|
David Mitchell
Janie and Clare,
Looking forward to it.
------------
One-Way Tickets
Today, we celebrate what I sometimes refer to as "One-Way Tickets Day". I imagine we all know someone who went away to serve but did not make the trip back home. We used to refer to that as a "One-Way" ticket.
The photo below is one of those ironic memories for me. It represents both sides of life - the joyful, full-of-life side, and the sad, tragic side.
I am reminded of how fragile and sacred this gift of life is. (Something I seem to recall hearing about earlier this week). I am also grateful to have known people who paid such a steep price for the nice life I have here in America.
The main person in the photo is a buddy of mine in Flight School. His name was Oscar Mayer (no pun intended - but yes, lots of jokes about it). He was from somewhere in Pennsylvania and was going to marry his girlfriend when we came back home. We had become good friends and he asked me to be in his wedding when we came home. He was a classmate throughout the 5 months of "Primary Flight School" out in West Texas, and then the 4 months of "Advanced Flight School" at Hunter Army Airfield in Savanah, GA. (those were the first two segments of flight school training, after which they sent us to the real flight school on the Mekong River)
(,,,,,,,, that was a joke. We graduatd flight School with about 200 fligth hours. We though we rellly knew about flying helicopters, especially when they put us in Hueys for the final 50 hours. I guess the reason we actually went to Vietnm was to experince the shock of learnign how little we actually knew about flying a helicopter - another joke)
Oscar was a funny guy. This is a shot of us clowning around in the barracks on a Saturday morning - a day when we were not required to be up before daylight to "stand for inspection" before being released from our barracks to march over to the mess hall, and then on to the classroooms or the flght line. Those weekday early morning inspections could be fraught with stress. Standing at rigid attention along the hallway with a T.A.C. officer, screaming in your face at the top of his lungs about what a useles piece of S- - - you were, or how dare you have a loose shirt thread, or your not-close-enough shave, or whatever he thought might rattle you the most.
So here we are, pretending to "stand for inspection" with Oscar acting as our TAC officer, barking out orders or making his threats about punishments to come.
Notice his uniform, a shoe polish lid for some decoration on his flight jacket, and rank and field-grade marking of a senior officer, done with shaving cream on his hat brim, shoulders, and and breast pocket. And of course, his General McCarthur sun glasses. We really did have a lot of fun in flight school. Most of it consisted of making light of our harsh situation. We tried to be as disrespectful as possible, and we managed to get pretty "creative" about that.
The "other side" of the story follows the photo. '
(my roomate and best friend, Mike Lee, on extreme right)
(I'm sure you might miss it, but I still laugh at Oscar's flight jacket tucked into his underwear shorts.)
So, as you will have guessed by now, Oscar got one of those "One Way" tickets. It was just on my going home trip (I am blessed to have had a "Two-Way ticket" - both times! ) that I heard Oscar's sad story.
(Note: After flight school graduation, we were all sent over to join seperate units, so we were not together, but instead, spread out all over the country in different units)
Oscar was a Huey pilot with a unit up near Saigon and was with a small flight of ships with his unit, flying near downtown Saigon. Like so many other US helicopter pilots in that area, they wanted to fly under some famous bridge in Saigon. (it may have been thee "Saigon Bridge"). Doing so was against regulations - a serious violation, often resulting in a serious reprimand. So they were going to do it as fast as possibe - in a tight formation - at really high speed, and hopefully not get caught.
(And the bridge was quite low above the river.)
So they flew under the bridge and had barely cleared it when their airspeed worked against them. A phenomenon known as "retreating blade stall" occured. (a problem unique to Hueys - Bell designed twin rotor blade design). As I understand it, what happens is your "retreating blade" - the one swinging backward around from your 12:00 O'clock (front) to your left side and then behind - is moving backward at a speed that is too slow for the forward airspeed of the ship, and effectively "dragging" or pulling the whole ship to the left and down - strongly and sudenly. When it happens, the pilot is usually not able to correct it quicky enough, and the ship plunges downand to the left into steep stall and simultaneous dive.
Being so close to the water level, Oscar's ship apparantly dove hard into the Saigon River and they were killed by the crash impact. Of all the combat deaths and all the crazy accidents we experienced, this is still the weirdest one I have ever heard of.
Today, Oscar will be one of those handful of guys whom I will be remembering.
Live out your "gift "while you have it.
|
