Another day flying door gunner

Air Cav Troop was at Lai Khe for the second part of Operation Junction City. Our Hueys shared space with 1st Infantry Division helicopters at the air strip. The troop set up in a large growth of young rubber trees across the road from the air strip.

One day when flying door gunner on a gunship covering a ground operation, I saw an air strike from above, an Air Force F-105 that dropped a bomb into the jungle.

It was magnificent. I had seen air strikes from the ground, but those were nothing compared to seeing one from the air. I had a better view than the pilot who dropped the bomb.

The gunships were flying at maybe fifteen hundred feet. A cavalry troop on the ground was taking fire, so we had rolled in and worked the jungle with flex guns and rockets and door guns. The ground commander started yelling that brass from our machine guns was falling on soldiers in the ACAVs. Then we were told an Air Force FAC was coming in, so we backed off.

The F-105 came in just above the trees where the VC were supposed to be and dropped a 500-pound bomb.

There was a big oak tree down in the jungle, standing taller than the other ¬trees. The tree must have been two hundred years old. The bomb, a fat black mass, went straight for that tree, and then the tree wasn't there any more.

The bomb took that tree and other trees nearby. The trees just disappeared in a cloud of dirty gray dust. Dirt jumped hundreds of feet into the air.

It was something you would have to see to understand and to appreciate. I had seen mines go off and tracers coming in and one night I saw a machine gun firing at me, but that bomb turned a small area of the jungle into nothing. We didn't draw any more fire that day.