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This story took place soon after I arrived in-country. I was with A-1-16
Infantry, 1ID from SEP 66-SEP 67.

The Helicopter War
One morning at formation an announcement was made that we would be
receiving airmobile helicopter training. We were told that the training
would begin the next morning and we were to bring our web gear,
rucksacks, and weapons with all our ammunition, everything we would
carry if we were going to the field. The high profile 1st Cavalry
Division had been using helicopters successfully, and General DePuy
wanted in.
During WWII, troops were dropped behind enemy lines by parachute and
glider. Aviation technology advanced with the development of the
helicopter. Helicopters were first used by the U.S. in Burma during
WWII. During the Korean War, the Marine Corps used them to move a large
unit in mountainous terrain. Helicopters were used extensively by the
French Army in Algeria, and the U.S. Army took note.
A lot of information had been released in the last few years about the
airmobile tests being conducted at Ft Benning during the early sixties.
They were doing a lot of wild things with helicopters including such
things as rappelling off them and making landing zones on top of trees.
The airborne people, mad that they weren’t jumping with parachutes, had
soldiers jumping out of moving helicopters at ten to twenty feet off the
ground. This method was only used once or twice during the test period
because of the many broken limbs that resulted.195
Eventually, the Vietnam War would become known as the ‘helicopter war.’
The idea of using helicopters to administratively move large units of
troops from one place to another quickly evolved into combat assaults.
Armed helicopters gave the infantry close air support at a time when the
Air Force was doing everything it could to avoid that mission.
The helicopter enabled us to move heavy artillery quickly so that the
infantry was never out of its range. Resupply of the troops in the field
by helicopter greatly extended the time they could stay there looking
for the enemy. Badly wounded soldiers were evacuated by helicopter from
the battlefield, often arriving at fully equipped trauma treatment
facilities within an hour of their being wounded.
Command and control changed from the commander moving to the place where
he could best influence the action on the ground to the commander moving
to the place where he could best see the action on the ground from his
helicopter. At 1500 feet above the fighting, with several radios, the
battalion commander could explain his actions to the next echelon of
command above him, in another helicopter, and transmit his directives to
the echelons below him on the ground. Had the fighting been in the
desert, this might have been a valid technique, but, nevertheless, air
mobility would completely revolutionize the way we fought.
Air-assault Training: The Troop Ladder (1)
The next morning the company road-marched up to the brigade
headquarters. When we arrived I saw a metal troop ladder hanging from
the branch of a very tall tree. Another unit was there standing in line
in front of the ladder and I watched in horror as each man had to climb
that ladder to the top and then climb back down. I hated heights and I
couldn’t imagine myself doing that.
A sergeant had us sit down and he gave us a quick class on the ladder.
It was normally used for troops to climb in and out of a CH-47 Chinook
helicopter while it hovered over a small clearing in the jungle. The
ladder was a hundred feet long which meant that we might be told to
climb down that ladder, or up, carrying all our gear, a hundred feet off
the ground. I was really shook. I didn’t want the guys to know that I
was afraid of heights, but there was no way that I was going to climb
that ladder.
I asked Roland if he thought that we could climb the ladder first
without our gear and he gave me one of his wicked grins, “You ain’t
scared to climb that are you?” It hadn’t taken him long to cut to the
heart of the matter. “No man,” I said, “but I never climbed a ladder
like that before...” Roland cut me off with a snort and I was afraid now
to reveal my weakness to him. Maybe something would happen and we
wouldn’t have to do it.
The other unit finished and now the first platoon was lining up to climb
the ladder. One by one, each man climbed to the top, “You got to touch
the limb, touch the limb, you don’t come down till you touch the limb!”
shouted the sergeant who had briefed us. When you stand in line for
something you want, like a pay line, it takes forever. This line,
however, seemed like it was moving very fast. I was sweating and took a
big drink of water. Then I had to pee. I got permission to use the
piss-tube nearby. When I returned to the line I went to the end but
Roland was having none of that and insisted that I rejoin him.
Now it was almost my turn. I looked up at the man on the ladder; he was
pulling and stepping toward the top. The ladder was swaying a little and
it seemed like he was going extremely slow. When he got close to the top
he started to come back down and had actually taken one step when the
sergeant ordered him to go back up and touch the branch before he came
down. The ladder shook a little as he reoriented his body and climbed up
two steps and touched the branch. He came down quickly and now it was my
turn.
My machine gun was slung, muzzle down across my back. The sling was
tight and the gun rested on the back part of my ruck. I could feel the
cocking handle digging into my back even though the ruck gave me some
protection. The ladder stood before me and there was no way I was going
to avoid this. So I grasped the highest rung I could reach and began to
climb.
Rung after rung, I kept my eyes straight ahead and placed the forward
edge of my boot heels against the rung so they wouldn’t slip off. Roland
gave me a word of encouragement and the sergeant gave him an “at ease.”
I just kept climbing. I was starting to breathe hard and my heart was
pounding. Sweat was coming down from the leather band in my helmet and
going right into my eyes. The sweat in my eyes caused me to lean into
the ladder and hook my left arm under a rung to wipe the sweat with my
right thumb and index finger. I moved quickly back to a two hand grip
and continued to climb.
How much further could it be? That’s what I was thinking when the back
of my hand hit the tree branch. I made it! Well, that was the hard part.
But then I made the mistake of looking over my left shoulder and when I
saw how high I was, I felt my whole body cringe. I held on with both
hands for a moment and then, looking straight ahead, began climbing
down. The biggest danger while going down was getting in a hurry. I
didn’t put my boot heels against the rungs for several steps and my foot
slipped off of a rung. I was able to stay in control, and resume my
original foot positions. I was back on the ground quickly and got a slap
on the back and a “good job” from somebody.
I walked over and joined the others. We watched the rest of our platoon
complete their training task and I felt better. I had been forced to
confront my fears and while the Army couldn’t make me climb that ladder,
I had a stronger need to remain a member of this group of infantrymen
than to allow myself to be paralyzed by my fear of heights. I didn’t
know what they would do with someone who refused to climb, but I didn’t
want to end up in the ‘Mess-Kit Repair Battalion.’196
The word was that the ladder climb was to be the extent of our airmobile
training and I had completed the task. Now I wondered what we were going
to do for the rest of the day. When the company had completed the ladder
climb, we road-marched back to the company for chow. I sat in the mess
hall, picking out the dehydrated bell peppers from my food, and
listening to the other guys talk about how bad it was for them to climb
that ladder. That amazed me. I thought I was the only one who was afraid
of heights.
We went over to our tent after chow and lay on our bunks. I smoked a
cigarette, relieved that climbing that ladder was behind me. Some of the
guys were saying that we would never use the ladder because there was
always a place to land a chopper in our AO. Then the platoon sergeant
came in and told us to fall out with all our gear. “Same equipment as
this morning,” he said. What are we going to do now? At the formation,
the first sergeant said we were going up to the air strip to receive
familiarization training with the CH-47.
When we got to the air strip, there was CH-47 Chinook or ‘shit hook’ as
we called it back then, sitting on the ground with its engines off. It
had a set of four large blades on top of its fuselage behind the cockpit
and another set on its tail. The blades seemed to bend almost to the
ground, pulled down by their own weight. The fuselage itself rested on
four sets of wheels, two at the front and two at the back.
The CH-47 could carry about 40 troops, combat loaded. It had a back door
that opened like the ramp on the back of a C-130. It could carry a large
artillery piece hanging underneath it from a hook on the bottom of the
fuselage and it could carry the crew for the gun and a lot of ammo
inside. The work horses of the Vietnam War, they were always flying back
and forth across the sky.
The helicopter was a long way away from where we were told to sit so I
leaned against my ruck and watched the activity around the aircraft. The
crew and some soldiers were doing something at the rear and underneath
it. I had no idea what was going on so I followed the example of those
around me and dozed off, stomach full, in the heat of the day on the Lai
Khe airstrip.
A loud high pitched whine woke me up and when I focused on the source, I
saw the blades beginning to spin on the big helicopter. As they spun
faster they drooped less and less until they were as straight as a
ruler. Soon, they were spinning so fast that you couldn’t see the
individual blades. I wondered why they had started the engines. If we
were going to get a tour, with the engines running, we wouldn’t be able
to hear the briefing.
The helicopter began to rise, lifting straight up. As it left the
ground, I noticed that hanging down from the rear and the middle were
troop ladders. As it continued to rise, the ladders were soon extended
to their maximum length.
The Troop Ladder (2)
This time we had to climb the ladder hanging from the back ramp into the
cargo hold, walk forward to the middle of the aircraft, get on another
ladder and climb back down to the ground. Unbelievable, just when I
thought it was safe to relax. What was interesting was that I was not
near as freaked out this time because of my first trip up the ladder.
When it was my turn to climb, a sergeant motioned for me to leave the
line and come forward to the ladder. There was a man about a third of
the way up and another who had almost reached the top. Hot exhaust fumes
filled the air along with a lot of dust and noise.
I began to climb the ladder but this time it was moving a little from
the motion and vibration of the helicopter. I continued to climb, a
little faster than I had the first time. After a little ways, I took a
quick peek down between my feet, and saw the next guy start climbing up
below me. I checked my progress several times. The man above me had
reached the top and was climbing in. The noise got louder as I got
closer to the back ramp.
Looking up again, I saw a man wearing a flight helmet motioning me to
come on. When I got to the helicopter ramp, he helped me in and I
crawled a few feet before standing up. Midway forward, another crew
chief was standing next to an open hole in the floor of the helicopter
and the helmet of the man who had been above me on the ladder was
disappearing as he began his decent. The crew chief signaled me forward
and pointed toward the hole.
This was the worst part for me. I had to get on the ladder and climb
down through the hole. I could see the man below me and the man behind
me was now inside the aircraft. I was afraid that I would lose my
footing or my hand would slip as I tried to get situated on that ladder.
I was sweating and my helmet had tilted to an angle where it was almost
hanging off the back of my head, held on only by my chin strap around my
neck.
I made myself grab that ladder, get my feet on the rungs and I started
down. The guy behind me got on the ladder right after me and it looked
like he might come down so fast that he would step on my hands. So I
picked up speed and made it to the ground pretty fast. As I moved away
from the ladder, I turned to see who had been behind me; it was Roland,
of course, giving me his wicked grin. “Fool, you better not be taking
your sweet-ass time on that ladder, Charlie might be shooting at us if
we do this in the bush!”
Repetition is the mother of perfection, but that was the last time I
ever climbed a troop ladder hanging from a helicopter; so I knew that I
could do it; but I wasn’t really proficient. Years later, I had to
rappel and face my fear of heights again. That time though, I did a lot
of rappelling from a rappel tower with a wall and mock helicopter skids.
I learned the Australian rappel. We rappelled off of cliffs at near Ft
Hood, and I rappelled out of helicopters many times with all my gear.
The more you do something dangerous, the more experienced you become,
the more self-confidence you gain, and the more proficient you become.
You are able to handle the unexpected which in the case of rappelling,
can quickly lead to a life-threatening situation. I would have a few of
those years later.
This an excerpt from: Content With My Wages: A Sergeant's Story: Book
I-Vietnam
https://www.amazon.com/.../099039.../ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0...
Photo: U.S. Army