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Very few GI's will wear the campaign ribbons these guys will. Some Vietnam vets are also serving in Iraq:
The seasoned pilot was recalling a different war in a different place. "Every time we went in, we went in hot," he remembered. "You were fighting your way in and fighting your way out."The pilot, Chief Warrant Officer James G. Freeman, was 23 when he began flying Huey helicopters in the Vietnam War in 1970. His missions with the 116th Assault Helicopter Company often involved dropping into a battleground to unload soldiers after helicopter gunships had "prepped" the zone with a torrent of rockets and machine-gun fire.
"There were a lot of bullets flying down there," Mr. Freeman recounted dryly during an interview. He was seated in a trailer on the airfield at Forward Operating Base Speicher, an American military base near here and his home for the next year while he is deployed with the 42nd Infantry Division of the New York National Guard, based in Troy, N.Y.
Mr. Freeman is now 58, with wry creases spraying from the corners of his eyes and a penchant for menthol cigarettes. As a member of the Guard, he has been deployed for events including the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, N.Y., and relief and recovery missions after the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the crash of T.W.A. Flight 800 in 1996 and the attack of Sept. 11, 2001.
Now, 34 years after his yearlong tour of duty in Vietnam, Mr. Freeman is back in another war.
He is one of five helicopter pilots from the New York National Guard who flew Hueys in the Vietnam War and who have been deployed as Black Hawk pilots in northern Iraq with the 42nd Infantry Division. The five pilots, all together, flew thousands of combat hours in Vietnam and survived being shot down several times.
And they're a little disgruntled too. But not for those reasons usually falsely attributed to Vietnam Soldiers. These guys want more action.
In this war, however, they say their responsibilities have kept them largely earthbound, as younger pilots rack up the flight hours. And they are not very happy about it."I'd rather be flying," grumbled Chief Warrant Officer Thomas McGurn, 57, one of the pilots who is at Base Danger helping to coordinate daily aviation schedules for the brigade. "This is kind of a bummer."
Read it all. A great story about some real heroes. As a side issue, I note the irony that some Vietnam vets might finally get the welcome home they deserved - but only because they still serve in Iraq.
