All across America and around the world this
is veterans radio And now your host for today's
program Dale Throneberry And good afternoon folks
welcome to Veterans Radio, my name is Dale Throneberry,
a CW2 type, a helicopter pilot in Vietnam, 1969
with the 195th Assault Helicopter Company. Today
is going to be all about helicopters, so all
you rotorheads out there, start paying attention
and see what's going on. We're going to be talking
with our Medal of Honor, newest Medal of Honor
recipient, Colonel Charles Kettles. and another
helicopter pilot, Colonel Daniel Long. They're
going to be talking about their experiences on
one nice day in 1967. After we take our break,
we'll be coming back to them. I just wanted to
thank everybody for supporting the Vietnam Veterans
of America Chapter 310 down at the Ypsilanti
Heritage Festival. I was down there a little
bit this afternoon, a little warm. Holy mackerel.
They were selling raffle tickets for, I'm hoping,
my new grill, and for some other things. And
it's a great fundraiser, and I think a great
time was had by all. And I want to thank all
the members that came out and supported that.
I thought it was a good turnout, even with the
weather from yesterday and so on. We had a lot
of people there, and a lot of people were very
nice stopping by our booth. and supporting our
raffle. I think that was very nice of everybody.
It's always amazing, folks, when we see the American
civilian population and they just came up and
they just wanted to give us, you know, shake
our hands and thank us for our service and so
on. And we want people to do that, too, which
reminds me, fly your flag. I should do this.
My wife says I have to do this. No, I don't have
to do it. We've been driving around the local
area, and maybe you could drive around your local
area, and we've noticed that there aren't a lot
of people that are flying their flags, and we
would really like to encourage people to fly
their American flag. It doesn't have to be on
Fourth of July or Veterans Day or Flag Day or
anything like that. And so what we have been
doing is when we find somebody with a flag flying
on their house, we've been sending them a little
postcard that says, thank you for flying your
flag. And we're hoping that their neighbors will
say, hey, what's that postcard for? And they
will say, hey, somebody told me, congratulated
me, and thanked me for flying their flag. In
fact, I had a student of mine give me, sent me
an email, and he said, thanks for the postcard.
I didn't know where he lived. And he said, yeah,
I got a postcard from you that said, thank you
for flying my flag. So we encourage you to do
that. If you'd like to find out more about Fly
Your Flag Project, you can send me an email at
dale at veteransradio .net. That's dale at veteransradio
.net. And we'd be loved to help you out if we
can and tell you how we're going about driving
around our neighborhoods and letting our people
know. Speaking of events, lots of them going
on. So let me get to my list here first of all
is coming up and I mentioned this the other day
the Louisville slugger warriors are coming to
Michigan and the American house which is a senior
living community group of Facilities is presenting
the American house all -star game featuring the
Louisville slugger warriors and all these Louisville
slugger warriors are disabled American veterans
most of them some of them are missing hands and
arms and legs and feet and all kinds of different
things but they are competitive softball team
and are doing a great job and they are coming
to St. Jimmy John's field in Utica, Michigan
on Saturday September 10th at 1 p .m. This is
a fundraiser to raise money for the Louisville
Slugger Warriors and also for other veterans
organizations around the state of Michigan. So
I encourage you to do this again it is Saturday
September 10th 1 p .m. at Jimmy John's field
on Auburn Road in Utica, Michigan. For more information,
you can go to their website. It's www .uspbl
.com. USPBL .com or you can call the box office
at the Jimmy John's Field at 248 -759 -5278.
Lots of great information. It looks like it'll
be a fun time for all and a great way to raise
money and a great way for you to do that to help
out America's veterans. The other thing finally
is the Seventh Annual Veterans Summit by the
Canton Community Foundation and Legal Help for
Veterans coming up on September 20th in Westland,
Michigan. And this is where you, all your veterans
and your families, you can learn all about health
care, business, disability benefits at this free
event. for you, that's September 20th in Westland,
Michigan. So I want you to go to their website,
and that's thecantonfoundation .org, or give
them a call at 734 -495 -1200. Mark it on your
calendar. So you've got two things to do. You've
got September 10th, you're going to go watch
a great softball game, and then on the 20th,
you're going to go to the Canton Community Foundation's
It's the 7th Annual Veterans Summit, learn all
about all the things that everybody's trying
to do to help veterans out. So I encourage you
to do that. Finally, and now joining me on the
line. I have to gather all my notes in here.
There's no air conditioning in our studio today,
folks. So if you kind of hear this melting sound,
it's going to be one of us probably turning into
a pool. I'm not sure what that'll happen. But
joining me on the line right now from the Bob
Evans Company. and also from the Gary Sinise
Foundation. And I can't find your last name,
Mike. Mike Towsley. There it is. It is Mike Towsley
from Bob Evans. Mike, welcome to Veterans Radio.
Great to be with you, Dale. So tell me, what
is this thing that you have set up with the Gary
Sinise Foundation? Well, first of all, let me
start by saying that Bob Evans Farms has had
a strong rich tradition of supporting the military.
Bob Evans, our founder, when he came out of World
War II, had a great sense of really wanting to
give back and to recognize our veterans as well
as our entire military and their family. So we've
had a history of that through the years. In our
latest endeavor with Gary Sinise and the Gary
Sinise Foundation, is we really looked at, say,
okay, how can we continue this tradition and
what's the best way to do it? And really, through
our research, we felt that Gary and his foundation
with the efforts they've had with supporting
our military and our veterans and their families
and actually providing meals for them really
was a nice alignment for Bob Evans considering
we're in the food business. That's true. And
how are you going about providing meals for veterans?
What we have done... Dale is we we we donated
two hundred thousand dollars to the Gary sneeze
foundation and for that would be providing over
six thousand meals to military veterans families
and our and our active military as well at different
bases and locations all across the country That's
kind of neat, but I also I also see that and
so This is not something where we're going into
a Bob Evans restaurant. This is this is going
to be on bases and around the country now you
have a little bit where the the that's what we're
actually uh... either feeding our troops in their
families are better out in their families is
actually on locations pretty much have been on
military base okay but i i notice that you uh...
i'm looking at uh... the website here for bob
evans dot com slash our farm salutes right and
i am looking at this barn that has been repainted
that that's correct uh... those of you listening
that that might be player would be bob evans
farm and and rio grand ohio others are there
and typically it's painted white with uh... the
bob evans logo on the side of bark well due to
our commitment to this program and really to
create a conversation with people that are busy
our farm and to use it with promotional material
to really draw attention to it we painted our
barn uh... purple camo And on the backside of
that, there's a mural of our past military, all
the way back to the revolution, where they're
actually looking forward, looking to the future,
and then some of our more current military branches
looking backwards, saluting their predecessors.
The reason for the color purple, though, is that
the color purple represents all branches of the
military. It doesn't pick out just one or the
other, but it is the universal color for our
entire U .S. military force. I think this is
really neat. Could you tell our audience again
where this barn is? This barn is in Rio Grande,
Ohio, which is about two hours south of Columbus,
Ohio, almost to the West Virginia line around
Gallup -Palis, Ohio. Oh, I know where that is.
All right. Now that's terrific. Is there any
way I notice here that people can go to this
website and donate funds to help out what you
are doing with the Gary Sinise Foundation? Absolutely.
There is a link there that would take you right
there and allow that to participate. I think
this is a great thing that you are doing and
as a veteran we greatly appreciate it. Bob Evans
is doing with Gary Sinise. Of course, Gary Sinise
is known to every veteran, I think, in America
for all of the things that he's involved with.
Absolutely. So I'll let you do this. Tell our
audience where they can go to find out more information.
Well, you can go to our website, ourfarmsalutes
.com. Let me look here. It may be dot org. I
don't know. It's ourfarmsalute .com or the garrisonesefoundation
.org. It's ourfarmsalute .com or the garrisonesefoundation
.org to make donations to the garrisonesefoundation.
And like I said, Gary really became passionate
about this whole movement after 9 -11. And he
is just... done some fabulous work with our military
and really like I said through our research we
felt this was a great alignment with Bob Evans
our culture of giving and our support of our
military troops. Well I strongly recommend everybody
for a good breakfast go to Bob Evans and while
you're there you can probably take out your cell
phone and and click on our farm salutes and make
a donation to the Gary Sinise Foundation. How's
that for a combo? Well, I think that's fabulous.
Well, thank you very much. Mike Towsley from
Bob Evans. We look forward to talking to you
again. Let us know how this works out. Great.
We appreciate it, Dale. We appreciate getting
time to speak to you. OK. Thank you very much.
Thank you. All right, folks. So that's a nice
thing that's going on out there, I think. Pretty
cool. All right. We're going to take a quick
break. And when we come back, we've got Medal
of Honor recipient Lieutenant Colonel Charles
Kettles. called Chuck by some people, called
Charlie by other people. I'll just call him Sir.
And joining him on our program is Colonel Donald,
I think I said Daniel before, Donald Long, who
happened to be there that day. We'll talk about
that day in just a moment. You're listening to
Veterans Radio. I don't know if there's anybody
here today who doesn't thrill to the sound of
those blades. That familiar wop, wop, wop. is
the soundtrack of our war. The lullaby of our
younger days. To someone who spent his time in
NOM with the grunts, I've got to tell you that
noise was always a great comfort. It meant someone
was coming to help. Someone was coming to get
our wounded. Someone was coming to bring us water
and ammo. Someone was coming to take our dead
brothers home. And eventually, someone was coming
to give us a ride out of hell. Even today when
I hear it, I stop, catch my breath, and think
back to those days. I love you guys as only an
infantryman can. No matter how bad things were,
if we called, you came. Down through the green
tracers and other visible signs of a real bad
day, off to a real bad start. To us, you seemed
beyond brave and fearless. that you would come
to us in the middle of battle in those flimsy,
thin -skinned crates, and in the storm of fire,
you would sit up there behind that thin plexiglass,
seeming so patient and so calm and so vulnerable,
waiting for the offloading and the unloading.
We thought you were God's own lunatics, and we
loved you. Still do. We're the fortunate ones.
We survived when so many better men gave up their
precious lives for us. We owe them a sacred death
to live each day to its fullest. What they're
saying when you listen hard enough is this, we're
at peace and so should you be. And so should
you be. a sound never to be forgotten for anybody
that was in Vietnam or anybody who's heard about
Vietnam. That was Joe Galloway who was there
in 1965 actually and is part of the book. We
were soldiers once and young. I knew I'd get
it right. Joining me in the studio right now
is a special pilot. a special God's Own Lunatic,
and that is Colonel Charles Kettles, and I'm
just going to call him Sir or Colonel. Welcome
back to Veterans Radio. Well, thank you. And
joining me on the line is another Colonel. As
I mentioned earlier, I don't know how to address
all these people. I just call everybody Sir now.
It's Colonel Donald Long. And Colonel, welcome
to Veterans Radio. Well, thank you very much
for having me. Thank you for agreeing to be with
us. And Colonel Long is down in North Carolina.
And Colonel Kettles is here in the studio. And
I should say, if anybody does want to give us
a call, you can do that by dialing 734 -822 -1600.
734 -822 -1600. How often are you going to get
a chance to talk to a Medal of Honor recipient?
Not often. Speaking of the Medal of Honor here,
and I'm just looking at the Congressional Medal
of Honor Society's website. And it says that
the Medal of Honor is the highest award for valor
in action against an enemy force. which can be
bestowed upon an individual serving in the armed
services of the United States, generally presented
to its recipient by the President of the United
States of America in the name of Congress. And
there have been a little over 3 ,400 Medal of
Honor recipients or medals that have been distributed.
And we are very fortunate today to have Colonel
Kettles with us. It's kind of an interesting
story I think and I got some of our audience
has probably heard some of it before because
we've had to you know The privilege of having
you on the program, but tell me when exactly
did you join the military first time? Well, I
was drafted in October of 51 for the Korean War
I've been attending what was then Michigan State
Normal College and dropped out in the fall and
was for the fall and was going to start again
in January. I was working two full -time jobs
to accumulate enough funds that I could go back
more like a gentleman and maybe my academic record
would be a little bit more favorable. That's
stellar, right? Yeah, so it was less than sterling
by a long shot as the dean would, dean of men
would attest to. I think some of us have had
that experience before. I see. Well, yeah, I
don't think I'm the lone ranger in that respect,
but... So you went into the service in 1951,
did you say? Correct. Did you go to Korea? Well,
eventually. But first, of course, went to basic
training in Camp Breckenridge, Kentucky. From
there, I went to Fort Knox, Kentucky for officer
count at the school and went to Fort Ord briefly,
California, and then went to flight school. and
completed that in April of 1954. When you went
to flight school, what was it that you learned
to fly in 1954? The L -19, which was later designated
O -1. It's a tandem Cessna product. Okay, I'm
going to say that's a regular airplane. This
is not a helicopter. Not yet. Yeah, the wings
stay rigid, hopefully. By the time I got to Korea,
the war had been over by... some five months,
I believe. And we stayed briefly until that fall,
about October, November. And then the entire
artillery group moved from there to Camp Drake,
Japan, which was just outside of Tokyo. And they
did their maneuvers out at the base of Camp Fuji.
So there was kind of a break in the action here.
I mean, you were in the military for how many
years before you got out and then went back in
again? Well, I completed my obligation in the
fall of 1956, and nothing was happening. So I
elected to get out and did so. And then my brother
and I opened a Ford dealership in DeWitt, Michigan.
Then of course Vietnam came along and so I volunteered
to come back on active duty in 63 for Vietnam
Okay, and then that's when you went to rotary
flight school. Well, I cross -trained into into
rotary at Fort Walters and in route to France
Which was a bit of a surprise France you had
to go to France Well, it wasn't tough but That
was the direction they were sending me, which
didn't seem to be in the direction of Vietnam,
by any means, but anyway, that's where they sent
me. And then I cross -trained, while there, I
cross -trained over in Germany into the UH -1
helicopter, because Fort Walters was simply a
primary transition into an H -23 at that time.
That's what I learned on, was the H -23, a Hiller.
Yes. Hold that thought. Colonel Long, I want
to bring you on now and find out how you got
into the military. So what was your process?
Well, it's similar in some ways. I had gone to
college for two years. And again, money was a
situation. And I dropped out to work. And I happened
to be good friends with the president of the
draft board in my hometown. And he wanted to
hire me, do something. And I said, I want to
go back to college. He said, well, I have to
warn you. Within six months, you'll be drafted.
if you don't, so I enlisted in the Army in 1960.
And then I, like Chuck, I went on to OCS and
infantry school and believe it or not went to
Fort Ord and then from Fort Ord back to Fort
Rooker for flight training, again in a bird dog
just like him. Okay and when did you do your
rotary flight training? Well the first assignment
out of flight school was to Germany and I think
that he and I were in Europe about the same time.
I got all of my helicopter training in Munich,
Germany. They set up a special school because
they were training the helicopter pilots out
of Germany to go to Vietnam, and there weren't
a lot of them less, so they wanted to train us
six -week guys to fly them. I graduated there
in May of 66, probably August of 66. August of
66. Colonel Kettles, when did you go to Vietnam,
or when did you arrive in Vietnam the first time?
in February of uh 67. February and Colonel Long?
He was with us. Same thing we were in a unit
at Fort Benning that foamed up to go over there
as a unit and we all went at the same time. Okay
um Colonel Kels were you were the were you the
CO of the of your unit the 176? No uh we had
a Lieutenant Colonel McDaniels who was the CO
and we had some 13 majors in the unit. They had
all come out of the woodwork. And I had initially
the first platoon of the 176th. However, I was
the junior major out of the 13. So when Don Phillips
came in, he was the ranking major. And he took
over the platoon, the first platoon. And I had
the option by Colonel Daniels. To either stay
in the platoon or else go elsewhere within the
unit. I elected to stay with the first platoon
and We did very well together with Major Phillips
then about 30 45 days into Vietnam Colonel McDaniels
departed on emergency leave and Phillips who
was senior major took over the unit and uh that's
a lot of real live officers all in one place
well yes but uh i was still junior major among
the 13 and he offered the platoon to each of
the others who were senior to me and i guess
none of them wanted it uh and uh he then offered
it to me and i signed with both hands Understandable.
Understandable. Colonel Long, what was your job?
How did you fit into this scenario over there?
We've got about two minutes before we have to
take a break. See how fast this goes? Okay, well,
East Platoon had two sections. I was a section
leader of the first section when Chuck was a
platoon leader. Okay, so what was your call sign?
Minuteman 1 -6 -Alpha. 1 -6 -Alpha, okay. Yeah,
but within the unit, they had a nickname for
people. Mine was Pen Man. Okay, I can't tell
you what mine was, at least not on the air. And
so you were, so you're 1 -6. Six usually means
a leader of some sort, either squad leader. Well,
one was first platoon and six was section leader,
A was the first section. Okay, and so you were
1 -6 of the other one? Yeah, 1 -6 officer. Okay,
I got it. Best my memory can tell me, that's
been a long time. I know, I'm really testing
you guys today, apologize for that. That is a
test. Yes. All right, so you've been in country
now. You got into country in February, you said,
of 1967. Let's set up the day and then we'll
take our break and come back and talk about what
happened on May 15th of 1967. So what was your
mission on that, Colonel Keller, what was your
mission on that day? Which, 15 May? Yes. The
first, when you were, it says that personnel
101st were getting overrun and you guys were
going out to resupply them, right? Well, if we're
speaking of 15 May of 67, they simply initiated
an assault into that LZ that day, so there was
no one out there initially. Right. And we put
in about 80 troops with eight helicopters with
two lifts initially, about 0930 on the 15th of
May. About three hours later, we inserted another
80 and withdrew with a wounded and Dead or whatever
All right, so so you There was nobody out. This
was just an initial insertion initially Yeah,
to take you know, this is a company size that
you're putting in there, right? Well, they had
moved around into the ambush position from a
relatively secure area And so when they got ambushed,
they were up against what was believed to be
a battalion -sized North Vietnamese Army unit.
Looks like the tables were kind of turned on
the ambush. Well, the ambush is never good. We
have to take a break here real quick. And when
we come back, we're going to find out what actually
happened on that day and the follow -up on that
and how the Colonel ended up receiving his Medal
of Honor. You're listening to Veterans Radio.
We'll be right back after the news. That's Kelly
Trudell a little song. You need to hear the whole
thing and we'll play it again on another program
but it talks about medevac pilots and how they
used to go in and pull all these people out and
it's kind of reason I played that is because
this is kind of what happened to both of these
kernels and I want to bring Colonel Long on for
just a second here. So on this first lift that
went in and then you had to go back what happened
to your aircraft? chuckle the first assertion
where we had what i think eight helicopters that
correct uh... that's correct and uh... all heck
broke loose and uh... tracers and orders and
everything else thing is we were loaded offloading
five or six people and we're all loaded two to
three or four wounded so with a matter of dropping
off the good guy that pick it up take it back
and i had taken my back offload the wounded in
the meantime go back in again And on my way back,
he advised me to get a hold of another helicopter
to take some ammo in and some other troops. And
on my second trip in, we exposed ourselves too
long. The fire was heavy and the second ship
with us managed to get out. But we were left
alone, so we hovered over to get wounded because
they wouldn't bring them out of the trees. And
by doing that, they focused all of their fire
on us. and PFC Washington with a crew. By the
way, one officer really retired as Lieutenant
Colonel also. Anyway, we were left there to fight
until Chuck came back to get us all. All right,
so you're on the ground in this LZ. And in reading
the details of the operation, we know that there
were jets that came in and dropped their loads.
You had gunships and everything else. And then,
Colonel Kettles, how many times did you go in
and out of this LZ? A total of six times. Wow.
Six times. And you're still here. Pardon me?
And you're still here. That's what's surprising,
because it sounded like it was... You mentioned
how many bad guys were down there. Were they
NVAs? Yes. All right. Well, they were serious.
Well, yeah. I understand it. So you went in there
six times. You got Colonel Long as on the ground
with his crew. So I'm sure, I know that would
have to be a big concern to you as well. In many
of these return flights that you're bringing
people in, taking people out, you've lost a few
aircraft yourself. Well, over the course of the
entire mission that day, we went through some
19. And one, the one that Don Long flew, on that
resupply mission was destroyed entirely in the
LZ. And each of the other 18, of course, were
of varying degrees of damage. None, of course,
were flyable. But in the two that I had, I had
flown, both of those got evac'd with a CH -47
down to Vung Tau and the Corpus Christi because
they were damaged beyond. You broke them. Well,
yes. Well, as a matter of fact, the Secretary
of the Army presented me with an invoice at the
ceremony for the 19 helicopters. Now, it's only
a cost of $89 ,300 ,000. It's payable with a
credit card. However, my credit card company
has a different idea. The credit limit is not
going to even come close. I think that's too
modest to tell you that both of his helicopters
were just laced to pieces with 30 to 40 holes
in them. Plexiglass and everything. They were
really messed up. You're on the ground. Colonel
Long, you're on the ground and you're watching
Colonel Kettles come in more than once with his
entire team. And let's face it, Colonel Kettles
wasn't the only pilot out there that day. He
was the only aircraft. I mean, there were other
18 crews that were going in and out of there
on a fairly regular basis until they kept...
I'm talking in aviation terminology here that
we broke the aircraft and so we had to go get
new ones. And you were able to borrow a couple
or some from another sister company, right? Well,
when it came to the emergency extraction for
the last 44, which included the four of Don's
crew, we in the 176th only had one flyable UH
-1D lift type helicopter. So we had to borrow
five with crews from the sister company, the
161st, up the street. And I say up the street,
probably 30 miles up the road. And then we simply
rendezvoused in the area in close proximity to
the LZ before going in. They were coming out
from the north and we were coming out from Duck
Foe. So then we, of course, went in trail formation
because of the LZ configuration and picked up
what we thought were the entire 44, which included
Don Long and his group, when the trail aircraft
commander announced that they were all on board.
We departed the LZ, climbed to about 1 ,200 feet,
and then started to... Left turn about 180 degrees
back toward duck foal when the command and control
aircraft someone on board that Told me that there
were eight Infantry troops down there who did
not get on board any one of the helicopters Any
particular reason with a well they pinned down
or lay they had been down the riverbed below
putting up a last -ditch effort to defense against
the North Vietnamese Army while the troops loaded.
And they had simply not gotten up in time to
get on board the helicopters. And of course,
the aircraft commander on that last one, he had
no idea they were there. I don't think anybody
sometimes can realize the confusion of what goes
on on the ground when you're trying to get everybody
on board an aircraft and trying to make sure
that you have enough power to get off. actually
get off the ground sometimes up there. So you
already had some troops on board yours? I only
had one on board. I had no idea what the distribution
was behind me in the balance of the five helicopters,
but I had only the one and so I simply turned
the flight over to number two for him to take
them back to Duck Fo and the medical facilities
that were co -located there. And I simply broke
off. When I got back, I beamed the troops, and
I could see them. I was in the left seat. They
were to my left. Zechrist, who was my co -pilot,
was on the right. And of course, he couldn't
see them, but I could. So I simply took the controls
and broke off from the flight and went back into
the LZ again. You had no guns at this point.
I mean, you had the guns on the helicopter, but
you didn't have any gunships supported? One of
the gunships and the fast movers, the Air Force
that is, with napalm and such, had departed along
with, and the artillery had shut down because
they were of the opinion that the LZ was clean.
So anyway, with only by, I guess the element
of surprise, I went back in to pick up the eight.
I'm sorry, I'm kind of breathless here as I'm
listening to this story. Colonel Long, were you
able to get out on that lift that went out? Yeah,
I was able to get out on the first one. I got
wounded in my leg and I couldn't walk. So two
of the instrument got on each side of me and
helped me across the LZ. I told them too many
people try to get on the closest helicopters.
So we're going to the farthest helicopter. I
carried the radio for them and they dragged me
and got me on a helicopter. So I was part of
the initial group, not the final eight. Okay,
all right. So just quickly, tell me what your
feelings were when you took off out of that LZ.
Tell it to me? Yes, sir. Oh, relief. Great relief
and lots of thanks because as you may have surmised
by now that myself and 43 others probably wouldn't
be here if it hadn't been for him. Well, yes.
And I had five children married at the time,
as did he. It continues to be an amazing story.
We're talking here with America's newest Medal
of Honor recipient, Colonel Charles Kettles,
and also Colonel Donald Long. Both of these people
were very busy on that May Day of 1967 when they
had gone into a landing zone, initially to drop
off troops for a mission and they ended up the
troops on the ground ended up being ashbushed
and then they had to go back and get them and
that's where we are in our story right now so
colonel kettles does a reverse and goes back
into this lz and i'm sure that that the even
the bad guys on the ground are going what the
heck is going on here what is this person doing
and i'm sure they unloaded on your aircraft Well,
yes, then of course they had one single target.
Yes, which was I guess to their advantage and
almost immediately after touchdown why a mortar
round went off the nose of the helicopter and
which took off the left chin bubble where I was
and the part of each of the windshields and The
rest of the damage I didn't shut down and do
a pre -flight You didn't do an inspection at
the time? No, I still had a clean panel and the
troops of course loaded with great haste and
when the crew chief said they're all on board
and I had turned over the controls back over
to Ray Sechrist in the right and gave him a thumbs
up and let's go and he picked it up and it began
to fishtail back and forth for whatever reason,
I don't know. It doesn't make much difference,
but anyway. In the process, I learned later,
one of the grunts got thrown out the left side
when it fishtailed like that. And he grabbed
the skid on the way out, and his buddies were
able to pull him back in again. And then I took
control of the helicopter. And being overweight
by probably six, 700 pounds, I... The dash 11
engine was not up to it. So rotor RPM dissipated
slowly and that warning horn, of course, came
on. So simply lowered the collective, which offloads
the blade, regained the RPM again, then traded
that RPM for forward speed because what I needed
was about 35 -40 knots to get the... machine
into translation of lift. And if it was going
to go, why it would go at that point. If not,
why we were going to be a two and a half ton
truck going down the road with a rotorhead, I
guess. We're just riding on down the road. Forget
about this getting up into the air. For people
that are not in aviation, that's a difficult
thing to do. It's kind of your... I'm using my
hands here. You're playing with the controls
in order to get the blade to turn fast enough
so that you can get any lift at all and continue
moving forward. And you've got to remember, he
doesn't have any chin belt, he doesn't have any
windshield. I'm sure that all the needles are
going back and forth all over the places. He's
trying to nurse this thing and actually pull
it into the air. As we say, you know, pull pitch,
just go, and hope that you can get up there.
And you probably bounced a few times before you
finally got off. It took about five or six of
the change, treating the rotor RPM for forward
speed, then treating that for rotor RPM and back
and forth about five or six times down that river
valley before it actually took off. Okay, so
you're up and you're out of there. Yes. How did
that feel? As he said really seemed like a damn
good idea to me So when how far did you have
to take these these people that were on board
your aircraft while everything is You know wind
is blowing in your hair as they say well. It
was quite well Air -conditioned at that point
with a ventilation through there, so it was more
comfortable. I guess that way Humble is not the
word I can I can use right here right now So
you had to fly them back to where did you take
the troops back to duck foal and the facilities
that were there co -located medical um What's
really amazing about this story folks is how
many people were wounded from Your unit or are
the unit of the 80 all the aviation units how
many were wounded? I think there were a total
of nine Don long being one Roland Sheck, who
was my gunner up until the last, up until the
point we did the emergency extraction, he had
taken a 51 in the knee, which destroyed his leg
and the upper part of the leg as well. So it
was later amputated at Quignon in the day. And
he also took a round in the chest protector,
but he survived all that. Matter of fact, he
served in the post office system his entire career.
He was an interesting youngster. I say youngster
relatively speaking, he was certainly a youngster.
At the time, for sure. Well, I learned after
he had left, my official title among the enlisted
was Papa, created by Roland, no less. Another
one of these old men. Well, anybody over 22 or
23 was the old man of the unit, so I've got a
feeling you were a little bit beyond that at
the time. Well, I was 37, I guess, and he was
just fresh out of school, I guess. Sure. And
he was a German national who had gone to Canada
and joined the Canadian militia with the intent
of going to Vietnam. Having learned that they
were not going to Vietnam, he... got authorization
to be relieved of duty with them for the purpose
of coming across the border at Detroit and joined
the U .S. Army. And he joined us at Fort Benning
when the unit formed. Okay. So he was the worst
wounded, I guess? Yes. Okay. And Colonel Long,
what happened to you? Where did you go? After
I was evacuated. After you were extracted and
evacuated, where did you end up? Well, they took
me to the 1st Brigade, 101st Medical Tent, because
I had trapped one through my leg. But they repaired
it and had a tow tag on me to send me on to Quinion.
But they got the word that Quinion was getting
full to the hospital because it wasn't just 101st
having problems that day. I suppose others were,
too. So they told me to stay in the area and
get daily treatments at the medical tent. I was
able to walk with a cane. So I stayed in my tent.
could I get a ride down the medical tent. And
that took me quite a while to recover because
mostly from infection more than anything else.
Right. So did you, you stayed in country when
you recovered? Did you go back in the air? I
stayed in country and then while I was grounded,
believe it or not, Chuck became ops officer and
he pulled me up there to train me to be an ops
officer too. And I got back on flight status
and eventually left the unit because they were
getting rid of experience. and I went to another
unit to be the ops officer, but I did get back
on flight status yet. Okay, that's good. All
right, so now everything kind of speeds up. You
are put in for the Distinguished Service Medal,
which you received, and then what did the Army
do? Because you didn't remain on flights while
you were still flying, but I mean, you weren't
the CO anymore or your platoon leader. Where
did they send you? Well, the following day...
I had dinner with Major Phillips, who was then
commanding the company, which was not unusual.
We normally had, but he made a point of telling
me he'd like to have dinner. And so I knew it
was more serious than the usual evening meal.
And shortly after we began having dinner, while
he said I'm... Going to move you into flight
operations And I asked why because I was quite
happy where I was and with a platoon and he said
well I thought maybe you could figure out what
an assault helicopter company does without any
helicopters Since you had broken them all yes,
so I stayed there probably 30 days or so and
then He had another meeting with me. I was not
doing very well. I was not going the direction
I wanted to go, but he pointed out that I was
going to be transferred up to be the brigade
aviation officer. That they were losing their
brigade aviation officer, and I was to be the
replacement. I said, hell, I don't want to go
up there. I'm as far back as I care to be. And
he said, well, neither one of us have any choice.
The general says, you're going to be the next
brigade aviation officer. So it's one step further
back from where I wanted to be. So you're moving
into relatively safer and safer areas. Well,
yes. And up the ladder. Well, yeah. I would call
it being kicked upstairs, but usually they think
that's a negative, but I guess it was supposed
to be favorable. I didn't see it that way, but...
So when did you receive the Distinguished Service
Cross? About a year later, in May of 68, to my
surprise, because the day after the event there
at 15 May, Colonel Ponder, who was the battalion
commander, aviation, came down to the unit and
we talked about it a bit and he asked if I would...
come up to the battalion and put on paper what
had really happened. And I was frankly not accustomed
to having a full colonel ask me to do anything.
They usually told me what to do. But anyway,
I said, well, that's all right. I'll be happy
to do that. But I really am not comfortable doing
that unless you can assure me that Whatever whatever
is on paper will not be used for favorable action
toward me because otherwise it's going to look
self -serving and he indicated that he was agreeable
to that and So I did exactly that so when the
award came down the track I was at Fort Sam Houston
at the time. I was out at Randolph Air Force
Base Because we had a flight detachment in support
of fourth then fourth army headquarters with
the With Randolph because of course there were
no facilities at Fort Sam Houston so I was the
maintenance officer for the detachment and Secretary
to General Lincoln who was the commander of then
fourth army She called and told me she had this
award the Distinguished Service Cross and would
I be available for presentation on that following
Friday at the Quadrangle. And I said, well, why
don't you just put it in distribution because
we have a courier going back and forth. Send
it by mail. And there was a long pause. And she
said, oh, my, General Lincoln would never be
agreeable to that. I said, well. Let me go check
the flight schedule because I have no idea whether
I'm on or off for Friday and They hung up the
phone and probably about a minute and a half
later way the lieutenant colonel Detachment commander
came I think through the door I don't think he
even bothered opening it. He was mad or how and
Said what the hell you doing? What are we talking
about? He said you know damn well what we're
talking about he said you not only won't be on
the flight schedule but you will be at the quadragal
on friday at the designated time so yes sir he
still want right right and uh so that's what
i did well and that's almost where the story
probably we thought was going to end well yeah
and uh colonel long i i don't want to be remiss
in saying that you also received a number of
awards for your actions on that day as well yes
i did uh the other pilot and i got silver stars
and our crew got distinguished flying crosses
and it's quite a few of that went around the
unit and we don't know where they came from either
basically i think it certainly is you know well
deserved the other thing i understand is you
got yourself a combat infantry badge no i'm i'm
attempting to do that there's a okay i won't
belabor that point right now i think We don't
have time to get into that. I'm always wondering
how those guys can get air medals, but we can't
get, even when we're sitting on the ground, people
shooting at us, but that doesn't count. But anyway,
I just wanted to make sure that you didn't get
cut off on that. This whole story, you know,
we're running out of time already. We're coming
up to the top of the hour. As you can go to vva310
.org, which is the local Vietnam Veterans of
America. And I guess it's in the studio, but
he won't talk. Vance McGrum has put this whole
thing up on the website. So if you go to that
website up in the right hand corner, it says
Lieutenant Colonel Charles Kettles. Click on
that and you've got the Medal of Honor ceremony
that you were able to go to at the White House.
I understand that the President called you up
and said, hey, could you come to my house? He
clearly outranked me, so I just said, yes, sir.
Which sounds like it was a great ceremony. I'm
sorry I didn't get to go to that. Anyway, they
upgraded the Distinguished Service Cross to the
Medal of Honor, which is, knowing you as I do,
is very humbling experience. And as you pointed
out, that it really isn't just you. It's also
the 44 guys that came out of there. pilot and
crew member that was there with you that day.
There were some 74 helicopter crew members involved
in the total mission that day. And it's so amazing
that only really one person got seriously injured.
That's amazing. And I know that for anybody who's
ever gone down to their local veterans, whatever
it happens to be, and there's a Huey there, go
up and push your finger against it. There's no
armor plating in those things folks and we sat
on armored seats and we wore chicken plates armor
You know with s but that was about it and So
I want to congratulate you for the for all of
pilots and crew members that were in Vietnam
from 19 Whatever it was to 1973 and thank you
for your service and thank you for Setting a
role model for all of us. Well, thank you And
Colonel Long, the same for you. I wish that I
had known my real live officers better when I
was in his service, but it just wasn't to be
at the time. And I think it's a mutual admiration
society that we've got going now with the people
that were on the ground, to the people that were
on the air, to the fast movers, to the tank drivers,
to everybody else. And I got about a minute left,
right? So is there anything that you would like
to end on? Yeah, I would just like you to repeat
that. Was that vva310 .org? Yes, vva310 .org.
Up in the right -hand corner, click on Colonel
Kettle's whole story. Colonel Long's story is
there. Colonel Kettle's story is there. I'm sorry,
we run out of time. Hopefully I can get you,
too, Ben, back on the program again some other
day and we can go on to... Say thanks to Chuck
again one more time. You got it, Colonel Long.
Thank you very much also for being out there
in North Carolina. Colonel Kells, thank you very
much. We'll be back next week. Everybody tune
in to Veterans Radio and fly your flag. Until
then, you are dismissed.