My memory of the events.
The October 18, 1968 mission started in a pretty confused fashion for the Dough Boys.  We were on a stand down when we got the word to ready 3 squads of six for pickup at Dong Tam.  We had no decent briefing, and had trouble finding the people we needed.  SSgt. Bill Sawville was on call to be NCOIC but, he was getting a haircut and so I went instead.  When West was gone, Sawville and I traded missions.  We were briefed when we were in the air that the War Wagons had found a bunker system in a tree line and were not able to find any signs of NVA activity.  Not an unusual situation.  We were inserted about 200 meters from the tree line in order to question some Vietnamese in a small hamlet.  We did and they claimed ignorance of any enemy activity.  Also not unusual. We then began to advance in the open, the three squads abreast, through about 200 meters of 3 feet high reeds in about 10 inches of water.  This area was much like the Plain Of Reeds farther to the west, old overgrown paddies, covered by "volunteer" rice and reeds.

The third squad was on the left flank, first squad with Lt. Robbins, was in the middle and my second squad was on the right flank, all 18 of us on line.  When we got to about 20 meters from the trees, the
s _ _ _ hit the fan.  The whole tree line opened up on us.  Several Dough Boys were hit in the initial volley. Ron Delp was in the first squad, but he was right most and when he was hit, Pat Fisher and I went to his aid and started pulling him back.  He took a round through his left arm at the elbow, almost taking it off. Marshall, Robbins’ old RTO (Paonessa was carrying the Lieutenant's PRC-77), took a round in the chest, a sucking chest wound.  Doc Benes was kneeling over him, bandaging the wound when Benes was hit.  Benes took an AK round between the left shoulder and his neck, and because he was bending over, the round entered his chest, punched through his left lung and out the bottom of his heart.  He should have died instantly or been shocked so badly as to be incapable of action, but he finished bandaging Marshall's wound and then crawled off to die.  I am told that he was found nearer the tree line.  The doctors said he should have died instantly from the wound, instead, he saved Marshall's life.

Benes was the truest hero of the day.

Fisher and I were pulling Delp back while the above was going on.  We had moved 20 or 30 yards and bumped into an old, overgrown paddy dike.  As we were pulling and pushing Delp over the dike, he took a round dead center through his chest, killing him instantly.  That round came out his back and hit the water about 6 inches from my face.  I checked for his pulse in his neck and wrist, tried to feel for his breath and found no signs of life.  Fisher checked him and we agreed he was dead and we had to attend to the living. I remember I had tears of rage and grief.  We were totally powerless, at the mercy of chance. We were still close to the tree line and could feel and hear rounds over and around us, both in the air and passing through the reeds.

Thank God for the reeds, they gave us enough cover to survive.

Soon after Delp died, I heard Lt. Robbins on the radio calling for extraction and medevac.  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.  Long Knife 26(?) was on short final to Robbins’ smoke.  I stood up, yelling into my radio for the slick to abort, trying to wave him off.  The LZ was just too hot for an extraction.  We always knew that if we called, the Long Knife crews would kill themselves to get us out and we had to be careful of the odds of any given hot extraction.  (Sept. 17, 1968 was one of those dramatic, successful extractions.)  My calls were ignored or not heard and the slick passed over me and landed.  I saw a real cluster _ _ _ _ as it seemed everyone near it tried to climb aboard.  I remember that as it tried to lift off, I saw it take an RPG in the tail boom.  It dropped like a stone.  My mind's eye saw it blow up in a huge technicolor fireball.  I must have seen what I expected and not what happened, for after I blinked, I saw it just sitting there, rotor slowing and a trail of smoke coming from the turbine exhaust.  We now had 4 more men on the ground.

That was when Paonessa was pinned under the right skid of the helicopter.  It was on the enemy’s side of the aircraft.  I wouldn’t know this until we got back to the hamlet.

I remember my anger and I remember that I grabbed an M-79, told Jack Eutsler to feed me rounds, stood up again and started walking toward the tree line firing as fast as I could. Stupid, huh?  Fisher tackled me and knocked some sense into me.  By this time, I needed to check each man in my squad.

Nguyen Van Hai, our interpreter had taken a round through his M-16 but wouldn’t leave it behind (he was afraid to), Ken VanHook had also taken a round through his M-16, but left it and picked up Delp’s weapon.  I gave my radio to Jack Eutsler so I could move better from man to man.  Fisher was still with me and we all were firing on the tree line, a magazine at a time, ducking and moving between magazines.  I must have forgotten to clear my barrel of water once, for I burst a cartridge in the chamber and had to clear it with a cleaning rod.  For the life of me, I don’t remember who my sixth man was.  (Should have been Nunez, but I am not sure)  We continued to egress, moving to center as we went.  We finally hooked up with Lt. Robbins.  He attached Eutsler with the radio, neither other squad had a radio and most survivors were without weapons.  We found a dugout canoe and put the wounded Marshall in it and continued to move back, pushing the canoe and dragging and coaxing other wounded and the crew of the crashed helicopter.

We finally got back to the hamlet as a company of infantry was being inserted and was getting organized on the ground.  I got with Robbins and started a headcount.  We were missing Delp, Paonessa and Doc Benes.  We had six or seven other wounded.  I verified that Delp was dead and Marshall verified that Doc Benes couldn’t have survived his wound.  That left Paonessa. He had been pinned under the aircraft after the RPG hit it. VanHook, Fisher and I were getting ready to go back with the Infantry.  Robbins ordered us to leave with our squad.  I had VanHook and Fisher get aboard and called a War Wagon to get me a CAR-15, which they did, stripped all gear except 2 bandoliers and got with Robbins and the infantry C.O.  The infantry C.O. promised me that they would get Paonessa if he were still alive. My squad was yelling for me to board the helicopter, Robbins was telling me to go and I was soul tired and I went.  You know the rest.  Paonessa spent the night pinned under that aircraft, soaked in JP-4 and died the next day in the MASH at Dong Tam of immersion burns over most of his body.

I have carried that moment of getting on the helicopter for 30 years.  One of the few decisions in my life for which I would give anything to be able to go back and reverse.  One thing, though, where your recollections and mine differ.  On the ground, we did not know that Paonessa was alive.  We thought we had left 3 dead behind, and only because we had so many living wounded to get out.  We left no one behind because they were new or didn’t know who was missing.
 Doc Benes was a new guy.  But he fit in well.  He was a Conscientious Objector and wouldn’t carry a weapon, but he had lots of guts and did his job and paid the ultimate price for his personal brand of patriotism.

We heard that the infantry got to the aircraft several times, searched and found no one, and was pushed back each time by enemy fire.  We heard the NVA even started lobbing mortar rounds at them that night and was firing at supporting aircraft with a .51 cal. automatic weapon. And with all that we threw at them, they egressed that night and got away.

This account doesn’t include the valorous attempt by our Crusader fire teams to cover us.  They were always over us, firing 40mm, mini-guns and rockets. If they had not provided such close cover, I don’t believe that I would be here writing this.

One other departure from your memory, I did not get a Silver Star for anything I did on this mission.  In fact, I never did get one at all.  I did, however submit each of the other men in my squad for one, and in each case it was downgraded to a Bronze Star.  Dough Boys just about had to die to get the Silver.  I think Delp, Paonessa and Benes each got one posthumously.

It was after that mission that I started to go out on all missions.  And if we didn’t have a mission, I started hitching a ride as door gunner on any ship I could.  I gunned on several sniffer and last light flights.  About 10 years ago, I must have had a mid life crisis and in searching inward, I discovered just how profoundly Paonessa’s death had affected me.  I am told I had developed a death wish after October 18 and suffered from survivor guilt compounded later by PTSD. It has only been recently that I have been able to talk about it and writing helps me to get it out more and turn it over and look at it, trying to figure it out, or at least rationalize it.  I do know that I was able, by the Grace of God to shepherd my squad out without a serious injury.  I just wish we could have gotten Mike Paonessa out, too.

 Philosophically, death took Delp and Benes honestly; Paonessa was taken by guile.  His death was our major failure of that day.

© 1998 James H. Flynn

Jim Flynn
Dough Boy 42
April, 68 to April, 69

Edited by Don Callison