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maybe you can help them out and it said if you
need help anytime for a national disaster or
a natural disaster for any type, he said just
go to their website and send them an email and
they'll get in touch with you and see if they
can help you out. So that's Team Rubicon. We're
going to be back in just a moment with our guest,
Major General Patrick Henry Brady, Medal of Honor
recipient for his duties in Vietnam. You're listening
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helped us. Now let us help you. Semper Fi. And
we're back on Veterans Radio and we're welcoming
our guest today Major General Pat Brady who served
over 34 years in the army and duty stations around
the world in Berlin at the building of the wall
as a commander on the DMZ in Korea and the Dominican
Republic in the Pentagon as a chief spokesman
for the army and two tours in Vietnam and during
his two tours as a Dust -off pilot he rescued
over 5 ,000 wounded. I think the number is probably
higher flew over 2 ,500 combat mission and he
has won both the Medal of Honor and the Distinguished
Service Cross, only one of two Vietnam soldiers
to do that. His awards are too lengthy to list,
but just an incredible man and I'm very excited
to have him on the program today. If you want
to get in on the conversation, give us a call
at 877 -573 -7825 and welcome to Veterans Radio,
General Brady. Good to be with you. It's a pleasure,
sir. And I want to tell you, your book, Dead
Men Flying, was really a time trip for me and
probably for a lot of pilots who read it. I love
the story and I love what you did over there.
Thank you so much for your service. Were you
a pilot in Vietnam? Yes, sir. I was one of those
Wally Warrant guys. I flew with the 195th Assault
Helicopter Company in III Corps. We were the
Sky Chiefs. What year were you there? I was there
in 1969. Okay, you were a little after me. I
worked the three core area early, 64, 65 time
frame. Right, you were flying around in your
B model Hueys. Yes, yes, indeed. I loved the
B model. We did a lot of night work. The B model,
of course the H model, which we used later on,
carried a lot more patience. But the B model
was so flat and handy for night work. You could
make an approach really flat. And I loved the
B model the way it performed at night. I'm going
to try to, every time we come up with an acronym
here for our audience, I'll try to correct and
fill in the blanks for all of the spaces that
we may leave out when we start talking about
helicopters. But my wife said, what are you doing
over there? I was reading the book and my hands
and my feet were moving as I'm reading some of
the rescues that they did, which I think is what
every helicopter pilot seems to do. We can't
tell a story without moving the controls. Yeah,
that's for sure. The fighter pilots don't like
to be around us because, you know, they count
their missions in the hundred. We counted ours
in the thousands. And the other thing about it
was that I tease my fighter pilot friends about
the fact that they're not really pilots. They
don't fly, they ride. Your only real pilots are
helicopter pilots because it takes both hands,
both feet. And probably when you and I started
to fly, it took a risk to a motorcycle grip to
keep that sucker in the air. That's true, because
I also trained in the the the Hiller H -23. Hiller
the killer, they called it. Down at Fort Walters,
Texas. And it was quite the adventure, I can
tell you that. My story to fighter pilots is,
you know, it's amazing that you guys can go,
you know, 800 miles an hour. But I said, how
fast can you go backwards? Yes, that's right.
And sideways, and stop. And how many times do
they land? And where do they land? In our case,
and in your case especially, anywhere you wanted.
That's true, and most often on the battlefield.
I think so. We're talking with Major General
Patrick Brady, a Medal of Honor recipient, about
his book, Dead Men Flying, and I guess I'd like
to kind of go through this chronologically with
you, sir, if we can. You mentioned that in your
book you were not the, let's see, the image of
the perfect officer in the military, were you?
You had some issues. No, it's very, very true.
When I came out of high school in the 50s, I
had an opportunity to go play football and I
had this little girlfriend, and she was going
to a university that didn't have a football team,
but it did have OTC. And so I thought I'd better
keep an eye on her, and so I followed her, gave
up the scholarships, and ended up policy she'd
been mandatory for me well i had a bad attitude
about it and by the way i married that gal i
got even with her uh... so still the uh... yes
still after fifty five years so but in any event
uh... i had to go i had to go into all of these
who had no choice and by the time i got out of
college and uh... was married and had a couple
children and uh... so i figured well uh... they
they actually through me out after two years
which was a first two years and then try but
they hadn't been when i came back to me they
took me back and i got commissioned but i i had
my my thing was just to serve my time and get
out because i did not like the uniform i didn't
like saloon saluting and i couldn't march very
well so i was not your ideal soldier president
in any event But in any event, when I went to
Berlin my first assignment, I met some incredible
people. My commander later became chief staff
of the Army. Norm Schwarzkopf was there and some
other great soldiers. And I just thought, gee,
it would be nice if I could grow up and be like
them. And so I was a mess as far as a soldier
goes. I just wasn't suited to it initially. And
so my record showed it. And it had some great
difficulties. You know, getting along and doing
the disciplined things, but the military taught
me discipline and thank God I had the military.
No telling what would happen to me otherwise.
I think there are many, many of us that can relate
to that. It was there when we needed it to be
there, I think. You bet. And so you really did
kind of live through history and I was fascinated
because you were in Berlin, you said, when the
wall went up. Yes. That was my first experience
with communism. You know, I'm a young idealistic
guy coming out of college, and I'd read of Mao
Tse -Tung in the Long March, and thought, you
know, this is a pretty tough guy. And Russia
was into space, and they had their system, and
I just didn't know. And then all of a sudden
we wake up August 13th, 1961, I think it was.
And they divided the city. As you know, or many
people may not know, the city was 110 miles behind
the Iron Curtain. And it was occupied by the
four forces. And all of a sudden, they're shooting
their own people off the wall. I was a medical
platoon leader, and we were picking up a mess.
And I thought, what in the heck is going on here?
These people are killing their own people. And
we had, believe it or not, as a second lieutenant
in Berlin, I had a maid and a babysitter. And
my babysitter was engaged, her fiance was in
the East across checkpoint Charlie in East Germany,
East Berlin. She never saw him again. And our
maid, her mother and father, when they died in
the East, she could not go to their funeral.
So that was my first experience. And then, of
course, I saw the real horrors of communism in
Vietnam. and also in Korea when I was working
in the DMZ so it was a horrible, horrible evil
system and of course that's why we went to Vietnam,
very simple thing there just to help the helpless
people be free of the evils of communism and
show them the fruits of freedom and the GI did
a great job and that's part of what the book's
about, the humanitarian effort over there. Right,
I did want to get into that in a little bit.
I have a question for General Brady. Give us
a call here at 877 -573 -7825. How did you end
up going to flight school? Well, my father was
with Darby's Rangers in World War II, and so
when I went in, I says, well, I got to be a Ranger,
and then I want to be airborne, and then I want
to go to flight school, and the reason, the motivation
was always because I make more money doing that.
That's true. So I applied initially when I was
in basic officers training and I got a response
when I got to Berlin saying whoops you're in
Berlin we can't send you to flight school. So
when I came out of Berlin I applied once again
and they took me this time. And I trained at
Fort Walters and volunteered for Vietnam because
you got more money over there and besides it
was It was the only place where there was any
action. Well, that is true. And you turned out
to be what I used to call was an RLO, which was
a real live officer. And you had a different
name, and I'm trying to find it in here. I don't
know my list of what you called them. It was
an RFO, and your listeners can figure that out.
Right, yeah, we don't need to do that. We run
into that word quite often as we read, although
it's all kinds of symbols there. So that's what
was going on there. So you went to Vietnam for
the first time in 1964, did you say? Yes. Yes.
Go ahead. I got there when Charles Kelly was
one of the great heroes I've ever known. He was
a veteran of World War II. He'd been severely
wounded in World War II and came out At the time,
the only living veteran with all the four of
the medals, you know, flight wings, jump wings.
And he also had a combat infantry badge and a
medical infantry badge, or combat medical badge.
And he got there to Vietnam. We didn't know,
we really didn't know how to use the resource.
And neither did the leadership. You've got this
expensive machine and four lives. And you got
combat going on. And the idea initially was just
to protect the Americans. We only had 16 ,000
Americans in Vietnam when I got there. And so
they just didn't know how to use that resource.
And it wasn't flying a lot. So the leadership
decided to take it away from Kelly and put a
portable Red Cross on it. Well, Kelly says, you're
not going to do that. That's insane. And a guy
named Stillwell, the son of vinegar Joe, was
his great adversary in that thing. So Kelly came
back and he said, listen, guys, they don't wish
us well. For the first time since the Civil War,
they're going to confiscate a medical resource.
We have to prove to them that we can do better
than they can do, do what we do better than they
can do. And so he went about to prove it. And
we did our best to keep up with him. Flying night,
we were the only unit that flew at night. and
to fly onto the battlefield during the battle.
Nobody else did that. And so he set incredible
records for patient caring. And when he would
land in a village, the entire village would turn
out. And they would say, here's the Americans
taking this valuable machine for lives, risking
them for a peasant and a rice paddy. And it made
a great impression on the people. So as I tell
in the book, The battle went on to take the aircraft
away from us, and I don't think it was settled.
I know it wasn't settled, until Kelly was killed.
And he was killed during a pick -up once again
on the battlefield, under fire, and the people
on the ground screamed at him to get out. And
his dying words were, when I have you wounded.
He would not leave until he had been wounded.
And after he said that, he took a bullet right
through the heart. and folded up the aircraft,
died on the spot. And Westmoreland had come in
by then. And they tell me that Stillwell broke
down and cried when he heard that Kelly was dead.
But in any event, that ended it. And to this
day, his dying words are the standard for dust
-off, aeromedical evacuation across the world.
And he set the example for all of us. from that
moment on and nobody ever tried, until recently,
by the way, that's another issue. They've done
the same thing they did to Kelly, which is insane,
but that's what's going on today. Yeah, I want
to get into that later on in our interview when
we talk about what's going on today. But I think
all pilots had heard it of, you know, Kelly through
flight school. He was one of those people that
was held up as an example that, you know, this
is what This is what a pilot's supposed to do.
This is, you know, our mission. I mean, we did
a lot of ash and trash. We did some other stuff,
you know, working with some special forces units.
But we always felt that it was our obligation
to help people. And I was not a medevac pilot
or a dust -off pilot. And as I was reading your
book, I was going, oh, my God, I should have
waited for those guys to show up sometimes. But
we would go in and help people. It didn't make
any difference what side they were on. And I
don't think the American public knew that we
were doing that. No, and that's one of the great
victories in Vietnam, the humanitarian effort
over there. For the first time, I think, in history,
up to this point in time in history anyhow, the
humanitarian, in the midst of his heroic actions,
the GI also had time for a humanitarian effort.
Usually we go in and we blow things up, we kill
people, civilians, or whoever else is in our
way. In Vietnam we didn't do that. During the
battle we fixed and we vaccinated and we built
hospitals and orphanages and adopted those children.
Dustoff rescued some 900 ,000 patients, men,
women, children, enemy as well as friendly. We
carried them all, even scout dogs, when they
got hurt. So it was a great humanitarian effort
and that was the purpose, you know, win the hearts
and minds and show the people the difference
between the evils. And by the way, You know,
when I go back, and I've been back about three
times, the people there really treat me great.
And the kids on the street, especially in Saigon
or Ho Chi Minh City, when I talk to them about
America, the place they want to go more than
anywhere else is America. So we left a great
impression on them. I think they love America
to this day. And I attribute that to the GI because
those people who were children then are grown
up now and they've taught their children about
how caring the American GI was when he was there
trying to protect them from communism. And I
think communism is essentially dead. They just
don't know what to do with the corpse. That's
true. They tried it. They tried their confiscating
property and education camps and all that. It
was a disaster. And so they had to retreat from
it, the same as Lenin did in Russia. And so now
you see enterprise, you see property ownership,
you see an industrious, wonderful people, hard
-working, wonderful people, the Vietnamese are.
And they're doing very well economically. I wish
our growth was like theirs. Well, I know. I have
a number of Vietnamese students, actually, at
the community college where I teach. And they
always talk about how much they appreciate what
we have. you know, what we have done to help
them out, and especially coming here. And they
said, you know, it's pretty much all true what
they heard. And I like it when they say that.
So let's go back to Vietnam, 1964, 65. As you
mentioned, there were only about 16 ,000 American
troops there at the time. And your area of operation
was everywhere, wasn't it? Yes. We covered the
entire country then with five helicopters. We
had them located in Saigon and two down at Sok
Trang. And initially when I got there, we had
one up at Pleiku in Quy Nhon covering the North
Country. And Kelly consolidated the two from
the North in Sok Trang because that's where the
action was. That's where the casualties were.
And he went down there and took what we call
Detachment A. He promised me because his headquarters
was in Saigon. That's where he should have been.
But there was not as much flying there, and he
wanted to be where the flying was. And you would
appreciate this, I think, as an helicopter pilot.
His last month, June, before he was killed, he
flew 149 hours. And the limit on, I don't know
how much you slick guys flew, but I think you
probably flew more than we did. But the limit
was like 90 hours, and they tried to stop him.
They said, you can't fly that much just against
the regulations. And he said, what do you want
me to do with these guys in the field? So they
didn't mess with him. Yeah, they limited us,
I believe it was to 120 hours in a 30 -day time
period. And they'd sit you down for a day, and
then you'd go back up and start over again, it
seemed. Is that the way it worked? I think so.
It was kind of a rolling 30 -day average, is
what they were trying to tell me. Yeah, well,
I thought it was 90 hours and 30 days, and it
came from the Air Force. It made no sense. That's
true. It's fascinating when you were telling
about that earlier, about the number of landings
and takeoffs and things like that. Obviously,
we don't want to offend any other Air Force or
other types of pilots, but you think about how
many times you landed in just one day. Yeah,
and how many missions that you would go on and
keep track like you did But I can imagine I know
you know we would fly six or seven different
types of missions every day Yeah, hey by the
way, I don't mind offending the Air Force guys
Doesn't bother me a bit I still have to get them
on the program as guests everyone No, they're
my friends, but it's it's all in good humor,
but yes they in fact We came up with the number
of missions when we left it. That's 30, 40 years
ago. Recently, a guy went back through my flight
records and I made, while I was in Vietnam, two
years over 4 ,000 landings. In one day, I think
45 or so landings. That's landings and some of
them are at the hospital, of course, but most
of them are in the field, confined areas, jungles,
mountains. and stuff like that. So the landings,
that's what separates. To me, that's the thing.
When you have to land in a confined area on a
pinnacle or at night in the weather or in fog,
then that's very challenging. It brings your
anxiety level up sometimes. Yes. I was thinking
about about that segment in your book this morning
because it's very foggy here today. And as we
were coming into the parking lot for the studio
and I'm going, I wonder what he would do here.
Next time you do that, just roll down your window
and look out the side window and see how much
further you can see as opposed to the windshield.
I adopted your procedures without even knowing
it when I was in country when we would run into
fog and stuff. You just kind of kick it out and
trim a little bit and look out the window and
you can see quite a ways. It was really quite
surprising. Better. And keeping the, giving the
secrets away. Anyway, tell me about when you
were in Vietnam the first time, could you kind
of describe to our audience, we've got about
three minutes before we're going to take a break,
what a typical mission would be and how it operated
at that time? Well, we got better, as I said,
later on. Initially, in the early days, you get
a call. Most often, it would come through a Vietnamese
operations center direct to us at the flight
line. And we would run to the aircraft. Later,
when we set standards, my second -to -hour standard
was two minutes to get off the ground. And then
we'd head out. Very often in the early days,
we had no radio contact with an English -speaking
person. So we had a set of coordinates, heading
in distance, and we knew the terrain. And so
when we get there, they initially tried to say,
we'll say Alpha Bravo, and you say Charlie Delta,
and then you know it's friendly. But that never
worked. And so what we would do then is very
often make a low pass to see if they were friendly
or if we got shot at. And if it looked friendly
and it looked good, then we would land. Very
often, we had no radio contact. And the other
thing, I learned to speak just one mouthful of
Vietnamese. I could say, cha dia chi cu oong,
which means pop smoke or show me your signal
or show me your address. But the smoke could
be problematic because if we said, if they would
pop smoke and they would say, yellow smoke is
out, You would look down there and you see two
or three yellow smoke. The bad guys would throw
out yellow smoke. The bad guy would throw it
out. So after a few bad experiences with that,
we said, all right, you pop your smoke and I'll
identify the color. And when we can talk to them.
So but in any event, that was typical. We learned
how to make tactical approaches, trial and error,
and we can talk about that. And we'd go get the
patients, and we would take them right to either
a Vietnamese or the Navy hospital in Saigon.
At that time, we didn't have a lot of Army medical
or other hospitals, surgical hospitals, field
hospitals. In the early days, we had mostly Vietnamese
hospitals. And in the highlands up in the north,
They wouldn't take mountain yards. The first
load of mountain yard patients I took into a
Vietnamese hospital, they left them on the ramp.
I could not believe it. Kind of like the blacks
and American in the early days. But then we had
Doc Smith up there and she, an American, great
American who founded a mountain yard hospital
up there and her story is in the book and she
was a great person. There are some amazing stories
in this book. We're talking with Major General
Patrick Brady about his experiences as a dust
-off pilot in Vietnam, Medal of Honor recipient.
And we're going to be taking a break here in
just a second, so I'm going to ask you to hold
on. If you want to give in on the conversation
or ask the general question, you can give us
a call here on Veterans Radio at 877 -573 -7825.
That's 877 -573 -7825. When we come back at the
bottom of the hour here, we're going to be talking
with General Brady about his second tour in Vietnam.
the Tet Offensive and some other things and we're
going to get into some tactics because I think
that will be fun to talk about because I want
to talk about some of the tactics that we adopted
when I was there that we tried to bring back
to our students. So you're listening to Veterans
Radio and we'll be right back after this. The
Medal of Honor is the highest award for valor
in combat given a member of the Armed Forces
of the United States. There have been over 3
,400 recipients of the nation's highest award.
This is one of them. Major Patrick Brady rescued
51 men in one day. Details after this. Brady
was flying Medevac helicopters on his second
tour in Vietnam when he volunteered to rescue
two badly wounded South Vietnamese soldiers in
enemy territory. When he arrived, the site was
shrouded in fog. He descended slowly until he
saw the tops of trees and then moved sideways
to the landing site. Despite heavy enemy fire,
he was able to locate the soldiers and evacuated
them. Brady was called to another Faudin area
where American casualties lay close to enemy
lines. He lowered his chopper through the fog
and found a stream bed that led to the wounded.
In all, he made five flights to rescue 39 GIs.
On his third mission, the controls on his chopper
were hit, but he managed to get home. He got
a replacement chopper and returned. On his fourth
mission, Brady watched a mine explode near the
landing site, forcing another medevac to leave.
Brady went in and set his chopper in the skid
marks of the other craft. Two crew members were
carrying a stretcher to the chopper when one
stepped on a mine. The explosion blew a hole
in Brady's craft. He managed to get it off the
ground and delivered the six severely wounded
men to the aid station. He picked up another
helicopter and kept flying. In all, he evacuated
51 men that day. 400 bullet holes were counted
in the helicopters he flew that day. Brady went
on to become a Major General in the United States
Army. He was awarded the Medal of Honor by President
Nixon on October 9, 1969. The Medal of Honor
series is a production of Veterans Radio. And
we're back on Veterans Radio. You'll have to
excuse me for doing a little time tripping with
that particular song. I was trying to find our
guest today is Major General Patrick Brady, a
Medal of Honor recipient. And I know that you
like Up, Up and Away by the Fifth Dimension.
But I couldn't find it this morning, so I thought
I'd get a little Ghost Riders in the sky. For
all the Ghost Riders out there that were in Vietnam
in the late 60s, early 70s, that song was dedicated
to you today. Well, there's a chapter in the
book about what we call Ghost Riders, I think,
in my book where something was chasing us one
night and we never have figured out what it was.
Yeah, you did say that. We were stationed at
Longman every once in a while and we would go
to the, when we were allowed to go to the officer's
club there because everybody was so, you know,
in starched fatigues and everything they couldn't
understand pilots to begin with. And we would
always ask the Filipino band to play Ghost Riders
and we would stand up, you know, and shout it
out. Let's put it, let's put it that way. So
you survived your first tour and you came back
and. And what happened when you got back to the
states? Well, we went to, I went to Fort Benning,
and we flew in support of the Ranger train camp
down in Florida, and also the airborne school
at Fort Benning. We were flying H -19s, which
was really a beast after coming. Have you ever
flown an H -19? No, I've just seen them shift
themselves apart. Oh, yeah. Oh, Lord, they are...
But anyhow, it actually improved my flying skills
because it's difficult to get off the ground
and we flew single pilot in those days so you
had to fly, you had to navigate, you had to handle
the fuel, you had to do everything and the patient
was downstairs from you kind of. So that did,
I think, improve my skills and then all of a
sudden we got word we were going back to Vietnam
and they took everybody out of the unit but me
and two other guys. And all the pilots who were
going back with us, the second tour, had graduated
in flight school on the same day. And of course,
by then, Dustoff had a good reputation. And these
guys thought they were hand -picked to fly Dustoff.
These were the worn officers. And all their names
started with an S. So they had taken this class
and they gave them to me. And so I got all these
wobbly ones, and I got to get them ready to go
into combat in a very short period of time. And
I think I had like 22 hours to, but I did the
best I could. And then we went to Vietnam. And
by this time, there were half a million Americans
in Vietnam. First tour, we carried 4 ,000 patients
the whole year. Second tour, we're carrying almost
that many in a month. because kelly i think was
a hundred forty -ninth american killed you know
they're telling me in the week and more so that
was the second to all these uh... and of course
we went where we went to a mountainous area where
weather and terrain were very difficult more
more of our pilots were being killed and i'm
sure the same is true of your units were killed
at night and in weather than were killed by the
enemy yes and especially the ones up north yes
and so we've we uh... I was scared to death.
I'm a hardcore Irish Catholic guy and my faith
is so important. I was praying like crazy to
find ways to get the patients out at night, in
weather, low valley fog, in the daytime, and
keep these young worn officers who I knew would
do anything in their power to go get the patients
to keep them from killing themselves. So we found
some techniques to do that. and turned out to
be an extraordinary unit and that was the reason
I wrote the book because of the numbers associated
with that unit my second tour. They really are
astronomical as far as the number of patients
that you call them that you were able to save
and we talk about in the book and I'll let you
talk about it, the amount of combat that these
infantrymen were in Vietnam and we always admire
all of the other Service members from World War
I, World War II, of course, but these guys were
constantly exposed to it, much like the the troops
are in Afghanistan today. Yes, I don't know that
we've ever fought any war where the combat was
as intense as it was for the Grunts in Vietnam.
The average guy in World War II in four years
was in combat about 40 days. The average guy
in Vietnam in one year was in combat about 240
days. We had such great empathy for those guys.
They were down there in the mud and the blood
and they had these incredible loads that they
had to carry and so we were going to do everything
in our power to help them because I don't know
that there's ever been a soldier anywhere who
had it anywhere. It was very hot and everything
there bit you or stung you and sucked your blood.
And so they're out in the middle of that stuff,
and we flew home at night to an airfield, and
we had sheets on our beds. I think we had sheets.
But in any event, we were sleeping in a bed,
and they were sleeping in the mud. So yes, those
guys had it as hard. And the way they were treated
when they came home was just horrible. I totally
agree with you. And at the time, I didn't realize
how much I should have admired them then as much
as I do today. you know, for what they had to
go through on a daily basis. And as you say,
you know, we flew in, flew out, and, you know,
went to bed in a bed. And with relatively normal
food. I kind of exaggerate that. But the, you
know, they lived on. whatever they could find
out there in the in the jungles with not only
the the creatures of the insect variety but they
also ran into animals you had a story and we've
talked to another gentleman on the program we
talked about tigers up north yeah and you had
eaten in action where they had lost somebody
I think it was the book was the Matterhorn and
he had talked about losing somebody to a tiger
Yeah, that's true. You know, you got the WIA
wounded in action, KIA killed in action, EIA
eaten in action, and that may have been with
tongue and cheek a bit, but that happened while
I was at Placoo where a tiger fell into a foxhole
with a guy and aiding, or mostly aiding, before
they could get to him. So yes, it was dangerous.
what those guys were doing, not only because
of the enemy who was very, very proficient in
the jungle and in that kind of warfare, but because
of all the stuff around them. When we went to
Plague Coup, they still had plague patients.
So we would drop these medics out in the villages,
surrounded by the enemy, dental technicians,
dentists, to take care of the peasants. and the
Vietnamese people, they could do so much in such
a short period of time, but they're exposed to,
you know, if you get bit by a flea or something,
you got the plague and there's leprosy. They
told us that it wasn't communicable, but, you
know, that's hard to believe. Somehow they got
that. But anyhow, they had some exotic diseases
over there, not to mention hepatitis and those
other things. So the guy was exposed. Yes, and
and your malaria and your oh yeah, yeah malaria
that was Those wonderful pills Yeah on a daily
basis, but could you describe your your crew
what what made up a crew on a on a dust -off
aircraft the crew was For it was a pilot a co
-pilot an aircraft commander one of the pilots
was the aircraft commander He was in charge of
the mission And then in the back you had the
medic, a very, very highly trained, maybe not
initially, but became very experienced in traumatic
injuries. In other words, treating amputees,
gunshot wounds, sucking chest wounds, belly wounds,
stuff like that. He became very good at that.
And then you had the crew chief. He owned the
aircraft. It was his job to maintain the aircraft.
And these were the highest quality soldiers I've
ever been around. The building is named after
him down at Fort Rucker, who was an absolute
genius when it came to maintenance. He kept us
in the air. We had an aircraft shot up about
every four or five days. We flew night and day,
about four missions a night. In the workload,
you're looking at a 40 -man detachment. That's
40 men. You're looking at six aircraft that we
covered a monstrous area, and only three of them
would be flyable in any one time because they
were getting shot up in maintenance problems.
And among those 40 men, 26 Purple Hearts. That's
how many were shot. Some of them were more than
once, but none of them were killed, thank God.
That changes the nature of the unit. In a nine
-and -a -half -month period, we carried 21 ,000
patients. That's more than we carried during
the entire Korean War. And by the way, three
of those 40 men are in the Aviation Hall of Fame,
and five of them are in the Dustoff Hall of Fame,
something probably no other unit can come close
to. I ask you one question. Were Dustoff ships
armed? Some weren't. In other words, the first
cab, which was not dust -off, they went by medevac.
They were direct support. We were an area support
resource. I didn't like the guns. Frankly, I
never liked them. You can't hit what you're shooting
at. There's families down there. You never see
the enemy. It's stupid. But some people, they
liked it. And the first cab actually had the
crew chief and the gunner on the aircraft which
took up space and didn't do any good. It just
didn't do any good. So I was against it. You
were authorized, of course, to have weapons to
protect yourself and your patients. There's nothing
contrary to the conventions as far as that goes.
But I was one who liked the quiet approach. If
you got fire, you knew that it was from the enemy.
And it's hard to teach a guy to shoot out of
a helicopter because you actually shoot behind
the target. And we tried to teach our door gunners,
our guys, because the crew chief and the medic
are the gunners when you come into an area. But
I didn't want them shooting. I understand that.
We've got to take a quick break here, General.
And we'll be right back. You're listening to
Veterans Radio. Give us a call, 877 -573 -7825.
We'll be right back. And we're back on Veterans
Radio. We're talking with Major General Patrick
Brady, Medal of Honor recipient during the Vietnam
conflict, as a dust -off pilot. hundreds and
thousands of missions and saved many, many lives.
And I mentioned earlier, General, that many of
the techniques that I read about in your book
were things that we were taught once I got in
country, not necessarily in flight school, but
once we got in country of the high overhead approaches
and low level approaches and kick turns into
LZs and resting skids on the side of mountains.
And when I came back, They made me an instructor
down at Fort Rucker, and we tried to show our
students in that and got in all kinds of trouble.
Much of it is against the rules, actually. I
know. So the two awards, the Medal of Honor and
the Distinguished Service Cross, which I have
the result of two epiphanies that I had over
there. And as I say, I'm a guy who wears my faith
on my sleeve. And I'm really worried the second
tour because we have great challenges in terms
of weather. The first tour I managed a low fast
approach, low level fast approach and they overhead
what they call the death spiral. Those were kind
of routine and the terrain dictated how you get
into it but you can't use those approaches in
weather especially in the low valley fog and
the night. the tropical storms. The first technique
was a night weather mission. We got a call in
a place called Death Valley. You're flat terrain
on the coast and you got to go over a mountain
range to get into the valley and get the patients
out. It was in the middle of a tropical storm
and the aircraft were grounded. I headed out
and I thought I could use techniques from my
first tour which is You know, you've got a guy
who always on the floor watches for a light behind
you, and you watch for a light in front of you.
And then you go only as far as you've got a light.
Well, you know, we just ran into ink. But then
I had my first epiphany, which I remembered an
earlier mission when I was in the valley, sitting
on a mountaintop. And you know how beautiful
that can be at night when the tracers are going
off and the flares are falling. And it really
is pretty. It's like 4th of July. Yeah, but I
looked up and I saw a mountaintop and I noticed
that it was in the clouds, but the flares silhouetted
it. So then I knew how I was going to get those
patients out. I went into the weather, threw
IFR to the pickup site, and then I followed the
flares down through the mountains and made four
flights that night and got all the patients out.
So that solved the night weather problem. You
have to go IFR to the site, and then you let
down VFR, which is visual flight rules, for those
who don't fly. And then that solved it. So we
never left a patient in the field at night and
weather. The day weather problems were probably
the reason I got the Medal of Honor, because
that day was a couple of emissions, got a lot
of visibility because people were on a mountaintop
watching me come up out of the fog. But I got
a call one afternoon for a kid who was on a mountain.
who had been bit by a snake, and the clouds went
about 500 ,000 feet down the mountain top. It
was clear underneath. So I got to the mountain,
I saw the clouds, started into it, and I knew
that if I got in trouble I could fall off into
the valley. And I did. I did that several times.
Well, I'm praying like crazy, you know, good
Lord, why are you doing this? Show me the way.
The crew is very nervous, and so I said, okay
guys, and they're screaming at me, he's going
into convulsions, the patient. So I said, you
know, we gotta give him another shot, guys. And
I always flew with my window open. I headed into
that stuff one more time, straight into it up,
and you know how that goes. And I was blown sidewards,
and that wind was the breath of God, because
I looked out my window, I thought we were going
in, I was looking for a hole in the trees. And
I could see the tip of my rotor blade, and I
could see the top of the trees. So I had two
reference points. I knew I was right side up.
And I turned that H model sideways and hovered
up the mountain and in and got those guys. And
that's a technique I used the day I got the medal.
The fog was at the base of a fire support base,
and the guys were on the top of the mountain
looking down. And we used the same technique.
We would come to a hover. at the edge of the
clouds, turn it sidewards, and head in. You had
to do a very careful map recon. But you can see
about 20 feet in that stuff. And that's all you
need to see. Because as long as you can get to
the tip of the rotor blades, and the ground,
or a tree, or some other reference point, you
can keep it right side up and fly sidewards.
You can't go very fast. But you can use that
technique. And I used it many times. And the
day that I used it on the Medal of Honor day,
they just happened to be sitting on that mountaintop
seeing me come up out of the clouds. Well, as
you said, there were probably many, many missions
that you went on and that your other fellow pilots
and crewmen went on, but just nobody observed
it. So nobody was able to write it up and get
the awards. Because even though many of your
pilots were awarded distinguished flying crosses
and even one Medal of Honor and some other things,
probably they deserved more. Oh, God, yes. They
were very highly decorated. And the book, I list
the awards for that 40 -man detachment. It may
have been the most highly awarded 40 -men ever
in terms of distinct silver stars, distinguished
flying crosses, metal bar, distinguished service
cross, air medals galore, soldiers medals, bronze
stars. But they never you can never take care
of the guys to make sure they get what they deserve
because somebody has to see it, somebody has
to care enough and that's the great thing about
the medal is that somebody saw it and cared enough
about what you did and you to go through the
effort to document it and very often nobody would
do that, they were too busy and so people who
did a lot more than I did in my own unit and
other places were never recognized as they should
have been. Very, very true. And sometimes, well,
we won't go into that. Some other people got
medals that they didn't necessarily deserve.
Yes. Yeah, that's true, too. I want you to, too,
we've got about five minutes left, and unfortunately
the hour has flown by again as usual. Tell me
about what you feel happened as a result of the
Vietnam War. You know, the perception is that
we lost it. We know from a military standpoint,
that's furthest from the truth, but from a public
relations standpoint, we did? Yes, we did. The
war was lost by the people back here, especially
the media. The media was the one who demonized
the GI when he came home. And so we kind of all
became reclusive. And it wasn't until many years
later that I recognized what a great humanitarian
effort is in that unit I was in that I decided
to write the book. But the guy, the poor Vietnam
veteran came back He has become a great citizen
of this country. He is also the architect of
the great victory in Desert Storm, Desert Shield.
He was the guy that did that. He's been leaders
in this community. He is a great veteran. And
I think right now, your listeners should know
that we're beginning a celebration of the 50th
anniversary of the Vietnam War. gathering here
in San Antonio, Texas and they're going to be
doing this in cities across America for the next
I don't know how many years as we celebrate the
50th anniversary of the war in Vietnam. So I
think America is ashamed of the way that they
treated the Vietnam veteran and I think that
accounts for the way we treat the guy today who
is treated with great reverence and our soldiers
today deserve that. But a lot of it had to do
with the way. I don't think it was so much the
American people as it was the American media
and certain politicians. So I've had politicians
turn their back to keep from having a picture
taken with me when I thought I was a Vietnam
veteran. So it was all honest. Are you serious?
Absolutely true. horrible the way the stories
you're hearing. The suicide rate of the guy coming
back from Vietnam in the first couple years was
high, but then it was lower than his cohort in
civilian life. Today it's out of sight. I mean
they really are abusing these kids today in terms
of its deployments. The combat is not nearly
as intense as it was in Vietnam, but the stresses
are much higher. Separations from family, six
out of ten years deployed. They don't have a
force structure. They can handle the mission.
And so they abuse these kids. It's horrible the
way they're treating them. And the suicide rates
are out of sight, and so are the PTSD rates.
Absolutely. And I certainly can understand, just
with the apprehension and so forth, that we went
through while we were there, and then you come
home and people really didn't care. And I don't
want it to sound like whining to people. It's
just that you just... Want to be acknowledged
for for serving your country because you know,
we we did that we even if you were drafted you
stepped up you didn't run away and you did your
job and We can all get off on a big tangent on
that. I want to talk a little bit about aircraft
in our last two minutes They've gone to the the
Apache and and you know the other I forget what
it's called The Blackhawk now and the Huey has
been retired which is And in your book you talk
about that the Black Hawk cannot do the same
thing that a Huey did. No, the Black Hawk was
designed for the aviation mentality, airfield
to airfield, cargo, troops. It was not designed
to work the jungles and combat areas. Now the
desert's a different kind of an area, but the
Black Hawk, I've got very little time in it,
very little time in the Apache, but the Black
Hawk has a tail low attitude. It's not quick.
It's powerful, and it'll handle a crash a little
better than the Huey, but nothing was ever, and
those of us, when they were designing the Black
Hawk for dust off, tried to tell them, just put
another engine on the Huey, put in a radar altimeter,
and keep it. And we used to always say that the
Huey would fly the funeral procession for the
Black Hawk, but they finally retired it. And
by the way, the Huey is the most combat -experienced
aircraft in history. 16 million sorties, I don't
know how they measured those things, but over
7 million combat hours in the Healy. No other
aircraft in history, World War I, II, ever has
had, and it's amazing to me that some museums
don't display the Healy, although we did manage
to get one up in the Museum of Flight up in Seattle,
and it's getting a lot of attention up there.
But it is the most combat -experienced aircraft
in history, and what it did, and what the pilots
did, The helicopter pilots in Vietnam developed
skills that were unique on the battlefields of
history. And unfortunately, because they demonized
that war and those warriors, that helicopter
pilot never got the recognition I think he deserved.
Well, we got to stop it on that. Thank you for
your comments. We've been talking with Major
General Patrick Brady, author of Dead Men Flying.
Don't miss it. Go out and get this book. Thank
you very much, General, for being on Veterans
Radio today. It's a pleasure being with another
helicopter pilot, always. Thank you, sir. Until
next week, you are dismissed.