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'Leatherneck Corner'
'Leatherneck Corner'
The Vietnam War
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P
PoorOldSpike
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Nam Huey pilot Robert Mason is the author of the classic autobiog 'Chickenhawk'-
And his website is here (including the first 4 chapters of the book)- http://www.robertcmason.com/
I gave him an FGM link in early 2011 and asked him if he'd like to answer questions about his time as a Huey pilot in Vietnam and he kindly emailed me back with-
"Hi Mick. Sure, send me some questions.
Best,
Robert Mason"
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(POS)-Hi Mr. Mason, Thanks for kindly agreeing to answer some chatty questions for the Few Good Men military discussion club, I've just read Chickenhawk again for the second time (the first was about 20 years ago). Incidentally I'm 62 and spent 1965/ 66 working in a boring warehouse here in England while you were having fun in Vietnam..
Okay here goes-
When you joined the army to be taught to fly helos at no financial cost to yourself (smart move), Nam hadn't yet flared up bigtime, but suppose the war was raging, would you still have joined up knowing you were going to get sent there and shot at?
Incidentally,about how many other Cav/Prospector pilots joined just to be taught how to fly?
(RM)- It probably wouldn't have made any difference. I remember seeing a Newsweek magazine which showed a helicopter crewchief in Vietnam (1962) with a couple of captured VC. I recall thinking how advanced we were compared to the Vietnamese. How dangerous could it be? I think that goes for most of my comrades. You just can't see the danger when your of a certain age. Until you get there.
(POS)- When you got to Nam and began getting shot at, did you ever think "What the hell have I got myself into?", and feel any resentment towards yourself, the Army and the world in general, or did you take it philosophically and just decide to ride out your tour without complaining?
(RM)-I complained all the time. I was the worse team player you can imagine. I did the job, but I bitched the whole way.
(POS)- How did Patience, her parents and your parents feel about the Army sending you into harms way? I mean, there must have been Army helo pilots flying in different parts of the world and even within the US homeland, so why weren't you assigned to somewhere like that instead of Nam?
(RM)-Patience was for our foray into Vietnam while I was against it, politically speaking. She later changed her mind when I started sending her letters.
(POS)- For about half (?) your year-long tour, you and most of your Cav pilot colleagues were without chest protectors, yet other units (Prospectors) always had more than enough.
Didn't you or your Cav mates ever get mad and feel like raising hell about the shortage, as obviously it was caused by some incompetent admin foulup.
(RM)- We complained, but it's difficult to know to whom to complain in an organization the size of the US Army. Besides, we didn't know other units had them until we were assigned to them later.
(POS)- Why didn't your superior officers do something to put it right? (Personally I'd have been so mad I'd have been in a permanent state of near-mutiny and done stuff like leaking the story to the media and continually bellyaching to the brass).
I'd have even somehow made my own chest protector (a slab of thick steel) hung around my neck and buttoned under my flight suit. I might even have put another slab under a cushion to sit on.
(RM)- They did try to get us the armor. The officers who could've gotten the armor were met with a wall of bureaucracy that claimed the stuff was just lost in the vast supply line and would turn up any day. So, the belief that the chest protectors were on the way, just delayed, kept us going. Besides, it's a war, right? I thought armored helmets would be smart, too, but they were never made. These days the helos are armored quite well, but a Huey wouldn't get off the ground with the armor they carry on a Blackhawk, for example.
(POS)- Presumably not all pilots were married with children, so looking back, do you think they were the ones who handled combat stress better?
I mean, married guys such as yourself must have had the huge extra worry of staying alive for your family.
(I remember when my elderly mother was alive, I used to be extra careful while cycling to work in case I got trashed in a road accident because always at the back of my mind was the thought that I had to stay alive for her. When she died, I felt that heavy 'must stay alive' burden lifted from my shoulders)
(RM)- I don't think that was the case. I think everyone, single or otherwise, had family they would not like to abandon by dying prematurely.
(POS)- What was your personal life philosophy during your time in Nam? Was it christian-based, scientology-based, hindu-based or whatever?
How about your pilot mates, what was their philo outlook too?
(RM)- We had the usual mix of religious and agnostics. I was, and am, clueless about higher powers, etc. I did offer up some pleas for help when I was in the middle of some shit. Foxhole religion, I guess.
(POS)- You were offered a switch to gunships in the Prospectors, but you preferred staying with unarmed slicks, any particular reason? At least with guns you could have given Charlie some payback instead of just sitting and passively taking it in slicks.
(RM)- The reason we wanted (Resler) to stay with slicks was for purely superstitious reasons. There was no logic in this decision, of course. We just had survived doing what we did, and didn't want to change it. Probably we were safer in the slick job because we were very good at it with lots of experience by the time we got to the Blue Stars (Prospectors). Don't change horses mid-stream?
(POS)- You were only in your 20's, so looking back do you think your lack of life experience added to the stress?
I mean, suppose you were sent to Nam as a mature 40-plus years of age, do you think you'd have handled it better?
If you could reach back through time to Nam and give that young kid called Bob Mason any fatherly advice, what would it be?
(RM)- No, as a matter of fact, the older guys seemed to suffer more (I'm too old for this shit?). Cpt Morris, for example, was a nervous wreck about the tight formation flying, the night formation flying, the refueling chaos, etc. And he died of a bullet in the heart. It didn't matter. Certainly that was a demonstration to us that it didn't matter how cool or how stressed you were taking all this shit, bullets are the great equalizers. The key to your reaction to stress was whether you cared or not. I cared, I paid.
Best wishes,
Robert Mason
And his website is here (including the first 4 chapters of the book)- http://www.robertcmason.com/
I gave him an FGM link in early 2011 and asked him if he'd like to answer questions about his time as a Huey pilot in Vietnam and he kindly emailed me back with-
"Hi Mick. Sure, send me some questions.
Best,
Robert Mason"
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(POS)-Hi Mr. Mason, Thanks for kindly agreeing to answer some chatty questions for the Few Good Men military discussion club, I've just read Chickenhawk again for the second time (the first was about 20 years ago). Incidentally I'm 62 and spent 1965/ 66 working in a boring warehouse here in England while you were having fun in Vietnam..
Okay here goes-
When you joined the army to be taught to fly helos at no financial cost to yourself (smart move), Nam hadn't yet flared up bigtime, but suppose the war was raging, would you still have joined up knowing you were going to get sent there and shot at?
Incidentally,about how many other Cav/Prospector pilots joined just to be taught how to fly?
(RM)- It probably wouldn't have made any difference. I remember seeing a Newsweek magazine which showed a helicopter crewchief in Vietnam (1962) with a couple of captured VC. I recall thinking how advanced we were compared to the Vietnamese. How dangerous could it be? I think that goes for most of my comrades. You just can't see the danger when your of a certain age. Until you get there.
(POS)- When you got to Nam and began getting shot at, did you ever think "What the hell have I got myself into?", and feel any resentment towards yourself, the Army and the world in general, or did you take it philosophically and just decide to ride out your tour without complaining?
(RM)-I complained all the time. I was the worse team player you can imagine. I did the job, but I bitched the whole way.
(POS)- How did Patience, her parents and your parents feel about the Army sending you into harms way? I mean, there must have been Army helo pilots flying in different parts of the world and even within the US homeland, so why weren't you assigned to somewhere like that instead of Nam?
(RM)-Patience was for our foray into Vietnam while I was against it, politically speaking. She later changed her mind when I started sending her letters.
(POS)- For about half (?) your year-long tour, you and most of your Cav pilot colleagues were without chest protectors, yet other units (Prospectors) always had more than enough.
Didn't you or your Cav mates ever get mad and feel like raising hell about the shortage, as obviously it was caused by some incompetent admin foulup.
(RM)- We complained, but it's difficult to know to whom to complain in an organization the size of the US Army. Besides, we didn't know other units had them until we were assigned to them later.
(POS)- Why didn't your superior officers do something to put it right? (Personally I'd have been so mad I'd have been in a permanent state of near-mutiny and done stuff like leaking the story to the media and continually bellyaching to the brass).
I'd have even somehow made my own chest protector (a slab of thick steel) hung around my neck and buttoned under my flight suit. I might even have put another slab under a cushion to sit on.
(RM)- They did try to get us the armor. The officers who could've gotten the armor were met with a wall of bureaucracy that claimed the stuff was just lost in the vast supply line and would turn up any day. So, the belief that the chest protectors were on the way, just delayed, kept us going. Besides, it's a war, right? I thought armored helmets would be smart, too, but they were never made. These days the helos are armored quite well, but a Huey wouldn't get off the ground with the armor they carry on a Blackhawk, for example.
(POS)- Presumably not all pilots were married with children, so looking back, do you think they were the ones who handled combat stress better?
I mean, married guys such as yourself must have had the huge extra worry of staying alive for your family.
(I remember when my elderly mother was alive, I used to be extra careful while cycling to work in case I got trashed in a road accident because always at the back of my mind was the thought that I had to stay alive for her. When she died, I felt that heavy 'must stay alive' burden lifted from my shoulders)
(RM)- I don't think that was the case. I think everyone, single or otherwise, had family they would not like to abandon by dying prematurely.
(POS)- What was your personal life philosophy during your time in Nam? Was it christian-based, scientology-based, hindu-based or whatever?
How about your pilot mates, what was their philo outlook too?
(RM)- We had the usual mix of religious and agnostics. I was, and am, clueless about higher powers, etc. I did offer up some pleas for help when I was in the middle of some shit. Foxhole religion, I guess.
(POS)- You were offered a switch to gunships in the Prospectors, but you preferred staying with unarmed slicks, any particular reason? At least with guns you could have given Charlie some payback instead of just sitting and passively taking it in slicks.
(RM)- The reason we wanted (Resler) to stay with slicks was for purely superstitious reasons. There was no logic in this decision, of course. We just had survived doing what we did, and didn't want to change it. Probably we were safer in the slick job because we were very good at it with lots of experience by the time we got to the Blue Stars (Prospectors). Don't change horses mid-stream?
(POS)- You were only in your 20's, so looking back do you think your lack of life experience added to the stress?
I mean, suppose you were sent to Nam as a mature 40-plus years of age, do you think you'd have handled it better?
If you could reach back through time to Nam and give that young kid called Bob Mason any fatherly advice, what would it be?
(RM)- No, as a matter of fact, the older guys seemed to suffer more (I'm too old for this shit?). Cpt Morris, for example, was a nervous wreck about the tight formation flying, the night formation flying, the refueling chaos, etc. And he died of a bullet in the heart. It didn't matter. Certainly that was a demonstration to us that it didn't matter how cool or how stressed you were taking all this shit, bullets are the great equalizers. The key to your reaction to stress was whether you cared or not. I cared, I paid.
Best wishes,
Robert Mason
P
PoorOldSpike
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Excellent interview POS.... very well thought out questions.
Im saddened by his choice of 'Chickenhawk' as a call sign, I would have rather that 'nom de guerre' be reserved for the likes of the real Chickenhawks, i.e.; like Dick Cheney and his ilk. I didnt work with UH-1s very often, as the USMC mainstay during my ToD was the CH-46, but I did get to call in a few 'Dustoffs' (medevacs) using the 'Doggie' (Army) choppers. One good thing about the 'Doggie' pilots (usually WOs), they would come into my LZ, 'Hot or Cold' to get my boys out. That wasn't always the case with USMC choppers, whose pilots were always officers and probably concerned with their careers (doesnt look good to crash equip on your record).
P
PoorOldSpike
Guest
Yeh but perhaps in the 1960's it had a different connotation, i'll ask Mason if he gets back to me, I gave him a link to this thread.
In fact I think he touches on the word in his book, i'll go through the pages and try to root it out again, I seem to vaguely remember he chose it as a self-deprecating gesture to remind the world he was no hero but was as scared as any other regular guy..
I suspect you are correct. Its too bad the significance of a white feather would be lost on these cowards.
Facman at work (original pic from which my avatar was cropped)
If you look closely, you might be able to see the steel cajones of the only one to be standing in the open...
If you look closely, you might be able to see the steel cajones of the only one to be standing in the open...
Facman just prior to rotating back to 'The World'
Facman
Quang Tri Province, RVN
Facman
Quang Tri Province, RVN
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A sign at the 2nd Squardon (one of three squadrons) of the 11th ACR or in military short hand 2/11
The 11th was one of the participants in Operation Cedar Falls in early 1967. The plan was to shut down the communist base in Binh Duong province, which is better known as the Iron Triangle. But the Vietcong tactics were to withdraw rather then to confront the enemy and the area was taken and destroyed without the anticipated resistance.
The US actually wanted to engage the Vietcong in large-scale battles to be able to take advantage of their superior firepower.
The 11th was one of the participants in Operation Cedar Falls in early 1967. The plan was to shut down the communist base in Binh Duong province, which is better known as the Iron Triangle. But the Vietcong tactics were to withdraw rather then to confront the enemy and the area was taken and destroyed without the anticipated resistance.
The US actually wanted to engage the Vietcong in large-scale battles to be able to take advantage of their superior firepower.
D
Dutch Grenadier
Guest
What is Facman duty?
About the wall. Mind me asking how many of your friend are on it? I lost a few buddies in Afghanistan so I know the feeling.
I was responsible for all air operations involving my Company. Calling in Medevacs, transport, airstrikes and aerial observation missions. I also supervised the construction and maintenance of LZs. Prepared helo teams for insertion/extraction, and ran the air ops in and out of my LZs. The pic above, is of me bringing a chopper on to my LZ.
I couldn't tell you the exact number, probably close to a dozen from my unit, but there is one that was my best Buddy...
Doc
The description of his passing on the memorial was provided by me, as I was watching from about 10 ft behind him when he went to the otherside. He gave his life attempting to save a wounded machine gunner (Byars). He shall live in my memory forever as a hero for his actions that day. It took me 35 years to find his family and tell them the story of his heroism.
http://www.virtualwall.org/do/OverstreetDD01a.htm
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Thanks for sharing Facman.... and through forums like this his name is still spoken, not forgotten. Now we all know what 'Doc' did.
D
Dutch Grenadier
Guest
A right. We call those FAC'ers (Forward Air Controllers). I believe thats the NATO callsign and the US army uses this callsign aswell.
My deepest respect!
Although I'm a vet its nothing compared to what you guys went trough. I did not fight in a war. We, the Dutch Army, were in Afghanistan for "peacekeeping". Thats different. I went to Bosnia twice and witnessed the aftermath of the war. I witnessed alot of shit and fought many battle's. I saw a few IED strike's but still thats nothing compared to war!
Like I said earlier I'm pro USA and I support your troops!
I do find it very brave that you went looking for his family to tell the story of his herioc deed. Indeed Bootie trough forums like these men like him will never be forgotten! :rip:
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Private First Class Milton L. Cook is ready to fire his M-60 machine gun into a wooded area from which sniper fire had been received 10 miles northeast of Cu Chi, Vietnam. He is a member of the 25th infantry division. April 17, 1967
The M60 was is a 10.4 kilo, belt-fed machine gun capable of firing 600 rounds per minute at a range of 900 meters. It served as the basic infantry platoon automatic weapon and was also mounted on a number of vehicles including helicopters.
The M60 was is a 10.4 kilo, belt-fed machine gun capable of firing 600 rounds per minute at a range of 900 meters. It served as the basic infantry platoon automatic weapon and was also mounted on a number of vehicles including helicopters.
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Battalion Seas Arriving in South Vietnam
An amphibious task group of Second Battalion, Third Marines lands along the coast of South Vietnam, 15 miles north of Hue on July 20th, 1967. The Amtracks transported the Marines from landing ships in the South China Sea to the assault beach.
This mission called "Bear Chain" operation was the thirty-fourth assault that Pacific Fleet Amphibious Force ships had launched on the North Vietnamese Army and Viet Cong positions in South Vietnam, since March 1965.
An amphibious task group of Second Battalion, Third Marines lands along the coast of South Vietnam, 15 miles north of Hue on July 20th, 1967. The Amtracks transported the Marines from landing ships in the South China Sea to the assault beach.
This mission called "Bear Chain" operation was the thirty-fourth assault that Pacific Fleet Amphibious Force ships had launched on the North Vietnamese Army and Viet Cong positions in South Vietnam, since March 1965.
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Unknown photographer Enoggera, Queensland 1966 Members of 8 platoon, C Company, 6th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment, in the battalion lines at Enoggera, Queensland, prior to deployment to Vietnam in May 1966. From left: 2781803 Private Rodney Cox of Ganmain, NSW; 2781794 Private Gordon Stafford of Gunnedah, NSW; 2781823 Private Neil (Pop) Baker of Newcastle, NSW; 2781790 Private Mark (Scrub) Minell of Moree, NSW; 2781809 Private Graham Irvine of Coolamon, NSW. All five men were called up in the first intake of national service in July 1965. Note the protective steel helmets with camouflage netting, usually worn by Australian infantry on operations in areas known to have been mined by the enemy.
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A South Vietnamese soldier holds a cocked pistol as he questions two suspected Viet Cong guerrillas captured in a weed-filled marsh in the southern delta region late in August 1962. The prisoners were searched, bound and questioned before being marched off to join other detainees.
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A U.S. crewman runs from a crashed CH-21 Shawnee troop helicopter near the village of Ca Mau in the southern tip of South Vietnam, Dec. 11, 1962. Two helicopters crashed without serious injuries during a government raid on the Viet Cong-infiltrated area. Both helicopters were destroyed to keep them out of enemy hands.
