Of the helicopter role for the vietnam war. The National Archive hosted this event by remembering the vietnam exhibit. Veteransall the anon and those who served during the vietnam era, november 1, 1965 to may 16, 1975, stand and be recognized. [applause] , weeterans, as you exit on thech of you back of you. Ted in america and were vietnam war thanks. The National Archives building is always an impressive sight. The cobra, this display is presented in part from the National Archives fordation generous support the technologies and many thanks to them. General cody graduated from west in 1972. He is a master army aviator. Over 19 helicopters and has over 5000 hours of flight time. During his years of service, general cody served in six of the armys combat divisions. During operation desert storm, Lieutenant Colonel cody led task force normandy, a flight of eight apache helicopters, into iraq and destroyed two critical iraqi satellite sites prior to the start of the allied air campaign. General cody is currently the Senior Vice President and officer for l3 technologies incorporated. He is the chairman of the board for homes of our troops. Board of trustee of the intrepid Fallen Heroes fund. Board of trustees of the George C Marshall foundation. On the Advisory Board for the hopeful warriors, and the founder and lead pilot for operation flying heroes, an organization that provides flights to iraq and afghanistan s wounded warriors. General cody received a distinguished graduate award and a good pastor award and is an inductee of the Army Aviation hall of fame. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome general richard a. Cody. [applause] general cody thank you, everybody. For our Vietnam Veterans and their families, sometimes saying thank you for your service is not enough. And i want to tell you what i really want to do is say thank you for inspiring a young 16yearold from vermont back in 1966 as i got to watch your vietnam helicopter pilots on tv, and that inspired me to want to become like you, a helicopter pilot. I was lucky enough to be able to achieve my dream, but more importantly, as soon as i graduated from Flight School, it was hundreds of vietnam era officers and colonels who taught me what flight looked like, who taught me how to be an aviation leader, and quite frankly, i tell everybody i would not be a general officer had it not been for my vietnam tutors. Thank you for everything you have done for this great country. I also want to thank you because in 1991 when i came back from the iraq war, it was 3 00 in the morning. I had my squadron from the 101st. We landed in bangor, maine. We were some of the last guys out of the iraq war, the first gulf war. My guys, we were watching on tv waiting back in saudi arabia. We saw all the parades and everybody being welcomed home. My troops are saying, nobody will greet us. 3 00 in the morning, we get off the airplane so they can refuel it, and there was a group of Vietnam Veterans at 3 00 in the morning shaking the hands and giving my soldiers and myself a welcome home from combat that you guys never got. I will never forget watching young soldiers exchanging their sandy caps with the bush caps on the Vietnam Veterans. Get touched me anyway that you will never know it touched me in a way you will never know. This series about helicopters and those daring and that flew helicopters and their crews as part of the vietnam series is something that all americans should know about. We should take time to honor. I am very pleased that the archives are doing that. What you all did in vietnam was really transform our army and our way of thinking about the warfare in terms of the 360 degree battlefield. Today, many soldiers are alive from battles of iraq and afghanistan and other places that we have thought in fought in because we learned from you the tactics and procedures of the vertical lift and aviation in the ground regime, whether it is medevac, crew transport, supplies so we dont have to drive through iedridden lines of communications to the attack helicopters role on the battlefield. A lot of people do not know that we sent 7000 uh1s to vietnam, and over 3000 of them got shot down. We sent over 1100 cobras, just like the h1g that is out there. We sent 1100 of those in combat. Over 300 of those shot down. Over 2200 pilots, helicopter pilot, our fallen comrades, got shot down and paid the last final salute to the United States in sacrifice to all of us. And we learned from all of that. I think it is fitting that we take time to understand the sacrifices of you guys and those who over at Arlington Cemetery and how important it was the way you pioneered todays aviation force. In 1979, we had the hostage situation over in iran. As you know, that did not end well. Immediately thereafter, we formed up what is now the 160th special operations regiment, and it was vietnam veteran pilots that we called back to active duty to form of what is now the gunship company, the lift company, and it was again the vietnam veteran helicopter pilots who we depended upon to get the tactics, techniques, and procedures down so we can form of that special helicopter unit, which is today known as the Night Stalkers and probably is the worlds best unit on aviation. Today, you will get to hear from several of our vietnam helicopter pilots. They all have Great Stories to tell. They are all heroes in their own right just like you. They are all great americans, great patriots. But the other thing is they are great brothers in arms. These guys have been together ever since vietnam. People forget it has been over 50 years since we brought in the huey and cobra into vietnam, so i think it is fitting we hear from them today. I will end by the way i started. Thanks for your service. I get asked a lot, what do we say to our veterans who have served and worn the uniform and donned the clock of this nation . Cloth of this nation . I tell them saying thanks is important, but if you want to tell the men and women who have borne the brunt of battle, especially our Vietnam Veterans, what we really need to do as americans is live our life as americans worthy of their service and sacrifice. So god bless all of you. I hope you enjoy this event. Thank you. [applause] thank you, general cody. Now i will turn the program over to our moderator, Duane Williams. He is a decorated vietnam veteran and helicopter pilot. Graduated from high school in october 1966 and was assigned to the 175th Helicopter Company. He served as gunship pilot. After vietnam, he was reassigned to Court Walters texas four walters, texas, until his Honorable Discharge in 1969. In the 1970s, he was a pilot in the offshore oil industry and began a 31 career as a key as chief pilot instruction , pilot, extra mental test pilot with Bell Helicopter experimental test pilot with Bell Helicopter. Since retiring from bell, he currently resides in arlington, texas, with his wife of over 15 years. 52 years. Please welcome Duane Williams and numbers of the the and him helicopter pilot association. [applause] good afternoon. Can you hear me . Thank you all for being here. It is certainly my pleasure being here this evening. And i think it is even more so a great honor to be here with these guys. Whenever i was called and invited to come out here and participate, the first thing i did was go and check my size 40 flight suit i wore in vietnam. [laughter] dwayne i got to get one leg it. These guys maintain a strict regiment of workout, diet. [laughter] dwayne they fit in their size 40 really good. My wife said you will look nice, so she just me up, and here i am. We do have a story today to tell, several stories. Before we get into that, i would like to introduce these guys. First of all, from the North Carolina vietnam helicopter pilot association, and they are the ones responsible for those beautiful aircraft that you see out front. They come all the way from North Carolina. They got here sunday night. They will be here for a sunday. They have been standing out there every day, long days, taking care, answering questions, and they do a great job. I think i like to give them applause for that. [applause] dwayne to my right here is joe, colonel of the United States army retired. He was in vietnam in 1968. He was the Commanding Officer of the 604th transportation company. Callsign, caretakers. They provided maintenance for the 189th assault Helicopter Company, maintaining 28 to 30 aircraft. You had a heck of a job doing that. Next to him is ed hughes, Lieutenant Colonel retired. Ed was in vietnam in 1971. He flew with the 116th, callsign hornets. And he is a survivor of 719. I do not know if you know what that is, but he is going to tell us about it. And then we have jerry, retired. He was in vietnam 1968, 1969. He flew in the 101st. And he also, i think he flew the hueys, and he also has an interesting story about flying the 806 gunships. Last but not least, we have jerry. He and i are the only two i guess that thought we would cast our fortunes as civilians. I dont know about me, but jerry has done pretty well. One of the things i am sure he is proudest of is he is the founding father of this group. He has done a tremendous job putting it all together and maintaining his aircraft. I know the work it takes, so i would like for jerry to talk just a minute about this unit. If you do not mind, jerry. I would like to thank the Archives Foundation and the staff here. Bell helicopter for bringing us here to honor the Vietnam Veterans. Back in 1989, 16 pilots in greensburg, North Carolina, saws to see if there was an interest to put together a local organization whereby helicopter pilots can get together, tell war stories, and i always say there are two things helicopter pilots do not do. Beer, andt drink they do not tell war stories. They do not lie. Jerry we started off with 16 people at about 9 00 in the morning, and with two cases of beer, three dozen krispy kreme doughnuts, North Carolina, and a gallon of coffee, by 2 00 in the afternoon, we had written bylaws, elected officers, and the constitution, and set up to be incorporated. We had a lawyer present. Three months later after some people decided we need a helicopter to talk about, we decided we would go ahead and try to get a helicopter. We spent three years to try to get our first aircraft. After we put this thing together and got it presentable, we went to wilmington, North Carolina, to do a parade. This was really selfish on our part, but we wanted to ride in a parade. We came through and were putting the aircraft back together. First thing he knew, we had 150 people standing on aircraft. Around the aircraft. We realized then, wait a minute, there is an interest in this. From there, we proceeded to secure other aircraft. Right now, we have six aircraft. We do displays, all up and down the east coast and florida and kentucky and tennessee, we have done over 300,000 series at schools at no cost to schools. By virtue of what we do, we can take these aircraft to schools. Not only the historical part of their education, but we can relate to core studies. Some student decides what he is going to do. Today, this is the third trip to washington, d. C. , this year. This year, we did our third president ial inaugural parade with our aircraft. We have been told this is the most pervasive any organization like this has ever done in history. Hopefully we will be around for another one. We will see. One of the things i am a proud i am most proud of is these guys they put up , with me. They go sometimes some places that i would not go with me. They put in long hours like they are doing out here today. We are still supported. We take no federal or state funding. No sponsorship from organizations. We have been doing this for 28 years. We continue to do this successfully. It can be done for organizations willing to put forth the effort and have support from these people. Thank you all for supporting us here. The photos we have are really not relevant to what we are talking about perhaps, but they are really neat photos. Occasionally, i will flip through here so you see something new. It might trigger Something Like i have a story for that. You will see me flipping through this, but right now, i will let joe talk about what it was like maintaining 28 aircraft in a combat situation. Joe thank you. It is a real honor and privilege for me to be here. I was a young brash lieutenant down at fort campbell. And gung ho. Just could not wait to get to vietnam. I wanted to be the greatest infantry platoon leader there ever was. A young lady took me by the arm and said you are going to fight school. I said i can handle that. Long story short, off we went. Went to Flight School, which was kind of unusual because in those days, we needed helicopter pilots. I went to Flight School then , rotary wing and then Aircraft Maintenance and off to vietnam. I was confident that when i got to vietnam, i was going to end up flying a u21, beach king air twinengine, nice safe airplane, real high. No problems. Well, the dream went kaput. I went to camp holloway. I took over the 604th detachment, which was attached to the ghostwriters, the 189th assault Helicopter Company. Probably the worst time in their history. I was talking earlier today to one of our guys. We got there both about the same time. It seems like in a month or two before i got there, there was some pretty intense combat operations through that area. The 52nd battalion from our parent organization, had literally float itself into the ground supporting the infantry and flying combat, combat assault, evacuation missions of all kind. Long story short, when i had arrived, our unit which was 20 uh1, 8 gunships had absolutely nothing flyable. No Mission Capable aircraft anywhere. Our aircraft were shot full of holes. They were down, needing maintenance. I want to send a thank you to the maintenance personnel that worked behind the scenes over there. I had some of the best enlisted men and warrant officers that i think the army ever saw. They were professional. They were dedicated. They were competent beyond belief. Maintenance guys are behindthescenes guys. You dont hear a lot about them when you see the vietnam things and you see the other documentaries and war stories but let me tell you, maintenance , is never ending. The uh one is a marvelous aircraft. Go to wikipedia and look upuh1, and you will just be blown away go to wikipedia and look up uh1 and you will be blown away by the abilities. It takes a lot of maintenance, scheduled maintenance, combat damage to be repaired. Our guys were sometimes 24, 36 hours. We test flew airplanes after maintenance when we should not have. Literally sitting there halfasleep in the cockpit doing check tour hover make sure everything was cool. Jerry was one of my test pilots. The enlisted guys, we got back to our Mission Requirement of 12 slicks and six gunships within a month. It was only the dedication and the professionalism of the nco corps that did that. I had an infantry First Sergeant of all things, and he was a leaders leader. Ncos you are before are the backbone are the army. This guy put these young men under his arm and just trained them and brought them up the way they should be. Made them just love what they were doing. I had a Technical Inspector that had grown up with the huey, worked on the evaluations when the aircraft bought the airplane when the army bought the airplane and he knew as much about it as any engineer out there. I had the greatest warrant officers. We used to laugh about what my guy said he could do a rotation at night in the dark and not have a problem. And they could. They were that good. As i say 24 hours a day, seven , days a week. We did not have sundays or thursdays or whatever it was. We just fixed airplanes. They love what they were doing, and they did it very well. One of the more exciting parts of that was recovering downed aircraft. That ran the gamut. There were airplanes that got shot down that we would have to go out and rig and pick up with a chinook or a crane or whatever and bring it back so they can be salvaged or repaired to fly again. There were airplanes that we had to fix on site. I was telling the guys one of the most exciting times i ever had was i went up to a place which was pretty hotly contested piece of ground, and we had an airplane that had landed there and had damage to the rotary blades and damage to the tail rotor. Sergeant francis and i, who was my chief Technical Inspector got , dropped off on the ground, and we spent about the next two or three hours trying to do enough Battle Damage repair if you will to get the airplane flyable again to bring it home. I got up on top, down to the waterways, and i was putting duct tape on the rotor blades where the holes were. Francis was fixing the tail rotor. He had to replace it in the field, which was unheard of. Not another man in the army could have done that. He stood on a 55 gallon drum if you can imagine trying to change the tail rotor on an airplane. The bad guys started lobbing mortar shells into the unfortunately and fortunately we were on the other side. But it gives you a attention so we clim