across America and around the world. Welcome
to America's number one veterans program, Veterans
Radio. And now, live from the studios of WDO
in Ann Arbor, Michigan, here's your host for
today, former CB Chulai, 1966, Republic of Vietnam,
Gary Lilly. And thank you very much, Bob. You're
right, proud CB. CBs can do. I'd like to say
good morning to all our troops around the world,
that thin green and blue line that's providing
freedom to not just our country, but to every
country around the world that will accept it.
To my veteran brothers and sisters, welcome home.
And to all of our international listeners. I
can't say down under anymore because they're
all over the place. Good morning to you and thanks
for listening. And good morning America. Thanks
for being with us on Veterans Radio. Sitting
in the studio with me is the old helicopter pilot,
Dale Throneberry. Good morning, Gary, and welcome
back. We're taking a little break and we want
to make sure that everybody knows about our board
boss today, our air boss. Standing in the door
is Bob Gould. Oh, thank you very much, Dale and
Gary. It's good to be back in the hot seat. That's
it? That's good to be back. You've got everything
under control. Oh, yeah, we're cool. That is
very nice. Dale, we've got a little fundraising
project that we're going to be doing. Tell us
about it. I'll start right away. Attention to
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If you become a member, this is a good deal that
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If you'd like to mail in your contribution, that's
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won't publish your name unless you want us to.
And what are we looking for? We're looking to
make sure that we can send out that certificate
that we've invented. We're looking for a thousand,
right? We want to thank, we did this last week
and we actually got our first donation. I won't
mention his name. But he comes from Florida,
and we want to thank him for making his contribution.
And with that money, we can expand. We can get
the equipment that we need to go out on site
and do a wider program. Right. More remote programs.
Many of the stations that we have talked to,
in order to become an affiliate, they want us
to pay up front. And so we need to raise funds
to do that. Otherwise, we would be on a lot more
stations already. So if you have a station that
you think would be interested, please contact
us and let us know. send them out a demo tape
or whatever they want to try and get on there.
We think we have a great product and we know
because of the input that we've gotten from you
that you appreciate what we're doing and we want
to make it grow. And I got an email last night
from a lady named Jan, a friend of our guest
today, suggesting a radio station over where
she lives and who to talk to. That's the type
of leads that we need. Give us a range. What
does it take to become a one -star general? And
what is it for a five -star general? One -star
general is $25. Five -star general is $2 ,500.
And if you don't want to be a general, we'll
take $5. We don't care. Whatever it is that you
feel that you can afford to help us out will
be greatly appreciated and we really want to
expand this program. I think we want to get a
thousand, don't we? A lot of great feedback.
over the last six years, which I should remind
everybody, is that we have been on for six years
now. Yeah, but we want to get a thousand, right,
Dale? Dale can't hear you. That's what I thought.
Have them switch jacks. That would be nice. Switch
jacks. That's right. We still got a problem here
with the board. While he's switching jacks, Bob,
you have some troops to welcome home. Is that
right? Yes, we do, Gary. Each week we have Veterans
Radio Welcome Home. who've been stationed around
the world and are returning back to America.
Dateline Camp Lejeune braving chilly weather
and a crowd of nearly 400 gathered at Camp Lejeune
to welcome home a company from what has been
dubbed America's Battalion. About 150 Marines
in echo company of the 2nd Battalion 8th Marine
Regiment returned to Camp Lejeune from Afghanistan's
Helmand Prodments. Many of those waiting to welcome
their troops home wore Indigo sweatshirts with
the inscription, there's a quote, front toward
hero. Two Marine parents, Rod and Heather Vance,
who came from California to welcome their son,
Corporal Joshua Vance, greeted and distributed
the shirts as part of what they called Operation
Homecoming. The inscription, a play on the phrase
front toward enemy that appears on landmines,
was created so that when they got off the bus
they would see the shirts and know they were
heroes. Also coordinated was an effort to create
more than 600 welcome baskets filled with essentials
to help the Marines make the transition back
to life in the barracks. The executive officer
for the two -eighth commented, that despite challenges
the battalion had accomplished much in Afghanistan
and I quote the commander the company went into
position starting off with what they had on their
backs they went into areas where no one had been
and stayed end quote the battalion's success
in fulfilling no mission of providing security
for afghan people and forces was owed largely
to a new approach of entering towns and asking
leaders what they most needed rather than attempting
to provide what the U .S. military thought they
needed. Clean drinking water was among the local
needs the Marines met. Gary, you said you had
a comment on that. I do. I stumbled on a clip
on YouTube last night in which early days of
the war, Bill O 'Reilly was interviewing a retired
Lieutenant Colonel Marine. And he said, the Marine,
that this is reprehensible. They're 18 months
into this, and they don't have clean drinking
water. O 'Reilly asked, what do we need? More
contractors? He said, no. Pick a city, give them
security, and send in a battalion of seabees.
Within three months or less, they'll have clean
drinking water. They'll have the place cleaned
up. And we'll be able to show. This is what we
can do. I think it all points back to some of
the training that we saw, Gary, this past summer
at Camp Grayling. I mean, it really is working
within the population. Let the military do the
job, right? And the CBs, I'm telling you, I can
tell you from experience, get the job done. Well,
if the CBs go in, you guys will build a whole
village within a week and a half. I know. I look
back on it sometimes and I don't know how we
did what we did. What do you do? Just a real
brief, how do you clean up the water? Obviously,
there's protocol. What do you do? Cleaning up
the water. Oh, drill new wells. They've got well
drilling rigs, and they'll move well drilling
rigs in there and drill new wells. We did a lot
of that over in Vietnam. There were a lot of
villages that didn't have water. They would take
the water right out of the river or the creek
or stream. That doesn't sound very clean, no.
What they're doing in Afghanistan, in addition
to digging wells, is they're also putting in
water purification, not plants, but equipment,
so that whatever the water does come out of the
ground, it goes through this purification thing
and they've got clean water. It seems so simple
to us because we all have running water, but
that's really one of the main things that they've
won. And that's what the Colonel was stressing.
He said, just give it to the CBs, they'll do
it. Can do. Thank you, Gary. Dateline, Fort Hood,
Texas. The 1st Cavalry Division's rear attachment,
the 3rd Heavy Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry
Division soldiers arrived to the applause and
cheers of family in front of the 1st Cavalry
Division headquarters. The returning group was
the first of this Iraqi deployment to arrive
home, beginning of the Grey Wolf's return to
Fort Hood. after a 12 -month deployment to Iraq.
After a brief ceremony and the retiring of the
Colors, family members and friends shouted out
loved ones' names as Lieutenant Jeffrey Sauer,
1st Cavalry Division's Rear Detachment Commander,
uttered the most anticipated words to those in
attendance, Charge! Husbands and wives were reunited,
children hugged and kissed their parents and
girlfriends leaped into their boyfriend's arms.
It was a scene of joyous emotion. One family
member was quoted, It's overwhelming. I knew
some members were coming, but I never thought
it would be this many. We were family and we
support each other. A lot of our members are
veterans and we know what it's like for soldiers
to return home with no family members in attendance.
So we wanted to be there to welcome them home.
The soldiers had a welcome home ceremony that
continued to take place at Cooper Field, the
parade field located in front of division headquarters.
And we're back with Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan
Meyer who was a fact pilot and we'll get into
exactly what a fact pilot was in a moment, but
they flew very light planes, low and slow. Lieutenant
Colonel Jonathan Meyer retired. Welcome to Veterans
Radio. Good morning, Gary. How are you doing?
Just fine. You were born in London, England.
How did you happen to end up in our military?
Long story, try to keep it short. My father was
English, my mother was American. I held dual
nationality for a number of years and came over
finally at the age of 16 after school leaving
exam to go to college here and took up my American
citizenship fully in 53 ROTC commission. and
everything else went downhill from there. You
flew F -86's, didn't you, at one point? The L
model, the interceptor version. Alright, and
then you ended up going down to a plane that
was operated a lot slower and a lot lower, the
FAC. How did that come about? Tell us what a
FAC is. uh... affect as a forward air controller
and the uh... l nineteen to use its old name
of one as we called it uh... will be single airplane
that was flying forward air control during the
early years of the war uh... there were two others
the o two and the o p ten that came along successfully
later but when it was my turn to go to the southeast
asia i was uh... went from an f one o one b interceptor
squadron uh... to the uh... one to be a forward
air controller. And that plane was designed right
after World War II to replace the old canvas
covered ones? Something like that. I believe
it was first made in the early 50s and the Army
flew it for some years before the rest of the
services got their share. What was that plane?
Was it a one seater, two seater? It was it could
be flown by one but could carry an observer in
the back or another pilot They were in tandem
seats. That's front and back. It was a high wing
single engine fixed pitch propeller at the time
and We had good visibility out of the airplane,
but it was slow and low and that's how we did
our job I'm assuming you got shot at a bit while
you were down there A few times. I only got hit
once though, probably a lot less than average.
When you got word, did you volunteer for this
or were you assigned to it? No, I wasn't. I was
assigned and as far as I was concerned it was
sort of an interruption in my supersonic jet
plane flying. But I hadn't been over in Vietnam
for more than two or three weeks when I became
a very strong believer in what we were trying
to do over there. stayed that way ever since.
What was your reaction when you learned that's
what you were going to do and what was your training
like? Reaction was sort of aghast but orders
are orders and went down and checked out in this
airplane at Hurlbuck Field in the Panhandle of
Florida. training on the plane, did they train
you in observation? As much as we could be, it
was visual reconnaissance or RECI and so we were
dependent upon daytime good weather conditions
to be able to see anything. We didn't have much
in the way of sensors except binoculars from
time to time and we were just basically trying
to circle around our province or sector. to see
what, if anything, we could see on the ground.
This was not always easy in the central highlands
because there was a lot of mountainous terrain
and foliage. Did it take a while to really get
your eyes, you know, at first it's all jungle
and after a little bit of experience, I'm speaking
hypothetically or guessing, after a little bit
of experience you would be able to pick things
up a little better? Of course, experience always
helps. Did you get calls from the guys on the
ground? Sure, from time to time. Usually in our
province of Khantoum, we worked to a fair degree
with the Special Forces A -Team's camps and I'd
contact the camp any time I was in the vicinity.
Occasionally I'd get a call from patrol on the
ground wanting to know something or tell me something.
and that's how we maintain contact over Fox Mic
radio, FN frequency. Hi, Jonathan, this is Dale
Throneberry. I was a helicopter pilot in Vietnam
and we used you guys many, many times. I was
down in III Corps between the Parrot's Beak and
the Tishook and many of our missions were one
-ship missions and you guys would go out and
prep our landing zones to make sure that the
bad guy at least kept their head down for a little
bit. And I wanted to just thank you for all of
the helicopter pilots out there for the work
that you did over there in protecting us. You're
welcome. I put in a few what they called LZ or
landing zone creps where we'd put in a flight
or two of fighters to, as you say, bomb around
the general area that was planned for landing,
make sure there were no ambushes waiting. You
guys were basically unarmed, but how did you
mark a target? And what did you carry for self
-protection? Well, the target marking was by
Willie Pete, or White Phosphorus Rocket. At my
time, we had two on each wing, so we had four
of marking shots, and those would set up a cloud
of white smoke. We also had smoke grenades, where
if you couldn't see the target at a flat range,
you could fly over it and perhaps pick it up
and just drop a grenade out your side window.
and it would mock with smoke. Now for self -protection,
we really didn't have much except sitting on
our parachutes or sitting on flak vests and M16
for survival and beautifully a shiny six -shooter
revolver. That sounds like World War I. That's
exactly right. trying to point out to our audience
how primitive some of the things that you were
doing, in addition to throwing smoke grenades
out, of course you weren't going very quickly,
but how did you aim those rockets? It was a matter
of lining up the area you wanted to hit with
about the second stud on the center of the windshield
and hosing one off. So in other words, you had
to point the airplane where you wanted the rocket
to go. Right. I don't know how you guys hit anything.
Well, that was often a gamble and you simply
adjust. anybody's bombing run from the position
of your smoke. If you hit right on you'd say
hit my smoke. If you needed to move them 50 meters
one way or another that's how you do it. And
it was right down to those that close I mean
when you said you had to move them 50 meters
is that because you had visual contact with the
bad guys on the ground? Well, if one had the
visual contact, that's what we would do. If it
was a matter of hitting certain areas where we
thought the enemy was or that we had been directed
to hit as an intelligence -generated target,
it really made no difference. We'd use the same
basic technique. I had a friend who was a fact
pilot. He was like you. He flew saber jets and
then ended up becoming a fact pilot. And he told
me a couple of times that he would be up there,
he was supposed to, his orders would be take
off from the Danang airport, take a heading of
270, one and a half miles, mark the target, and
step aside. So the thing is, how do you know
that you're actually even hitting anywhere near
something? But more importantly, he would...
said that a couple of times. He found enemy in
the open and would phone in or radio in and they
would say acknowledge proceed on mission. Did
you ever hear of or see anything of that nature?
I personally did not. If one is given a target
through the intel process they'd normally give
it in coordinates and you'd find that area on
your map. which is basically an artillery chart
of 1 to 50 ,000 scale and aim your fire according
to that. You might not even know what you're
hitting. Sometimes if you hit an enemy storage
place of some kind, you might get set off what
they call the secondary explosion as you hit
something and it blew up. Usually the fighters
would do the actual striking, of course. How
often would you have that type of success? For
me, at my time, it was rare. You flew nighttime
missions. I didn't realize that. In the DMZ,
when I was up there for about three and a half
weeks with Operation Tally Ho, we flew around
the clock up there. What is Tally Ho? It was
sort of a project in also the area in Route Pack
1, or the demilitarized zone, so -called, that
separated North and South Vietnam. And because
of the infiltration across the border there from
the north to the south, as well as down the Ho
Chi Minh Trail through Laos, they set up this
tally -ho operation where we had bird dogs doing
day -night surveillance and conducting air strikes
if they found anything that looked suspicious
or that we were directed to look for. The bird
dog is what you called? Your plane, the L -19
or O -1? The O -1, that's right. Did everybody
refer to their observation planes as bird dogs?
Well, only the ones that flew the bird dogs or
when the bird dog was flying. If it was a different
airplane, the O -2 or the OV -10, they had different
call signs and different times and places. I
think our audience needs to know that a bird
dog is really like a Piper cub. that if you went
out to your local civilian airport, you could
probably see a lot of them that looked just like
the bird dog. This is true, except that mostly
the airplanes these days have tricycle landing
gear. We had a tail wheel on our airplane. It's
that old in terms of design. I think trying to
get people to understand how primitive these
things are. When you were talking about reading
your map, You're trying to fly your airplane,
and the map is like the old map that your dad
used to use for the trips across the country,
and you would open that up, find the coordinates
of wherever the area was that you were going
to, continuing to fly and looking at the map
and looking out the window. There wasn't anything
such as GPS in those days. Absolutely not. That
came later when I was in the Pentagon. And you
might have been lucky if you were able to go
off of a radio of AFVN or something like that.
Actually, we were basically out of range or line
of sight of any kind of attack hand station,
so we had those radials and circles marked on
our maps so we could direct fighters, according
to that as a reference, but they were no good
to us in the central highlands where I was flying.
To pick up again on what Dale was saying, as
I was researching the subject on the internet,
I came across a photograph. It was a 101st airborne
camp. out in the field where they did have tents.
Bob is putting both thumbs up for the 101st Airborne.
Two guys took cover in their bunker because of
incoming and then it was nighttime so it was
actually their tent. They had sandbags around
it. When they woke up in the morning there was
a bird dog right next to them and it was so tight
that the wingtip was over their tent and this
guy had received damage and so he landed. right
there on the rough ground where there was no
airstrip there. Right. So the next morning they
decided that they looked the plane over decided
they thought it could make it and so he took
off and I think he left his observer behind to
get out another way. Right he probably needed
to save the weight and space. When you were getting
contact on the ground did you ever get contact
from troops that were under fire that were really
needed help. Yes, that was one of the missions
I happened to fly. It just turned out that I
was the guy in the air at the time and there
was a patrol that had gone out of our special
forces B team to a village about 20 odd clicks
to the north, that's kilometers, and they in
effect wound up fighting a reinforced company
and called for help. I was able to put in several
strikes all around them and it turned out from
a later debrief that we actually got 28 KIAs
on the enemy side. That was about one occasion
where yes, troops were under fire and yes, I
came to their aid. Other people, of course, had
done a lot more. For the audience, a B team versus
a reinforced company, what would the odds be?
Well, this B -Team patrol was about 30 people
strong, led by a couple of Special Forces NCOs.
Sergeant Rockford was the man, and the rest of
his troop were largely Vietnamese strikers who
would be trained by the Special Forces to help
defend their areas. And a reinforced company
would be something over 100 people, and that's
what they ran up against. A friend of mine was
a radio relay operator that would set up on a
hilltop and relay the transmissions from out
in the field back to the say artillery or mostly
artillery. And he said that one of the things
that was tough was trying to get the guys in
the field to calm down so they could get coordinates.
You know if you can imagine they're under intense
attack or an intense firefight. The nerves are
up there. What was the sound to this B team from
these Special Forces guys? I don't understand
the question. Was this a calm or was this excited?
They sounded somewhat excited as one naturally
would be but they certainly weren't panic stricken
or anything like that. They were professionals
and doing their job. I was only too happy to
oblige and give whatever help I could. But all
of our troops were so professional and that's
the one thing that I want to keep stressing is
how good the troops were over there and today.
Oh and today especially. They are my heroes.
Isn't that nice to hear? I hope there are some
troops listening right now because we all look
that way and I never miss an opportunity to tell
the troops how proud we are of them and how good
they are. We're going to be coming into a break,
so I won't ask you another question. Dale, these
FAC pilots were awfully brave people. Well, when
you think about how low and slow they were going,
it's amazing what they were able to do. You're
listening to Veterans Radio, and we'll be back
right after this break. The Medal of Honor is
the highest award for valor in combat given a
member of the Armed Forces of the United States.
There had been over 3 ,400 recipients of the
nation's highest award. This is one of them.
Lance Corporal Roy Wheat threw himself on an
anti -personnel mine to save his fellow Marines.
Details after this. Wheat and two other Marines
were assigned the mission of providing security
for a Navy construction battalion crane and crew
operating along Liberty Road in the Quang Nam
province. After the Marines had set up security
positions in a tree line adjacent to the work
site, Wheat reconnoitered the area to the rear
of their location for the possible presence of
guerrillas. He then returned to within 10 feet
of their friendly position and here, unintentionally,
triggered a well -concealed bounding -type anti
-personnel mine. Immediately, a hissing sound
was heard which was identified by the three Marines
as that of a burning time fuse. Shouting a warning
to his comrades, Wheat in a valiant act of heroism
hurled himself upon the mine, absorbing the tremendous
impact of the explosion with his body. The Medal
of Honor series is a production of Veterans Radio.
This is about hunting trucks by starlight. In
May of 1966, a FAC unit called Tally Ho was formed
to operate in the so -called demilitarized zone,
or DMZ, between I Corps in South Vietnam and
North Vietnam proper. The Tally Ho Facts flew
out of the Marine base at Dong Ha, which was
west of Quang Tri, east of Kaesong, and just
a few miles south of the DMZ itself. Its mission
was to help stop the infiltration of supplies
from North Vietnam into the south at the northern
end of the Ho Chi Minh Trail. We're talking to
Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Meyer, retired, who
was a FAC pilot over in Vietnam. Went from 100,
what were they, F -101s down to, that flew really
high and really fast. Right we just did the Medal
of Honor received up, baby We just did the radio
we just did the Medal of Honor segment Jonathan
you you guys had a Medal of Honor recipient as
a fact pilot Tell us about that I was looking
at signals from the control room tell us about
this man that won the Medal of Honor and won
Received the medal it was awarded the Medal of
Honor right nobody wins it you know i don't know
that there were two facts who were awarded the
medal of honor uh... both of them posthumously
one was uh... a classmate of mine in fact school
hilliard a willy will banks uh... that was during
my time the other was uh... steven bennett uh...
the lv ten a few years later uh... but willy
was the one that uh... affected me the most and
as far as i'm concerned he uh... The count was
that he saved approximately about 134 Vietnamese
Rangers and their U .S. Army Ranger advisors
from an ambush by the North Vietnamese, something
close to a regiment of troops who were laying
in wait for them. What did he do? Can you expand
on that a bit? Yes, he was familiar with that
particular area when nobody had been able to
find this enemy unit. He knew where to look,
spotted them, couldn't get any air support in
time and to protect the Arden troops, that's
Army of Republic of Vietnam, Rangers. and their
advisors, he started making passes at the enemy
force, first firing his Willie Pete rockets.
When he ran out of those, he started shooting
his M16 at them out the window, and they of course
were firing back, and eventually hit him, brought
him down, and he died. He was alive when they
got to him finally, right? Just barely, but he
died on the way back in a helicopter to medical
attention. And this was a classmate of yours?
Yes. What about the other Medal of Honor recipient?
Do you know the story on him? Only broadly, and
I'm not the authority, but he had, I believe,
a Marine in the back seat, and when they took
a hit, He wanted to eject both of them, but the
guy in the back, his parachute had been shredded,
so Steve Bennett decided to make a water landing
in the OV -10, knowing full well that it wasn't
really a survivable process, but he saved his
backseater at the cost of his own life. The bravery
and the unselfishness. We're going to go to an
upbeat part of it right now. Bob, would you give
us the pink elephant polka? I swam along on a
dawn patrol as hard as I could be Up in the tribal
area where nothing could I see When I happened
to spot a jungle trail and gave my bird a jink
I saw two elephants handling along and both of
them were pink We've got to stop right there
because it gets a little GI talk. Yes, Catholic
radio. Pardon me? Catholic radio and no delay.
There you go. You saw pink elephants, Colonel,
tell us about those. Well, they were pink, and
people didn't believe me when I got down and
told them about it. But a few days later, I had
an Army observer in my back seat. We flew to
the same area, and he said, by golly, they sure
are pink. And that's how my song ends. His name
was Gary Wintere, and I tried to get together
with him at a helicopter reunion. nine or ten
years ago but unfortunately he had to leave.
He was ill and we never did meet. Give us the
explanation of why those elephants were pink.
The basic inference and by the way other facts
have reported that they too had seen pink elephants
was that they would roll in the mud and the earth
was sort of reddish around the highlands and
elsewhere and when it dried it would dry sort
of red on gray which muted out to pink. It was
red and it was down there in the July area. We
have a caller from Albuquerque. He says he knows
you. Let me get him on the phone. Great. Welcome
to Veterans Radio. Caller from Albuquerque. Good
morning, Jonathan. Hey, Lee. How are you doing?
I'm doing great, Guy. Super. What is it that
you're calling in on, Lee? I'm sorry? What is
it that you're calling on to say, Lee? I'm sorry,
Jonathan. The old ears are shot. Tell us your
story about Jonathan. Can you hear me, Lee? Jonathan
was my mentor when I arrived in Vietnam to teach
me the ropes and did it well. And I can verify
that the pink elephant story is fact. And I'd
love to hear some more of that 12 string. Well,
we're going to give it in the third segment.
We're going to give an email address where anybody
can order that. You've got two CDs, Jonathan,
is that right? Yes. Okay, they're very entertaining.
Lee, where did you say you flew in the Central
Highlands? Yeah, we flew out of Khantum together.
And you said that you saw the same thing? Yes,
I saw the pink elephant. I should probably fly
to the river they were on today. There's a saying
amongst warriors that I've seen the elephant
and that means they've been in battle and truly
you guys did see the elephant. Yes. Have you
got any story that you would like to tell or
any point that you would like to make, Lee? No,
I just wanted to call in I've been listening
since the show started haven't seen John in a
while and Just say hey Well, I thought you did.
Thank you very much Lee good talking to you.
Take care Jonathan oh Dale I didn't get to see
red elephants. I did see camouflaged elephants.
This is up in a northwestern section of three
core and it was It takes you aback when you see
these creatures. They had more equipment on them
than trucks would have. The VC and NVA, or mainly
the NVA, they were using them as pack animals.
Absolutely. It's just so amazing when you think
about the things that you saw out there, Jonathan.
It's very hard for people, especially civilians,
to understand the stories that we tell. They're
true. We don't make these things up. No, the
irony is that some of the time you didn't understand
exactly what it was you were seeing when you
saw it. It was only later when you compared notes
or you read extra information in historical vein
that you realized just what it was. I think that's
so important. It's one of the things that we
love to do on Veterans Radio is to tell these
stories because it validates some of the things
that we thought we saw. We just want to make
sure that it was true. Exactly. And that's a
big point of reunions. I was talking to a guy
from the 101st and I said, you know, I felt so
relieved when I finally saw in some documentation
that we had a 138 degree temperature on one particular
day in a 10 day stretch of 130s. And after I
told that for a while, I thought, that can't
be true. It couldn't have been that hot. Thankfully,
I saw it in writing and it relieved me. And he
said the same thing, you know. You sit and you
think to yourself, that couldn't have happened.
If that ambush had taken place at 30 feet, I'd
be dead right now. Yes. But when you hear other
people talk about it and add on to the story,
you said it gives you a great feeling of relief.
Jonathan, do you have any story or point that
you would like to make? We've got two minutes
left in this segment. No, I'll just respond to
questions as best I can. Okay. Who was the bravest
person you saw over there? Well, it had to be
Hilliard Wilbanks, though I didn't see him after
we left the United States. I knew where he was
and heard about his last mission and death about
two days before I was rotating for home, which
was a very unpleasant surprise. Since then, I've
got to know his family and we've shared a lot
of thoughts together. One other thought is...
The helicopter pilots who came to Hilliard's
rescue have never been truly recognized even
in the Air Force magazine story. John Groh is
perhaps the chief among them and Jerry Borquin,
the last known out in California. John Groh took
about 52 or so hits in his helicopter trying
to rescue Hilliard. He wasn't successful in that,
was he? No, they managed to make a vacuum out
a little later, but it just shows you the bravery
of the helicopter pilots, like the Raven FACS,
the F -105 pilots over the north, the F -4 pilots,
just about everybody who flew, depending on what
you were flying and where and which year, your
fortunes could be totally different. Dale wanted
to add on to the 52 hits. No, I didn't want to
add on to the 52 hits, that's for darn sure,
but I did want to just point out that it didn't
make any difference who you were or what branch
of the service you were in. If it was an American
that went down, we would go get him. We didn't
care. You bet. And that's the fact motto, basically,
was if the troops are in trouble, we let it all
hang out to go and help them. Yeah. Discretion
was not the better part of valor sometimes. No.
If the VC could have shot straight while I was
there, I probably wouldn't have made it home
either. Right, well we talked about this, actually
we've got a break coming up, I'll mention that
later. We'll be right back right after this break.
We're back talking to Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan
Meyer who was a FAC pilot in Vietnam, the guys
that directed the airstrikes and the artillery.
That kind of really exemplified the difference
in the jobs over there. While those guys were
out in the jungle and were going to be eating
sea rations if they got the chance, you'd be
going back to steak. Well, that's on the rare
occasions. Actually, I ate plenty of sea rations,
too. Most of them while I was flying on the early
morning dawn patrol. But that song happened to
be the one that I did spread around Vietnam to
special forces camps in Con Tum in Pleiku Province.
And I guess that's the one that gave me my 15
minutes of fame about 20 or 30 years before I
even knew it had made that much impression on
anybody. How did you learn that it did? I got
a pocketbook sent to me by a former F -101 backseater
that said, see page umpty -ump. And the book
was Mike Force by former Lieutenant Colonel Bucky
Boris. And he was a Special Forces guy and he
and his facts had picked it up. They used to
sing it around the bar. There it was, spread
across about two and a quarter pages of his book.
I wish I'd known that song at the time. It's
very appropriate. We would get messages like
that every once in a while. They'd call us up
on the Fox FM radio and we would home in on them.
And then they'd say, okay, now where am I? Well,
you're right below us. Well, where's that? Well,
in this particular case, that song, while it's
a spoof on both the special forces and the FAC,
that's me, kind of snappy, there's a lot of truth
backing that song up and I did have to find a
patrol and found them on the wrong mountain.
That's the thing about war and the thing about
the American is that you're flexible. when you
pick up an aircraft in the air and say that,
you know, where are we? Dale, did you? Yeah,
we did that a few times. We landed in an wrong
LZ more than once, unfortunately. And they said,
but there's nobody here. And they said, well,
we're, you know, we're 50 clicks to the north,
south, east or west. And we're going, oh, this
looks just like the field you described to us
because we would do all of our stuff low level.
So, I mean, it happened and you're adaptable
and that's one of the things about American forces
that we are resilient and we think. And help
each other. Absolutely. What is your proudest
feeling about what you did, Jonathan? Well, I
think I was convinced when I got home that I'd
had the best job in the war because I not only
got to see the bit of the country and just visit
some of the of the camps and the villages and
work with the military on the ground, that I
think was the most rewarding, being able to help
people who are really in trouble and just simply
take the risks. I wasn't doing anything deliberately
stupid, at least not most of the time, and I
was just glad to be able to help, and that was
what I thought was the most important thing,
the sort of the joint operations that we tend
to mount today. I'm going to ask you another
question, but for your listeners, We're going
to come back with an email address if you would
like to order Jonathan's music. And we'll do
that right after we talk about this subject.
When someone got on the ground, would it be the
nearest FAC, when they got in the shuttle on
the ground, would it be the nearest FAC that
would head there? And what would happen with
the jet fighters? Well, as a general rule, that's
what would happen. Whichever FAC either got the
word or was nearest would sort of immediately
go there, take over. So to be FAC on the scene,
meanwhile he'd be radioing or fighters would
already be ordered to respond. This is what we
would call an immediate airstrike with troops
in contact, TICs. Those were the ones where people
just dropped everything and went to do what was
necessary. The FAC put the fighters in, gave
them the information, controlled the air battle
as it were. and let the fighters do the work.
They were usually fighters. They were sometimes
light bombers. And that would try to take care
of business and help whoever was on the ground.
Did you ever get a thank you from them? Yes,
I did. I got a thank you letter from the C -Team
commander. He was sort of the head of the Special
Forces in Vietnam for putting in the sort of
rescue effort that killed those 28 NBA or VC.
Okay, give us the email address if somebody wants
to order your CDs. The best way to do it is through
the email address I use for many society of old,
bold aviators, and the letters would be S -O
-B -A at L -E -R -O -L -S dot com. And that SOBA
stands for what again? Society of old, bold aviators.
It's a take off on the old saying that there
are old aviators and there are bold aviators,
but there are no old, bold aviators. And those
of us who sing about the days of yesteryear claim
we were both. Okay, I told Dale it was old, bold
aviators. That may be getting that way, but the
rest of us have our hair. That's right, we do.
It may be white, but we still got it. Most of
it, yes. It's a combination of my... Bob's in
the control room sticking his tongue out at us.
I was lucky to see that because of the light
reflecting off it, Bob. Give us a wrap up sort
of on the things that you saw over there. Well,
the best thing I can say is that most of my tour
was spent doing visual reconnaissance. Some of
it, you know, whenever necessary or whenever
scheduled, was putting in air strikes or conducting
some operation that would support ground troops.
But there were lots of other things we did. I
carried the mail. I carried an Army Ranger to,
say, Mongbakh Special Forces camp with two spare
machine gun barrels and cases of ammo and mail
bags. landing in a sort of very rainy cross wind.
You never knew where the excitement was going
to come from and again I just have to emphasize
that my stories are just those of one person.
There were many different kinds of facts flying
different airplanes in different places at different
times and they all have different sets of stories.
Now you said you never knew which way the danger,
I almost got through this without telling the
story of my friend Dick Root. he was a line company
officer in the army and ended up becoming a FAC.
He was a backseater to you guys and one time
flying low and slow they got shot down and his
pilot put it down in a clearing and it was kind
of a semi -controlled landing in which the plane
crumpled up and both of them were jammed inside
the cockpit and the bad guys started coming out
of the woods at them and they were defending
themselves with that little folding M16 that
you guys carried and then the helicopter gunship
showed up and then the other aircraft keeping
the bad guys away and so on and they were eventually
cut out of the airplane and rescued by a helicopter
crew. And as he told the story he kept getting
angrier and angrier and angrier and he said dirty
blankety blanks, shot us down, broke both my
legs, and then they tried to kill us. It was
a bit unsporting of them. I laughed so hard I
hit my head on the table. The things that we
laugh about that other people would look at us
and say, what's so funny about that? Well, the
irony is that if you don't get hurt, killed,
or badly scared, war can be most enjoyable, sometimes
addictive. And the adrenaline would become an
addiction like heroin for some of the people.
I mean, I sometimes would fly low and slow over
after an airstrike, sort of trolling for gunfire,
and the fighters wondered why I did it. Well,
I was pretty sure there was nothing down there,
but just to kind of show them that, hey, if we
could drum up a little more business, they'd
have something else to shoot at. Drum up some
more business. The thing about it, I tell people
I fell in love with the American people in Vietnam
because it seemed the more miserable things got,
the funnier people got. And we did a lot of laughing
over there. You bet. And it helped to have a
club in the evening. Being a CB, there's two
things they have to do. They have to keep you
in food and beer. Beer and mail were very important.
Mail. I tell that to people today. Somebody out
in the field, if they had a choice between food
and mail, they would pick mail every time. Right.
Well, Jonathan, it was great having you on Veterans
Radio listening to your stories. The time has
flown past. And again, we want to thank you.
And that email address again is soba at erols
.com. Right? That's correct. OK. Thanks again,
Jonathan. Thank you, Gary. Take care. You too.
Dale, this guy has the driest sense of humor.
I would say. I love talking to him in a couple
of the pre -interviews, and I've seen him at
the wall on Veterans Day and Memorial Day as
a tent. It's called the Memorial Day Writers
Project. That's where I first met Jonathan. Troops
come out to read the stuff they wrote and sing
the songs they wrote. Really worthwhile. We've
been getting a lot of those lately. If you have
songs or anything that you want us to mention
on the air, send us an email. Go to our website,
click on contact us and we'll try to get you
on the air. And next week we're going to have
General Bill Henderson retired. He flew F -4s
over Cambodia. South Vietnam became the first
black commander of the Michigan Air National
Guard. Really a great guy. In the meantime, you
are dismissed. The views and opinions expressed
in this program are not necessarily a veteran's
radio or the station.