Ramin Talaie for The New York Times
Chief Warrant Officers James Freeman, of Stony Brook, N.Y., left, and Steven Derry, of upstate New York.
Posted on 02/26/2005 8:52:08 PM PST by neverdem
FORWARD OPERATING BASE DANGER, Iraq, Feb. 20 - The old pilot was recalling a different war in a different place. "Every time we went in, we went in hot," he remembered. "You were fighting your way in and fighting your way out."
The pilot, Chief Warrant Officer James G. Freeman, was 23 when he began flying Huey helicopters in the Vietnam War in 1970. His missions with the 116th Assault Helicopter Company often involved dropping into a battleground to unload soldiers after helicopter gunships had "prepped" the zone with a torrent of rockets and machine-gun fire.
"There were a lot of bullets flying down there," Mr. Freeman recounted dryly during an interview. He was seated in a trailer on the airfield at Forward Operating Base Speicher, an American military base near here and his home for the next year while he is deployed with the 42nd Infantry Division of the New York National Guard, based in Troy, N.Y.
Mr. Freeman is now 58, with wry creases spraying from the corners of his eyes and a penchant for menthol cigarettes. As a member of the Guard, he has been deployed for events including the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, N.Y., and relief and recovery missions after the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the crash of T.W.A. Flight 800 in 1996 and the attack of Sept. 11, 2001.
Now, 34 years after his yearlong tour of duty in Vietnam, Mr. Freeman is back in another war.
He is one of five helicopter pilots from the New York National Guard who flew Hueys in the Vietnam War and who have been deployed as Black Hawk pilots in northern Iraq with the 42nd Infantry Division. The five pilots, all together, flew thousands of combat hours in Vietnam and survived being shot down several times. In this war, however, they say their responsibilities have kept them largely earthbound, as younger pilots rack up the flight hours. And they are not very happy about it.
"I'd rather be flying," grumbled Chief Warrant Officer Thomas McGurn, 57, one of the pilots who is at Base Danger helping to coordinate daily assignments. "This is kind of a bummer."
Only two of the five veteran pilots have flown since the bulk of the brigade arrived in Iraq last month.
Mr. Freeman, a retired Suffolk County police officer who lives in Stony Brook, N.Y., has flown once. Chief Warrant Officer Steven M. Derry, 53, a New York State correction officer in Wilton, N.Y., has flown twice. The others have not yet been tapped, but expect to fly sometime this year.
All five are attached to a headquarters unit for the division's aviation brigade, which includes four aviation units from around the country and for a maintenance battalion from Brooklyn.
For now, the five men spend their days at desk jobs or hanging out in their khaki flight suits, like caged, graying lions. Their command and control responsibilities, rather than their comparatively advanced ages, are the reason they are not flying as much as other pilots, the men say.
About 5,570 American troops who are 50 or older have been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, nearly all of them members of the Guard and the Reserves.
Although there are mandatory retirement regulations in the military that can apply anywhere from age 55 to 62, depending on a soldier's length of service and other circumstances, there are no age limits on the battlefield.
Nevertheless, Mr. Freeman has taken to calling himself "a staff weenie." And Chief Warrant Officer Herbert A. Dargue, a 57-year-old liaison officer, said, "I'd rather get in the action than sit behind a desk." This war is qualitatively different from the war these men experienced in Vietnam. For one, there is far less combat. The Black Hawk's primary mission is to ferry personnel and supplies from one base to another - battlefield circulation, in military parlance - and the helicopters only rarely face enemy fire.
And the military they once knew is just a distant memory. There are women flying helicopters now, there is no alcohol, and there is a deluge of unfamiliar acronyms and new, unyielding rules.
"The rule used to be: take off in the morning, come back at night, get drunk and do it again the next day," said Mr. Freeman. He remembers flying Hueys full of alcohol to bases in Vietnam. By comparison, the bases in Iraq are completely alcohol-free.
Chief Warrant Officer Ronald P. Serafinowicz, 56, who is also a liaison officer, said the experience of being back in combat had resurrected his past. "You live your life and memories fade, but when you're back in it, suddenly the memories come back and you remember all your missions," he said. But for all the war stories the men can share, they do not romanticize the experience. Emboldened by a youthful sense of immortality and insulated by luck, they were got out of Vietnam alive. And for all their desire to fly here, they do not feel the need to relive the trials of their first war.
"I lost more friends there - young guys who never got to live a life," said Mr. McGurn, a Westchester County police officer in his civilian life.
There are other Vietnam veterans in the military here and throughout Iraq. Still, looking at these men standing among soldiers who could be their grandchildren in a war that, like Vietnam, does not have overwhelming public support, the question practically leaps from this reporter's mouth: What the heck are they doing here?
They each give a variant of a remarkably simple answer: Obligation.
They signed up for the National Guard, so when they were called up they had to go - even if they did not want to.
"I'd rather be at home cutting the grass and playing with the grandkids," said Mr. Dargue, who flew in Vietnam in 1968 when he was 20 and has racked up more than 20,000 piloting hours in his career.
All five pilots say they have remained in the National Guard for the camaraderie, the pension and, above all, the love of flying.
"They let you fly an $8 million machine," Mr. McGurn said. "I always wanted to fly as a kid."
Ramin Talaie for The New York Times
Chief Warrant Officers James Freeman, of Stony Brook, N.Y., left, and Steven Derry, of upstate New York.
FReepmail me if you want on or off my New York ping list.
Dad, what are you doing in Iraq? Did you remember to take your heart medication? Remember that mom told you to lay off the Viagra out there!
The lenses on those glasses look awful big!
There's gotta be a catch somewhere, this is from the NYT.
I don't think that you can be rated as a military aviator if you require corrective lenses. Somebody correct me if qualifications have changed.
That wasn't the case during the Vietnam War, or I would have probably flown choppers. IIRC, an aviation recruiter gave us a pitch after we had a Huey familiarization flight during Infantry AIT.
When I was still in the Infantry, I checked the Air Force and Navy. Their qualifications would have restricted folks with corrective lenses who wanted to fly to the navigator/bombadier position in a two seater.
Yeah, these old boys sound wonderful--but at this point in time the only thing they should be flying is a desk!
Can military aviators wear corrective lenses to the best of your knowledge of the Air Force?
Not necessarily, they maintain unit cohesion and have experience, but their wisdom might be useless if they don't maintain their own familiarity with current equipment. IIRC, the category of warrant officer was created because of their technical expertise.
BTTT
Absolutely. In my later career, I flew both HH-60 helicopters and A-10 Warthogs with the requirement to wear glasses or contact lenses. The "catch" is vision must be correctable to 20/20 and there is also an uncorrected limit which cannot be exceeded. I don't remember what the uncorrected limit is.
I recently spent a 90 day deployment flying into Iraq with a 59+ year old Air Force Reserve C-130 pilot. He had flown C-130s in Vietnam, Desert Storm, and the Balkans. He wanted to make it to this one before he reached mandatory retirement at age 60.
You gotta look at the fine print. Of course it's the NY Slimes.
You are an idiot. Those guys (and me) fought to keep this country free. Walk a mile in our footsteps before you post assinine remarks.
YES!
IIRC, in February 1970 corrective lenses were not allowed for admissision to Fort Rucker's flight training school. During my second tour, I volunteered to be a door gunner in Charlie Troop, 2/17th Cav while I was still in I Corps. I wrote a letter to General Creighton Abrams for help. IIRC, in December 1971, I received a letter back from him commending my request, which also said that I should be tranferred soon, after I was tranferred to Echo Company, 2/5th Cav, 3rd Bde(Sep), 1st Cav Div (Airmobile) in III Corps. I still have a copy of the letter. I finished my service as a grunt.
Of course you had to pass an aptitude test for Aviators, perhaps therein lies your problem.
During a subsequent enlistment, I took that aptitude test again, just like my first enlistment. I did well enough that they thought I cheated. I finished that enlistment as an E5 in 1983. I had to go to medical school and get a scholarship from the Army for the last three years of medical school to get a commission.
Probably not the best way to introduce yourself on day one.
Hmmmmmmmm....my hubby's BN the 106AVN have many pilots that flew in VN and have now flown Chinooks and Blackhawks in Iraq....they did a great job and have now served in two wars...
Hey, I'm the one that was doing the walking. And I'm guessing that you were whizzing by overhead. Relax in your flightsuit there, gunner.
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