Posted on 04/05/2005 9:25:25 PM PDT by SAMWolf
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are acknowledged, affirmed and commemorated.
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Chaos prevailed over the battle zone, but the helicopter crews never wavered. They had to save the troopers of the 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry, who were dying in the tall grass. Bell UH-1D Huey An extensive training period ostensibly prepares pilots for combat flying. But flying in and out of Vietnam's hot LZs, where dust, heat and the enemy worked in concert to bring down the fragile aluminum birds, it took a good pilot with nerves of steel and a special sense of duty. Major Willard Bennett, commander of Charlie, or C, Company, 229th Aviation Battalion (Assault Helicopter), 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile), was just such a pilot, with the ability to think and react adeptly in the most intense combat situations. On a November 1965 night, while flying over the hell that the Ia Drang Valley had become, Bennett put on an airmobile show that the grunts on the ground would never forget. No portion of the Army's airmobile training taught guts--pilots like Bennett provided that. "I never worried about getting shot and killed--whether that was because I was young or we were so well-trained I couldn't say," Bennett recalled. "Getting shot in combat was just not something I really worried about. Flying in and out of hot LZs just came with the job." What Charlie Company's commander worried about instead were the underpowered and occasionally unreliable engines of the Bell UH-1D Hueys and the equatorial heat that could sap the strength of American flying machines. "The Huey I flew on my first tour couldn't carry a very big payload," Bennett said. "Generally with a crew of four, we could only lift five or six guys. You had to get a running start most of the time to get airborne, and so they required a larger landing zone. By my second tour all that had changed--the engines were much more powerful and much more reliable." Bennett's Charlie Company was normally attached to the 2nd Battalion of the 7th Cavalry, ferrying the infantry to and from combat zones, supplying water and rations and, when it became too hot for the medevacs, ducking in for the wounded. Months before the Ia Drang campaign, Bennett was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for making an emergency night flight to an American forward artillery base on the mountain of Dak To, where a shell had cooked off and exploded in the barrel of a howitzer, critically wounding 17 men. When medevacs were turned back by dense fog that night, Bennett not only led his flight but also refused to turn back as long as U.S. troops remained in the field crying for help. Improvising in the air, Bennett called for troops on the ground to shoot flares from LZs along the way. Using this ingenious method, he navigated his way safely through the mountainous terrain to evacuate the wounded. Many historians claim that the 230 American lives lost during the fighting at LZs Albany and X-ray versus the loss of more than 1,000 NVA soldiers by body count and 1,000 more estimated killed was a decided victory. Other scholars, however, claim the lessons taught were largely ignored and America was lured deeper into a war it could not win. If the fighting and its results proved to be a historical and military paradox, so did the enigmatic, 34-year-old major commanding Charlie Company. As a student at Colorado A&M (now Colorado State University), Bennett had enrolled in the the Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) to avoid the Vietnam draft. After graduation, having earned an artillery commission, he was sent to Fort Sill in Oklahoma, where he ran into a fraternity brother stationed there for Army aviation training. "He was really sold on the program," Bennett said, "and it sounded good to me too. "The program required an additional year's commitment, but I was young and wasn't sure what I wanted to do with my life just yet. Besides, I had just gotten married, and the extra $100 a month the Army was paying aviators looked awfully good just then." Bennett received his fixed-wing rating and soon was sent on temporary duty back to helicopter school. After qualifying in helicopters, he was assigned to Korea and, later, Japan. Much to his surprise, both Bennett and his wife, Vonnie, fell in love with military life. After he returned from the Far East, Bennett's talents as a helicopter pilot were tapped to try out the Army's new concept of air mobility. He was assigned to the 11th Air Assault Test Division at Fort Benning, Ga., in 1964 for 18 months of crucial trials. The purpose was to examine and test theories in helicopter warfare. Satisfied with the evaluations of the 11th Air Assault Division, renamed the 1st Air Cavalry Division (Airmobile), the Army mobilized the unit for war. Major Willard Bennett was assigned command of the 229th's Charlie Company and deployed with the division to Vietnam. Although Charlie Company had been thoroughly trained in the Army's brand-new airmobile tactics, no training could completely prepare a pilot for the murderous skies over Vietnam. Bennett's role over the Ia Drang Valley may be considered a minor one in the grand scheme of the campaign, but to the severely wounded who were desperate for medical attention, and to the beleaguered troops surrounded and running low on ammo, a fearless chopper pilot was the answer to many prayers. The genesis of Bennett's mission occurred when Lt. Col. Harold Moore brazenly took his understrength battalion and confronted the enemy deep in his own territory. Lt Col Hal Moore The ball began rolling on November 14, 1965, when Moore, a hard-charging Kentuckian and West Point graduate (class of '45), mobilized the 1st Battalion of the 7th Cavalry, 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile), and moved them to a position at the foot of Chu Pong, a 2,400-foot mountain in the Ia Drang Valley, deep in NVA-held territory. There, dense tropical forests gave way to tall grass and red clay. Intelligence reports of a large enemy base camp in that area had Moore and his boss, 3rd Brigade Commander Colonel Thomas Brown, eager to seek out the enemy.
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Oh that's priceless Samwise! LOL
There are...rumors that Richard...(how shall we put this) was not exclusive in his sexual preferences.
Welllll.... I don't know one way or the other, just like the music. Don't care much for the lyrics.
Pretty music.
OMG I thought you were commenting on a song I posted!!
LOL and at another channel. LOL
hehehe... maybe one of these days Miss Feather. ~sigh~
I've heard that quite a bit. Not a very pretty picture of a king from most accounts. Sad thing is, years ago I learned that my family name came from a group who took a vow of poverty to support Richard III. Can't figure that one out. As much as I love the U.S. of A. military he doesn't sound like a military guy I'd have liked. Oh well. Maybe I'm wrong. I'd hate to think I'd have been an 11th century lib.
I'd have been an 11th century lib.
Ha. You must be thinking of Samwise, she's the one who's young around here. At least that what she says....
Richard I was a pretty good soldier at least Saladin thought so. And he was a pretty good judge of men.
(off-topic) Saladin and Saddam were both from Tikrit. A little piece of completely useless information I throw out there to amaze and astound one and all. :-)
Richard III, now he's a horse of a different color. He managed to put an end to the Plantagenets I know Shakespeare had nothing good to say about him. Of course the Tudors were running the show then, and old Will knew which side his bread was buttered on.
LOL!
WP sure has a lot more on display than when I was there YEARS ago.
I like the shot of old Slow But Deadly. A great machine. Ask the Imperial Japanese Navy.
Nice reply, sharp little essay.
Toto, we're not in Kansas anymore.
Sweet!
Aloha ping for a guy who was there!
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