being rescued. At 10,000 feet the mechanism triggered and my parachute opened. The risers came out fast. I had not tucked my chin and they scraped the bottom of my chin up pretty bad.
The ground came up pretty fast and I was looking for villages and patrols. The last thing I wanted was to make it this far and get captured by the PAVs. There were several large open areas that I could have chosen for landing zones. I passed them up because they were in sight of villages. If civilians captured me it might be worse than PAV regulars. Pulling hard on my risers I steered the chute to the most isolated area I could see. There was a small field outlying the other, larger areas. The best part about it was there was a ridgeline between my position and the nearest village.
I screwed up the landing and broke my elbow and two of my fingers. That and two burnt feet were a small price to pay considering what I had just been through.
At least I was alive for now. Whether or not that continued since I was deep inside Old North Vietnam.
I pulled out my survival radio and hoped someone was crazy enough to come and get me.
Staff Sergeant Mike Dolby
HH-60 Gunner
We were in the middle of eating dinner when my pilot Andy Bean came into the chow hall waving his arms. He had just come from the Squadron Operations Center and it looked like we had a customer.
"Scramble! Scramble! We're going in," the shouts went up, and my crew and I ran to our HH-60 as Bean and the copilot Coggins started the engines. We carried little boxes of cereal, granola bars and cinnamon rolls with us as we left the chow hall. We shoved our pockets full of the stuff. There was no telling when we would eat again.
As the helicopter got airborne, we manned the guns and prepared ourselves. We had to trust our training and preparation. The aircraft had been cocked on for fast launch. There was no time for everyone to double check our gear.
We did not know what we were going into. The guy we were going in to pull out might have already been captured. The PAVs might have his equipment and were trying to draw us into a trap. Or he could have died when he hit the ground or fell off a cliff evading. We had to be prepared for anything.
As the helicopters now sped across the ground to rescue one Major Arthur, according to the sheet intel handed us going out the door, I scanned the ground below, looking for enemies. This was called visual scanning. Despite all our technological wonders including thermal and night vision this was the best way to spot the enemy. The weather was clear for the first time the operation began. At least we had that going for us.
Major Ben Arthur
F-16 Fighting Falcon Pilot
Old North Vietnam
The only way to get through the bamboo was to crawl through it. Every step on my burnt feet sent pain up my leg. Struggling every step of the way, I cursed how slow it was going. I wanted to find somewhere to hole up before any unfriendlies showed up.
Finally I emerged into some dense jungle.
I had plenty of gear with me if I had to stay for a while. There was a survival radios with two extra batteries in my pocket. Besides my issued 9 mm automatic, I also had four knives. In addition I had sewn razor blades into my flight suit in various locations. The blades were for them and me. The idea of spending twenty years in a tiger cage getting my fingernails pulled out scared the shit out of me. I had decided before the war even started that if I got captured and if I couldn’t get away I’d do myself in.
For hydration, I had a bag full of water. It was not nearly enough. I drank half of it already.
The sound of an F-16 aircraft thundered overhead. I turned on my radio, which I had been toggling on and off as needed to save battery power, to see what was going on.
It was one of my formation and from the voice I could tell it was Lieutenant Wilkes. The irony was I had just
Brian Keene, J.F. Gonzalez