Rotary Operandi: The Huey talks new guy and war
Editor’s Note: The following is from the perspective of the venerable UH-1 Huey, as it paves the way for the new MH-139 Grey Wolf, and reflects on its long and storied career of service.
Born in 1956 and mass produced in ‘59, I’m an All-American born in Texas and made from pure Pennsylvania steel—a Boomer with more than 60 years of service, combat tested with the scars to prove it.
Vertical envelopment, ins and outs, dust-offs— I was meant to get troops in and out of harm’s way. I soon became more than that. Originally designed for medical evacuations, the U.S. Army turned me into a hard charging, gun-and-rocket-toting machine of war. To steal a phrase from a smart-mouth G.I., I represent “the duality of man.”
I have many names, mostly given by those I had the pleasure to serve with. Helicopter Utility 1: (HU-1), Utility Helicopter 1 (UH-1), “Slick,” “Gunship,” “Gunnie,” and “Hog.” True to my actual birth certificate, I served as a no-kidding utility player in what many have called “The Helicopter War.”
I’ve flown to the sounds of “Gimme Shelter,” “96 Tears” and “Fortunate Son.” I died 3,000 times only to come back 12,000 times more to deliver hell with M60s, rockets and M134 miniguns.
Regardless of what I was armed with (if armed with anything), all my variations have one thing in common—the blood spilled on my deck. I remember how the tall grass swayed and the green tracers lit the night as young men said goodbye to their brothers in arms, or told them “everything is going to be okay.” I’ve touched all 56,000 names on the Vietnam Memorial Wall…in one way or another.
I was a different kind of warrior for a different kind of war. I was never about pomp and circumstance, even when flying non-combat or “ash and trash” missions, or glory in battle. It’s always been about getting ‘em in and getting ‘em out. I’m the king of O.D. green, simple, tough and ready for a fight—just like the blue collars who built me and the green collars who pitted me against the high friction of combat.
I laugh when I think about how veteran aircrew would “thread” the newbies on my stinger, a rite of passage as necessary as flight school itself. It wasn’t enough to have the know-how, you had to have attitude to fly with me. I laugh even harder when I remember how the crew-chiefs would slap the helmet of the young lieutenants who “flew out of trim,” which would rock the gunners with a gust o’ wind. After a few whacks the newbies got the point.
I’ve since traded the rice paddies and jungle clearings of Vietnam for the vast prairie-scape of our nation’s Northern Tier. I went from limited war, which was never limited for me, to the protection of our nation’s total war capabilities—our ICBM missile fields.
The ice-numbing effect of the plains winds is a far cry from the heat and humidity of Southwest Asia, but my ability to fly means the safety of the entire free world. My job now is to support a new generation of warrior, one that protects and responds to threats to one leg of the nuclear triad, that ultimate blanket of security, but the more things change, the more they stay the same—get ‘em in, get ‘em out.
I still receive salutes from the old timers. They still talk about my bad habits and glories in every veterans’ organization in the country. The big difference now: I’m still active and they’re not. I miss every damn one of them.
They laugh about how the good lieutenant’s pants leg ripped when they “threaded” him on the stinger, him laughing as they patted him on the back, his smiling face as he held a beer after his first combat flight as a “peter pilot.” They cry when they remember how a 7.62 round struck him in the neck, him sitting on his “chicken plate” instead of wearing it, a shot that killed him instantly. He’s still overseas, forever a young silver bar.
That’s where you’ll see me from now on, right outside the veteran’s lodges on a paved foundation, a plaque outside the left-side gunner’s door. You can also see me hanging up in museums over the pointed finger of an old friend telling his family about the times we had together, about that young lieutenant, but also about the lucky ones. I’ll even get a chance to keep training new warrant officer pilots for a time at my old stomping grounds in Alabama.
Even after 66 years I still have some juice left. After all, someone’s gotta show the new guy the ropes, the MH-139A “Grey Wolf.” The name’s a little much, but the pup will do just fine. We both started off as over-glorified buses; but that never held me back. I doubt it’ll stop this killer.
Seventy years from now they’ll tell stories about him in a haze of cigar smoke over burnt steaks and cheap scotch. Hopefully, for him, and for them, they’re more of the good ones and less of the bad ones. More importantly, I hope he gets ‘em in and gets ‘em out, safe and sound and back home.
Joe Thomas is a deputy chief in the AFGSC Public Affairs office. He previously served in the U.S. Marine Corps and fought in the Second Battle of Fallujah during Operation Iraqi Freedom.
