If mentioned at all, it’s as part of Operation Long Phi 999G. But the Vietcong shot down three helicopters and sent more to heavy repairs.įor all the carnage, the fight rates only a few lines in the war’s reference books. More than 200 men died, most of them Vietcong. Half a million machine-gun rounds were expended, along with hundreds of bombs. In the many hours of fighting that followed, four helicopter rescues were attempted. It began with a platoon of Army helicopters landing among two well-hidden, well-armed battalions of Vietcong soldiers. The “place” they’re thinking of tonight is a paddy in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta, and this second night of their reunion is precisely 50 years after an unusually protracted daytime fight broke out there.
Over half of them are pilots, which means they started their Army rotorcraft training in the dry hills and fields around the town’s Army Aviation facility, Fort Wolters. This is a reunion of the 175th Assault Helicopter Company, Vietnam edition. They don’t mean this place they’re happy to be here.
