The Day it Snowed in Vietnam: a true story
(Christmas in Vietnam, 1969)
Copyright 1995-2009: Jim Schueckler ( founder of The Virtual Wall )
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 mission, 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 had not yet been patched.
"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 blonde 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 Kelly, 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, I really wanted to do something tomorrow.
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 city and 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 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
believe in the Christmas spirit again. At one stop, a pilot gave us
a gift package of cheese his parents had sent to him. Food! We could
take food! We decided to make
another pass through the company area, asking for cookies, candy, and
other edibles.
| "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." |
 Photo: Richard M. "Hoss" Colbert |
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 mess hall of the 50th Mechanized Infantry, 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.
One of the pilots looked at
his watch and then exclaimed "Hey guys! It's midnight. Merry Christmas!"
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. Morning here was usually bustling with the sounds of men and machines preparing for the daily business of war. 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. This was aircraft number 67-17356, so 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 our own families 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?" Colonel 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, Colonel Beck introduced Sue Hunter, with the short, dark hair and Ann 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, Colonel Beck, by radio, told the men on the ground that we were going to make it snow. Sue and Ann 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. Ann 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," Colonel 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,
Colonel 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
Ann 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. |
 The staff of the Project Concern clinic at Dam Pao greet the helicopter. The Donut Dollies had special red and blue uniforms for Christmas. Photo by Jim Schueckler. |
A doctor asked if we would like to see the hospital.
"Project Concern 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. 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 Colonel Beck. The colonel took something out of his wallet and gave it to of one of the men with a double-hand handshake. He then climbed quietly 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 Ann, but I knew Donut Dollies were not allowed to hug. Instead, we all exchanged warm handshakes and Christmas wishes. Colonel 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 thought about the good friends I would soon be leaving behind, and the familes of thousands of men, both American and Vietnamese, who would never go home.
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: In 1993 I
attended
the 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 Ann, identified from the photograph above taken at Dam Pao in
1969.
One Donut Dolly finally exclaimed, "That's my sister!" and led me to
Ann,
where 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.
Project Concern International
continues its work of mercy today.
Lee "Bad Bascom" Pearson, Jim Schueckler, Dave Lissow,
December,
1969 Photo by Mike Porter
Permission is hereby granted to copy, print, link to, or forward this story and photos.
Copyright 1995-2020 Jim Schueckler, founder of The Virtual Wall, www.VirtualWall.org
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