189th AHC Ghostriders First Tour 1970

i'm al cena i did two tours of duty in vietnam this is a story about my first tour i arrived in vietnam in march of 1970. it would take about two weeks to get to my final destination and that destination would be play coup camp holloway and i would be assigned to the 189th assault helicopter company ghost riders the first sergeant told me to report to first platoon silver flight i was going to be a door gunner heck i was only 19 and i sure didn't know what a door gunner was but i would find out this is warren officer dowd sitting in 492. this right here is beautiful downtown pleiku city i'm on the left and the guy on the right with the hat on is sergeant tiger the guy in the back with the glasses that's richard c prize he's my crew chief and he would teach me the ropes i don't think i was a happy camper having to put these flares up frank has his privileges somebody had to do it the hooch mage would shine her boots and wash her clothes i think the one looking at us i think her name was tom after about a month of flying i was starting to get the hang of things and uh by by then you've pretty much figured out that it's not much fun getting shot at most of the time we supported the fifth special forces group up in their tri-border area they had their little camp spread out all over the place up there places like doc peck doxyang dokto benhett it was an extremely dangerous place to fly and when you flew for the special forces he was probably going to get shot at about april 1st doxiang special forces camp came under attack and was under siege it would go on to be a long and bloody fight coming hot that's just recorded sound but it might kind of give you an idea what it was like in the chopper there when the crew chief and the door gunner were working out for their 60s this is davis a crew chief and sometimes i would gun for him about one or two days after this picture was taken we were shot down at doxiang lz kangaroo and davis was severely wounded in this picture you'll see a big old hole down there on the floorboard that's where a 51 cow came up through and splattered shrapnel all through the chopper and also all through davis i pulled davis out of the well i thought he was dead but he was just unconscious i was afraid we would go down in a big ball of fire jp 4 was just all over we were soaked gary hall the ac did one hell of a flying job trying to find us a place to crash we finally went down and were rescued davis survived and was sent to japan to heal up the good lord sure looked after us that day this is beck he's half baboon and rock eight he belonged to sergeant sorel's down in the motor pool he only had one eye and he was just meaning a rattlesnake if he wasn't careful he'd jump down there and bite an ear off they had to keep him chained up this is a 361st area weapons company snake cobra i did my second tour in the 361st area weapons company right there at camp hall away [Music] [Music] oh [Music] it ain't me [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] um [Music] oh [Music] me [Applause] [Music] during about the last week of april when dox yang was starting to wind down we started getting an influx of choppers from all over the 129th the 155th the 61st 119th the 57th and others i haven't even heard of were coming into camp holloway and setting up shop camp holloway was full of choppers and tents charlie knew it too charlie knew something was up so they would hit us every night with a few mortars and rockets they even scored a direct hit one night on somebody's tent and killed a bunch today's the day it's may 1st and guess what we're getting ready to invade cambodia they trucked 101st airborne division all the way from fubai down here and and you can see them starting to come up the ramp there it looked like the whole division but we were all getting ready to saddle up and head west we would stop at lz x-ray and make final preparations and get everything coordinated and then it was off to cambodia during the next month we will make a lot of insertions and fly a lot of resupply missions in and out of cambodia on may 7th on a resupply mission inside cambodia charlie shot us up pretty good and i went down from a second time this picture is kind of dark and it's hard to see but if you look in the center up the top real close you'll see a whole bunch of holes up there but the actual round that took us out was uh to the left there where that transmission cover is missing around just missed my head by about a quarter inch and went into the transmission we managed to make it back to the border before we went down it wouldn't be too long after our cambodian adventure that prize would finish his tour of vietnam and go back home to the world and i would become crew chief of 492. this guy right here is bud rockwell we all called him rock and he was my brand new door gunner rock was a grunt that came over from the 52nd battalion there anyway he was from boston and just a really great guy i taught him the ropes just like prize taught me when i was a door gunner guess what charlie we're coming for [Music] american woman stay away from me [Music] i don't want to see your face no more i got more important things to do but spend my time growing stay away american woman [Applause] [Music] american woman get away from me me this is a firebase i can't remember the name of it it's been over 43 years so it's hard to remember all these names at one time i could tell you these firebases were strategically placed to give cover fire to the special forces camps the tribe order area was called indian country it was mountains and thick jungle and all these little old special forces camps and firebases laid right in the middle of charlie's backyard every hundred hours our aircraft would have to go to maintenance to be checked out and we might be down for two or three days during that time we would usually crew another aircraft this particular day i was crewing the old warburg we flew up to one of those special forces camps as you can see these camps were well fortified they had to be because they were taken on the hardcore nva not the vietcong the nba was well armed well-trained and very disciplined the battle at doc's yang lasted approximately 30 days the camp was under siege and the nva's intention was to overrun the camp and kill everybody in there the battle was costly we lost a lot of pilots door gunners and crew chiefs not only us but all of the other units that were supporting the camp too like the 170th 57th 119th they even shot down an air force jolly green and everybody on board was kia that was me and i confetti on the right ike was my door gunner for that day here's another shot of ike in the well i just heard recently that the hike has passed on [Music] writers on the storm [Music] riders on the storm into this house we're born into this world we're thrown [Music] there's a killer on the road his brain is squirming like a joke [Music] take a long holiday let your children play if you give this man a right sweet family will die killer on the road [Music] [Music] do [Music] girl you gotta love your man [Music] girl you gotta love your man take him by the hand make him understand the world on you depends how life will never end god [Music] [Music] so [Music] on may 10th all the companies of the 52nd battalion had to show up for formation up here at battalion headquarters a general was flying in to give a few of us some medals that's me on the end and that's general george putman he came all the way up from saigon to pen a medal on a few of us this was for action on uh april 4th at doc's yang everybody's aircraft was full of holes that day that's vega on the right he's a door gunner and we're at doctor on standby occasionally we would have to go back the 170th up they flew most of the fob missions up in the tri-border area and occasionally they would call on us to back them up or help them out so we're on standby and just kind of waiting one of the 170th birds was pulling people around on the strings if you wanted to you can have a little fun there i didn't but some of them did yeah this is me at uh out in a boonie somewhere i don't have any idea where it was at but uh i was out there kind of clowning around having some fun i don't know maybe i thought it was some kind of native or something with a spear these guys are yards trained by the special forces they were tenacious fighters and they were feared by the nva these guys were terrific this is rock and his tape recorder we used to listen to this thing all the time [Music] you've got to change is [Music] all over town [Music] is [Music] [Music] find somebody [Music] know [Music] when i go home [Music] my house [Music] i'm getting is [Music] [Music] so rock and i decided it was time to take an r and r so we loaded up in the back of this deuce and a half and headed over to pleiku air base we were as happy as two kids in a candy store we couldn't wait to get out of the war for a while bangkok here we come not long after r r it would be time for rock to go back home this is a picture of rock and leroy our good grunt friend up at 52nd standing in front of old 492 i was happy for rock but i knew i would miss him he was my best friend and he was one hell of a door gunner this was probably one of the last times i said no 492 492 was a great old war bird i went down three times but every time i went down i was in a different aircraft 492 never failed us she brought us home safe every time it wouldn't be long until the ghost riders were deactivated and i would move on to the 170th assault helicopter company up in contour that's rick hill on the left he was a door gunner in the 170th and he was a really good friend the 170th was in the process of shutting down two so i wouldn't be there too long in fact i was one of the very last 20 guys to leave life in a combat unit was stressful and at times terrifying i lost a lot of friends but i'll tell you one thing it was an honor to serve with some of the bravest men in the world the ghost riders [Music] after the vietnam war 492 was sent to wichita kansas she was converted to a medevac chopper she served there for years she eventually went on and served in iraq she now sits on display at smithville texas at the vfw post 1309 and after 43 years i finally got to put my hands on her again [Music] you

Channel: Albert Sena

Views: 494,819

Keywords: Ghostriders, Vietnam War (Event), Vietnam (Country), 189th Assault Helicopter Company, Doorgunners

Id: ON75nV6UgQA

Length: 25min 49sec (1549 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 23 2013