Retiring the Last Huey

Sent to me by OBW June 26, 2011.

This is the speech given at Ft Rucker when they retired the last Huey: CW4 Lawrence Castagneto, 17 May 2011

As a Vietnam Veteran Army Aviator, I would like to thank everyone for coming to this special occasion, on this to be honest...very sad day, the end of a era. An era that has spanned over 50 years. The retirement of this grand old lady "OUR MOTHER" ... the Huey.

I would like to thank, MG Crutchfield for allowing me to speak at this event and try to convey in my own inadequate, meager way.. what this aircraft means to me and so many other Vietnam veterans.

First a few facts:
It was 48 yrs ago this month that the first Huey arrived in Vietnam with units that were to become part of the 145th and the 13th Combat Aviation Battalions; both units assigned here at Ft Rucker today. While in Vietnam, the Huey flew approximately 7,457,000 combat assault sorties; 3,952,000 attack or gunship sorties and 3,548,000 cargo supply sorties. That comes to over 15 million sorties flown over the paddies and jungles of Nam, not to include the millions of sorties flown all over the world and other combat zones since then ....what a amazing journey.... I am honored and humbled to have been a small part of that journey.

To those in the crowd that have had the honor to fly, crew, or ride this magnificent machine in combat, we are the chosen few, the lucky ones . They understand what this aircraft means, and how hard it is for me to describe my feelings about her as a Vietnam combat pilot.... for she is alive... has a life of her own, and has been a life long friend.

How do I break down in a few minutes a 42 year love affair, she is as much a part of me, and to so many others, as the blood that flows through our veins. Try to imagine all those touched over the years ...by the shadow of her blades.

Other aircraft can fly overhead and some will look up and some may not; or even recognize what they see but, when a Huey flies over everyone looks up and everyone knows who she is... young or old all over the world she connects with all.

To those that rode her into combat... the sound of those blades causes our heart beat to rise... and breaths to quicken... in anticipation of seeing that beautiful machine fly overhead and the feeling of comfort she brings. No other aircraft in the history of aviation evokes the emotional response the Huey does... combat veteran's or not... she is recognized all around the world by young and old, she is the ICON of the Vietnam war, U.S. Army Aviation, and the U.S. Army. Over 5 decades of service she carried Army Aviation on her back, from bird dogs and piston powered helicopters with a secondary support mission, to the force multiplier combat arm that Army Aviation is today.

Even the young aviators of today, that are mainly Apache pilot's, Blackhawk pilot's, etc., that have had a chance to fly her will tell you there is no greater feeling, honor, or thrill then to be blessed with the opportunity to ride her thru the sky... they may love there Apaches and Blackhawks, but they will say there is no aircraft like flying the Huey " it is special". There are two kinds of helicopter pilots: those that have flown the Huey and those that wish they could have.

The intense feelings generated for this aircraft are not just from the flight crews but, also from those who rode in back ...into and out of the "devils caldron". As paraphrased here from "Gods own lunatics", Joe Galloway's tribute to the Huey and her flight crews and other Infantry veterans comments:

Is there anyone here today who does not thrill to the sound of those Huey blades? That familiar whop-whop-whop is the soundtrack of our war...the lullaby of our younger days it is burned in to our brains and our hearts. To those who spent their time in Nam as a grunt, know that noise was always a great comfort... Even today when I hear it, I stop...catch my breath...and search the sky for a glimpse of the mighty eagle.

To the pilots and crews of that wonderful machine ...we loved you, we loved that machine.

No matter how bad things were...if we called ... you came... down through the hail of green tracers and other visible signs of a real bad day off to a bad start. I can still hear the sound of those blades churning the fiery sky ....To us you seemed beyond brave and fearless... Down you would come to us in the middle of battle in those flimsy thin skin -chariots ...into the storm of fire and hell, .....we feared for you , we were awed by you. We thought of you and that
beautiful bird as " God's own lunatics"... and wondered ...who are these men and this machine and where do they come from ...... Have to be "Gods Angels".

So with that I say to her, that beautiful lady sitting out there, from me and all my lucky brothers, that were given the honor to serve their country, and the privilege of flying this great lady in skies of Vietnam - Thank you for the memories...Thank you for always being there...Thank you for always bringing us home regardless of how beat up and shot up you were..., Thank You!!!!.

You will never be forgotten, we loved you then..... we love you now... and will love you till our last breath ...

And as the sun sets today, if you listen quietly and closely you will hear that faint wop wop wop of our mother speaking to all her children past and present who rode her into history in a blaze of glory ...she will be saying
to them: I am here... I will always be here with you. I am at peace and so should you be ... and so should you be.

The High Ground

By Robert Clark
*The High Ground*
P.O. Box 457 Neillsville, WI 54456

A couple of years ago someone asked me if I still thought about Vietnam. I nearly laughed in their face. How do you stop thinking about it?

Every day for the last twenty-four years, I wake up with it, and go to bed with it. But this is what I said. "Yea, I think about it. I can't quit thinking about it. I never will. But, I've also learned to live with it.

I'm comfortable with the memories. I've learned to stop trying to forget and learned instead to embrace it. It just doesn't scare me anymore."

A psychologist once told me that NOT being affected by the experience over there would be abnormal. When he told me that, it was like he'd just given me a pardon. It was as if he said, "Go ahead and feel something about the place, Bob. It ain't going nowhere. You're gonna wear it for the rest of your life. Might as well get to know it."A lot of my "brothers" haven't been so lucky. For them the memories are too painful, their sense of loss too great. My sister told me of a friend she has whose husband was in the Nam She asks this guy when he was there. Here's what he said, "Just last night." It took my sister a while to figure out what he was talking about. JUST LAST NIGHT.

Yeah I was in the Nam. When? JUST LAST NIGHT. During sex with my wife. And on my way to work this morning. Over my lunch hour. Yeah, I was there.

My sister says I'm not the same brother that went to Vietnam. My wife says I won't let people get close to me, not even her. They are probably both right.

Ask a vet about making friends in Nam. It was risky. Why? Because we were in the business of death, and death was with us all the time. It wasn't the death of, "If I die before I wake." This was the real thing. The kind where boys scream for their mothers. The kind that lingers in your mind and becomes more real each time you cheat it. You don't want to make a lot of friends when the possibility of dying is that real, that close. When you do, friends become a liability.

A guy named Bob Flanigan was my friend. Bob Flanigan is dead. I put him in a body bag one sunny day, April 29, 1969. We'd been talking, only a few minutes before he was shot, about what we were going to do when we got back in the world. Now, this was a guy who had come in country the same time as myself. A guy who was loveable and generous. He had blue eyes and sandy blond hair. When he talked, it was with a soft drawl. Flanigan was a hick and he knew it. That was part of his charm. He didn't care. Man, I loved this guy like the brother I never had. But, I screwed up. I got too close to him. Maybe I didn't know any better. But I broke one of the unwritten rules of war. DON'T GET CLOSE TO PEOPLE WHO ARE GOING TO DIE. Sometimes youcan't help it.

You hear vets use the term "buddy" when they refer to a guy they spent the war with. Me and this buddy a mine . . ""Friend" sounds too intimate, doesn't it. "Friend" calls up images of being close. If he's a friend, then you are going to be hurt if he dies, and war hurts enough without adding to the pain. Get close; get hurt. It's as simple as that.In war you learn to keep people at that distance my wife talks about. You become so good at it, that twenty years after the war, you still do it without thinking. You won't allow yourself to be vulnerable again.

My wife knows two people who can get into the soft spots inside me. My daughters I know it probably bothers her that they can do this. It's not that I don't love my wife, I do. She's put up with a lot from me. She'll tell you that when she signed on for better or worse she had no idea there was going to be so much of the latter. But with my daughters it's different.

My girls are mine. They'll always be my kids. Not marriage, not distance, not even death can change that. They are something on this earth that can never be taken away from me. I belong to them. Nothing can change that. I can have an ex-wife; but my girls can never have an ex-father. There's the difference.I can still see the faces, though they all seem to have the same eyes. When I think of us I always see a line of "dirty grunts" sitting on a paddy dike. We're caught in the first gray silver between darkness and light. That first moment when we know we've survived another night, and the business of staying alive for one more day is about to begin.

There was so much hope in that brief space of time. It's what we used to pray for. "One more day, God. One more day."And I can hear our conversatioins as if they'd only just been spoken I still hear the way we sounded, the hard cynical jokes, our morbid senses of humor. We were scared to death of dying, and trying our best not to show it.

I recall the smells, too. Like the way cordite hangs on the air after a fire-fight. Or the pungent odor of rice paddy mud. So different from the black dirt of Iowa. The mud of Nam smells ancient, somehow. Like it's always been there.

And I'll never forget the way blood smells, stick and drying on my hands. I spent a long night that way once. That memory isn't going anywhere.I remember how the night jungle appears almost dream like as the pilot of a Cessna buzzes overhead, dropping parachute flares until morning. That artifical sun would flicker and make shadows run through the jungle. It was worse than not being able to see what was out there sometimes.

I remember once looking at the man next to me as a flare floated overhead. The shadows around his eyes were so deep that it looked like his eyes were gone. I reached over and touched him on the arm; without looking at me he touched my hand. "I know man. I know." That's what he said. It was a human moment. Two guys a long way from home and scared sh"tless. “I know man" And at that moment he did.

God I loved those guys. I hurt every time one of them died. We all did. Despite our posturing. Despite our desire to stay disconnected, we couldn't help ourselves. I know why Tim O'Brien writes his stories. I know what gives Bruce Weigle the words to create poems so honest I cry at their horrible beauty. It's love. Love for those guys we shared the experience with.

We did our jobs like good soldiers, and we tried our best not to become as hard as our surroundings. We touched each other and said, "I know." Like a mother holding a child in the middle of a nightmare, "It's going to be all right." We tried not to lose touch with our humanity. We tried to walk that line. To be the good boys our parents had raised and not to give into that unnamed thing we knew was inside us all.

You want to know what frightening is? It's a nineteen-year-old-boy who's had a sip of that power over life and death that war gives you. It's a boy who, despite all the things he's been taught, knows that he likes it.

It's a nineteen-year-old who's just lost a friend, and is angry and scared and, determined that, "Some *@#*s gonna pay" To this day, the thought of that boy can wake me from a sound sleep and leave me staring at the ceiling.

As I write this, I have a picture in from of me. It's of two young men. On their laps are tablets. One is smoking a cigarette. Both stare without expression at the camera. They're writing letters. Staying in touch with places they would rather be. Places and eople they hope to see again.

The picture shares space in a frame with one of my wife. She doesn't mind. She knows she's been included in special company. She knows I'll always love those guys who shared thatr part of my life, a part she never can. And she understands how I feel about the ones I know are out there yet. The ones who still answer the question, "When were you in Vietnam?"

"Hey, man. I was there just last night."

POW Lawsuit Could Force Kerry To Come Clean

George "Bud" Day, Chairman, Vietnam Veterans Legacy Foundation
(10/15/2006)

Thirty-five years ago John Kerry slandered an entire generation of men who
fought in Vietnam branding them as a "war criminals." Today, much of the
same thing is being said about our young men and women in Iraq.

Now, a lawsuit filed in Philadelphia's Court of Common Pleas will test the
very foundation of Kerry's anti-war persona for the first time. It isn't
dubious medals or Kerry's disputed service record in Vietnam that is being
called into question. This time Kerry may finally be forced to answer for
the events that launched his public career, one that made him an anti-war
hero for many American liberals and a turncoat for millions of Vietnam
veterans.

The lawsuit (Vietnam Veterans Legacy Foundation, et al. v. Kenneth Campbell,
et al.) challenges the basis, the factual accuracy of then-Lt. (j.g.) Kerry's acrimonious
testimony before the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee
in 1971. It was there Kerry's public career was catapulted with his now
ubiquitous portrayal of American soldiers as murderers, rapists and
torturers "who ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam . . . [and] razed
villages in a fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan."

Kerry said then his accusations were based on the so-called "testimony" of
"150 honorably discharged" Vietnam veterans who, like himself, claimed to
have committed or witnessed "war crimes, not isolated incidents but crimes
committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all
levels of command."

Many if not all were members of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW),
an organization led by Kerry and financed by Jane Fonda during the early
1970s. Now, a number of those "witnesses" will be required to testify, under
oath for the first time ever, about what they really did and saw in Vietnam.

What these VVAW witnesses say could have implications reaching beyond
Kerry's veracity and reputation. Their lasting portrait of the American soldier as
a blood-thirsty butcher, a baby killer, is also at stake. And that picture
remains entrenched among their kind, "proof" that those serving in the U.S.
military, even today, truly are a "horde of barbarians" capable of
unspeakable brutalities. That is the underlying theme, the constant drumbeat
from the mainstream media and others as they try to undermine the American
military today.

For the anti-war, anti-American protesters, the American soldiers are the
"terrorists," and the enemies are the victims of a barbaric U.S. military
which tortures and murders defenseless civilians.

That false premise, one of the most vicious and enduring smears spawned by
Kerry 35 years ago, will also be put to the test once Kerry's true "Band of
Brothers" are put under oath in a Philadelphia courtroom.

The background to this lawsuit is long and complex, but even a condensed
version is rich in irony and poetic justice.

It had it roots in 2004 with the documentary Stolen Honor: Wounds that Never
Heal. Many may recall the film, although it is probably best known for not
being seen, suppressed after Sinclair Broadcasting Company courageously
announced it was going to air the documentary in its entirety. Thanks to
Kerry and his liberal colleagues in the Senate and their enablers in the
mainstream media, Sinclair was browbeaten into withdrawing the film, its
broadcast license threatened by a Kerry campaign manager in 2004.

Stolen Honor focused on Kerry's venomous diatribe before the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee in April 1971 when he accused Vietnam veterans of "war
crimes" on a genocidal scale. (A full transcript is available at
http://ice.he.net/~freepnet/kerry/index.php?topic=Testimony. ) It examined
the impact Kerry's widely reported statements had on hundreds of Americans
who were being held prisoners of war by the North Vietnamese communists. The
filmâ?Ts producer, Carlton Sherwood, a Pulitzer Prize and Peabody
Award-winning investigative reporter, interviewed former POWs for the
documentary.

I was among those whom Sherwood, a decorated Marine combat veteran himself,
asked to participate in Stolen Honor. I was a POW for nearly six years, held
in North Vietnam prison camps, including the notorious Hanoi Hilton, a place
of unimaginable horrors -- torture, beatings, starvation and mind-numbing
isolation. When Kerry branded us "war criminals," he handed our captors all
the justification they needed to carry out their threats to execute us.

Thanks to Kerry, Jane Fonda and their comrades in the anti-war movement, our
captivity was prolonged by years. The communists in Hanoi and Moscow couldn't
have had a better press agent to spread their anti-American propaganda.

To guarantee Stolen Honor would never be seen by anyone ­ not even
theatre-goers ­ the producer was slapped with a libel and defamation
lawsuit. That lawsuit was filed by Kenneth Campbell, a University of
Delaware professor, Kerry campaign aide, and long-time anti-war disciple of
the Massachusetts Senator. Campbell co-founded the Philadelphia chapter of
Vietnam Veterans Against the War and, in 1971, he was one of Kerry's key war
crimes "witnesses," one of several on whom Kerry claims he based his Senate
testimony.

Campbell was and still is regarded by some as one of the VVAW's most
articulate and published "experts" on U.S. atrocities in Vietnam. He has
"testified" before Congress, in Europe, and elsewhere that while in Vietnam
he deliberately killed "dozens and dozens" of innocent civilians as a Marine
artillery forward observer.

He has written extensively about his and others' atrocities in
Vietnam and he even teaches a course on the Vietnam War that
showcases his war crime accusations. Campbell, like Kerry, met with enemy
delegations -- Vietcong and North Vietnam Communist officials -- in Paris in
1971 while he was still a U.S. uniformed reservist. He was also flown to
Moscow that same year to meet with other Communist leaders, all expenses
paid by the Soviets.

Campbell's lawsuit put a unique spin on the definition of defamation: He
claimed that Stolen Honor damaged the public reputations of himself, Kerry
and others by questioning whether they truly were the baby-killers they
claimed to be!

Ignored and censored by the mainstream news networks, Stolen Honor
eventually aired on some small local cable outlets. The documentary managed
to penetrate Kerry's blacklisting in rural northern Ohio, Florida,
Pennsylvania and several other places. But, Campbell's lawsuit against
Sherwood continued in 2005, when he even added POWs who appeared in the film
to the litigation!

The POWs and the wives of POWs who participated in Stolen Honor refused to
abandon the facts conveyed in the film. For some of us, it was the first
time since our release by the Communists in 1973 that we were able to have
our voices publicly heard, to tell our stories about the consequences of
Kerry's treachery.

In 2005, we formed a nonprofit organization, the Vietnam
Veterans Legacy Foundation (VVLF), to gather records, documents and other
materials to form a fact-based, educational repository for students and
scholars of Vietnam history and to tell the true story of the American
soldiers in Vietnam. The VVLF's mission is "to set the record straight,
factually, about Vietnam and those who fought there."

For our efforts, we were promptly sued by Campbell and another long-time
anti-war Kerry follower and VVAW member, Dr. Jon Bjornson. It was clear that
Kerry not only wanted to punish us for Stolen Honor; he intended to use
surrogates to sue us into permanent silence and financial ruin.

But in lawsuits, even defendants have an opportunity to question the accuser
under oath in pre-trial depositions -- even when a lawsuit is filed solely
to harass, intimidate and silence and when the legal system is abused for
political vengeance, as these lawsuits clearly were.

Our chance came earlier this year when Kenneth Campbell was deposed. Among
the first thing he disclosed was that this was the first time he had
actually been put under oath in over 35 years of "testifying" about Vietnam
"war crimes." Neither he nor any of his fellow "war criminals" ­ Kerry
included ­ had ever been sworn in at any hearings, not before the Senate,
the House of Representatives, or anywhere.

All of the so-called "testimony" the old mainstream media trumpeted for
nearly four decades -- graphic, sickening and grisly "testimony" about
savage atrocities committed by Vietnam veterans, "testimony" to which
Congress and the media gave so much weight and credibility -- wasn't
"testimony" at all! Just propagandist speeches told without limitation or
fear of consequences, least of all penalties for perjury.

As for the "war crimes" Campbell claimed for years he committed and
personally witnessed, he now conceded he didn't actually see innocent
civilians killed by his artillery barrages. In fact, if anyone had been killed
or wounded, he admitted, they may not have been civilians at all! Concerning
other atrocities Campbell identified in his lawsuits -- things like Marines
massacring an entire village, killing surrendering enemy soldiers -- those
incidents, too, failed to stand up under questioning. Some were things he
said he had heard or assumed happened; others, he acknowledged, were simply
"rumors."

That Campbell alleged personal knowledge of horrible atrocities in his
complaints and then gave wholly different stories of hearsay and assumption
at his deposition is detailed in the recently filed Philadelphia lawsuit,
which repeatedly alleges that Campbell lied about supposed war crimes in
1971 and lied again when he claimed in 2004 that his war crime stories were
true.

While hard evidence may have been in short supply during his sworn
testimony, Campbell did offer the names of "witnesses" who would confirm his
stories. Not surprisingly, the first two were Kerry State Veterans Campaign
Coordinators and long-time VVAW organizers in Florida and Massachusetts.

Subpoenas were served on both men but, before either could be deposed, one
checked himself into a hospital for elective back surgery and the other had
himself arrested and committed to a mental institution. At last press
reports, he was released from the psychiatric hospital and fled the country
to Vietnam via Hawaii.

Both men clearly knew what was coming, as did Campbell. For the first time
in nearly four decades they would be forced to answer for their alleged "war
crimes," their slanderous accusations against their fellow soldiers finally
examined, under oath.

It was just a matter of days before all the lawsuits were withdrawn, nearly
two years of costly litigation abruptly ended, Campbell's libel claims
ground to dust under the weight of his own testimony.

Like their leader, John Kerry, his surrogates wanted no part of having to
defend these despicable allegations, or for being held accountable for the
great harm they and he continue to inflict on our men and women in uniform.
They fled the moment the light of truth shined their way.

My fellow POWs and I who were the target of these lawsuits are not willing
to quit or surrender. Kerry and his cowardly followers may have achieved
their purpose of keeping the American people from seeing Stolen Honor in
2004, but we refuse to allow the truth about Vietnam to remain untold.
Forced to spend huge sums to defend ourselves from these frivolous lawsuits,
we have filed a countersuit against these Kerry surrogates and intend to
reveal the truth about the lawsuits and their sponsors. We believe that we
can prove that the purpose of nearly two years of litigation was to cover up
for Kerry''s treachery, to drain us financially and spiritually, and to
prevent us from setting the record straight.

At stake is ultimately nothing less than the integrity of the American
military in Vietnam, the honor of the men who served their country, the
nobility of those who gave their lives, and the truth of America's history
in Vietnam. Until or unless we do correct the existing record, the American
military may never be free of the myths and smears of Vietnam, its honor and
integrity cleansed as it fights to defend freedom at home and around the
world.

Our mission is hardly over. We hope you will join us in fighting this battle
. . . for our soldiers, then and now.

Col. George E. "Bud" Day, USAF (Ret.,) was a POW in North Vietnam for five
years, seven months and 13 days. He served in three wars (WWII, Korea, and
Vietnam) and earned the Medal of Honor. He is the Air Force's most decorated
living veteran. He is the Director and President of the Vietnam Veterans
Legacy Foundation, Inc., an organization created to better educate and
inform the public about the Vietnam War, its events, its history, and the
men and women who sacrificed to serve their country.