Word: choppers
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Duty & Dogs. In the enlisted ranks, few Negro G.I.s are better known than Sergeant Lonnie Galley Samuel, another Silver Star winner, who leads a "Blue Team" of an Air Cav battalion. His job: to draw enemy fire from a chopper, then land and engage in hopes of provoking a major battle ("Sam" has provoked a batch in the past year). Asked why he does not apply for a commission, Sam, at 41, laughs: "I can't do that, man. I'd be the oldest lieutenant in the Army...
...headquarters. In a tin box on one of the Communist bodies was a Chinese mortar sight, on others a compass, quadrant and binoculars: ominous evidence that the North Vietnamese might be preparing to clobber An Khe with mortar fire in preparation for an assault. Into the mountains swept chopper loads of Air Cavalrymen to "spoil" the Red attack before it could be mounted...
...Viet Nam veteran stationed at the Army's main pilot-training center, Fort Rucker, I am one of those Army chopper jockeys feeling the "pilot pinch" [April 14] -in the paycheck. The Army can afford up to $245-a-month hazardous-duty pay for commissioned officers, but the maximum it can muster for its growing corps of warrant-officer pilots is $165 a month. My present hazardous-duty pay as a chief warrant is a whopping $115, compared with the $180 a captain with equal time in service would draw flying the same aircraft on the same mission with...
...Operations David McDonald admits to "urgent pilot needs"; Air Force Chief of Staff J. P. McConnell worries about the "down ward trend" in pilot retention. The Army, whose 3,800 helicopter pilots in Viet Nam have virtually revolutionized the art of warfare, has more than tripled its output of chopper jockeys in the past year, but still lacks enough trained pilots to man all of its birds in Europe...
...jets flew 117 sorties over roiling Suoi Tre, bombing the attackers with explosives, napalm and anti-personnel bomblets. Two distant artillery batteries walked more than 2,000 shells through the enemy's ranks, some striking as close as 100 ft. to the shrunken U.S. perimeter. A big Chinook chopper swept through smoke and fire to drop slings of fresh ammunition. But the G.I.s were down to their last bullets, and in some bunkers to a single grenade. Eleven of the batteries' 18 howitzers lay silenced by enemy fire; artillerymen loaded the remaining guns while kneeling amid burning shells...