Notes

1 It was years later that I found out that Crawford was actually a Criminal Investigation Detective planted in the company to find drugs and drug dealers. He was already a warrant officer.

2 A klick is a common term for one kilometer or 1000 meters, about 0.6 miles. Military topographic maps are measured in klicks.

3 Maximum torque on the UH-1D is 43 pounds. On the UH-1H it is 50 pounds. We flew both at the time.

4 A unit call sign with a response of India indicated that instead of taking to the commander, you were actually talking to the commander’s radio operator.

5 Each piece of equipment in the Army has an operator’s manual, which is referred to as the -10. For the UH-1D and UH-1H helicopters, it is TM55-1520-210-10. TM stands for Technical Manual.

6 A named landing zone was commonly referred to as Firebase or LZ. LZ and Firebase (sometimes called FSB, for fire support base) were interchangeable.

7 Camp Gorvad, previously Phuoc Vinh Base Camp, was named after LTC Gorvad, who commanded an infantry battalion at LZ Grant in February of 1969. The LZ was attacked and LTC Gorvad was severely wounded, losing both legs to a mortar, but refused to leave the battle, putting others on the medivac aircraft. He died of those wounds.

8 He wrote to my mother that this was the worst ass chewing he had ever received in his military career.

9 Det cord is basically composition C-4 explosive in rope form, used for wrapping around trees and blowing them over.

10 Official reports indicate that this landing zone was created by a daisy cutter bomb. That is not correct, and no landing zones that were employed in air assault operations were created by daisy cutter bombs.

11 Other sources indicate the operational name was Operation Dong Tien II, which may have been the name employed for Republic of Vietnam operations operating in concert with the 1st Cav operations.

12 For his actions that day, Sergeant West was recommended for the Congressional Medal of Honor, which was downgraded to a Distinguished Service Cross. He went on to retire from the military.

13 The ground commander did not know that Blue Max had departed, leaving only two Cobra gunships to cover the insertion.

14 A policy was enacted that aircraft taking fire in approaching or departing a PZ/LZ would drop a smoke grenade to mark the shooters’ position for the Cobra gunships.

15 He would spend six weeks in a coma, only coming out of it after he was at the Army Burn Center at Fort Sam Houston, Texas, and would spend another year in recovery. Today, he is doing very well.