1st Cavalry Division veterans last hurrah for Vietnam veteran brother

Vietnam veterans reunite with ailing 'brother'
Tribune-Star
By Alex Modesitt
9 hrs ago

“When I got back from Vietnam I was tired of sleeping on the ground. So I joined the Air Force,” Dierdorf joked. Dierdorf served out the rest of his 27-year armed services career with the U.S. Air Force.

Ken Dierdorf wanted so badly to sit alongside his Army brothers and feel the rush of air blow through an open-sided UH-1 Iroquois “Huey” one last time at Saturday’s Terre Haute Air Show.

But fate, weather and his advanced Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis — ALS — wouldn’t allow it.

Meant as one last hurrah for a group of Vietnam veterans who call themselves the “Dirty Half Dozen,” the Visiting Nursing Association and Hospice of the Wabash Valley arranged for Dierdorf and his U.S. Army brethren from around the country to take one last ride in a Huey.

But the flight, scheduled to take off around 9 a.m., was grounded due to fog blanketing the airfield. True to form, as the soldiers’ wives tell it, the group didn’t pay the weather much attention as they waited, instead they took the opportunity to catch up on each others’ goings on and tell stories.

And boy were the stories from veterans that served together in second platoon of the 1st Cavalry Division’s 2nd Battalion, 5th Cavalry Regiment, Bravo Company worth hearing.
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Huey vandalized at American Legion

Vandals damage helicopter used in Vietnam War
Columbus Dispatch
Marc Kovac
July 3, 2018

NEWARK — Local veterans are offering a $1,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of vandals responsible for damaging a Vietnam-era helicopter that’s been displayed at schools and in parades for decades.

The UH-1 “Huey” helicopter was used in the Vietnam War for about five years and subsequently for stints by the U.S. Navy and the Ohio National Guard before it was transferred to Newark about 30 years ago for display.

Sometime over the weekend, vandals broke out two of the windows on the chopper, which was parked at the American Legion Post 85 on Wilson Street in Newark, said Mark Rehl, president of Vietnam Veterans of America, Chapter 55, District 1.

“It’s very upsetting,” he said.

The aircraft, which rides atop a customized boat trailer, has been used as a mobile historic display at community and school events, with frequent appearances during parades. It’s also been a help to local veterans, some suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder from their service years.

Anyone with information about the weekend vandalism of the aircraft is encouraged to contact the local Vietnam Veterans of America chapter at (740) 927-6272.
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Vietnam Veteran Dying Dream Up in the Air...In Huey

WV Vietnam veteran receives dream

WDTV News

Jay Martin

August 11, 2017

MAIDSVILLE, W. Va. (WDTV)- If you saw a military helicopter flying over Morgantown Friday you saw Billy Kinsley.

Billy is a 69-year-old West Virginia Vietnam army veteran. He worked as an aircraft mechanic primarily on Huey helicopters. Billy currently has terminal lung cancer and had one last request to ride in a Huey with his four kids and reminisce about his time in the army. With the help of The Dream Foundation and Amedisys Hospice they made his dream a reality.

"This is our first dream here in our region, specifically for our care center in Morgantown. So we are extremely thrilled that we were able to make Billy's dream a reality," said Heidi Chickerell, volunteer coordinator at Amedisys Hospice.

With all the excitement Billy was thrilled to get up in the air...

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Huey's Still Coming to Rescue of Vietnam Veterans

Vietnam Veterans give therapy rides to fellow Vets in 1968 Huey Helicopter
KTVU News
Leigh Martinez
June 25, 2017

That was the start of his mental healing process and Raquiza now volunteers every weekend with the Huey Vets and recruits veterans from all battlefields to take therapeutic rides and discuss military PTSD.

On the tarmac at the Bud Field Aviation Hanger, there’s a sound familiar to all Vietnam Combat Veterans. The deep, loud ‘thud, thud, thud’ of a Huey helicopter.

This distinct sound meant supplies, medic rescue, and most importantly, that they were going home.

"I wouldn't be alive today if it wasn't for a UH1 helicopter taking care of me,” said US Army pilot Randy Parent, one of two pilots commanding the EMU 309.

Today, veterans claim the Huey continues to save their lives. The EMU 309 is a Bell UH-1H Huey helicopter restored to its 1968 Vietnam War configuration. The all-volunteer team of Huey Vets now maintain the EMU 309 to provide therapeutic flights above the San Antonio Reservoir to veterans suffering the after-effects of war.

Geoff Carr and Peter Olesko bought the Huey helicopter in 2003. Carr mortgaged his house to restore it.

“I knew if these go out of service, they can become beer cans and lose their history,” said Carr.

It has turned the lives around for two veterans, who credit the aircraft for starting their PTSD recovery.

"You hear that expression 'Coming home' and I think it's different for everybody, but if I was going to use that expression, I'd say ‘coming home’ for me was getting back in this chopper and flying it again,” said Andy Perry, who flew the Huey 309 during the Vietnam War for the Royal Australian Navy, fighting alongside American troops.

Perry and U.S. Army Sgt. Faustino Raquiza both received silver stars for their roles in Vietnam. Raquiza was awarded two silver stars.

"The silver star doesn't mean anything to me,” said Raquiza.

“I know people make it a big deal -third highest ranking star in the United States military, but I rather be understood; understood for what I'm going through and not patronized. It's hurtful."

Perry and Raquiza said they had no idea what they were returning home to after their service in Vietnam.

"I was booed at the airport, they threw stuff at me, I was called a baby killer, women killer,” said Raquiza.
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Veterans reunited with chopper that flew in Vietnam

Veterans reunited in Plant City with chopper that flew in Vietnam
Tribune Staff
By Dave Nicholson
Published: March 17, 2014

PLANT CITY — Jay Hays remembers the day he left Vietnam and paused to take a last look at the helicopter that had taken him into combat zones dozens of times.

“I thanked God and the helicopter that I’d survived my year and that I was going home in one piece,” he said. “I thought back about what I’d gone through and knew how lucky I was to have made it.”

Hays, 66, said he figured he’d seen the last of the UH-1 “Huey” that had the call sign Bandit 113, when he left Vietnam Nov. 7, 1968.

On Sunday, the former crew chief was reunited with the aging chopper at the Plant City home of Lance Ham, who served with Hays in Vietnam in the 281st Assault Helicopter Co. Hays, Ham and other veterans helped prepare the helicopter for its final mission: a trip to a military museum in Texas.

“It brings back a lot of memories,” said Ham, 68.

The helicopter had decades of service in the Army and Florida National Guard until the fall, when it was declared surplus. Ham stored the helicopter behind his home until Monday, when representatives of the H.E.A.R.T.S. Veterans Museum of Texas picked it up to truck it to Huntsville.

About a half a dozen members of the 281st from various times in Vietnam were on hand as a huge wrecker from Brewington Towing Service loaded it up on a trailer for its journey west.
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Author reunites "Super Slick" crew with Huey

Vietnam crew returns to helicopter's W.Va. home
MARY WADE BURNSIDE
Times West Virginian
June 9, 2013

FAIRMONT, W.Va. (AP) — Tom Feigel spent a year in Vietnam as the crew chief of a Huey helicopter, flying out on night missions that would have the aircraft called into battle or going over into Cambodia and Laos to drop off and pick up soldiers.

"You fly that helicopter every single day," said Feigel, a Webster, N.Y., resident who was an Army Specialist 5 as part of the 366th Assault Helicopter Co. out of Soc Trang, Vietnam.

"It's your home. You do have attachments to it, and to the crew, because of some of the situations and firefights you were in with them. So there is a special bond between the crew and the ship."

These days Feigel's Vietnam "home" now resides in Fairmont as part of the Marion County Vietnam Veterans Memorial, located at the entrance to East Marion Park off the Gateway Connector.

For a long time, Feigel had no idea that the "ship" he spent so much time on actually still exists, and is located only about a seven-hour drive away from where he lives in New York.

"I had tracked the helicopter from Vietnam back to Fort Hood, Texas," Feigel said.

"Apparently, the helicopter was transferred from Fort Hood to Fort Rucker. This was 15 years ago."

Feigel lost track of the helicopter — dubbed "Super Slick" — and figured it had been parceled out. But in January of last year, John Brennan, an author working on a book on military choppers, contacted him and another member of the crew, Tom Wilkes, and informed them that the ship was in Fairmont.

The helicopter had made its way to Fairmont after Alfred Knoll, an area veteran, spent four years working with the military to get a piece of equipment to display at the Marion County Vietnam Veterans Memorial. He drove to Fort Rucker in Alabama to pick it up and learned that the aircraft he had been promised already had been given away.
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Heroic Vietnam veteran always there for comrades

Heroic Vietnam veteran always there for comrades

Luc Pieterbourg Jim Basta, right with Barry Spear, helped put together the Vietnam War Memorial at Veterans Memorial Park.

By HOWARD ALTMAN
The Tampa Tribune
Published: April 26, 2012

TAMPA
Jimmy Basta hovered the Huey helicopter gunship over a mountainous stretch northwest of Kon Tum, a provincial capital in Vietnam, laying down a barrage of rockets and bullets at the enemy below.

Known by the call signal "Tornado White," Basta was doing what he did best in the jungle: protecting buddies regardless of risk.

"It was his hallmark," said Charlie Rayl. Now a lawyer in Kansas, Rayl was then a fellow member of the Ruthless Riders, 7th Armored Squadron, 17th Air Cavalry. Rayl's chopper had crashed. Basta was saving his life on March 9, 1968.

Years later, Basta would move to Tampa, where he was part of what eventually would become the Joint Communications Support Element at MacDill Air Force Base. He helped put together the Vietnam War Memorial at Veterans Memorial Park, off U.S. 301 in Tampa, volunteered for Meals-on-Wheels and became known as the guy who would cart around the little scout helicopter to parades and schools.

On Tuesday, Basta died after a long bout with lung cancer. He was 72.

His family and friends remember him as a straight shooter who ignored danger, be it to his life in the form of enemy fire or to his career in the form of general officers he was not afraid to criticize.

Before leaving Vietnam, where he did three tours, Basta would be shot down six times, said his wife, Marie, also 72. He earned the Bronze Star, two Purple Hearts, the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Legion of Merit, the Meritorious Service Medal and, because he flew so many missions, 55 Air Medals.
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Capt. Michael Quin, USMC to be honored in hometown

Purcellville’s Capt. Michael Quin, USMC, who lost his life in the crash of his UH-1 “Huey” helicopter last month, will be honored upon his return home on Monday March 12th. The exact time of his arrival in Purcellville is estimated to be between 8:30 pm and 9:30 pm.

Vietnam soldier's remains return 45 years later

Vietnam soldier's remains return 45 years later
KRISTIN M. HALL, Associated Press
September 25, 2011
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Forty-five years to the day since Army Spc. 4 Marvin Phillips was killed in a helicopter crash in Vietnam, his family will finally be able to bury his remains in his hometown in Palmer, Tenn., on Monday.

Phillips was a 20-year-old door gunner on a UH-1B Huey helicopter that crashed into 9 feet of water off the coast of South Vietnam on Sept. 26, 1966, after the helicopter was struck by small arms fire.

James Phillips, Marvin's younger brother, remembers the day a military officer came to his family's home to tell them that the helicopter had been shot down and Marvin was considered missing in action. He said his brother had been due to come home from the war but volunteered for the mission.
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Huey added to Warhawk Air Museum

A group of Vietnam Veterans get long overdue recognition
By Eric Fink
CREATED JUL. 30, 2011

On this summer weekend the Warhawk Air Musueum in Nampa played host to a group of men who so proudly served on the Vietnam battlefields.

More than 40 years after returning home, the pilots and fighters who captioned the "Mustang Gunship Huey Helicopter," in Southeast Asia, were recognized for their service. The "Huey" was unveiled at the Air Museum and veterans from across the country attended the ceremony.

"It brings back memories, what we saw what we did, what our job was. I can't help but get emotional, it's a very emotional thing," Sid King, a former fighter pilot said. "Too many memories, too many good times. Too many hard times."
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A group of Vietnam Veterans get long overdue recognition

Viet Nam Warbird gets new life from Lakeside company

Viet Nam Warbird gets new life from Lakeside company
By: Mike Leiby, The Independent
07/27/2010


SHOW LOW - A lot of Viet Nam veterans will never forget the pounding, deep, "thwop, thwop, thwop" of a Huey's blades overhead or the fact that for some of them it was the sound of salvation, the sound that let them know help was on the way in what was at times their darkest hour.

That memory lives on in Larry Clark and his part of the two-year restoration of the now one and only operational U.S. Navy Seawolves Huey which actually served with both the U.S. Navy and Army in Viet Nam, as did Clark in the Army when he was 20 years old. He is also a member of The Viet Nam Helicopter Pilots Association.
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Viet Nam Warbird gets new life from Lakeside company

Not all Vietnam Veterans ended up with PTSD, but many, far too many did. When they came home, there was nothing for them. We talk about helping the veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, some even talk about taking care of the Gulf War veterans. While all of them do deserve to be taken care of, for the Vietnam Vets, the help they waited for, fought for to make sure all generations were taken care of, still has not shown up for them.

The Pirate Hunters Marines return to Camp Pendleton

Pirate-chasing Marines return to Camp Pendleton
2:40 PM July 31, 2009


The official nickname of Marine Light Attack Helicopter Squadron 267 is "The Stingers."

But for the seven-month deployment with the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit that ended in a joyous homecoming Friday at Camp Pendleton, the squadron had a new name: "The Pirate Hunters."

Flying off the amphibious assault ship Boxer, the squadron's Hueys and Cobras chased pirates in the Persian Gulf, the Gulf of Aden, and the waters off Somali. The presence of the loud and heavily armed helos gave warning to the pirates to leave the merchant ships alone.


Capt. John Geisler told his wife via e-mail to watch for the Jolly Roger flag in the cockpit window of his Cobra. And so when Tristan Geisler, 28, spotted the needle-nosed chopper as it landed and taxied into position, she let out a shout.
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