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.




Page 6 - November 1971