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Photographs Young Cavalrymen

Angel said:
Did you fly a helicopter in your service?
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Only in Germany and the U.S. and usually only when the pilot wanted me to learn a maneuver or he wanted to sleep a hangover off but needed Air Time to draw his flight pay. I was never legal but my pilots in Nam loved having one more pilot on board, legal or not. And to this day, I still do not know why we needed seat belts and other restraints. Crash, nah, that's for losers and get shot down? Only three times and they did not kill me.

But the truth is, if you crash, you will not live! And you cannot point your Machinegun if you are strapped in and those kids flying that mess really counted on us making those other people quit shooting at them. You must be young and dumb... and all of us were. This might be my favorite of all I have made.
 
Oh, I almost forgot, I did crawl out on the left skid to hang upside down at five thousand feet, moving at only 20 knots to see how big the hole in the Fuel Tank was, is that flying? My Gunner just told me I was stupid!
 
Angel said:
What would've happened if you got caught flying?
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My Pilot would have gotten his rear end chewed out and we would have laughed it off with some of my whiskey. The Maintenance Officer caught me moving my huey one day and chewed on me for a week about not using the wheels and a tow motor to move it but it never went on my record as is directed in the UCMJ. (Uniform Code of Military Justice) The units in the military are much tighter than most will ever know, I mean, we kill to keep each other healthy, it is a special relationship.

You see, when a Huey left the ground in Vietnam, our average lifespan was three point five minutes, a lot of us died on a very regular basis. In the Spade we averaged better than three men dead every week and in direct violation of every regulation, the pilots and the crew got drunk on the Flight Line every Thursday night. Every Friday morning they suffered, with swollen heads as the Old Man explained to out 19 year old Pilots why they must never get drunk with us again.

If you said there was a love unto death, none of us will argue the point. Being the Senior Crew Chief I could fly with anybody I chose to but my 19 year old promised me, I was almost 24, that he would fly me right into the jaws of Hell and then fly me back out of them, and he did. WE were a mess but we were a life or death team.
 
Y
Angel said:
Wow. That's intense!
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Yes and every one of us lived with the same pressure. Since WW II every soldier has lived with that same intense pressure. New and more efficient means of death creates more animal like struggles for survival.
 
Angel said:
Did you or have you had PTSD from those experiences?
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My dad, my stepfather, fought every step of the Pacific and then in Korea and he had Shell Shock, PTSD, and neither I nor any Combat or Close Combat Support Veteran escaped without PTSD. Most of us lie or lied to ourselves about having it ut the nightmares can make it tough to live with us.

My wife stopped a long time ago I woke her up wretching in tears and calling Paul's name, or screaming for some unseen person, one of my men, to get in the d**n hole before they kill you, or many other pleasant memories.

It was '78 before I understood that I was normal and began to talk about it to relieve the pressure and that is the reason I am not the least mad anymore at being trash-canned by my previous three wives. It took my dad two wives to find one able to take his demons and it took Jesus and three attempts, on my own, before Jesus introduced me to the lady He had prepared to be my other half and best friend.

I would, in my old self, I would bet a month's pay that the only Veterans that have ever escaped clean of PTSD were not Combat and were not Close Combat Support. They would be what we, disapprovingly, call Saigon Warriors.

If your best friend has ever exploded five yards in front of you and you had to find a river before you could wash all the pieces of him off or if you've ever found your very best friend blown to pieces with his head looking at you, eyes wide open, from a 105mm Howetzer Shell box that he had used for a bookcase for his paperback novels or if you've ever flown the Commanding General's son, wrapped, only in his plastic parka and then had to land in the shallows of the river to wash the blood and brain matter off your uniform, helmet and off the walls and floorboard, it is likely you dream, over and over.
 
th1b.taylor said:
My dad, my stepfather, fought every step of the Pacific and then in Korea and he had Shell Shock, PTSD, and neither I nor any Combat or Close Combat Support Veteran escaped without PTSD. Most of us lie or lied to ourselves about having it ut the nightmares can make it tough to live with us.

My wife stopped a long time ago I woke her up wretching in tears and calling Paul's name, or screaming for some unseen person, one of my men, to get in the d**n hole before they kill you, or many other pleasant memories.

It was '78 before I understood that I was normal and began to talk about it to relieve the pressure and that is the reason I am not the least mad anymore at being trash-canned by my previous three wives. It took my dad two wives to find one able to take his demons and it took Jesus and three attempts, on my own, before Jesus introduced me to the lady He had prepared to be my other half and best friend.

I would, in my old self, I would bet a month's pay that the only Veterans that have ever escaped clean of PTSD were not Combat and were not Close Combat Support. They would be what we, disapprovingly, call Saigon Warriors.

If your best friend has ever exploded five yards in front of you and you had to find a river before you could wash all the pieces of him off or if you've ever found your very best friend blown to pieces with his head looking at you, eyes wide open, from a 105mm Howetzer Shell box that he had used for a bookcase for his paperback novels or if you've ever flown the Commanding General's son, wrapped, only in his plastic parka and then had to land in the shallows of the river to wash the blood and brain matter off your uniform, helmet and off the walls and floorboard, it is likely you dream, over and over.
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Just.... Wow
 
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