Poll Everywhere Survey Question
Do You Believe that Sending Americans to Vietnam was a Mistake? Wonder how others answer this questions? This Poll Everywhere live-results survey addresses both questions
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My Vietnam Experience Blog
I was born in 1949 and raised on a farm in Western Iowa.
After graduating from Schleswig High School in 1967, I was drafted into the US Army in 1969 and did a thirteen-month tour in Vietnam. While in Nam, I served with C Troop 1/9, 1st Air Cav Division, which was a recon unit for the 1st Cav.
I was discharged from the Army in April of 1971. I landed a job as an electrician shortly after in Denison, Iowa and in 1976, I started Struck Electric in Carroll, Iowa. We were a small electrical contracting company which specialized in residential and small commercial wiring. In 1992 I closed my business down and moved to Kennewick, WA where I currently work for an electrical contractor as a project manager/estimator.
I married my high school sweetheart (Rebecca) in 2004, and together we have seven children and twelve granddaughters…
To learn more about my experience in Vietnam, go to:
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Video clip (1:02) describe how vandals, in June of 2016, defaced the Venice Beach Vietnam War Memorial
Drawings of Man Who was NBS Free Lance Illustrator During My Lai Courts-Martial Trial
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Works of Leo Hershfield |
PBS video clip (2:37) telling the story of the My Lai Massacre
Map Showing Locations Mentioned Elsewhere in this Blog
Anna Pearson Visits Vietnam Memorial (Venice Beach, CA)
My name is Anna Pearson and in June of 2016, I visited the Vietnam Memorial in Venice Beach.
My name is Anna Pearson and in June of 2016, I visited the Vietnam Memorial in Venice Beach.
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Bad Judgement, Mistakes, and Professional Survival
San Marino resident Dan Clark describes in the space below a harrowing story, one that took place in the years shortly after the end of the Vietnam War.
It was a warm summer evening when the flight of three Navy C-1 Traders launched from Jacksonville, Florida heading due East for the USS Roosevelt, a 1950's era Naval Aircraft Carrier. Their mission comprised "trapping" aboard the Roosevelt, steam on down to the Caribbean, and then launch from the Ship to the Naval Air Station Puerto Rico to begin a month-long support of several US Carriers conducting sea trials in the area.
As the three C-1 Traders "trapped" aboard the Roosevelt the three aircrews, comprising an Aircraft Commander, a Co-pilot, and an Air crewman looked forward to the five-day trip down the vicinity of Puerto Rico. This would be a "laid back" cruise because Carrier Onboard Delivery (COD) pilots had little to do on board the Carriers they serviced, merely hanging out and taking in the fresh air and the sea.
That was the plan; steaming at the old boat's 20-knot cruising speed until close enough to safely fly to NAS Puerto Rico. The aircrews as always looked forward to spending time in Puerto Rico, a very exotic place to work in. I, LT Dan Clarke, was one of the co-pilots in this operation. I too looked forward to Puerto Rico, as I'd never experienced it. What followed though was a series of bad judgments, mistakes, and heroic survival against odds that still have me shuddering at the possible outcome.
On the evening of the third day of steaming our Commanding Officer (one of the Aircraft Commanders and our CO) promptly announced that we would be launching that evening for Puerto Rico. The sun was setting and we were several hundred miles from PR!
"Why are we launching now, sir?" asked the rest of the aircrews. "Night is falling and we're still many miles away; let's wait til we're closer!"
"Ah no", replied the CO. "Gotta go tonight; start your engines!"
Now it was later revealed that our Commanding Office had an urgent reason to get to Puerto Rico that evening, in the form of a dalliance with a certain young lady. This was the first of several bad judgments rearing their ugly heads in our faces! So all the aircrews reluctantly "started their engines" and taxied to the Ship's catapult mechanisms.
Now a word about the Aircraft Carrier catapult mechanism. An aircraft carrier catapult is a device used to launch aircraft from ships, most commonly used on aircraft carriers, as a form of assisted take off. It consists of a track built into the flight deck, below which is a large piston or shuttle that is attached through the track to the nose gear of the aircraft. So, when the catapult mechanism is engaged, the airplane will be accelerated to about 180 miles an hour in about 200 feet. WOW, what a ride!
This is important information to know because of its effect on older aircraft sustaining this sort of acceleration in a short distance. Specifically: besides the "cat shot" caging the pilot's eyeballs, the onboard physical gyros that provide the directional information for the aircraft are also disrupted, and have to be reset to the onboard "wet" compass so the directional information is accurate. If not, well, you're not flying the right direction!
So our first aircraft with our Commanding Officer proceeded to launch ; our second aircraft followed shortly, with my aircraft following third. We would continue as a "flight of three" for the 2.5 hour trip to Puerto Rico, which was close to the service limit of the C-1 Trader. As an added feature our C-1's had an independent radio frequency that aircrews could communicate with each other on. So, as usual, we started chattering to each other, speaking the usual nonsense of what "liberty" in San Juan would be like. This went on for at least an hour. However, it soon became apparent to us that the radio reception from the other aircraft was rapidly fading. I checked the set frequency and the condition of the radio; all looked in order. It appeared that our fellow aircraft had distanced themselves from up..........why?
It was my habit to check the gyro compass against the "wet" compass every half hour to ensure its accuracy. To my shock and amazement, I realized I hadn't done this the whole flight! I quickly looked up at the gyro compass which had us flying correctly southeast towards Puerto Rico. But to my horror the wet compass (which is always correct) had us flying due east.
In other words, we had been flying for the last hour and a half into the middle of the Atlantic Ocean!
I meekly announced this to my Aircraft Commander who (rightfully) let out a short scream. "Turn, turn", he shouted to me, which I did. We were now headed in the right direction but so far off course that we didn't have enough gas to reach either the Florida mainland or Puerto Rico.
So now finally this aircrew started to pick up the pieces and professionally survive. Failure was not an option. Ditching at sea in the middle of the night would be hazardous and most likely fatal.
As I was instructed in flight school, an emergency is rarely solved right away; it is rather a series of calculations and actions that will get you slowly to your goal of survival. So our first challenge was to find a field that was within our range. Remember this was the day of analog maps and navigation; no digital direction finders and global satellite coverage. Our eyes poured over our navigational chart with not much to offer. We finally spotted a small airfield on one of the Grand Cayman islands, approximately one hour of flight time away. This would put us over that field with nearly empty gas tanks. So we dialed in our navigation direction finder and plotted a course to this lonely field. There was good news and bad. The good news was that this field had a 24-hour beacon operating so we could (hopefully) spot it from a distance. The bad news was that the field closed at 10:00pm. We'd be arriving at a dark and closed airport! Oh well, "any port in a storm," they say.
So, on we flew heading towards the Grand Cayman island. I whispered in the aircrew man's ear to study up on his ditching at sea procedures. We might just have to do that! During this time I went over these procedures myself. It was not helpful that we had passengers aboard, all of whom we were directly responsible for. Any deaths or injuries would be directly accountable to us! So we all had to be ready for anything.
After a long wait, we were within 50 miles of the Grand Cayman airfield. All three aircrew eyeballs were glued to the windshield looking for the beacon. Our aircrew man, being the youngest, had the best pair of eyeballs; he pointed his finger and shouted, "There it is!". We saw faintly in the distance a rotating beacon. Never a light looked so sweet! We proceeded directly and were soon over the island. The airfield was, as expected, dark and closed. We passed over the airfield to check it out. We were not looking forward to making a "dark" landing, but that's what it looked like we were about to do. Thankfully there was a near full moon so we had some light to operate with. I checked the gas tank gauges; about 10 minutes left!
Flying over the field produced another startling discovery. It appeared in the moonlight that the airfield itself was actually fluid and moving. We passed once more at a lower altitude; the field was literally covered with sheep!! So now we had another hazard to deal with. We tried another low pass to hopefully scare the sheep, no avail! They were not giving up their territory. So around we flew into the final landing pattern expecting to encounter a wall of sheep when we touched down. I muttered a silent prayer and let the landing gear down. We were turning on final when (EUREKA) the airport lights turned on! This was too much for the sheep and they bolted the field. Apparently the noise from our engines had woken the field manager. In we came with a picture perfect landing. I checked both of our gas gauges, both were red empty!
So that ends this tale of bad judgment, mistakes, and professional survival. That evening I ordered the biggest steak dinner at the field club which was thankfully still open. A very large beer accompanied this dinner, a dinner saluting an aircrew with the cool fortitude and decision making that allowed me to be enjoying this end of tale feast.
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