Attention in the HSC84 spaces, Seawolves arriving

Helicopter Assault [Light] 3 - HA[L]3
Our legacy. This took a while to go write up, but its still a great story, and I had to make sure that I posted it. On July 18th we had a visit from members of the HA[L]3, Vietnam War veterans who were frankly amazing gentlemen to speak with. I need to backtrack here just a bit to how they came to visit us. I was walking through my hotel lobby (yes, I have to stay in a hotel because barracks on base are completely full), and I noticed that there was a Vietnam Veterans reunion going on. Their name was called the "Game Wardens of Vietnam", essentially there were a few different groups there, but there were a lot of helicopter guys, ground pounders and small boat craft veterans. As I was walking through I saw a few gentlemen with the logo posted above, the logo for the HA[L] 3 Seawolves, so I stopped and chatted with them for about 5 minutes. I explained I was a member of HSC 84, and that our legacy was the Seawolves (we are now called the Redwolves).

When I mentioned this to Senior Chief Danner the next day at work, all he could say was "Cool, you invited them to the hangar right?". Oops, rookie mistake, I let members of our legacy, those that had served before us in essentially the same unit go by without offering them our hospitality. Needless to say that night the reunion was still going on in my hotel, and I spent about an hour hunting down the same guys - and I made sure to invite them to our hangar the next day. I exchanged phone numbers, and eventually it was decided that at 1500 they would come by and visit.

The next day around 1500, I saw them in the parking lot and went back into the maintenance desk to let everyone know they were coming in. Next thing I heard was over the 1 MC "Attention in the HSC 84 Spaces, Seawolves now arriving". One of the pilots that knew a lot more about our history than I did, had met them in the parking lot and walked them into the hangar. We had a big poster board out that had pictures of the squadron throughout the years, from the Bin Thuy flightline that they used to work out of, to our current day hangar and the HH-60H helos that we fly today. These guys seemed to be very impressed with that, and were taking a look over the board quite intently.

Next we brought them out to into the hangar and started to show them the birds that we currently fly. Some of the pilots and aircrewman seemed pretty amazed at how the helos looked now compared to what they had flown back in the day.

A little sidebar history here on HA[L] 3. I'm going to recount what I remember both hearing, and what I've remembered reading - as my wife likes to tell me, my memory can be shaky, and this may not 100% accurate. I apologize in advance if I'm wrong here... HA[L] 3 was originally stood up using Army huey's. The Army Huey, or Bell UH-1, looks like this:

These Hueys were essentially left over birds, ones that could be spared for the Navy. Both the Army and Marine Corps had great necessity for these helicopters due to their nature of combat, so the Navy had to make due with what it could get at the time. One of the main reasons HA[L] 3 was stood up was out of necessity. During the Vietnam war there were small light attack craft patrolling the water ways of Vietnam - you know the ones that John Kerry served on. These craft needed air cover during most of their missions, and so the Army was originally tasked with providing it. This did not work out as well as either branch had hoped, and so the Navy stood up its own helicopter assault force, which was HA[L] 3.

From what I can gather the primary mission for HA[L] 3 was to do insertion and extraction of SEALs (sound familiar? our mission today!) and to cover the PBR boats that were patrolling the water ways of Vietnam. It was a dangerous mission, and unfortunately HA[L] 3 suffered many KIAs and WIAs during the Vietnam War - but they were most certainly heroes to almost everyone they served with. One Veteran that I spoke with at my hotel said this when I told him I was looking for HA[L] 3 members: "HA[L] 3, those guys were crazy! They would fly into places I didn't think a helicopter could fly, but man, they'd fly in there. I swore half of them were nuts. I thank God they did though, they saved our lives quite a few times." I remember this gentleman because he was a veteran of a PBR boat, or a River Patrol Boat, and I could tell he had great respect for the men of HA[L] 3.

In the hangar we showed them around a bit, and the men were looking at the aircraft, comparing what weapons we had on them now to the weapons they flew. Of course we now have Forward Looking Infrared (FLIR), radar, and a host of counter measure systems. Our armament is a little more up to date as well, but it was amazing listening to the men of HA[L] 3 and some of the missions that they accomplished. During their visit we took this photo in the hangar bay -

Yep - there's me in the front row on the right, surrounded by real heroes and warriors - I was proud to be there.

There is one gentleman that you need to try and locate now - He has a large white beard an is in the back row. His head is turned to the left hand side of the photo.. find him? Now here's his story, and I'm going to do my very best to recount it.

How to Win A Navy Cross 101
The gentleman in the picture above is the recipient of the US Navy Cross. To put how amazing that is the Navy Cross is ranked in order of precedence, one behind the Medal of Honor. That is purely in the Navy order of precedence, but it is the highest ranking medal you can receive in the Navy - other than the Medal of Honor. That should sink in a moment because most of these medals are given posthumously, because the acts of bravery are so selfless that most have died to accomplish them.

While we were chatting in the squadron hangar bay, we could all see that he had earned that medal - he was wearing a small replica of all his medals. So we asked him to recount the story, and I'm going to try my best to both paraphrase and recount the story accurately. I hope I can get across the magnitude of the actions this man took, without losing any of the facts.

From what he recounted to me, the story went like this:

There was a ARVN (Army of the Republic of Vietnam), or the South Vietnamese Army, battalion that was doing a patrol in the jungle. In that battalion there was an embedded Master Sargeant and Major from the US Army, acting as consultants. What the ARVN battalion command did not know was that there were traitors in their midst, and they had given away the entire planned patrol route to the North Vietnamese. Thus this battalion was walking directly into an ambush.

When the firefight broke out, the Army Major on the ground called for air support and an extraction. The words that I remember the gentleman telling me were that they were "getting killed down here". Thus HA[L] 3 went into action. They got into their Huey's and took off to the area where the firefight had broken out, and the distress call was being sent from.

As they arrived the second Huey took fire, and the pilot was injured and some hydraulics had been hit - so he was in pretty bad shape. It turns out that as the NVA (North Vietnamese Army) had known where the battalion would be patrolling, they also knew there would be gunship support - so they armed themselves with anti-air caliber guns. At this point with his wing man hit, and injured, and the men on the ground in dire straits - he ordered his wingman home, and continued on.

He went down and continued to fire from the air, even though the Army Major had insisted that they were "done for" and they couldn't be saved. The situation was so bad on the ground that the command had almost been overrun and they were calling off support.

Instead of heading home, he decided to continue in and rescue those that were left. As he radioed in he asked for them to pop smoke to identify the LZ (landing zone) where the friendly troops were. Part of the information the NVA spies had managed to gather was the color of the smoke they would pop in the event an extraction was necessary. So the NVA also popped the same smoke, and he unfortunately landed near the NVA instead of the ARVN unit. He took large amounts of small arm fire, but managed to take off again, and relocate the ARVN unit on the ground.

The second landing didn't go much better - even though he was closer to the friendly unit on the ground, the NVA was all around and the Huey was taking a large amount of small arms fire again. The Army Major and Master Sergeant, as well as the ARVN Battalion commander, managed to get on board the Huey, even though they were injured. Due to the weight of the additional men on board, plus the Huey being hit from small arms fire, taking off did not go well. Instead of climbing and gaining altitude as helicopters usually do, the Huey just bounced along the ground. The clearing they were in was not large, and so as they bounced along the ground trees were quickly approaching and endangering the Huey. The solution was to use all the rockets loaded on the Huey and blow the trees down, giving them enough 'runway' to take off successfully.

So to summarize, this man managed to risk his (and his crew's life) to save 3 other men, and in the face of unbelievable odds thought clearly enough to clear a 'runway' so they could take off. The end of the story goes well enough, all the men survived, but a lot were injured. The twist here is that when the Army Major woke up there was a JAG Lieutenant (Judge Advocate General - yes lawyers) standing in front of him. He started asking strange questions, and when the Major asked why he was asking those questions the JAG LT said "well we're trying to determine whether to charge the pilot with a court martial". The Major apparently replied something like "Court martial? I'm alive because of that man, and he should have the medal of honor" - and wouldn't say anything else.

Unfortunately he had violated two major Rules of Engagement at the time:
1) Never leave your wingman - yes, all you Top Gun fans, it's true.
2) Never go against overwhelming enemy fire.

As you can see the net outcome is that the Navy came to its senses and honored a man who risked all to save a few men. My most unfortunate side of this whole story is that I can not remember his name - if I can, then I will surely post it.

Overall it was a great day with the HA[L] 3 Seawolves, and its one of those experiences I don't want to ever forget!