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"Chopper Kill"
by John Mastro

How I ended up doing ARDF. Basically I was the new guy in the 1st platoon.Everybody else was short. Our platoon got the job because our SGT Gossett was a door gunner on his first tour.Everybody had to to be cleared because of the home made gear, OJT door gunner / 98C.(Just think I was told that the ASA was not in RVN) . Now how the new guy puts his jungle boot in the mouth. Soon after I meet the SGT, I tell him how great this is going to be flying around.Right after he kicks and I do mean kicks me in the ass, he tells me that it won't be much fun if we get shot down.
He had been shot down on his first tour.

We got shot at a few times.You won't find this story in any ASA source,probably not many even know about.

While we were flying South of the DMZ and above Hue,near FSB Evans, we tried to capture alive a NVA soldier.We saw three of them crossing a stream in a very open field.As we passed them,they had the balls to wave at me. We did a 180 and went after them.They scattered.We went after one who was by himself. From our chopper 50 ft off the ground ,SGT Gossett tried to get the soldier to throw down his AK,while I covered us from the other side door gun position.The guy was very un co-operative,and as he turned to shoot at us, Gossett shot and killed him. The bullets went through his chest and came out the back of his head. I don't remember who the voice intercept op was that day.

After a lot of radio talk they wanted us to go down and get the body, even though his buddies were still running around. Luckily our pilot had the balls to say NO.Gossett and I would have had to have been the ones to do this.

Talk about a real set up! A real grunt crew came in to do the body pick up.We covered along with a Cobra gunship that had been sent. When we landed we checked the body out for intell info and effects. The belt buckle went to the CO.Later, our pilot said it was the first time he ever saw an NVA soldier.I nearly shitted myself!I thought HE was the experienced one! When the 509th Group in Saigon found out about this , they went beserk with a capital "B".I can't blame them.
Gossett got a Bronze Star with a V, I was suppossed to get a Bronze Star. I'm still waiting for it!.I will probably get it when I'm 100! We were told to keep our mouths shut about the incident. Our "homemade" ARDF missions ended in Nov 71.