Speech given at Creekside High School in South Fulton County near Fairburn, GA on January 29. 2002 The news media has for decades portrayed Vietnam veterans as losers, victims suffering from one disorder or another from the stress of combat. It may surprise you to know that isn't true and never has been. The vast majority of Vietnam veterans served their country with honor and courage, and returned to civilian life to lead well-adjusted, productive lives. Terry Garlock answered the call when asked to serve his country when he was 20 years old, and was trained as a pilot in the world's first helicopter designed as a gunship, the Cobra. Terry served in Vietnam, was shot down and seriously wounded, after which he returned to the US through hospitals in Vietnam and Japan. Terry was awarded the Purple Heart for wounds in combat, and the Bronze Star and the Distinguished Flying Cross for his actions in combat.
Freedom Is Not Free
You probably have heard the slogan “Freedom is not free.” Perhaps the ones who knew best the cost of freedom were America’s founding fathers – George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, John Adams, John Hancock, Benjamin Franklin and others. Did you know that America was very nearly not born? Sometimes when you read about history, it almost seems the events that took place were inevitable, and that history just explains how it happened. But history is NOT inevitable, and the efforts of courageous and determined people change the course of history. I hope we are teaching American History in schools today in a way that honors the founding fathers, the ones who pledged “our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor” to the cause of freedom for America. If you said to me “the founding fathers were rich white slaveowners” here’s how I would answer. Maybe some of them were. But they were the one who risked everything for a noble cause and achieved the impossible. With a rag-tag army of ill-equipped volunteers, led and inspired in battle by the courage of George Washington, they defeated the most powerful military force in the world at that time. Then George Washington reluctantly agreed to serve as the first president, and at the end of his term he did something quite remarkable and unheard of at the time – he relinquished power peacefully to his elected successor. And the experiment of democracy was begun. But the birth of America was not inevitable, and very nearly did not happen. Freedom for America was purchased with the blood of brave and determined individuals, and our freedom has been preserved since then in the same way. In all of America’s military conflicts, whether WWII when young men like my father saved the world, or even Vietnam when many Americans said we should not even be there, Americans in uniform have fought with honor and courage, and they have died in service of their country. But too often we forget. When you hear how many Americans died in one war or another, the price paid seems to hide in the numbers. In the Vietnam example, over 58,000 Americans died, nearly 5,000 of those were helicopter pilots like me, or their crew members. But numbers don’t tell the real story. Each and every one is a life cut short, a tragic loss of a son, a brother, an uncle, a father or a husband. And in Vietnam some of those losses were women. Though the Vietnam war was controversial, those who died weren’t fighting because they wanted to, they died serving their country. Freedom is not free. As we go about our daily lives, we take for granted the freedom and opportunity we have in America.. Most of us were born with the advantage of American citizenship, so its no big deal, right? I have a 5 year old daughter named Melanie, adopted from China. I remember when we took Melanie to the Atlanta office of the INS to become a citizen. There was no ceremony, and no fancy surroundings, it was just a drab government office. But as we sat waiting our turn I looked around the waiting room at people of various ages and races who appeared to be from all over the world, and I’m sure many spoke just enough English to pass the citizenship test. But as they waited and when their turn was called, and then when they emerged with their certificate of citizenship, the look on their faces told the story that this was the most important day of their life – the day they became a citizen of the United States of America. And there are millions more everywhere who would do anything for the chance to become an American citizen. But we take it for granted. Why do only half of those qualified bother to vote, while immigrant citizens vote in exceptionally high numbers? Maybe its because freedom and opportunity are appreciated most by those who have lived without them, and as citizens they feel a responsibility to preserve those rights. So should we all. This is why I am here to talk to you today. I want to remind you that freedom is not guaranteed, and there are forces in the world dedicated to the destruction of our country. Once again our country is at war to defend freedom, our young men and women in uniform are doing the dirty, unpleasant work that must be done, sometimes at great risk to themselves. They are doing it for their country, and they are doing it for you. Please show me your hand if someone in your family or someone you know is on active duty serving in this war. . . . . Thank you, and thanks to your loved ones who are serving their country. Once I fought in a war, and I can tell you some of what its like. But the secret every veteran knows is that we can never really convey the war experience and how it changes you. Maybe that’s why so many veterans simply don’t talk about it. You had to be there to understand how soldiers came to love one another as they fought desperately trying to keep each other alive. Too much of it is hard to translate into words, some of it is too terrible to say out loud. But today we’ll talk about it because you should know what others are enduring for their country and for you. The Young Pay The Price When I was your age in high school in Pensacola, Florida, the nightly news was focused on Vietnam and daily body counts on our side and our enemy’s side. I guess if we killed more of them than they killed of us, we were winning, one of the absurdities of that miserable war. None of us wanted to go to war, especially an unpopular war the public hated. A very few people were genuine conscientious objectors to war by their religion, but they could perform alternative forms of public service. Some dodged the draft, some headed to Canada to evade the draft, and others faked an effeminate nature or pulled other tricks to fail their draft physical. You decide what to think of those people. For us, when our country called, we answered. We answered because it was our duty to do so, as our fathers answered the call to WWII and our older brothers to Korea, and because we loved our country and could not turn our back because service was inconvenient or because we lacked courage. We had to answer because our parents had taught us well, and we knew it was the right thing to do. Like many guys I joined the Army to avoid the draft and in exchange for a selected specialty, in my case helicopter flight school – that sounded like a lot more fun than pounding the ground with a rifle. I endured the physical and emotional abuse of 8 weeks of Army boot camp, and learned to do things under pressure I never thought possible. Then I studied and worked hard to make it through a year of academic and physical challenges of flight school, not to speak of learning to coordinate very sensitive helicopter flight controls in 3 dimensions with 3 different controls each affecting the other. Only 35% of those who started flight school made it through, the other 65% washed out. We learned how to fly old, slow helicopters in basic school, and in advanced school we trained in the Bell Huey UH-1, called “slicks” in Vietnam, the basic workhorse and troop transport of a mobile Army. I worked hard, graduated at the top of my class and was rewarded with a choice of a special advanced school to learn to fly another aircraft. I chose to learn to fly Cobras. Why Cobras? It was the newest, sleekest, fastest, meanest helicopter ever built at that time, the 1st helicopter ever designed as a gunship. The fuselage was only 36” wide with tandem seating like a jet, you couldn’t squeeze me in the cockpit today with a bucket of grease. It had dual rocket pods on each stubby little wing, and on the front turret a grenade launcher and a minigun. A minigun is an electrically driven gatling gun – the first time you see it fired it takes your breath away. It fired 4,000 rounds per minute That’s 66 rounds per second if you do the math, with every 5th round a red tracer, so it was like aiming a garden hose. Young pilots are rather full of themselves, so if you lined them up and asked “Who’s the best pilot we’ve got to fly this mean new gunship?” they would all take a step forward and say “That would be me, sir!” And so I went to Cobra school in preparation for a trip to Vietnam. I learned how to fly and I learned how to shoot. Rockets, grenades, miniguns, the better I learned how to kill the enemy the more of our brothers on the ground would live to see another day. So I said goodbye to my wife and family and took an airplane ride to Vietnam, south of China and east of Laos and Cambodia. I made my way to the 334th Attack Helicopter Company in Bien Hoa, just north of Saigon. Now, I want to tell you about some of the young men I came to know in the 334th. When you look at me, you see an old, fat man. I’m 53 now, but when I and my brothers went off to war we were much closer to your age. We were 19, 20, 21, 22 and I want you to remember that as I talk about these young men. This me just after arriving in Vietnam, didn’t even have the new flame-resistant flight suit yet, helping reload the 40MM grenande launcher. This is just to prove I was slim at one time. This is John Synowsky –from Butler, PA, my platoon leader in Vietnam. He taught me a few tricks of survival: – keep sun visor or clear visor down on helmet day or night to prevent being blinded by shards of Plexiglas when rounds come through the cockpit – on a night rocket run, have the co-pilot keep his sun visor down so he doesn’t lose his night vision by the flash of the rocket motors, then after you fire he can take over and fly out of the dive instead of you flying into the ground John taught me these and other things, and anything that helped me stay alive I was eager to know. This is Graham Stevens – we called him “Steve,” from Ft. Walton Beach, Fla, and he was a short guy, always joking around, always around when there was beer or fun This is Wayne Hedeman – from Hawaii, a graduate of Univ of Hawaii, majored in Soils, what that meant we never did know. Ed Miester – I don’t know where he was from, but he taught me my bad habits, he was a show-off pilot, which is dangerous. Every pilot knows there are old pilots, and there are bold pilots, but there are no old, bold pilots, the implication being that taking risks will eventually get you killed. Bob Lugo – Bob gave me my front seat co-pilot training and taught me my good habits as a pilot. He was black, but we didn’t have any racial issues, we were all just brothers. Bob had a stick he carried to help train new co-pilots, and since I sat in front and he sat in the back seat, when I’d do something wrong – like forget to call an artillery base to make sure we didn’t fly through their artillery shells - he’d give my helmet a big whack with the stick and while my ears were ringing he’d say through the radio “Now, don’t do that again.” OK, Bob! And learning not to repeat mistakes is important, because in combat mistakes can kill people. This is Pete Parnell – from Kansas. He was my roommate for a while and drove me and everyone else crazy talking about his wife in Kansas City and the baby they were expecting. We went out and fought the war every day, and we flew a number of different missions, most often in a light fire team of two Cobras. We always flew in pairs because one would cover the other as an attacking aircraft pulled out of a dive and was more vulnerable. We were in a dangerous business, but our tactics were designed to reduce the risk. Missions Emergency standby – we prepped the aircraft for a 5-minute scrambled takeoff and waited around the ping-pong table for the emergency buzzer. When it buzzed the pilot would run to start up the aircraft while the co-pilot took directions over the emergency phone, then ran to the aircraft and point a direction for takeoff while the pilot took off before the co-pilot was strapped in or had his helmet on, then we’d go try to rescue whoever was in bad need of gun support. Sometimes it was a medevac helicopter who needed gun cover to take out our dead or wounded, sometimes it was a ground unit about to be overrun, meaning they would all be killed or captured if they didn’t get the help they needed Combat assault – large group of helicopters loaded with troops to be inserted into an LZ or landing zone, or extraction of troops from an LZ. If it was a hot insertion, meaning enemy resistance expected, we fired rockets and miniguns on either side of the LZ to keep the enemy’s head down to give our troops some cover while landing, and if the enemy exposed themselves by firing then we did our best to take them out. Hunter-killer– on this mission a small helicopter we called a Loach, it was an OH-6 Cayuse, flown with one bold pilot called a Scout, and a gunner, flew low and slow, near the ground, sometimes even under large trees, snooping around for the bad guys, looking for bunkers, weapons or food caches, campfires, and generally trying to draw fire so the enemy would expose their position. Meanwhile one Cobra would fly low in the kill zone, ready to give immediate suppressing fire to protect the Scout if the enemy did shoot, and the 2nd Cobra was up at 1500 feet ready to roll in and fire to protect both aircraft while they scrambled into safer positions. Then we destroyed the enemy. LRRPs and Special Forces – supporting LRRPS (long range recon patrol) and Green Berets was always “interesting” since these guys were crazy. LRRPS always whispered into the radio because they were so close to the enemy and hidden by extreme camouflage, and it was hard sometimes because they would give us a position to fire on but we knew they were so close if we didn’t shoot very carefully we might hit them. And there were other missions, but generally we were gunslingers on call to support other units in a wide area. Now don’t forget the young handsome faces I showed you, because the average age of a helicopter pilot in Vietnam was 22. Some were OK days and some were bad days. As every combat pilot knows, a good landing in a war zone is when you can walk away, and a really good landing was when you could use the aircraft again. Sometimes we had bad landings. I’ll tell you a couple of stories. John Synowsky Story One day John Synowsky was leading a fire team scrambled to help a ground unit west of Cu Chi, near the Cambodian border. The Ho Chi Minh Trail from North Vietnam was on the other side of the border, and since the politicians in Washington wouldn’t let us chase the enemy beyond the border that’s where they went for rest and re-supply to come back and hit us again. Well, our ground unit was about to be overrun by a vastly superior enemy force, and John flew into a helicopter trap – that’s where the enemy places anti-aircraft guns at the three points of a triangle surrounding their position, then when a Cobra fires on them and pulls out of a rocket run, at least one of the big guns will have an easy broadside shot at them. A .50 caliber is a helicopter pilot’s worst nightmare because the slugs are so big and heavy if it hits you in the hand it might pull your arm off. At night .50 caliber tracers glowed so big we called them “basketballs” and as they reached up toward us they looked like they would hit us right between the eyes no matter how far they missed. Have you ever heard a pilot talk about the pucker factor? That’s when the cheeks of your butt reach down and clench the seat real tight because you’re scared as hell. When we ran into .50s, the pucker factor was high. Well, back to John. He ran into a helicopter trap and took 50 caliber rounds through the cockpit. One round went through his chest protector plate, we called them chicken plates, and penetrated his chest and burned him real good because rounds are hot when fired. John was lucky it bounced around the cockpit first because it didn’t go through him. John’s co-pilot was wounded too, but they ignored their wounds and the damage to the aircraft, they stuck with the mission and attacked the enemy again and again because if they didn’t our brothers on the ground were goners. As it turned out the enemy backed off, and the families of those young men on the ground would never know their loved one lived that day because John stayed with the job under heavy fire. For that mission he received the Silver Star for “gallantry.” Steve Stevens Story On another occasion Steve Stevens, the fun guy, was leading a light fire team with Johnny Almer in his front seat. Larry Pucci, just 19 years old, commanded the wing ship with Wayne Hedeman in the front seat. This was also near Cambodia in a corner called the Angel’s Wing because of its geographic shape. Our brothers on the ground called for help saying the enemy was everywhere, and when Steve’s team arrived the enemy’s green tracers came at them from all directions. They tried to get in a position to help our troops, but before long Steve and Johnny were shot down and scrambled to a bomb crater for cover. On the ground, surrounded by enemy, Steve called for help on his emergency radio. A rescue helicopter asked him “What’s your perimeter?” meaning how much turf do you have under friendly control? He wanted to know if there was a safe zone to land to pick them up. Steve answered “Six feet.” The guy repeated “Say again your perimeter?” and Steve repeated “Six feet!” and the rescue helicopter wisely told Steve he was on his own for a while. Certain they were about to die in a lousy bomb crater near Cambodia, Steve spotted friendly troops about 100 yards away, and he and Johnny ran to them in the fastest sprint of their lives, boots and all – its too bad there was no Olympic timekeeper with a stopwatch, they might hold a gold medal. Larry Pucci and Wayne Hedeman had been flying a holding pattern nearby, calling in the shoot-down on the radio and trying to locate enemy anti-aircraft guns to take them out. Steve got on the radio and directed Larry to the gun position. Larry started a rocket and gun run on the enemy position, and halfway through the run Wayne took an anti-aircraft round through the neck. 19-year old Larry Pucci broke away from the enemy and desperately flew as fast as he could to the Tay Ninh hospital, but it was too far and Wayne bled to death at 21 years old on the way. When Steve and Johnny Almer were picked up and returned to Tay Ninh, their bad day was not over. Steve found another aircraft while Larry Pucci helped patch bullet holes and wash Wayne’s blood out of the cockpit, found another co-pilot then they strapped in and went out to do it again, because if they didn’t more of our brothers on the ground would die. Terry Garlock’s Story
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