The Day It Snowed In Vietnam
by Jim Schueckler
(founder of The Virtual Wall)
[Angels In Vietnam compiled by Jan Hornung (1997)]
The usual carols played in the mess hall as the calendar showed
December 24, 1969, but it didn't feel much like Christmas Eve. We
were tired from a long day of flying missions — picking up
infantrymen and recon patrols from field locations and bringing
them back to the airfield at Phan Thiet for the Christmas
cease-fire. The frequently needed gunship helicopters had
escorted us, but today not a single shot sang out from either
direction. Perhaps soldiers on both sides of this war were glad
to allow the cease-fire to start one day early.
It had been a hot day, and even in the evening, after the
withering sun had dipped below the horizon, we sat sweltering in
T-shirts in the pilots' hooch. The air was somber. The usual
discussions of recent close calls and superior airmanship were
subdued by the subject on everyone's mind that nobody voiced
— the recent loss of four pilots and four crewmen. Instead,
we joked about the cease-fire and wondered how long it would
last. One man predicted that mortars would hit the base just
before midnight. We all felt there was nothing to celebrate. "We
have to do something happy! Let's sing Christmas Carols!" one
pilot said in an effort to change the mood. It could have been
the anguished tone he used, for no one started singing.
"Let's take up a collection for the Project Concern
hospital!" Mike Porter, my copilot, finally blurted out. I
thought back to the first time I saw that hospital at Dam Pao
when I was copilot for Ted Thoman. A medic showed us a baby in
desperate need of medical care, suffering from convulsions and
dehydration. Flying that Huey helicopter at top speed, Ted soon
had the baby girl and her parents at the hospital at Dam Pao.
That mission made me feel good; it was the only one, so far, that
was not part of making war. The memory was vivid because only
hours before we had extracted a recon team under fire. The crew
chief had counted the bullet holes in the aircraft, but they
weren't patched yet.
"Hey Jim, let's ask to fly the Da Lat Macvee mission tomorrow to
take money that we collect tonight," Mike said as he shook my
shoulder to wake me from my reverie. Under his crewcut blond
hair, Mike's boyish face lit up. I had to remind myself that at
22, he was among the older Army helicopter pilots.
Mike's excitement was contagious. "Great idea, let's go ask!" I
jumped up and headed for the door. We stopped at the crew chiefs'
hooch and asked Bascom if he would like to fly tomorrow. He and
Dave quickly agreed, also wishing to escape the prevailing
sadness.
Major Higginbotham, the company commander, was in the operations
bunker. "We don't have the Da Lat Macvee mission. In fact, there
are no missions; there's a cease-fire tomorrow, remember?" he
answered after I had explained our plan.
"Please, Sir, could you call battalion and see if some other
company has Da Lat Macvee?" I pleaded the cause because even
though it had been Mike's idea, the prospect of not being able to
make this mission was too much for me. Macvee (MACV), the
Military Assistance Command, Vietnam, was the U.S. Army unit of
advisors to the Army of the Republic of Vietnam. One or two U.S.
advisors were assigned to small military compounds in almost
every large village. A Macvee mission usually meant flying the
province Senior Advisor around to visit the villages. Macvee
missions were a respite from the tension and danger of combat
assaults or recon team missions, but they had their own risks of
weather, wind, and being without gunship escort. Flying near the
beautiful city of Da Lat, up in the cool mountains, was an
additional treat.
The Major picked up the phone and started writing on a mission
sheet form. "Da Lat Macvee helipad, oh-seven-thirty; We took the
mission from the 92nd," he said as he opened his
wallet, handing me money, "Here. Good luck!"
When we reached the gunship platoon hooch, we interrupted a card
game. Three pilots looked on sadly as one man raked a pile of
money across the table toward himself. We made our sales pitch
about the hospital. "Here," said the lucky gambler as he pushed
the money toward us, "take it! I'd just lose it all back to these
guys anyway, Merry Christmas!"
Similar responses began to fill our ammo can with money of all
denominations as we roamed among hooches and tents, collecting
money from guys whose generosity began to make me a believer in
the Christmas spirit again. At one stop, a pilot gave us a gift
package of cheese. Food! We could take food! We decided to make
another pass through the company area, asking for cookies, candy,
and other things. "Deck the halls with boughs of holly"
sang out the men from inside the hooch as we left with our arms
full of gifts. We soon heard men from the other buildings
competing to sing the loudest. Christmas Eve had arrived in this
tropical land of heat and snakes and death!
When we reached the mess hall, the cooks were still there,
preparing for Christmas Day. "Do you have a truck with you?"
asked the mess sergeant. "We have a surplus of food because so
many guys went home early." One pilot went to get the maintenance
truck while the rest of us checked dates on cans and cartons of
food. The word spread, and everyone wanted to join in the spirit
of giving. We accepted four cases of freeze-dried foods from the
infantry mess hall, and the medic at the dispensary gave us
bandages and dressings.
We tied down the pile of booty in the Huey. After returning the
truck, the four pilots walked together back to our hooch. "Hey
guys! It's midnight. Merry Christmas!" exclaimed one of the
pilots as he looked at his watch.
My alarm clock startled me out of a deep sleep. A check with my
wristwatch verified the time, but something was wrong. There was
no shouting, no rumble of trucks, no roar of propellers and
rotors. Mornings were usually bustling with the sounds of men and
machines preparing for the daily business of war, but today there
were no such sounds. "Is this what peace sounds like?" I thought.
In the shower building, Mike and I talked about what our families
would be doing today on the other side of the world. As all short
timers do, I reminded Mike that in just two weeks I would be
going home, my year in Vietnam over. My wife promised me another
Christmas celebration, with a decorated tree and wrapped
presents. I would also be meeting another Mike for the first
time, my son, now only a few months old.
After breakfast, the others went to the flight line while I
called for a weather briefing. When I reached the helicopter,
Mike was doing the preflight inspection and had just climbed up
to the top of the Huey. Together, we checked the main rotor hub
and the "Jesus nut" that holds the rotor on the
helicopter. Everything was fine; we were ready to fly. We took
off and headed for the mountains.
It always felt good to fly with this crew; we were a finely tuned
team. The rugged and muscular Lee looked every bit like the
cowboy cartoon character "Bad Bascom" he chose to be nicknamed
for. He was the crew chief of this Huey and did all the daily
maintenance on it; it was his "baby". With Mike as
copilot and Dave as door gunner, we had taken that helicopter
into and out of many difficult situations, from landing supplies
on a windy mountaintop to extracting recon teams from small
clearings while taking enemy fire. The radio call sign of the
192nd Assault Helicopter Company was
"Polecat"; we were Polecat Three Five Six and
proud of it. This day was beginning to feel even better because
we were going to use our combat skills for a mission that seemed
so unrelated to war.
I decided to climb higher than usual in the smooth morning air.
As we left the jungle plains along the coast, the green mountains
of the Central Highlands rose up to meet us. On the plateau, a
thick blanket of fog lay like cotton under a Christmas tree. It
spilled over between the peaks in slow, misty, waterfalls. In the
rising sunlight the mountain tops cast long shadows on the fog.
The beauty and serenity of the scene were dazzling. Had I noticed
this before? I think I had, but today the gorgeous scenery wasn't
a backdrop for the unexpected horror of war.
The mess hall had been quiet. The airfield was quiet. The radios
were quiet. We weren't even chattering on the intercom as we
usually did. Our minds were all with different families,
somewhere back home, thousands of miles away. Everything was
quiet and peaceful. It felt very, very, strange. Was this the
first day of a lasting peace, or just the eye in a hurricane of
war?
As our main rotor slowed down after we landed at Da Lat, a
gray-haired lieutenant colonel walked up to the Huey. "Merry
Christmas! I'm Colonel Beck. We have a busy day planned, my men
are spread out all over this province, and we're going to take
mail, hot turkey, and pumpkin pies to every one of them!" He
handed me a map that had our cross-stitched route already
carefully drawn on it. "Oh, would you guys like to have some
Donut Dollies with us today?" Lt. Col. Beck's distinguished look
turned to a big grin. Four heads with flight helmets were eagerly
nodding, "YES", as the two young ladies got out of a
jeep.
Donut Dollies were American Red Cross volunteers, college
graduates in their early twenties. Although no longer
distributing donuts like their namesakes of World War II, they
were still in the service of helping the morale of the troops. At
large bases they managed recreation centers, but they also
traveled to the smaller units in the field for short visits. For
millions of GIs, they represented the girlfriend, sister, or wife
back home. Over the Huey's intercom, Lt. Col. Beck introduced Sue
Hunter, with the short dark hair, and Anne Clark, a brunette, the
taller one.
Soon we were heading toward the mountains with a Huey full of
mail, food, Christmas cargo, and two American young women. For
the soldiers who had been living off Vietnamese food and canned
Army rations at lonely, isolated outposts, these touches of home
would be a welcome surprise, making a Christmas they would always
remember.
As we approached the first compound, Lt. Col. Beck, by radio,
told the men on the ground that we were going to make it snow.
Sue and Anne sprinkled laundry soap flakes out of the Huey as we
flew directly over a small group of American and Vietnamese
soldiers who must have thought we were crazy. Several of them
were rubbing their eyes as we came back to land. I will never
know if it was emotion or if they just had soap in their eyes.
The three Americans came over to the Huey as we shut it down.
Anne gave each of them a package from the Red Cross and Sue
called out names to distribute the mail. "We have a lot more
stops to make," Lt. Col. Beck announced after about fifteen
minutes of small talk, and we got back into the Huey. The
soldiers stood there silently, staring at us as we started up,
hovered, and then disappeared into the sky.
At the next outpost, Lt. Col. Beck left us so he could talk
privately with the local officials. The crew and I didn't mind
escorting the Donut Dollies; it was easy to see how happy the
soldiers were to talk with them. I wondered how Sue and Anne were
feeling. Their job was to cheer up other people on what may have
been their own first Christmas away from home; if they were
lonely or sad, they never let it show. Throughout the day, the
same scene was replayed at other small compounds. Some soldiers
talked excitedly to the girls, while others would just stand
quietly and stare, almost in shock to see American women visiting
them out in the boonies.
Finally, with the official Macvee work finished, we were above
the hospital at Dam Pao. Mike landed us a few hundred feet from
the main building. Several men and women came out, carrying
folding stretchers. They first showed surprise that we were not
bringing an injured new patient, and then, joy when we showed
them the food and medical supplies. "Merry Christmas from the
Polecats and Tigersharks of the
192nd Assault Helicopter Company," Mike said as he
opened the ammo can full of money. One of the women began to cry,
and then she hugged Mike.
A doctor asked if we would like to see the hospital. "Project
Concern[1] now has
volunteer doctors and nurses from England, Australia, and the
USA. We provide health services to civilians and train medical
assistants to do the same in their own villages. We try to
demonstrate God's love, so we remain neutral. Both sides respect
our work, and leave us alone," he explained as we carried the
goods from the Huey to the one-floor, tin-roof hospital building.
One of the women described a recent event: two nurses and a
medical assistant student were returning from a remote clinic in
the jungle when their jeep became mired in mud. Many miles from
even the smallest village, they knew that they would not be able
to walk to civilization before dark. A Viet Cong foot patrol came
upon them, pulled the jeep out of the mud, and sent them on their
way.
There were homemade Christmas decorations everywhere, most made
on the spot by patients or their families. Inside, the hospital
was clean and neat, but stark; there were few pieces of modern
equipment. The staff lived in a separate small building.
As we moved into one ward, a nurse gently lifted a very small
baby from its bed, and before I could stop her, she placed him in
my arms. He'd been born that morning. Although they had expected
complications, the mother and baby were perfectly healthy. As I
held the tiny infant, I started to tell the others that I would
soon be meeting my own baby son, but the words got stuck in my
throat. So I just stood there, marveling at the warmth and hope
in that tiny new human being nestled peacefully in my arms. Would
this child grow up in peace, or would this tiny life be snuffed
out by a war that had already claimed thousands of Vietnamese and
Americans? Would the deaths of my friends this past year help
ensure for him a life of peace and freedom, or had they died in
vain?
The staff invited us to stay for supper with them, and I could
tell the invitation was sincere. The sun was getting low,
however, and I didn't want to fly us home over eighty miles of
mountainous jungle in the dark. I also would have felt guilty to
take any food, even so graciously offered, from the most selfless
people I had ever met. As we started the Huey, the doctors and
nurses were about fifty feet away, still talking with Lt. Col.
Beck. The Colonel took something out of his wallet and gave it to
one of the men with a double-hand handshake. He then quietly
climbed on board.
There was no chatter on the intercom as we flew back to Da Lat.
Mike landed the Huey softly. I asked him to shut down and got out
quickly. Then we all stood there silently; I wanted to hug Sue
and Anne, but I knew Donut Dollies were not allowed to hug.
Instead, we all exchanged warm handshakes and Christmas wishes.
Lt. Col. Beck thanked us for taking him to the hospital. We, the
crew of Polecat 356, got back in and flew away and out
of the lives of our newfound friends.
Silence also marked the flight back to Phan Thiet. I thought of
my family and friends back home and couldn't wait to see them. I
also thought about the good friends I would soon be leaving
behind, and other good friends who would never go home to their
families.
I reflected on the rare nature of the day. I would always be able
to remember Christmas Day in Vietnam as very special. Here, in
the midst of war, trouble, and strife, was a time of sharing,
happiness, love-and-peace.
Epilog:
I attended the 1993 dedication of the Vietnam Women's
Memorial to place letters of remembrance from the
Vietnam Helicopter Pilots Association. As friendly and
helpful as 24 years earlier, other Donut Dollies were eager to
help me find Sue and Anne, identified from a photograph I had
taken at Dam Pao in 1969. One Donut Dolly finally exclaimed,
"That's my sister!" and led me to Anne, and I collected on a
long-overdue hug. Sue and I talked by telephone a few days later.
I felt good to learn that Christmas Day in Vietnam was also
special to them.
[1]: Project Concern
International [3550 Afton Road, San Diego CA 92123] is still
doing similar humanitarian work in Asia and several US cities.
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