Carl and John, two names on the Wall

I remember Carl and John and Walter and about seventy others. I didn’t even know the names of some of them. But I’ll never forget them.

Carl and I were in Boot camp together. I have no idea why but about half of the platoon we were in was volunteers for the army so they would just give us the opportunity to go to flight school and fly those relatively new weapons called ‘Copters. Ninety percent of us had never flown anything other than maybe a kite. But, like the fighter pilots of WW2, we sought after the adventure the challenge, the prestige of being able to think of ourselves as Pilots.

Carl was from Colorado, me from Georgia. Others from every state you can name. About the same age, he single, me married. He was stocky, I was thin. We both had some college. I don’t know why exactly he wanted to be a pilot. I certainly didn’t want to walk thru the jungle, but figured flying over it couldn’t be too bad. The Draft was still in effect and if you were drafted you had much less control over where and how you served. Mostly cannon fodder. So were we, but were blind at that age to the fact that we weren’t immortal.

Basic training was a breeze. Hell, we were young and a 10 mile stroll wasn’t too bad and sleeping out doors was an adventure.

Then flight school. Fort Wolters, TX., near Mineral Wells. The farthest I’d ever been from home. They tried their best to weed us out for what ever reason they could find. We were proud, damned if we’d quit.

Flying was the hardest and most exciting thing I’d ever done. We were put under lots of stress. We used to comment about the look in the eyes of those Warrant Office Candidates a few weeks ahead of us. After a couple of months and seeing friends cut from the program for academics or inability to master the skills of flying, or crashes in the mesquite bushes, and one time over the Mineral Wells Holiday Inn swimming pool. We wore the same stare.

Thru Wolters, then Fort Rucker and Hueys. Real Helicopters of the war. On to Fort Hunter to transition into AH1-G Cobras for a fortunate few. Saw my first real life and up close Crash and watched a cobra beat its self to death on the runway.

I got an extension of my date to report to Vietnam so I could be there for the birth of my first child. Left five days later.

When I got to Quang Tri, Carl had already been there about four weeks. We were still FNG’s together. Four or five others from our flight class in the same unit.

Carl was bunked down next to the door; I was about half way down the Quonset hut on the other side of the isle. We immediately struck up our friendship again. We were front seat observers/gunners in the weapons platoon. Hunter Killer Teams. Assasins we were called, then Charley Horse. Eventually older guys rotated back to the states, or their remains were. Never to be forgotten was the sight of a huey tail boom falling off while on final approach still 3 to 4 hundred feet up. Welcome to South East Asia guys. We’ll lift a beer to you in the O club.

John Paul came in a couple of weeks later than Carl and I. A soft bodied pilsbury dough boy. Always smiling. Totally into music. Joni Mitchell, Melody, and others who sang of peace and love.

Carl and I were eventually made AC’s, Aircraft commanders, Back seat Snake drivers.
Lamson 719. You can run us out of Khe Shan, but you can’t stop us from coming back. Why we’ll even give cover to the South Vietnamese as the go into Laos, and then cover them as they retreat back out QL9, shooting at both sides of the road with their m-60’s and 50 cals just in case, I guess, even if there were US troops alongside the road.

Carl and John Paul were part of a team ordered to get to Khe Shan late one afternoon. Funny how along the DMZ the monsoons would hit the mountains for months while the coast and Quang Tri would be dry and Dusty. Then it would be the opposite.

On this day it was cloudy and rainy up to the Khe Shan plateau, but reports said it was clear sunshine if you could just get up to the plateau. They decided to go up a narrow ravine along the north side and hopefully be able to get out at the other end near two Tits.

Mother Nature can be a bitch. She’ll entice you in and then cut you off. The clouds lowered suddenly, nowhere to go but up, into the soup. Easy to lose your orientation if your not instrument qualified.

They found John Paul’s watch. They hit going straight down nose first and all the ammo and fuel landed on them a split second later…………
Two more names on the Wall, two more tangles in the Kudzu of my soul