I was contacted by an Army Captain years ago & requested my imput on expierience with the VNAF Helicioter Squadrons. It is part of their DVD on the organization.

Vietnam Helicopter Pilots Association (VHPA) Great Speech
Guest Speaker, Joe Galloway
Author of "We Were Young Once, And Brave"
Thanks to all of you for giving me the honor to speaking to you. I have got
to tell you that looking out across this assemblage I must confess: I
haven't seen this many bad boys collected in one location since the last
time I visited Leaven worth Prison.
When I first learned that I would be doing this gig I asked an aviator buddy of mine what else I needed to know......and he said, well, most of
you would be bringing your wives along.......that half of you were so damn
deaf that you couldn't hear a word of what I was saying.....the other half
would be so damn drunk you couldn't understand what I was saying..... so I
might just as well talk To the ladies......
I have waited years to be able to share this story with so august a group
of aviator veterans as this: A few years ago I was at a large official
dinner and I was seated next to a nice lady who was the wife of a two-star
general. I knew the lady had two college- age daughters and I also knew
that one of them had been dating a Cavalry lieutenant.......so I thought
to make some polite conversation and I offered her my condolences at her
daughter's choice of companionship. "Oh No!" the general's wife said. "He
is a fine young man. Nothing wrong with him......and at least he isn't a
goddamn aviator!"
I just wanted you to know that your successors in the business continue to
win friends and influence people in high places. Before I go along any
further in this thing I need to ask you some questions: --Is there anyone
here who flew with the 1st Cavalry Division? The 229th? The 227th? How
about the old 119th out of Holloway? Any Marine pilots who flew them old
UH-34D Shuddering Shithouses??? Now I know I am among close friends.....I
know that old Ray Burns from Ganado, Texas, is here....and I have got to
tell you a story about me and Ray that goes back to October of
1965. Plei Me SF Camp was under siege by a regiment of North Vietnamese
regulars. I was trying to get in there.....like a fool......but after an
A1E and a B57 Canberra and one Huey had been shot down they declared it a
No-Fly Zone. So I was stomping up and down the flight line at Holloway
cussing......when I ran a cross Ray. He asked what the problem was and I
told him. He allowed as how he had been wanting to get a look at that
situation and would give me a ride......
I still have a picture I shot out the open door of Ray's Huey. We are doing
a kind of corkscrew descent and the triangular berms and wire of the camp
below fill that doorway.....along with the puffs of smoke from the
impacting mortar rounds inside the camp. Hell.....I can scare myself bad
just looking at that photo.
Well old Ray drops on in and I jump out and the Yards boil out of the
trenches and toss a bunch of wounded in the door and Ray is pulling
pitch.....grinning......and giving me the bird. When the noise is gone
this Sergeant Major runs up: Sir, I don't know who you are but Major
Beckwith wants to see you right away. I ask which one is the major and I
am informed he is the very big guy over there jumping up and down on his
hat. I go over slowly. The dialogue goes something like this: Who the hell
are you? A reporter. Son, I need everything in the goddamn world from food
and ammo to water....to medevac......to reinforcements.....and I wouldn't
mind a bottle of Jim Beam.......but what I do not need is a goddamn
reporter.
And what has the Army in its wisdom delivered to me? Well....I got news
for you.....you ain't a reporter no more; you are my new corner machine
gunner." Ray.....I want to thank you for that ride......wasn't for you and
Chuck Oualline I wouldn't have had half as much fun in Vietnam.
Hell.....every story anyone has about Vietnam starts and ends with a
helicopter......you guys were simply fantastic. Thank you all. Thank you
for everything....large and small.
Now I guess I got to get down to business. All of you know that I have
spent most of the last forty years hanging out with the Infantry.....a
choice some folks view as perverse if not totally insane. But there was
always method in my madness: With the Infantry things happen close enough
that I can see what's happening.....and slowly enough most times that even
I can understand what I'm seeing. There's just this one little downside to
my long experience with the Infantry:
During that time I have personally been
bombed.....rocketed.....strafed..... and napalmed by the U.S. Air
Force.....U.S. Navy......U.S. Marines.....and U.S. Army Aviation......as
well as by the air forces of South Vietnam.....Laos......Sri
Lanka......India.....and Pakistan. Now I don't consider myself an
inconsiderable target.....and wasn't even back when I could fit comfortably
behind a palm tree......but here I am....running my mouth....nothing hurt
beyond my dignity. Don't get me wrong; I don't hold any grudges against
those gallant winged warriors. But ever since the first time they attacked
me and missed.....I have never ever used the words "surgical bombing
strike" in any story I ever wrote.
I had the chance to say some good things about all of you at the Memorial
Service at The Wall on Sunday. I meant every word of that..... and more.
You chopper guys were our heroes in Vietnam. You were our rides....but you
were much much more than that. We were always either cussing you for
hauling our butts into deep kimchi.....or ready to kiss you for hauling us
out of it. I have a feeling that without you and your birds that would
have been a much shorter and far more brutish war.
You were our heroes, though, first last and always. You saved us from
having to walk to work every day. You brought in our food and ammo and
water.....and sometimes even a marmite can full of hot chow. To this day I
think the finest meal I ever ate was a canteen cup full of hot split pea
soup that a Huey delivered to a hilltop in the dry paddies of the Bong Son
Plain in January of 1966. For a moment there I thought if the Army could
get a hot meal out to an Infantry company on patrol maybe.....just
maybe.....we could win the damn war. Oh well.
I think often of all that you did for us.....all that you meant to us: You
came for our wounded. You came to get our dead brothers. You came....when
the fight was over.....to give us a ride home from hell. There isn't a
former Grunt alive who doesn't freeze for a moment and feel the hair rise
on the back of his neck when he hears the whup whup whup of those
helicopter blades.
What I want to say now is just between us.....because America still doesn't
get it.....still doesn't know the truth, and the truth is: You are the
cream of the crop of our generation.....the best and finest of an entire
generation of Americans. You are the ones who answered when you were
called to serve.....You are the ones who fought bravely and endured a
terrible war in a terrible place. You are the ones for whom the words
duty. .honor. country have real meaning because you have lived those words
and the meaning behind those words.
You are my brothers in arms....and I am not ashamed to say that I love you,
would not trade one of you for a whole trainload of instant
Canadians.....or a whole boatload of Rhodes Scholars bound for
England......or a whole campus full of guys who turned up for their draft
physicals wearing panty hose. On behalf of a country that too easily
forgets the true cost of war.....and who pays that price....I say Thank you
for your service! On behalf of the people of our country who didn't have
good sense enough to separate the war they hated from the young warriors
they sent to fight that war.....I say we are sorry. We owe you all a very
large apology.....and a debt of gratitude that we can never adequately
repay. For myself and all my buddies in the Infantry I say: Thanks for all the
rides in and out....especially the rides out. It is great to see you all
gathered here for this reunion. A friend of mine, Mike Norman, a former
Marine grunt....wrote a wonderful book called "These Good Men" about his
quest to find and reunite with all the survivors of his platoon from
Vietnam. He thought long and deep about why we gather as we have done this
evening and he explained it thusly:
I now know why men who have been to war yearn to reunite. Not to tell
stories or look at old pictures. Not to laugh or weep. Comrades gather
because they long to be with the men who once acted their best....men who
suffered and sacrificed.....who were stripped raw.....right down to their
humanity. I did not pick these men. They were delivered by fate and the
military. But I know them in a way I know no other men. I have never given
anyone such trust. They were willing to guard something more precious than
my life. They would have carried my reputation.....the memory of me. It was
part of the bargain we all made.....the reason we were so willing to die
for one another.
As long as I have memory I will think of them all.....every day. I am sure
that when I leave this world....my last thought will be of my family and my
comrades.......such good men. I'm going to shut up now and let us all get
down to the real business of drinking and lying.....er.....telling war
stories.
Thank you. I salute you. I remember you. I will teach my sons the
stories and legends about you. And I will warn my daughters never ever to
go out with aviators......
Good evening. God bless...
As it was & as it is PM