I usually lucked out and got the main bunker at the end of the main airfield at Bearcat.

    Delta Troop had it's own airfield at the corner of the base. Well anyway I usually got Bunker RTO duty and I just called in the perimeter Sitreps all night long. In this job we started about 6 PM and stayed up until 6 AM with no relief. You usually could not sleep anyway because of the screaming and yelling from the prisoner detention area directly in back of the bunker area. It was not unusual to see an
ARVN interrogator dunking a prisoner's head into a slimy barrel of water as they were questioned.

     Late one afternoon the usual thunderstorms were moving on in over the area. There was a low scud line of thunderstorms moving in from the direction of Long Than North. The ceiling was very low and just below the squall line a lone slick appeared. We all commented about the fact they were lucky to have made it through the storm. They then hovered down the field and did a 180 rotation to hover into their reventment. They were still about a foot or so above the ground and in the reventment when a bolt of lightening hit the tail boom antenna of a Charlie model gunship that was sitting in the middle of the airfield. This hit salvoed all of the rockets and since it was a "heavy hog" there were alot of them. One of the rockets from the right pod did a hang-fire and then went left, but bounced off of one of the rockets coming from the left pod. This made it go hard right. The rocket went through the tail boom of the hovering slick and did a low impact explosion on the rear of the pilots seat.

    Lt Doug Cavin of the 9th Aviation Battalion died. Now all those other rockets came screaming down the flight line and all of us in the bunker unassed the AO real fast.

    A 3/4 ton was coming down the road and the driver dove out face first into the mud with the truck getting hit through the canvas cover on the back which was blown away. The guys in the perimeter bunker immediately in front of the flight line dove out of their bunker as the rockets screamed passed them. As I got back up I noticed the blades slowly rotating down on the slick as if nothing happened. Everyone rushed out onto the field and we then realized how bad it was.

     Another time I had guard duty I was sent over to Long Than North instead. I was placed in a bunker with several ground pounders from the 9th. They all treated me with disdain and called me a REMF. 

    Well I had first watch and woke up the next man and then went to sleep. I always slept with my weapon by my side. I woke up with the feeling I was being watched. In the door of the bunker I noticed a set of eyes looking at me. We locked eyes for a moment and then they disappeared. Well I jumped up and found everyone else was asleep. I tried to wake them but they all said "Fuck you REMF". I spent the rest of the night on guard. When they did a commo check every hour one of the bunkers that was 2 over from us never responded. The next morning as the guard left the bunkers and got ready for "Another day in the Nam" we found that all of the men in that bunker were dead.

    The 9th division ground pounders now looked at me differently because if I had not woken up we would have suffered the same fate.

Don Armstrong cavman@lighthorse-scavenger.org
604th Trans / 52 CAB, Pleiku, Apr / July 68
D Troop 3/5 Cav, Bearcat / Dong Tam, July 68 May 69
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