Fred Alvis (right) with his Crew Chief, Mike

ANOTHER DAY IN THE NAM

The sky was blue, the winds calm. It was hot and humid on the ground. No sweat, we were flying at 5,000 feet, high enough to avoid small arms fire, and it was cool air blowing thru the Huey's cabin. Trying to light a smoke was difficult, viewing the green, mountainous terrain wasn't.

We had come down with a mission of throwing out Chu Hoi leaflets and had landed to pick up some ROKs and the papers. The ROKs were to show us the AO where we would be throwing out the leaflets. Over the 'wopping' of the blades I heard the pilot speaking on the intercom.

We were to throw the papers out just one side of the ship to avoid entangling our tail rotor." No shit," I thought. "No wonder he's an officer and pilot while I am just a GIB (Guy in Back)." Then he goes on to say that we were approaching the target area and we were to get ready.

Leaving my M-60 in the rest position, making sure my chicken plate was secured on the seat where I usually "wore it", I swung around, using the vertical bar, into the passenger compartment. It felt strange flying in the cabin, instead of my gunners well. Hooking back up to the intercom, we started to cut piles of leaflets loose. The pilot and the ROK agreed that this was the spot, so on came the command to start throwing out the papers.

As I leaned out the cabin, I saw a hodgepodge of forest, grassland, trails, all Indian country, not a sign of human habitation. The greens and browns of that rugged country blended into a beautiful vista. It was kinda fun, throwing out, littering, if you will, those stacks and stacks of papers.

Noticing little green bugs coming our way, in that lazy curved path all of their own, I heard the crew chief say," We have incoming fire sir, incoming, incoming! Permission to fire back sir!" "Negative, negative," was the pilot's reply. "We are on a peace mission." "Tell them that," I thought.

Anyway, they kept firing and we kept throwing out leaflets for a few more minutes, with a huge pucker factor on my part, anyway. Mission accomplished, we turned and flew toward home, leaflets fluttering towards the ground, green bugs coming up to meet them in a joyous union of bullets and paperwork.

(Shrug) Just another day in the Nam.