Door Post

Company A

227th Assault Helicopter Battalion

1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile)

Door Post?
What Door Post?
by UH-1D IP WO-1 John L. Keller, 1st Flt Plt, A/227

This story is so funny it really "tears" me up! I was a "short timer" with less than six weeks to go before my DEROS. I had a lot of crap happening in the previous six weeks and I was not in a real good mood! One young Warrant I flew with couldn't remember to buckle in whenever we went flying (about a hundred times) and then he almost tried to kill me while in a Combat Assault formation; running over the UH-1D in front of us! I had a "fever of unknown origin" that the Medics thought sure was Malaria and I just knew I was going to get court-martialed (First Cav Div policy).
I remember hearing some of my Door Gunners talking about shooting into the ends of their UH-1D rotor blades while in a steep turn. I guess it really depended upon the gun mounts; fixed or bungee cord?
Today's flight was a CS Gas mission west of Phan Thiet. The night before, a team out doing some scouting around with the Starlight Scope found a dry stream bed that was being used by the VC to tote supplies to their camps further inland. The gun ships had "fired up" the area, but the Intelligence Officer for Operation Bird thought the VC would reuse the route anyway. The tree branches grew almost completely over the stream bed and there were only a few spots where water still remained in deep pools. We loaded the two CS barrels and the tubes were taped to the skids for dispersion. A Chemical Corps 1LT was sitting on the right side facing forward and held a CAR-15. His assistant, an SP4 was seated on the left side facing forward and was located behind me. The SP4 had his M-16 and several extra clips.
We did a "high recon" from 2,500 feet with two gun ships flying past us to make it seem they were on a different mission. Boy! Were we ever sneaky! I started down towards the stream bed at 100+ knots and informed the 1LT and the SP4 to get ready to turn the CS gas ON. The gunships from D/227 formed up on either side of our ship and at 20 feet off the trees we started spewing the gas. At the same time, it was "free fire" rules in effect. Rounds were going into the trees and some of the tracers were bouncing off the rocks in the stream bed and zinging all over the place! The "guns" were to use rockets only if they encountered a "hard target." The 1LT on the right side really liked this shooting stuff and I guess he got target fixation with his CAR-15. I made a sharp turn to the right to follow the stream bed with the skids almost in the leaves. Flying with the gas mask on gave me a little vision distortion, but I think the 1LT had more than that! As I made the right turn, he continued to fire at something on the ground and shot 20 rounds of full auto into the door post behind my copilot's head. HOT, 5.56 brass was raining down on the poor copilot and it was going down his fatigue shirt collar. The "GD" words were starting to flow and then the Crewchief advised me that the "dumb SOB has just shot almost clean through the right door post!" Hey, that was good enough for me as I announced, "Gas OFF!" I did a cyclic climb and we headed for the beach.
At the revetment, we shutdown and took a look at the damage. The 5.56 rounds did a number on the door post; with about three quarters of it being completely shot through! I wish I could remember the Crew chief's name because he was "hopping mad!" At that point I think he was ready to turn the CS gas on that Chemical Corps 1LT. My copilot was almost wiped out by "friendly fire." That was my last CS gas mission at Phan Thiet and my last ever while "in country."