Traveling By Huey

Two similar snapshots.  I'm sitting on the floor in the doorway of a Huey helicopter.  Across the way is another Huey flying along with us in formation.  Usually there were five of them flying together.

If you look closely at the other helicopter, you can see someone sitting in the same place I am sitting with his feet dangling in the breeze.  He is a lot closer to us than it looks.  I could almost yell hello to him over there if it wasn't for the noise from the helicopter's jet engine and the blades beating the air above.

 On my right, is an M60 machine gun.  It is held in place by a gun mount that allows it to be pointed in any direction.  Linked 7.62 mm ammunition with tracer rounds are fed into the side of the gun and ready to shoot.  The door gunner sits above and to my right on a webbed chair behind the gun.  He is relaxed and I am relaxed for the moment.  We are both looking out at the landscape below.  We cannot get in trouble when we are cruising along at 80 knots and 2,000 feet in the air.  Enemy soldiers are not going to shoot at us this high up.  They will wait until we drop lower where we are a much larger, slower, and easier target to hit.

When we traveled like this, we were either on the way in or on the way out of the jungle.  If on the way in, we would be enjoying the view while at the same time wondering what the landing zone in the jungle will be like.  Most times, the landing zone would not have enemy soldiers waiting there for us.  The reason was they had no idea what particular open spot in the jungle the helicopter would choose to drop us in.  They didn't have enough soldiers to cover every clearing out there so most times a landing in the jungle was uneventful.

If we had just been picked up from the jungle, we would be feeling relieved.  We knew we were heading to hot showers, hot meals and clean clothes on a firebase somewhere.  So we just sat back and enjoyed the ride.  Yes, we would have to pull guard in the evening on a firebase, but the days would be spent relaxing and reading for the most part.  We could wind down a bit.  As you might imagine, I enjoyed leaving the jungle a hell of a lot more than returning to it.