That's "Super" on the left with the omnipresent
Kool cigarette dangling from his lips.
Unfortunately, this is the only shot I
have of Peter. The picture shows one of
the many poker games we had in our tent
at a place in
Vietnam called Dak To. We seem to be
playing on someone's bunk. The other
guys from left to right are: Super with
the smoke in his mouth, partially hidden
Larry Edlefson, Jim Sickler and Hank
Echols writing his Mom a letter, I
guess. Thanks to Tony Bolivar for the
new copies of the picture and the
positive ID of the folks in the photo.
We often played cards and used boxes of
M-16 ammo for chips. We were very remote
and seldom had beer or anything harder,
so the games were not as rough and
tumble as soldiers' games depicted in
movies. We looked bad walking in from
our aircraft in flak vests, with a wide
assortment of guns and ammo strapped to
us. That is we looked as bad as
teenagers and early 20-something kids in
combat can. I guess it has always been
that way, except in the World War II
movies we grew up on as kids, where all
the soldiers looked like grizzled old
guys.
Peter and I often flew together.
Sometimes in Casper Hueys, most often
with Peter in one "H-13" and me on his
wing. We flew low and often slowly,
partly because the H-13 did not fly very
fast. We were "Hot Stuff" aeroscouts. If
you remember the old Calvary movies
where they would send out the scouts
ahead of the main force to reconnoiter
the area for bad guys -- that was us. We
just happened to do it in little
helicopters as you see in the opening
shots of the TV show Mash.
Pretty fragile looking, huh? The H-13s looked
that way but were actually quite durable
and reliable. You did feel awfully
exposed with the big glass bubble, lack
of armor, and doors removed.
We flew around our AO (area of operations) until
we knew it like our old baseball gloves.
Peter and I flew around in the Dak To
and Tuy Hoa areas. Neither one of us had
that cold killer quality that I saw some
guys with, mostly the occasional gun
ship pilot. We just flew from morning
'till night doing our jobs.
Peter and I spend a lot of time together on the
ground. As memory serves me, he was
married but I do not recall where he was
from. I would like to meet his wife or
family and tell them about a guy that
left us way too early. Or at least tell
him about that part of Peter that I got
to know when we came of age very
quickly.
Peter left
Vietnam
in late '67 as I recall, only to return
a short time later when his unit, the
82nd Airborne, was activated and sent
over. I remember he was furious that he
got sent back only a few weeks after he
left. As fate would have it, he was sent
home again, this time to
Fort
Wolters. Peter distinguished himself in
RVN only to die on 9 July 1968 when as I
understand, his aircraft came apart in
flight. I still miss him.