Surprised at Being Alive: An Accidental Helicopter Pilot in Vietnam and Beyond by Robert F. Curtis Read Free Book Online

particularly when making rapid power changes. I had forgotten to pull the heat on when I cut the throttle; ice formed, the engine quit, all as advertised in the most basic helicopter flying classes.
    Quickly examining the aircraft, the CW4 found no damage. the ice in the carb went away as soon as the fuel flow stopped.
    “Get in and fly it home,” the CW4 snapped.
    Again, I was surprised and even more, apprehensive. After all, I had just survived my first engine failure, but the CW4 was adamant. the captain and I got back onboard and started the H-13 up. When I looked, the maintenance officer was already gone. He did not even wait to see if we got off alright.
    The flight home was without incident, but the ragging I got from the other instructors hurt, at first. then I realized that they all had done similar, stupid things, things like cutting down a flag pole with the rotors or chopping down bushes from landing too close, and they all had survived them and learned from them. Now I had joined the club with my first real emergency, even if it was self-induced.
    I never did that particular stupid evolution again. But, I managed a variation on a theme and caused another engine on another OH-13E to shut down in flight again a few months later. I survived that one, too, with no damage to helicopter, pilot, or passenger, but the maintenance officer was mad at me again. that too is another story.

4
    THE PLAYTEX CLUB
    PHU BAI, VIETNAM ■ SEPTEMBER 1970
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    T he black lacquer plaques with the enameled squadron patch in the center and the flags of the Allies participating in the war across the top were hung around the walls of the bar in the Playtex Officer’s Club. They were just about at eye level, and below each plaque was a Polaroid of the pilot who owned the plaque, the man who would have it presented to him when he left country. The plaques were hung in order of “shortness.” that is, the newest man had his hung at the far end of the room, next to the door out onto the patio. Around the wall back toward the bar itself, they were ordered until, over the bar, there were only five left.
    In the center of the bar, over the chrome and red vinyl barstools, stolen from who knows where, was the plaque of the next man to leave. When that man received his plaque from the commanding officer, the CO, and took the jeep ride over to the Phu Bai airfield to catch the C-130 south to Cam Rahn and back to the states, the next man in line would move all the plaques up until his was in the center.
    If you were killed, the executive officer, the XO, would go to the Club that same day, usually as soon as he received the word, and remove your plaque. It would be placed in the boxes containing the personal effects of the man and mailed to his family with the date not filled in. The photo was never mailed. It was just discarded or put with the other small things that were the un-official company history. By the time the pilots came back from that day’s missions, no sign would remain that the man or his plaque had ever been there.
    Most units gave out plaques when you left, but not “C” Company, 159th Aviation Battalion, 101st Airborne Division (Airmobile) in 1970. The radio call sign of “C” Co was Playtex (unofficial motto, “We give living support”) and the day you checked in, you were presented with your plaque and had your picture taken with the safety officer’s Polaroid. As soon as the gook shop (casual, racist slang, common then, for the concession shop run by Vietnamese that sold hats and cowboy holsters for our .38s, made unit patches, did sewing, etc.) down the mud street from the officer’s area got the steel plate engraved with your name and in-country date, the plaque was put up at the end of the line.
    The officer’s area in Playtex consisted of SEA (South East Asia) Huts. They were plywood, gray painted, single story buildings with tin roofs, built quickly by combat engineers. The Club was a rectangular room that