A Veteran’s Story
Copter Down

In 1971 I began working in an insurance office. After being there for a few weeks, a new salesman was hired. Bob was a tall strong athletic individual who was recently furloughed from American Airlines. He earned his wings as a military pilot in Viet Nam, as a Marine helicopter pilot about which he never spoke.

He turned out to be a remarkably good salesman which I attribute to his intelligence, authoritative voice and patience.

We became close friends and after work would play racquetball with other Marine Corp pilots at Mitchel Field in Nassau County. I was not an accomplished player, but he drilled me until I became quite proficient at the sport. We won as many contests as we lost.

As time passed, we socialized and our families became close. I respected Bob for his military experience but as I mentioned before we never talked about any of the details of his experience.

Bob and I would usually go out to lunch together.

One day at lunch a saw a far away look in his eye as he gazed out the window.

What’s up?

“Just thinkin’”

About what?

“That dreadful day.”

His face turned to me, and I could see a glint of a tear in his eyes.

Bob’s job in Viet Nam was piloting a rescue helicopter. He had no armament aboard. His mission was to fly into a firefight and remove the dead and rescue the wounded. He logged more than 2,000 hours doing this work. He was shot out of the sky twice and was himself rescued.

But the mission that haunted him was different. He had picked up the dead and the wounded and was heading back to the secured perimeter. Suddenly a burst of machine gun fire tore up the front of the machine killing the co-pilot. That man, understandably, was the best friend he had in that war.

“When I walked away from that machine, I was in what can only be described as a stupor. I told the ground crew to get that shit out of my copter.”

Bob looked at me and told me that he knew at that moment he had lost his humanity. His hands were flat on the table. I put my hand over his and told him that those of us who did not experience that moment will never fully understand. He gave me a slight smile and said, “I know.”

This account of events was recorded by the author 53 years after they took place.

-- Ernie Fazio