[I wrote this last year, very near the anniversary of a 129th going down in the An Khe Pass, back in April (Tet) of 72. I wrote it because of, and for, a lady who comes into the 129th site. She has done much to help the 129th vets, and Nam vets in general. In fact, she received Associate of the Year from the Wisconsin VVAW.

Anyway, she still mourns the passing of her "129th AHC pilot", KIA April 72. By late January of 72, I had been transferred to the 60th AHC, I heard of his death thru the helicopter grapevine, about a week later. Yes, there is a picture of him in my Vets Only album, it shows 3 guys tipping a beer; he is on the far left.]

Start of the day. Damn alarm clock sounds like bells on a fire engine. Way too early to be up, shouldn’t have stayed over at Smitty’s (Jim Westwang’s) hootch so late playing Spades, smoking bong son bombers and drinking. Gotta quit that shit and start getting some sleep.

Where did that damn hootch maid put my clean Nomax? Gonna have to say something next time I see her. Walk outside, not caring if the door slams behind me. Jeez, it’s still almost dark, mists are still at ground level. Feels cool now, but going to be a hot one again.

Light up a mandatory smoke before going inside the latrine to take my morning piss. Place stinks worse than usual; I let the smoke drift up to my nose to cover the smell. Open the door, check for spiders, snakes, rats or bugs. Don’t find any, so I take my task in hand, finish the job, and let the door slam behind me. Someone, still in bed, yells, "Damn, you’re a noisy bastard, Alvis." “Fuck um,” I think.

Walk over to the mess hall thinking, “Damn, I sure would hate to have their job; those guys must get up at 4 in the morning and work all day. Sure glad I'm on a flight crew.” As I walk into the mess hall, I see Smitty sitting with a few other chiefs, all grumbling no doubt, about lazy ass gunners. Grab some coffee, toast, eggs. SOS looks like crap this morning, so I stay away from it. Damn, my head hurts.

Smitty looks over at me, smiles, makes some noises about how fine the day is. Yeah, right, it’s still goddamn nighttime to me. I notice a few pilots at the other end of the mess hall talking amongst themselves, no doubt about how lazy the gunners are.

I take a seat next to Smitty, and he tells me we're going up to An Khe and Pleiku today. Be sure to have some C rations; it’s going to be a long day. Finish my first cuppa joe, noticed the sky has brightened and so has my attitude. Our AC, Shadow (Alton Page) has already left so we know its time to drift down toward the flight line.

Smitty tells me to grab the guns and he will meet me at the ship. I drag my boots a little, trying to scuff up the "newness" of them, a sure sign of a FNG. Buckling my guns to their mounts, I try and stay out of the way of Shadow and Smitty pre-flighting. Checking the ammo cans, I see it rained again last night; water has collected in the bottom, rust starting to show on the .30 caliber links.

Shit, I think, should have put them inside the cabin last night. I change the ammo (with Smitty giving me one of those looks that says, “You should have stored them inside last night, you lazy asshole, FNG,” and, “You trying to get us killed?” looks). Mr. Page saw this also. (Sigh) I will not let it happen again.

Smitty and I help the pilots slide their armor plating backs up into position, it being hard for them to do strapped in. We hop in, plug in our coms, and wait while the preflight checklist is completed. In just a few seconds (they had started while we buckled in) we hear Shadow say, "Well, let’s light the fires."

I quickly lean out the door and make sure I haven’t left the rotor tie down strap on. As the shrill scream of the Lycoming L-13 engine starts to increase, I watch the blades start to turn, slowly, then faster than the eye can follow. I clear my side of the aircraft, Smitty clears his and adds, " Tail is clear."

Mr. Page comes to a hover and we hear over the intercom,” Everything is in the green." Shadow backs up, going about 2 mph faster than a hover, talking to Lane Tower, getting instructions for taxi and take off.

I noticed the sun was just coming into view, another beautiful Vietnamese sunrise. Shadow responds to Lane’s final words, which are always...”Have a good day.” We start our take off, passing thru transitional, and up we go.

Looking for aircraft that Lane Tower advised us of, we report them to the pilots as we spot them. ”Aircraft at 2 o'clock sir." "Roger that, thank you," or "Got ‘em, thank you," they respond.

Thanks to Smitty’s advice, I had mounted a C ration can on the infeed side of my 60. I watched the ammo belt slap around in the 100 mph breeze. The can kept the ammo feeding just right so it wouldn’t get hung up when - not if - we needed it. Flying at first in a northerly direction to get around where the mountains ended at Lane, we reached altitude, then turned west, inland toward An Khe.

Following the river and highway 19. Looking at flooded rice paddies, it seemed the ground was a green blanket with shadows from clouds, dancing and playing, racing us across the landscape.

Smitty tells me to watch out for Fast Movers, as we are getting near Phu Cat Air Force Base. Phantom jets are so fast, they will be on you in seconds and near misses are almost as bad as actual impact, because the turbulence from them can upset the ship.

About here is where the rice fields drop off and barren country starts. One can tell it used to be fine, fertile plains, but being too far from Qui Nhon, the people had left, perhaps for safety, perhaps a better life. Perhaps they were dead.

The mountains on Jim’s side of the aircraft (south) follow us our entire trip. Rugged and uninviting, looking full of bad guys, they were beautiful, nonetheless. Secret little valleys asking my Georgia forest raised self to explore, leading off into dark valleys, all covered in jungle, shadows, hidden places. "Forbidden fruit" I think, ”Go into there and get your ass shot off."

(Jim, Shadow and myself, as well as others, would later go into some of these valleys to "hunt"). It was rare indeed when a single ship would venture into the mountains, backing Lane and going all the way to An Khe. Passing by Phu Cat, almost all civilization ended, except for a few small villages next to the Song Ba River.

The closer we got to An khe Pass, the more barren things got, looking very much like a no-mans land. The mountains that covered LZ English and Bong Song traveled inland meeting up with the mountains that covered Lane. They formed the An Khe Pass which, in turn, was the gateway to the Vietnamese highlands.

The An Khe Pass has been a scene of fighting and ambushes since the Japs were in Vietnam in the mid '40s. Many a French convoy got the shit shot out of it in the late '40s and early '50s in this most famous of all passes. Just at the base of the pass (in the mid '60s), the 1st Cav used to have a staging area for CA’s into Happy Valley. They also got the shit shot out of them.

Anyway, as the mountains started to close in on us, Smitty clicked on his mike and told me, "Over there is Happy Valley, that’s one place you don’t want to go into. We always lose ships in there. A few months ago a crew member took a .51 calibre thru the wrist, then the chest, KIA instantly.”

The pilots were discussing the weather conditions. It also seems that the weather can change almost instantly, trapping an aircraft above, below or in the pass.

As we approached the entrance, I noticed Highway 19 start to twist and turn. I watched the road as we entered the pass. Making U turns, with steep drop-offs on the side, it wound its way up the pass. I was amazed at what I saw. Aircraft bodies littered the pass, fixed wing and helicopters. All had crashed.

On the top of the towering peaks, to the south side, the Koreans had a firebase. The left side (north) towered above us as well, with no firebases there. I thought that was kinda strange. We exited the pass, the hills giving way to towering elephant grass plains, an entirely different look to the country.

This was late in 1971. In Feb. of ‘72, Tet hit Vietnam with a bang. The North Vietnamese army held the north side of the pass, while the Korean side held on by the skin of their teeth. The pass was closed to convoys (which never was that safe for them anyway) and air traffic passed thru there, many times under the gun. For all intents and purposes, the NVA held the pass.

The Korean firebase needed supplies badly, and replacements for their many wounded and dead. The 129th AHC was assigned this task. The firebase was under constant siege and the 129^th was their only hope for the week of this battle.

It took people with brass balls the size of Texas to fly into that place; ready-made ambushes waited for helicopter crews. Any VC or NVA that shot down a chopper received an instant field promotion. They did NOT take chopper crew prisoners as a rule; they shot them on sight.

The entire north face of the pass - those parts below AND above - was infested with NVA. My hat is off to any and all helicopter crews that flew anywhere near that death trap. For those that flew into it, your courage is the stuff legends are made of. I salute you.