Westy & Me

Major General William Childs Westmoreland was never my favorite general but I have a tight personal bond with him that has lasted through the years, even after his death. If I had a choice I would prefer General Sir Brian Horrocks or maybe “Lightning” Joe Collins, but it was “Westy.” To tell the story of  “our bond” right I‘ll have to sketch in some back ground.

Those who remember will probably agree that Westmoreland  was the poster child of the spit shined, "can do", "zero defects" army of the 50's and early 60's. He looked like a general officer is supposed to look, always sharp, he sounded like a general officer is supposed to sound, always sure, always confident. An iron jaw and a determined expression completed the picture. But for me, when I spent some infantry time on the ground up in two corps, I was convinced he was no match for the BF Goodrich Sandals and Black Pajama crowd. For many years I was hard, really hard on Westy . I held him primarily responsible for our loosing the war. Had he done his job right there would have little traction for the anti war folks to work from. Until NVA general Giap wrote his memoirs I blamed Westy completely. Almost every one else who fought in Vietnam blamed our "politicians," I never bought that, I blamed him. lately I've backed off a little. After General Giap clarified some of the history of the war I had to relent. Even so, I remained convinced that he was not intended for Vietnam. He was, I now believe, a fine soldier but not for Vietnam. His success came in WW2, a conventional war. His character and mind set was all about Folda Gap, and the plains of North East Europe, the  jungles of 3 Corps or the highlands of 2 corps were outside his skill set and more importantly, outside his mind set. He did well in Europe, and likely would have done so again. I’m finally convinced he was a better soldier than I ever gave him credit for; he was just not a good fit for Vietnam.

I only met him once. It was in 1965 and I was a new Buck Sergeant,  door gunner on the shotgun program with the 118th Aviation Company at Bein Hoa. The meeting with Westy came sometime in August, 1965. For the rest of my military career that chance meeting occasionally popped up and made it self known.  I some times like to think it might have kept me from making CSM...not likely.  At the time I was quite happy with it, Westy was the only 4 star I ever talked to. later, as an infantry squad leader on the ground, I began to realize he wasn’t all that sharp when it came to Guerrilla Warfare.

W e met on a soccer pitch somewhere in or near Saigon. As usual we (the air crew I flew with)  had been flying all day. Like every one else in the 118th we flew every day of the week. Normally it was carrying cargo (Fish Heads & Rice we’d say) or personnel from point A to point B. Occasionally it was a Combat Assault (CA)  into an Landing Zone (LZ)  to insert soldiers (US, and/or ARVN) into a combat operation. This was to be the only “helicopter Inspection Mission” I ever flew.

In 1965 the D model Huey’s with their gunners alcove, “store bought” machine gun mount and spade grip M60’s  were just coming into service.  For the most part, it was still a hodgepodge of "thrown together, off the wall" mounting systems that were improvised in country. This mish mash of mounts clearly went against someone’s idea of military uniformity...someone with time on their hands and sufficient clout. Looking “sharp” or “Military” was an important component of the army of that time. The 118th probably had the most store bought looking mounts of the lot. Even so, they were obviously home made; Home made or not, as a metal fabrication It was a rugged, sturdy mount, I loved them.

But not all gun mounts were actual ”mounts”, far from it. My recollection is that less than half were metal fabrications. Usually, they were just some kind of a hanging device. I’ve seen M-60’s hung from the roof of the bird by their issued carrying strap, with the strap around the carrying handle on the barrel. A similar “mount” to the carrying strap/sling was the same idea, but with a budgie cord. There were variant of the solid mounts, minor changes that appealed to someone, sometime, someplace.

I’m assuming  the man with the clout and an eye for uniformity got every one together with the idea of standardizing Huey gun mounts. That’s my assumption, but I had no idea what was going on at the time. The rest of the crew didn’t either. As I recall we were near the end of a long day when we got the call to report to that soccer field in or near Saigon. We sat down somewhere out on the edge of things (we were he last ones there), there were 8-10-12 other birds on the ground.  That is 8-10-12 of the shiniest, most brightly polished, most sparkling helicopters I had ever seen. The chin bubbles were gleaming, exteriors were polished, the rotor blades were  tied down just so, cabins spit shined, they must have been there all day getting all dolled up. But not us; we had been flying hard all day. All of our bullet holes were properly patched but our chin bubbles were full of sand, an oil smear was leaking out from somewhere near the transmission inspection port, the cargo deck was slimy from an earlier load of fish in wicker baskets. Every one else there was in starched fatigues, (funny smelling potato starch as I recall), with  spit shined boots. They were squared away, but not us. We looked like we had flown for the last 10 hours – which was true. Alley, my crew chief tried to get the big pieces out of the chin bubble, and I worked on the fish slime on the cargo floor, kinda; there’s nothing you could really do. The Aircraft Commander (AC) was having a kitten, he’d just heard that Westy was here to inspect helicopters. (Probably saw his career going down the tube.) Fortunately, he had started way over on the far side and was working our way. After a bit we began realize it was the mounts that he found to be of interest. As I watched I got the feeling that these other crew members might be hand picked just for this dog and pony show, maybe even from well above the rank they were wearing. (It’s been known the happen.) They seemed to have memorized their lines.  I thought, “What a bunch of crap,” and lost interest in the show. 

That’ where I blew it. I missed the clue that could have (should have) helped me see that Westy did indeed, have his military act together. We were the last bird there because, for us, this was an end of the day, add on mission. We had sat down way across the field from the generals party. It should have taken him at least an hour to work his way around to us. Had I been alert and on the ball I’d have noticed that. Forty six years later I have to assume he looked up as we were shooting our approach to land and watched us a bit. He must have noticed that we were anything but spit shinned, or polished, our rotor hub didn’t gleam. Our chin bubble was filthy, he might even have seen that slightly insolent look of bored competence our pilots so often displayed as they bent off a hard right turn and dropped quickly and expertly in to the only space left.  In any case, we did the quick, half hearted clean up I mentioned and settled into our selves, knowing it would be a long wait. My guess is, wearied by the obvious theatrical performances he was being subjected to from the earlier crews he spun on his heals and sauntered over to the battle scarred bird that had just landed; maybe there was something real here after all.

I was leaning into the cargo floor of the bird, trying to pretend to be cleaning it, when some one from behind asked me, ”Is this your ship?”  (Damn! It was him!) Yes sir, it is.” “Can you show it to me?” “Yes sir I can.” So I did. I showed him the advantage of having a solid gun mount. How you clip a C-Rat can into the ammo pouch clip on the M-60 to get the belt to come over a smooth radius rather than a sharp right angle up into the gun. I showed him how we carefully laced our 1,200 round continuous belt of 7.62 into a smoke grenade box. (As I recall we carried more than twice what most other chopper companies carried.)  It was very relaxed, he was asking and I was answering. He noticed a piece of 90 MPH green tape on the lid of a small compartment in the airframe between the pilots door and the cargo door. I had written on it with a felt marker, “US Mail.” He looked at it and I opened it and pulled out 6-7 letters collected from SF camps, ARVN HQ’s and MACV folks from all around  3 corps. In those days you could trim off the tabs from a C-ration box, print, “FREE VIETNAM” in the upper right corner and you had the basis for a letter you could send home...and it would get there. I remember he looked at them for a moment and got real quiet. He might have even read parts of a couple, I can’t say.  

What I can say is after a moment, he swung around in the cargo door, dropped his feet onto the skid, fanny on the floor and had his minions call every one over. In a split second he transformed from friendly questioner to the commanding general, MACV. I was setting in my seat behind my gun at that point, when I saw what was going on I started to get down to join the crowd. He held out his arm and stopped me, had me stay where I was.  EM, Warrants and /Commissioned Officers all gathered up tight in front of the gunner side cargo door of Blue Tail 4...forty or fifty chopper folks.  I took up the most military looking sitting position I could imagine and stayed put.  

I don’t recall everything he might have said. I don’t recall what he said about the gun mounts. I suppose he gave a standard  “to the troops” spiel as well but I don’t remember that either.  What I do remember was his talking about the yet undecided status of the proposed Door Gunner Wings. We thought it should be a distinctive combat award, not a every day qualification badge. Almost all gunners wore the “G” but there was a lot of question that they would or would not be authorized. I think it was the last thing he talked about. And I remember his line on it and, I think, the last line that he said sitting there.  “It’s not decided yet, but I think it will be soon; so you wear them until I tell you to take them off.”  

Door gunner duty was only a TDY (three Months) tour. Soon after we got back to the 25th Division at Schofield Barracks, Hawaii we got the word that the “G” didn’t pass muster and the Army Aviation Badge was adopted as a combat award. Drat!

I had a little talk with a friend, another Sergeant E-5, who had gone to Vietnam on the same shotgun detachment. We decided that Westy, who was a Major General had given us a direct verbal order. “You wear them until I tell you to take them off.” Close enough we said. We continued to ware the winged “G;” I’ve warn mine ever since.  Frankly, I’d be a little upset to know they’d became authorized. 

Because of the non authorization of gunner wings that meeting has brought me a lot of questions over my army career. Folks noticed the winged “G” on my uniforms. From time to time I’d catch somebody staring hard at them. Not often but every now and then some one would call me on it, usually, someone of higher rank. Some merely inquisitive, some trying to mask their hostility on what they knew as an unauthorized, never issued award. I always made it a point to be nice, smile and explain it carefully. “ Actually, it’s not authorized, the Army Aviation Badge is.” (Confusion now clearly showing on their face.) Before they got the next question out I would say something like, ”The problem is, when General Westmoreland, was the MACV commander in '65, he told me and a few other door gunners to wear them until he told us to take them off.  “He never told me, and I’ve never taken 'em off.”  I usually say it with a shrug of my shoulders and a bit of a helpless grin. Almost always the conversation would end with a smile on both sides, some times the other guy would be shaking his head as he walked away. You just know he’s thinking, “Damn,  I wish I had a story like that!” 

So, that’s the deal. How well I thought he did as MACV commander makes no difference. He was my commander and that’s all I needed to know then; that's all I need to know now. Every time I look at my winged “G” I think of Westy. I’ve often wondered what exactly happened when the CSM promotion board got my file.  Did some eagle eyed admin clown notice my unauthorized combat award and pitch my packet into the dumpster? I would like to think so. I would love to think so. Keeping the faith with Westy has meant a hell of a lot more to me than putting a wreath around the star on my SGM Chevron. It’s always good to know when you’ve done something right in life.