John Hiemstra
Vietnam Diary
Web Page 5
THE BEST OF CHARLIE HORSE
VIETNAM
9 Oct 71 QT
I spent the day traveling by AF
C-130 from Saigon to Phu Bai on my return trip from leave in
Hawaii. I then spent the evening with W01 Don Finn, my
class buddy from flight school.
10 Oct 71 QT
Today Don and I along with two EM drove a ¾ ton truck in a
convoy up to Quang Tri. Don is staying up here for a few
days looking for supplies for his company. Upon arriving
here I found out that D Troop is moving to Camp Evans by the
15th of the month. W01 Steve Hanson was killed while I
was on leave. He was flying Scouts as an AO (area of
operations) qualified pilot for about two weeks prior to his
death.
11 Oct 71 QT
Today we flew out to Laos and back down the Red Devil road
checking on the road condition. It was in terribly bad
shape. Also Green Berets were into NVN today to conduct
spying activities. My feelings are with them.
12 Oct 71 QT
Today I was on standby. I didn’t do anything.
13 Oct 71 QT
13 (1Lt Wimmer) found some gooks today a little south of
A3. We shot the area up but the results are
unknown. Last night, “Gilbert” (a VN skull) forever left
our troop as a tradition upon the “suggestion” of General
Hill. It seems that “Gilbert” would cause a scandal so
he “disappeared”.
14 Oct 71 QT
It was another day of light flying today. I found out
that while I was gone on leave the guys found an NVA hospital,
mess hall, and barbershop at about 2545. This is near
where Hanson was killed.
16 Oct 71 QT
We worked a little in the Backyard and also tried to get out
to Ke Sanh but the weather prevented this. I was flying
with Mac Cocherell today.
17 Oct 71 QT
Today we moved to Camp Evans. Our living quarters are in
the SERTS area. The helo pad is a quagmire of pentaprime
(oil and dirt), a tar like substance. It was rainy
today, very miserable for making a move.
18 Oct 71 CE
I spent the day getting set up in my area. There is not
much room at all (compared to what we had at QT). First
team sat the day out at QT since it was raining all day.
The guys (and me) went to our local club for celebrating and
for a Korean strip-tease show. After the show a large
group of us hiked across the airfield to visit another club.
19 Oct 71 CE
This was my day off. I went to Camp Campbell in an
effort to straighten out my finance records. Not much
happened today in our AO.
20 Oct 71 CE
I flew with Mac Cocherall today. We spent the morning at
QT and then came back for lunch. The VC blew up the
bridge the second river north of here. This afternoon we
went west from CE to a small mountain valley (center mass
4615). Here we found a little activity, i.e. trails,
fighting positions, bunkers, etc. Rapier’s crew chief –
Simon – saw two gooks and fired on them. He might have
killed one with his M-60. We rolled in and shot the area
up. Afterwards, arty was called in. I don’t know
the results.
21 Oct 71 CE
I was off today so I didn’t do much. I did go to the
steam bath & massage. It was a very interesting
being the first time in my life for this!
22 Oct 71 CE
I had the day off. The only thing I accomplished was to
build a “pisser” as punishment for having left the gun section
weapons unguarded during our move to Camp Evans. A
2/17 lost a Cobra today out by Ke Sanh. It crashed when
it went inadvertent IFR.
23 Oct 71 CE
Today a typhoon swept through the area bringing high winds and
a lot of water! Nearly everything in our hooch got
soaked but I managed to have a dry bed to sleep in.
24 Oct 71 CE
Our troop was the only one that flew today. Everyone
else had storm damage stand down. Mr Hart (MX officer)
had to punch off a LOH-6 into the QT river near the main
bridge when a large gust of wind nearly swung the OH-6 into
him! The OH-6 was totally destroyed.
25 Oct 71 CE
Again I did not fly, not to bad! I did help seal up the
hooch against the heavy rains by chinking the openings between
the roof and the walls. I met a very interesting person
today, Sgt Wilson, a black weapons instructor for SERTS.
He approached me to ask if I could help him get a chopper ride
to Camp Campbell. He seemed to be in a state of
distress, almost coming to tears at times. I escorted
him to the TOC (Tactical Operations Center) to see if I could
get any help for him there. Sgt Wilson talked to Capt
Laster in such a way that it was obvious that he was very
grief stricken about something. I went with the Sgt to
his hooch. It was there that I found out that his
grand-mother had just died. He was in the process of
DEROSing out of his unit. This guy is a
professional. He served a long time in the field, this
being his third tour of duty in VN with a total of 14 years of
service in the Army. After learning of his background, I
could easily see and emphasize with this man’s feelings.
Later, just before he left he stopped by to say goodbye.
Sgt Wilson showed me the two plaques he received from his
hooch mates and fellow instructors and from his superior
officers. Also, he had a letter of commendation from his
CO and an outstanding efficiency report (work performance
evaluation). Sgt Wilson loves weapons and especially his
Romanian AK-47. He couldn’t get it home though so after
many tears and a short lecture on how to disassemble it, he
gave it to me! I guess I was impressed with his
sincerity and his grief. The electricity has been off
since the typhoon and likely will not be restored for another
ten days. (PS- I never shot the AK-47 for fear of “exploding”
bullets. We were told that the trails had been seeded
with ammo filled with high explosives vs. gun powder which
would disable a weapon and possibly the shooter too!)
26 Oct 71 CE
I had today off. It rained a lot today. Not much
news of anything really.
27 Oct 71 CE
This is the day that the 3/5 Cav stands down officially.
Some of the guys received medals they earned during last
summer’s campaigns. Today was another day off for
me. Our electricity is back so I can watch T.V. during
the evenings. It rained a lot today also.
28 Oct 71 CE
Today I didn’t fly. It is still raining heavy.
Nobody is doing much of anything (because of the rain).
29 Oct 71 CE
There was more heavy rain today. Mr. Cavallozzi and I
had to move 110 and 063 (Cobras) over to Mustang pad from
Saber pad. As soon as we got off the ground we could
hardly see ahead or below us. That was very scary. I
heard of a hijacking from CE to Da Nang.
30 Oct 71 CE
I flew the 2nd team today. Weather was still “scosh”
(bad) so we didn’t fly very much.
31 Oct 71 CE
I flew first team today with Capt Becker. We did a lot
of flying doing nothing but getting blade time to make up for
all the bad weather days. Ray Cox (missionary) was up
here looking up members of the church. He came over to
see me and we had a nice talk.