BAILOUT (6/6/1970)

 

The bailout I am about to describe occurred on the 6th of June 1970 during a routine AC119K gunship mission. I had been in "in country" since the 22nd of January and had fown nearly 40 combat missions to that point. 

 

I was then a member of the 18th Special Operations Squadron (SOS) stationed at our DaNang Forward Operating Location (FOL). The aircraft was a third generation side-firing gunship. The AC-47 (Puff the Magic Dragon) was the first generation and the G model 119 (Shadow) was the second. Puff had three mini-guns (7.62mm gatling guns capable of 6000 rounds a minute, although they were normally set at 1500 or 3000 to save ammo) and Shadow had 4. The K model, known as Stinger had 4 mini-guns and two 20mm gatling guns. While Puff and Shadow were primarily designed for Troops In Contact (TIC), Stinger was born and bread to hunt trucks (although on a lot of nights there was some question as to who was hunting who) over the Ho Chi Min trail. As a result, although we did fly about 20% TICs in support of friendlies, the bulk of our time was spent over the Ho Chi Min. 

 

The aircraft itself had a rather unsavory reputation among the crews. In the air it was okay, kind of like a B-17 (you could shoot it full of holes and it would still bring you home -- fact is one flew back to Thailand with 14ft of its right wing shot of one night), but anywhere near the ground it was flat out dangerous. "The Flying Crowd Killer" was one of its nicknames (I called it the "Flying Red X", because a red X was an item that grounded the aircraft and the only way to fly a 119 was to accept items that would ground any other aircraft). It was also the only aircraft in the AF inventory that would not support its own weight on the fuselage with the gear up (the procedure for a gear stuck in an up position was "bailout"). It also had a reputation for losing engines, runaway propellers (and throwing same through the cockpit). The K model also flew over its design maximum gross weight by 16000 lbs, this being accomplished by adding two J85 jet engines to get the extra weight off the ground (we flew this heavy to carry all the extra equipment and ammo required for our mission). The result of all this was that the aircraft could only maintain a 300fpm rate of descent at max gross with a recip out and the other three engines maxed.

 

The long and the short of this was that we lived and worked in a very hostile environment, not just in Vietnam, not just over the trails (were we saw an awful lot of AAA -- anti-aircraft-artillery--up close and personal; I used to describe it as a lot like the forth of july, except that we right there in the middle of the "bombs bursting in air"), but in the aircraft itself. The possibility of dying was not only very real, very possible -- just be in the wrong place at the wrong time (either with some trip AAA, or an engine failure just after takeoff). 

 

The bailout, which is the primary purpose for my writing this piece occurred as follows:

 

Having just taken off from Da Nang AB, RVN, we were heading west to the Ho Chi Min and leveling off at 10000ft. Just as we did, we encountered an uncontrollable runaway propeller on the number one engine. All attempts to feather the propeller failed. The airplane itself was suffering extreme vibrations and barely controllable. In the midst of all this the prop went supersonic with a sound that I have always described as a "banshee out of hell" (take the highest pitch sound you can imagine and double it and you'll come pretty close to imagining it). 

 

Anyway, at some point it became obvious that we would have to bailout, with my primary perception at the time being one of classic denial (i.e. "this isn't happening to me, I must be dreaming, when am I going to wake up",etc.). In short the whole circumstance seemed absolutely "unreal" to me. I subsequently did wake up, but it wasn't in the way I thought. The bailout signals, which are sequential, (6 short rings, 3 long rings and verbal, bailout, bailout, bailout by the aircraft commander) started to occur and the further we got the more a sense of "unreality" came over me.

 

Any way at some point, I began to get a definite sense that "I was standing back watching myself" (not out of my body, but in it); as if there were "two me's", a lower me that was the "object" of a higher me as a "subject", who was calmly and quietly watching the "other me" go through the "motions" (slow motions which I get to in a minute). Almost as if I were "mentally removed and standing back" from the chaos that my nice, neat, rationally structure, normal, every day view of reality had become. Well at this point, while I'm saying to myself that this can't be happening, and that yep, there goes the first signal, there goes the second signal; oh, no he's actually given the verbal command, "it really is happening", but it seems so dream like. It was almost as if I were in a trance at this point, I was watching, but mentally pretty much dis-involved and disassociated. At this point the AC looked over at me, as if to ask why was I still there, I looked back at him and did or said nothing. 

 

At that point he said, "Get the F... out of here!" and I finally woke up. Not as I had hoped, however, because it was really happening! Not that my sense of them got any realer, just that I knew that this was really happening to me and that I had to think and act accordingly. It was also at this point that I got a definite sensation that everything that was happening was happening in slow motion and, as such I had all the time in the world to do what ever needed to be done. In this regard, I had a definite sense of "inner peace and calm", I was almost experiencing what was going on as a "movie" in which I was the central actor, but at a higher level, in the audience. This gave me a degree of "mental space" and "objectivity" with regard to what was going on that I had never experienced before. 

 

(Note: This sense of everything going on in "slow motion" is probably the same as an athlete describes as being in the "zone" where he is concentrating to such a degree -- bringing a degree of concentration and attendant awareness to the moment that often takes a life threatening circumstance to evoke for most people -- that his/her normal frame of reference (the number of frames, almost as in a movie, or mental snap shots taken and processed in any given moment go up geometrically) expands to encompass normal frames of reference simultaneously -- this would normally give the illusion, relative to normal references, of the film slowing down; where as what is really happening is that your looking longer at each one; or as in the case of "slow motion" in a movie, shedding a greater degree of light (awareness) on each frame, which is quite similar to slowing down the film and shedding more of the projectors light on each frame) 

 

(Note 2: (Re: Old Star Trek Plot) - I might also suggest that this sense of mental slow motion in relation to my normal perception may be viewed as processing more "bits" of mental information faster; or alternately creating "bigger bits" of information then usual because I was further back (mentally disassociated) and so had a larger perspective on my circumstances (i.e room seen through a key whole, from a corner of the room, from the perspective of the house, the yard, the block, the town, the county, the state, the nation, the world, the universe, etc.) That is, the further back I moved mentally, the more mental space I created between me as the observer and my circumstance, the less personally I took things, the more objective and so selfless I was in my observation, the broader the view or perspective (and the larger the bit of information I was able to ingest, and the slower things seemed to got) I got with each "mental look or snap shot".

 

Anyway, my first action was to get out of the seat, which sounds simple enough, really isn't, but in my state of "heightened mental awareness, actually was. You see, both the pilots wore back packs, and we had to squeeze into quarters that would be cramped without the parachute. With the seat fully back, this involved a considerable amount of contortion to avoid the very low overhead instrument panel, the yoke and the center console, etc. in the best of circumstances. In this circumstance however. I got out without catching my parachute on any of the switches, and WITHOUT MOVING THE SEAT BACK!. It was almost as if I had "de-materialized" in my seat and "re-materialize" behind my seat. How I did what I did, I'll never know exactly; but I do know it had something to do with my extremely "heightened state of awareness" (as they say we only use 10% of our intelligence -- attention, awareness, sensitivity and responsiveness to the moment -- Watt's called it energy seeking the path of least resistance -- and I was experiencing what it was like to bring a much higher degree of "sensitivity and awareness" to this particular moment.

 

The next step was a long one (both figuratively and literally). After bypassing the bailout chute behind the pilots seat as too dangerous (they had put a lot of additional antennas behind the chute and we used to kid about throwing out the navigator first to take off the antennas), I remember grabbing on to the top rung of the ladder, which was adjacent to the cockpit exit, which again was fairly narrow and a tight squeeze with a backpack on, and simply winging from the top rung into the cargo compartment (from a height of 5 or 6 feet) and landing, Lord knows, how far back into the compartment.

 

What I found at the back of the cabin was also quite unexpected. You see, the left troop door (the 119 was originally designed to haul cargo and to drop troops) was used in cases of a controlled bailout and in our case the flare launcher (research details) had to be jettisoned to clear the way (As an aside: Sometime previously the illuminator operator, who served as the jump master for a bailout, had called the AC and asked if he should jettison the launcher - nearly 5000 pounds of highly explosive and flammable magnesium flares, smoke markers,etc in a 4x5x6 ft reinforced aluminum frame (this was accomplished by a pneumatic system that pushed the whole package out of the aircraft with the push of a button). The ACs response was "Standby", but the Illuminator operator misinterpreted his response, rogered a jettison command and fired the launcher out from 10000ft. Unfortunately, we were right over Marine Monkey Mountain and, as I understand the launcher fell within the confines of the camp -- always wondered how big a "hole" it made in the ground. This in turn resulted in the marines thinking that WW III had commenced and they launched all their helicopters, under the assumption that they were under a rocket attack (this further complicated the SAR that later ensued, as I indicate later). It also resulted in burning up two fire-trucks from contact with the magnesium from the flares. In this regard, we later joked that we had "one takeoff, no landing and got two trucks (remember our primary job was truck hunting). Much to my surprise when I got there was the fact that of the 10 men on our crew, 6 of them were standing around the back deciding if they really wanted to jump. 

 

Well having become fully awakened previously, I had no such doubt. Knowing how bad things were in the cockpit, it was clear to me that it was now "safer outside than inside" and that in-spite of a natural reluctance to jump into space, that there was really no choice, under the circumstance (I really don't think this has much to do with courage or bravery -- one simple does what one has to do given the circumstances he is confronted with; under normal circumstances few people would see jumping out of a perfectly good airplane as particularly reasonable and would be reluctant to do so; however, when the alternative is even more threatening, there is really no need for a decision or choice, one simply acts). So I stepped up to the platform and looked out into space.

 

At this point, something else very interesting happened -- I suddenly had "total recall" of everything that had ever happened to me in my life. I suppose this is the experience that people exposed to "near death experience" describe as "seeing my entire life flash before my life" or the "life review" that people who have "life after death" experience. But I didn't experience it that way. I experienced it more as a sense of my being in the exact center of a "pool or circle of information", and thus equally distant, and so present, to each piece of information on the circumference of that pool or circle. That is, it seemed as if I had a kind of non-linear and so immediate access to the experiential contents of my life or memories of our minds. Whereas our normal perceptual mode (due to our relative in attentiveness and lack of environmental awareness) and means of memory access is linear, more river like, and so less immediate and more time constrained. An alternate and perhaps better way of describing this phenomena would be one of seeing ones life, not as sequential frames or snap shots that have to be "re-wound" to a certain point like the film of a movie or the tape of a recorder, but as "one super, all encompassing snap shot", that includes all individual frames within itself as an integrated whole; or a "rug mural" in which all the individual "frames" are actually individual threads that go together to form an aggregate whole (that at the normal level of our awareness at the "thread or particle" level , that our life is seen as a bundle of individual "bits of discrete information", that are in large part randomly and incoherently -- at least at our level of mental magnification-- associated; whereas at a level of "higher awareness or perception" or "mural or wave" level, that our life may be seen as an integrated and coherent whole in which all the "parts", as we normally see them, are automatically seen as perfectly related when seen at the level of the "whole". 

 

It's also quite similar to a condition I have described as the "mental myopia" of our normal way of looking at things (seeing things with our mental nose touching the "mural or big picture" and thus creating a very limited "breadth of vision and perspective", which tends to see things in a very "partial and so incomplete way") vs the "mental space and perspective" that results from taking an "impersonal" and thus "objective" attitude towards the ones life, and so steps back from the 'threads perspective" and realizes a "mural or big picture perspective".

 

This involves no requirement for an increased capacity to see, but rather a "broader perspective". Its like standing with ones nose up against a very large wall mural and only being able to see "5 inches of space" at any give time. Then having to move left and right, up and down, to take individual "mental snap shots"; then trying to put all the "bits and pieces" that such a "short mental focal length" imposes both on ones perspective and ones comprehension, back together again (like humpty-dumpty) into some semblance of a coherent whole (a whole that is partial only from our perspective; in our minds); as a "composite whole. Alternately, one may choose to "mentally step back" from the "already whole 'wall mural" to the point when we have sufficient mental distance, space or focal length to broaden our peripheral perspective to a degree that it will encompass the "whole mural" at one time, as one bit of information, that is "self-integrating" in its own wholeness.

 

With all that said it was time to. At that point anything that I had ever associated with jumping our of airplanes came to mind. Stuff from survival school (seven months earlier), from pilot training (one year earlier), from my childhood (when I wondered if I'd have the nerve to jump while watching a movie; and saying "Geronimo" as I jumped, etc.). It was all there and a lot more. I've also likened this to being at in a mental grocery store in which the stores entire contents is spread out before you and, you say "I need one of these, one of these, and one of these", as sequentially unfolding (in slow motion) time and circumstances arise. In the midst of thinking, "I always wondered what this would be like, and can I do it", my previously mentioned realization that it was "safer outside than in" manifested and jumping became a "no-choice, no-decision, no-brainer", and I just jumped.

 

With this I was floating in space on my back watching my airplane fly away from me -- a very surreal sensation, as were most of the other sensations I was having. At that point I started to go through my sequential bailout procedures which, with a "back pack" parachute, involved stabilizing my fall in a face down position by spreading my arms and legs in a "spread eagle" fashion. This accomplished I pulled the "rip cord", and if my life hadn't already flashed before my eyes, it would have -- the cord came out about a foot (not all the way as it should have) and the chute didn't come out. With that I was no longer concerned with "body position", only survival. I clawed at the cord with both hands (I honestly think I could have stood on my own back if I had to at that point), and the chute finally came out -- with me flat on my back (the worst possible position to be in). 

 

As a result, the drag chute and the parachute itself, after ejecting below me, smashed into the back of my head on its way up and past me. Talk about seeing stars. I started to black out. At that point, I have a definite recollection that part of "me" that was "watching me",said "If you pass out, you'll die!", and "I", I'm not sure which part of me, literally "willed myself" to stay conscious, and I was able to. To compound my problems, I went through the risers as the chute opened fully and went past me. The result of this as I found out later when I removed my flight suit were a pair of bruises on the outside of each arm, from elbow to shoulder, that looked like someone had painted my arms with tar or black paint. 

 

Not only did I go through the rises, but when I looked up I saw a tri-color parachute, although I known the Air Force only made bi-color chutes (orange and white). What I saw however was white, orange (more of a tan at night), and black; which really meant that I had torn out several panels on my way through the risers. 

 

At this point I did a "grocery list" selection of the procedures necessary to prepare for water landing. Things were still going on in slow motion, and each "bit of information" was available, as needed and selected accordingly. Having accomplished this, I got on my survival radio and found that "all hell was breaking lose". Whereas procedure called for the 10 of us to check in with our call signs (Aircraft call sign and crew position designated 1 thru 10 for each crew member--in this case the aircraft call sign was, would you believe, "Lemon" (would you also believe that we had lost an engine on the same aircraft -- verify against flight records -- about a month before, maybe it was trying to tell us something), so the AC's call sign was Lemon 1, I was Lemon 2, the navigator was Lemon 3, etc, etc.,). and maintain radio discipline and silence. Well, as you might imagine that wasn't quite the way it worked out. Everyone seemed to come up on the radio at one time (almost like trying to get a flight clearance at a peak traffic at Atlanta airport). Not only were I and my crew on the emergency frequency simultaneously, but most of the helicopters the marines launched were too. To tell the truth, my best recollection of the radio situation was 10 guys coming up on the radio simultaneously saying something to the effect of "...save me, save me, save me..."

 

Anyway, it was time to start preparing for my first landing without an airplane. Face shield on my helmet down, Life Preserve Units (LPU) inflated, parachute release latch open, thumbs in release rings, etc. (Note: this last procedure has subsequently changed because it is very difficult to judge how far above the water you are at night and a number of folks had accidentally released too high.) In my case I remembered we were to hold our release until actual water entry. This in itself was a bit dangerous, as late a release and you were likely to come up under the chute, with a great likelihood of an entanglement. The idea was to release early enough to have the wind blow the chute away from you (but not so early that you fall 50 or 60 feet.

 

In my case I probably over did it. Not really sure what I expected. But it wasn't what I got. It seemed like I hit the water and went down forever. It was probably only 15 to 20 feet, but it seemed like a heck of a lot more. Although I tried to release on initial entry, I was near the bottom of my plunge before I was able to react. At that point I remember bobbing to the surface very much like a cork because of the inflated LPU I was wearing.

 

Back on the surface, I began to survey my surroundings. The sky seemed to be full of lights (primarily from the helicopters that the marines had launched in response to our flare launcher bombing) and so was the sea (Da Nang harbor was traditionally full of fishing boats at night). My initial reaction was to hail one of the boats and get out of the water as soon as possible (I'm not a particularly good swimmer and had no doubt that I would drown without the LPUs). About this point, I began to got the "shakes" and began to go into shock. This seemed to be occasioned by my finally having time to "think about" my situation. That is, I was no longer facing a "near and present" danger, and as such had the necessary time and space to "think about" what I had gone through and had yet to face. This, coupled with the on-set of shock (actually I'm not sure whether the shock, negative-thought or fear came first or whether they all arose mutually) resulted in a case of uncontrollable shakes and panic.

 

At this point, the part of me that had been watching the show previously came back, and I had a very clear realization that if I continued to panic as I was, if I didn't get a hold of myself, as it were, that I would die. With that realization I was faced with a very real and conscious decision as to whether I wished to go on living. Interestingly enough (as I may have suggested above), I had pretty much lived my life with a negative attitude and figured that, worst case, maybe dying wasn't such a bad deal. After all, if life was a "tale told by a madman", dying might be the quickest way to end ones suffering and misery. Well such "mental defenses" against the seeming "nonsense" of life are may be okay in the face of "abstract threats", but it was now "put up or shut-up" time. Did I or did I not want to go on living? More specifically, for me, in my particular case, at this particular time, "Was my life, not life abstractly, but my life, worth living?

 

I think that this, for me at least, translated into the "will to live" that is so often referenced with regard to the determining variable in survival situations. This was my moment of truth, as it were. Would I choose to live or let my self die. It was that simple. There was no question that I would live, if I choose to do so. Neither was there any doubt that I would die, if I choose not to live.

 

Such a choice, as the one I had to make about "jumping out" was really no choice at all, and can only seem like a choice in the abstract and “non-existential" realm of the mind. Clearly, I wanted to go on living and "jumped into" life, as I had "jumped from" the airplane. At that time, the "shock, the shakes, the fear and the panic" all stopped, instantaneously; almost, miraculously. This decision, had far reaching effects (not the least of which were the "search assumptions" I listed earlier). I felt a strange sense of peace and calm come over me, as I "came back to myself".

 

Twice, helicopters flew nearby and twice I "popped flares" to get their attention. Although procedure called for radio contact and flares on command of the Search and Rescue (SAR) aircraft, I was still pretty excited and figured that they would be able to spot them with the black back drop of the open water. What I didn't realize was that those weren't rescue helicopters, they were the marine helicopters previously referenced; so I pretty much wasted my flares. Somewhere around this time, as I suggested before, I considered the possibility of trying to hail one of the numbers boats I saw all around me. This I quickly realized wouldn't be such a good idea, as I thought it would be pretty silly, to be down two miles from my own Air Base and end up in the Hanoi Hilton because I was in a hurry to get out of the water. With this in mind I figured that a helicopter had to be friendly in this neighborhood.

 

About this time I remembered that I had a "strobe" I had in my survival vest and pulled it out. The flash from these things is so similar to 20mm ground fire that they have a directional blue filter to keep it from be mistaken for same. In the middle of the water, however, the brighter the better; so I turned it on. As it turned out this was a pretty good idea, as one of our gunships circling overhead as part of the SAR effort picked me up almost immediately on their Night Observation Scope (NOS). It was no time before they had vector a Jolly Green Giant rescue helicopter right to me.

 

As they hovered 20' or so above me, a paramedic (PJ) dropped into the water beside me. Much to my surprise, his first action was to take out the largest survival knife I had ever seen, and went after my LPU. Knowing that I would surely have drown without them, I had formed a considerable fondness/attachment for my LPUs and wasn't too happy when he punctured the one under my left arm (they do this so they won't catch on the cargo door going into the helicopter). Whether I convinced him not to puncture the second one, or whether it was procedure not to, I don't know. 

 

Anyway they lowered a "jungle perpetrator' with a floatation collar and the PJ helped me get on (for those who don't know what they look like, imagine a grappling hook with three large flat, seat like hooks that fold down so you can sit on them facing the center post). From there, up I went with the rotor wash churning the water below me. When I got to the top, another PJ pulled me in the door, and for the first time in nearly 3 hours felt normal and safe.

 

As an aside, the first thing the PJ asked me, after I had sat down and taken off my gear, was whether I wanted a cigarette or not? Interestingly enough I had quite smoking only 3 days earlier and never wanted one more. With that in mind, I remember thinking that "If I could turn this one down, I would never have trouble turning one down again". From that point on I was just a "passenger" as the helicopter that had picked me up continued to participate in the SAR effort. 

 

Within a half-hour or so we picked up our navigator and the next two hours were spent trying to locate our illuminator operator, who was on the radio, having problems (probably a chute entanglement) and asking for help. After another half-hour the radio transmissions stopped and we never heard from him again. Although he could have been picked up by one of those "potentially unfriendly" boats I spoke of, and was carried as an MIA for six months or more, we thought that it was more probable that he had been pulled under the water by his parachute as a result of his likely chute entanglement. 

 

I might also mention that as late as 1982, I was still under the impression that he was being carried as an MIA (although none of us on the crew really believed that he was still alive), and asked a friend in the Veteran's Administration to check on his status. The letter I received in response indicated that he had been found washed up on a beach 6 months later (information that I probably was aware of previously, but probably blocked from my memory).

 

Regarding Post Delay Stress Syndrome, I think I had it for years and never recognized it as such. This is similar to the "hangovers" I didn't know I was having when I was younger; or the "jet lag" I didn't know I was having when I first started flying back and forth to Europe in C-141s. Mine manifested, as extreme anger and rage when I drank too much. I used to call it "baying at the moon" or "bemoaning my fate". I also had some serious "emotional book balancing" to do with regard to 35 Killed By Air (KBA) that my crew and I had been awarded during a troops in contact mission south of Da Nang late in my tour. A mission in which I received a Distinguished Flying Cross, with a citation for Heroism. With enough to drink I sometimes got to the point I had to come to grips with my having been a documented "killer" of 35 human beings. With time I realized that I was simply "doing my duty" and that if I hadn't a considerably larger number of people might have died if the "friendly troops" we were supporting were over-run. 

 

Anyway, at some point I came to peace with myself. Interestingly enough it wasn't until 1984 or 85, while I was watching a Vietnam Vets forum on TV that I realized that the emotions that they were also expressing were the same ones I had experienced in the late 70s and early 80s. My participation in an MIA rally and two subsequent art shows, may also have served to help me balance my books.

Copyright, RFHay, 1991