Hello all,
I just wanted to share an article I read in last Sunday's paper, "Remembering TET".
The ‘Huey’ saved the memories
As the large door of the metal warehouse was pushed open and the dark shadows lifted from her olive-drab skin, she was bathed in radiant sunlight.
I walked toward her, each step erasing the decades since I last saw her kind. When I reached out and put the palm of my hand against her, it wasn't a UH-1 Iroquois "Huey" helicopter I touched.
It wasn't a lifeless object of metal, glass, engine, rotor blades and general characteristics. This was a dear friend, the embodiment of why I had lived and not died dozens of times over.
It had been the wop-wop-wop sound of her voice growing ever louder that had made my heart jump so many times. That unmistakable drumming that had made me think that maybe, just maybe, I wasn't going to die in all those places I remember now in images of faded green.
There were several types of helicopters that served in Vietnam, but the beloved Huey is clearly the icon of that conflict.
For me that love grew out of the fact that even when I was deep behind enemy lines she would come and get me. To this day, when I meet a Huey pilot or door gunner who served in Vietnam, I never fail to embrace and thank them for what they did.
From time to time as the years went by I would hear her distinctive voice passing above me. No other helicopter was ever able to trick me into thinking it was her.
As my hand reached out to her for the first time in 35 years, my mind filled with things we had seen and felt. I remembered the day I had needed her most and how she had hovered just above us with her blades nearly hitting the trees.
How cold it had gotten when she was lifting me away, and the wind began to dry my blood-soaked uniform. Her reassuring voice was like a lullaby then, seeming to come from far away.
She had brought me all the way home that day, even though both her rotor blades had holes the size of softballs blown through them. All the way home with fuel leaking from wounds in her belly, and gaping holes torn through her body.
Yes, I thought, we'd been through a lot together. I looked up at her jet engine and recalled the sweet scent of her hot breath and how it always made my stomach clinch.
I remembered how just climbing inside her to head out on a mission would take all the resolve I could muster. So many emotions bond us together.
Now, as I climbed inside, I moved much slower than I once had.
I sat down in my old position at the front edge of the right-hand door.
I stepped out onto the skid like I had done many times going into landing zones. I remembered how the dirt and chaff would explode up from the ground, and how I could feel my eyes straining to see everything at once.
How quiet it would be when she left, and how alone and isolated I would feel. Easier to recall is the soaring elation I felt upon her return and how she always waited until we all were aboard.
How many times I had gasped for breath on her cold metal floor. With eyes squeezed shut I'd hear her engine screaming for altitude and pray her blades wouldn't snap off as she banked hard to get us out of harm's way.
She could take a lot, but she wasn't invincible. During the Vietnam War, 2,202 Huey pilots were killed and about 1,250 of the aircraft were lost in combat.
Before I left I stood back far enough so I could see her from nose to tail.
Then I smiled at her and whispered, "Welcome home."
Written by: David A. Maurer