“Shaving Profile”

I have this weird beard, and my face got all infected from shaving and ingrown hairs. Doc, our battery medic, couldn’t do anything for me, so he sent me to the medics back in Phan Thiet. They said I shouldn’t shave for a month and gave me this “shaving profile” to take back to the First Sergeant. Top was usually a stickler for guys shaving, he even hated mustaches, but in my case he said he was fine with it for a month.

After a month Doc comes to me and says, “You know you have to shave that thing off now.”

After that I went to using an electric shaver and never had any more problems.

You’re Not Home Till You’re Home

Specialist 4 George Beedy had left LZ Sherry for good, and was on a flight out of Phan Rang Airbase for Cam Ranh Bay, where he would catch a commercial flight home. The plane out of Phan Rang flew into the side of a mountain in foul weather, killing everyone on board. The date: November 11, 1970. He was twenty-one years old, the twelfth and last fatality of the boys of Battery B.

George Beedy in sunglasses on far left
Picture taken just before his death

I remember George Beedy, a guy from Ohio like me. He was on Gun 1 if I am not mistaken. I did two hip shoots with him. He was a super nice guy. He was on a plane going home when he got killed. They told the plane it could fly at a certain altitude, but the mountain was higher and it flew into the side of the mountain. It took them two weeks to get the bodies out.

Phan Rang Airbase sat on the coast just a little above sea level, but to its immediate West were dense jungle-clad mountains, the highest of which rose to over a mile.

When I heard about Beedy I went to the captain and said I wanted to be in the detail that went to get his body. He said no, it was too risky, we would be taking chances we don’t ordinarily take. George was engaged to be married when he got back home. He showed me pictures of his girlfriend and everything.

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I was supposed to be home on July 4th of 1971, but on 2nd I was still in the field at LZ Sherry, and the only ride I could get that day was a Chanook CH-47 that brought supplies in and out of the battery. It had the same crew chief that got dumped out of the chopper with us when it lost that ammo sling. About half way back to Phan Thiet we started taking fire from the ground. I think it was AK-47 fire. I could hear the rounds popping through the floor, going from the rear of the chopper up the middle to the front. A guy in the back of the chopper came running up front with the bullets coming through the floor right behind him. As he went past me I pulled him over to the side, and the bullets continued up to the cockpit and went right behind the pilot. The whole chopper just shook and I thought, Oh Jesus Christ, they just killed the pilot on the stick. I went to the front door and said, “You OK?”

He said, “I’m OK, but my ass is stinging like hell.” The bullets had hit the chicken plate he was sitting on (armor plating on the seat).

A bullet just grazed a hydraulic line right behind the pilot. The controls locked in position and the chopper went down and bounced on the ground. They patched the line with medical tape and were up on top putting in more hydraulic fluid when the NVA caught up with us and started shooting at the chopper again. We took off again but could not get any altitude. We were getting away, but oh man you could see the mountain peaks coming up. I told that door gunner I hope he starts pulling up, I don’t know if we’re going to make it or not. I went to the cockpit and the pilot said, “I been pulling up ever since we left the ground and I don’t think we’re going to make it.” Then he said, “Do you know this area?”

I said, “Yeah, pretty much.”

He said, “Good. Because if we go down again you’re gonna have to get us out of here.”

He was trying to get over the mountains to get to the ocean so he could ditch it if he had to. We made it over the mountains and out to the ocean. Then the door gunner and I inflated a raft, and the pilot even dropped the back cargo door for us to jump. By now there was smoke all through the chopper. It was just ugly.

Somehow we made it to the Phan Thiet airstrip. The pilot told them he was coming in, but they said he couldn’t because there were other aircraft landing. He said, “I’m all shot up and I’m coming in. Take it either way, I’m going to land or I’m going to crash.” We landed OK.

From there I took a little two-engine prop plane, a Caribou I think, out to Phan Rang. Phan Thiet had a little short runway, so to take off the Caribou had to put the brakes on, rev the hell out of the engines, and then take the brakes off. Soon as the pilot took the brakes off we went about ten feet and one of the engines stalled out. I thought, Oh man, you got to be kidding me. Well we took off anyway and I’m looking out the window and see the engine start to smoke and then catch on fire. You GOTTA be kidding me.

The pilot shut the engine off and put the plane into a little bit of a dive to put the fire out. He said no big deal we still got one engine left, and I said, “Yeah, that’s what’s worrying me.” We made it to Phan Rang Airbase on that one engine, and when the plane set down I was never so glad in all my life.