|
David Mitchell
Warning: this is another one of my long ones, but I urge you to hear this story all the way out. I think my friend Bob's story is worth it.
I want to salute a special veteran today. He is my friend, Bob Buffington from Georgia (you may also recognize the "new guy" on the right.) In this photo, we are taking a break at a little airfiled up on the Cambodian border called Moc Hoa ("muck wha"). On an earlier post I showed the kids who often visited me at lunch along the air strip at Moc Hoa. We "visited" there often. The photo will be 50 years old in January.
Photo from my local newspaper here in Bliuffton / Hilton Head - I posted the whole article way back in the Forum.
Continue below photo
Bob was a few months ahead of me in my Scout Platoon in Vinh Long with the Comanche Company ("Troop" in Cavalry terms). We shared about 8 months together before he finished his tour and went home. We were never in touch again until I held a reunion in the fall of 2014 on Hilton Head. Most of our small group of 10 (and 5 wives) had not seen one another for 45 years, but Bob and I clicked almost immediately. Bob was that "all-American" boy - Handsome, bright, friendly, courageous, and by-the-book. He had the heart of a "volunteer". I learned a bit from him as I flew on his (and others) "wing" when I was new. He was alwasy a good guy to be around.
Bob and I flew the crazy "Loach" portion of our "Hunter Killer" teams - a pair of us, one "lead" and one "wing" (following the lead and covering their back side) at very low levels - about 6 to 10 feet and normally slow speeds to search and to locate VC or NVA out in the Delta counttyside - mostly open rice paddys, shallow treelines, canals, and occasional bits of forest - never very populated areas - but sometimes quite near them. Once we sighted them - often under masterful camoflauge - we attempted to induce them to fire at us - if they didn't already start shooting as we came close. Understand, we (usually) were not allowed to fire first in our mission. We also had a pair of Cobra Gunships circling above at about 1,500 feet, waiting to hear our radio call (or scream), "receiving fire" and then dive on the target with lots of fire power - rockets and mini-gun.
The tricky part was then being called back over the spot (by the C&C - "Command & Control", a Huey at 500 feet, directing the whole mission). The C&C would say, "Okay one eight, go back in and check it out."
That was always the more stressful part. I refer to it as the "fear of the second pass". Now you know he's down there. And you know he (they) knows that you know he's there. So now you are going back in over him (them) with his trigger ready - no longer holding his position, but waiting for you to come close so he can open up on you with his AK. It's really quite stressful! Sometimes the "guns" got them on the first run, but often times not all of them. The VC were often in small teams - 2 or 3, maybe 6 or 8. But the NVA only traveled in large units - whole platoons (40-ish) and occasionally whole companies, 160 to 200 guys. That got really intersting!
I forgot something important. I am adding this after realizing that it would be misleading if I left it out.
Once we were fired at that first time, we were free to fire back. We did not go back in the seccond time, or third, or in one case for me, a 4th time, without being ready to fire back. We had a non-pilot "observer" in our left seat with (usually) a C.A.R. 15, and several bunches of 4 different types of grenades for him to lob out the door as we sometimes hovered over them. And I had a trigger on my cyclic stick (right hand - lateral and directional control of the ship) to fire our mini-gun, mounted on the left sdie of the ship (Bob has his foot on it) which fired at a "reduced" rate of only 2,200 rounds per minute. (yes, the same one I managed to jamb with my "discarded" lunch that third day in the cockpit).
Once we were shot at it was game on. We would make the raido call "Comin' hot" and go in shooting. I just didn't want anyone reading this to think we were naked and defenseless. We were only crazy, not stupid.
Anyway, Bob was shot down 3 times in his one year tour. When this happened the C&C would come down with the "guns" covering him on the way in. Then we would simply crawl out of our cockpit and run over and jump into the back floor of the Huey while it hoverd next to your ship. Then they climbed out and dropped us back at the air strip where we were working out of that day. It was usually pretty quick and simple, but not always. I got to practice both ends of this drill in my 18 months.
One of Bob's episodes was pretty messy - trying to rescue a wounded ground soldier and taking really heavy fire right underneath them. Not a very pretty result. But he survived.
Now the story gets really interesting.
Bob came home to marry his sweetheart and wanted to get a job flying a helicopter. The Atlanta police department was buying their first helicopter and Bob got the job. But as often happened back then, City of Atlanta realized how crazy expensive helicopters are to maintain, and after one year, they dropped the program in a budget crisis. Bob was now a new cop but without an assigment. So he stayed on the force and became a Narc detective (also did "Crimes against children" - which eventually drove him off the force - he simply couldn't stomach some of those horrible cases). Meanwhile that first wife took him to the cleaners financially, divorced him, and turned her two sons completely against Bob (even to this day).
So anyway, Bob and his partner started to smell something "fishy" inside the department itself. They secretely started tailing a couple of senior officers and cuaght them in a drug deal, late one night on the outskirts of town at a junk car lot. They jumped out of hiding and ran over and attempted to arrrest the cops doing the drug deal. Oddly, within moments, several patrol cars rolled into the lot and a senior ranking captain steps out of his car and threatens to put Bob and his partner into "internal affairs" if they don't release the guys to him right then and there. Suspicions rise!
I gotta shorten this - sorry.
So Bob and his partner went higher and got permission to continue their tracking. After weeks of an informant calling in "tips" to Bob and his partner, they start watching this certain sports bar and get a warrant for a group arrest. They go out one night to the bar with warrant in hand and 2 other detectives that they trusted and 4 SWAT team cops to surround the bar and make the arrest. 8 guys covering the entire building.
The "bad guys" walk out and Bob aproaches one of the two leaders with Arrest Warrant in hand - a cop he knows well for years. As Bob approaches and hands him the Warrant, the guy pulls a pistol out of his coat and shoots Bob in the chest at point blank range. Bob goes down on his back and just as the guy walks over to shoot him in the head, one of Bob's partners jumps out from behind this guy and shoots him dead in the back. Then a full scale gunfight erupts in this parking lot between good cops and bad cops - about 14 guys altogether, like the OK corral. Bob arrived at the ER, D.O.A., but they revived him!
So Bob still has he bullet right next to his spine, too close for surgery to remove it. He went back to work FULL TIME on the force for 10 years! Finally retires due to a horrible case of multiple little black boys being serially murdered that got so political Bob could not take it anymore.
Today, Bob is remarried to a wonderful wife with two grown step-sons that worship him. (nice guys, I have met them all.). But he and his partners are still fighting the City of Atlanta for their full health benefits in a mind-boggling legal case that has lasted 25 years!
** When I get down and think life is not going my way, I often think of Bob. To this day, he is one of the kindest, friendliest, happpy, up- beat people I have ever known. Now he is on so much pain medicine he can no longer drive himself.
Bob is the Veteran I wish to remember today.
Thanks for reading another of my long-winded posts.
And Happy Veterans Day to all my classmates who served and all my classmates who had family members who served.
Photo from my reunion 4 years ago. Bob and Gloria (white sweater) are front left - he's in wheel chair with blanket. It was warm but his legs get cold all the time.
|
This video is, IMHO, brilliantly done.....a little self-deprecation on both sides is good for the soul
