Three weeks prior to the 1st Cav first big engagement that resulted in the we Were Soldiers book and movie, the 33rd NVA Regt surrounded the Special Forces Camp at Plei Me. They had wounded and the morning after the attack started, our one Dustoff from the 498th piloted by Bill Carrol headed down along with two escort gunships from our unit. One of the gunships was shot down, crashing into the brush just off the south side of the generally east/west dirt strip alongside the camp. All perished. The other gunship, flown by my hootchmate Bob Wright limped back to Camp Holloway, never to be flown again. But, mission accomplished-the NVA didn’t down the Dustoff. In the following after action report, there is a statistic stating that the loss rate for Dustoff aircraft was 3.3 times the overall helicopter loss rate in Vietnam*. They had large red crosses on them.
* see link below. The Dustoff stories in Vietnam would make for quite an anthology, but perhaps far too much courage under fire combined with naked, altruistic patriotism for Mr. Stone.
The USAF and finally a relief column conspired to make it too costly for the 33rd regt and they pulled off, retreating toward a juncture with the two other NVA Regiments that would joint in the Ia Drang battles.
As the USAF kept on their heels, one of the A-1E’s was shot down NW of Plei me and I had to take their CO down to get the pilots dog tags. Bob Wright and another gunship accompanied me. Landing about 200m from the crash site, I dispatched my gunner to escort the CO. And sat on the ground. After they had gone for 10 minutes or so, Bob called up to tell me that there was a column of about 150 soldiers in tan uniforms marching at a 90 degree angle to my tail and about 150 meters behind.n Now, no one in the South Vietnamese Army, Marines or Paratroops wore tan khaki. BUT we had rules of engagement, so Bob climbs to 5000 ft, and calls II Corps HQ for permission to shoot. Permission not granted. He comes back on freq and tells me he can’t shoot but the khaki uniforms are continuing away. CO returns with my gunner and off we go, but those 150 troops were untouched, when they should have been laid out in eternal sleep. Two days before LZ X-ray. Four days before LZ Albany.
Separate note re McCarthyism; it has always amazed me that the president who ended our involvement in Vietnam seems to get the most flack, whereas the President who started it, John F. Kennedy, and the one who transformed it into something major, Lyndon Johnson, get a free ride.
https://history.army.mil/html/books/...ub_90-28-1.pdf