Late April or early May thru July of '71 I was on a Recovery Team with
the 187th AHC, Crusaders. Before that I was a Crew-Chief flying as a
door-gunner because of friction with the NCOIC of Maintenance.
75th Rangers and their PathFinders were standing down out of Chu Chi,
and 5 of us were trained to take their place doing recovery and
extractions. Eventually I went around the region training folks for
other units' Recovery Teams.
Our team didn't have radios on the ground. We simply spread a large
orange cloth on the ground when we were ready to extract, depending on
our 'Slick' circling 2000 feet above for radio communications.
While flying out and back from the extraction zone I often heard your
call-sign, 'PipeSmoke' and sometimes that of 'GunSmoke', which I believe
to be Chinook gunShips.
Because my unit was virtually over-ran in July by a sapper attack that
destroyed our equipment and evidentially some records, I am unable to
find documentation about the Recovery Team. To date I only have a few
pictures of the team and our team shoulder flash that we'd unofficially
adopted.
I am hoping that you or some of your contacts may have memories of the
kids alone on the ground with the body bags, straps, and donuts. I was
the tall sucker holding up the donut to entice you down.
If 'GunSmoke' was part of your unit as the call-sign suggests, and you
are in contact, please tell them THANK YOU for us. Their presence was
so awesome that whether or not they were working the AO, the likelihood
of them coming in with y'all made the difference between us being fired
on from distant cover and being assaulted outright!
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