U.S. Army Captain Thomas Pienta: Firsthand Account of a Vietnam War Helicopter Pilot

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November 27, 1968. It was Thanksgiving Day back home in Ohio, but it wasn’t Thanksgiving in Vietnam. It would prove to be one of the most harrowing days of my life — a day in which I became a casualty of war. I was a 21-year-old first lieutenant, a helicopter pilot assigned to the 187th Assault Helicopter Company, which was based near the Black Virgin Mountain not far from the city of Tay Ninh. Our two ‘Slick’ lift platoons were known as the ‘Crusaders.’ The troop-carrying UH-1 had earned the nickname Slick because it carried no externally mounted weapons, only two M-60 machine guns, one on the port side manned by the crew chief and the other on the starboard side manned by a volunteer infantry door gunner. The remainder of the back seat was thus available to transport six U.S. (or 10 Vietnamese) infantrymen on combat assault missions.

THE AFTERMATH FOR THE CRUSADERS

That day we had already logged three hours of combat assault time, and we were sitting on the ground on’strip alert’ at a small airstrip on a rubber plantation at Dau Tieng in War Zone C, northwest of Saigon. After several hours on the ground, our flight leader received the call that was to summon us on that fateful mission.

The flight leader gave us the signal to crank, and we began our ritual. The door gunners and crew chiefs donned their protective vests and helmets. Although Huey pilots sat in armored seats, many were killed or wounded by groundfire coming up through the chin bubble, the plexiglass just below the pilot’s feet, which was positioned on the anti-torque controls, the pedals that controlled the tail rotor.

I then put on my flak jacket and stepped up into the pilot’s seat. The Crusaders flew with the aircraft commander in the left front seat and the pilot in the right front seat. Before securing the shoulder harness and lap belt, I would put my ‘chicken plate’ inside my flak jacket against my chest. The chicken plate was a 22-pound piece of chest-shaped armor worn inside the flak jacket as added protection for vital organs. Some pilots sat on theirs. You had that option. I then slid forward another piece of armor, which was attached to the side of the armored seat and designed to give side and head protection. Once that was done, it was almost impossible to close your own door. Our gunners would then close our doors for us after we cranked up the engines. The pilot would have great difficulty opening the door again if he needed to exit the aircraft in case of fire. Within the next hour, I would find this out firsthand.

After going through a combat-expedited check list, I cranked the Lycoming turbine engine. With the engine run-up procedures completed, we put on our ‘brain buckets,’ our ballistic protection helmets. It was absolutely essential that we adhere to the rules governing the wearing of flight safety equipment. It is one of the reasons I am alive today — scarred from second- and third-degree burns over 45 percent of my body, but alive. Unlike the hot dogs you see in the movies, we buckled our helmets. Without the chin strap secured, the helmet comes right off your head in a crash, and hair and ears are the first to go in a fire. We pulled the helmet’s visor down to protect our eyes from shrapnel before making the final approach to the landing zone (LZ). We wore our sleeves rolled down and pulled our flight gloves up over the cuffs of our fatigues or NOMEX (fire retardant) flight suits, if we had them. We wore leather boots because the nylon in jungle boots would melt right into your feet during a fire.

Had I not been wearing my flak jacket, I am sure 90 percent of my body would have been burned, thus leaving no skin to use for the grafting procedures, a very torturous procedure to say the least. In my case, the flak jacket is what saved my life. With 45-percent burns, you suffered but usually lived if you were lucky. With 90 percent burns, you suffered and died, as I saw many fellow Vietnam vets do on the burn ward at Brooke Army Hospital in Texas.

Tags: 20th - 21st Century, Airborne Operations, Historical Conflicts, Historical Figures, People, Vietnam War

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