We’d occasionally go back to Hawk Hill to brief the Bde S-3 on what was going on and explain where the bad guys were (as well as to gas up the bird). It went on like that until about 0400 the next morning, when it finally started to quiet down. About 0300 my boss sent another guy up to relieve me and later that morning I went back to Chu Lai on a UH-1 from Hawk Hill. The next day the Army went in and the place was essentially deserted…lots of indications, some bodies, a lot of busted up equipment, but nobody still standing. They later told me that it was a forward CP of the NVA 2nd Regiment that operated in our AO. It had a fairly well developed underground area with an ops center, sleeping quarters, dining area, and a “first aid” station. All this was within 5 miles of the 196th Bde HQ and within about a mile of Highway 1, the main coastal highway between Saigon and Hanoi. During the battle they estimated that a hundred or more NVA had escaped to the west a few at a time, but probably over a hundred were killed and many more wounded.