PRESERVING A MILITARY LEGACY FOR FUTURE GENERATIONS
The following Reflection represents HM1 Robert Hays’s legacy of their military service from 1967 to 1969. If you are a Veteran, consider preserving a record of your own military service, including your memories and photographs, on Togetherweserved.com (TWS), the leading archive of living military history. The Service Reflections is an easy-to-complete self-interview, located on your TWS Military Service Page, which enables you to remember key people and events from your military service and the impact they made on your life.
Of all the medals, awards, formal presentations, and qualification badges you received, which one(s) are the most meaningful to you and why?:
On April 9, 1969, an event happened which made bona fide heroes out of three of us. I was sitting on my cot writing a letter and heard an explosion. When I looked up, I saw a ball of fire rising from the ammo dump about 200 yards away. This dump was a big one. It was about 300 yards long and 200 yards wide, covered with pallets of ammo and explosives of every size and description.
What happened was that a CH-53 had been lifting a load which was not centered in the sling right. He dropped down to allow the ground crew to adjust the load, and when he did, his tail rotor hit a pallet of artillery shells. The chopper went around a time or two and crashed in the middle of all those explosives. The fireball I saw was the helicopter going up in flames as it exploded.
Three of us jumped in our Jeep ambulance and raced to the crash site. We drove into it while what seemed to be scores of men were running out of it as fast as they could. We got to about 75 feet from the chopper, which was burning, and saw a man walking around naked except for his boots. Everything else had been burned off.
We went into the burning chopper to see who else might have been there. We wound up taking the man and the door gunner, who had a big gash on the back of his head, to Charlie Med. for emergency treatment. As we were leaving, a huge explosion went off. We were about 500 yards away, and it felt like it was right next to us. We dropped our patients off and returned for a second trip.
By this time, artillery rounds were beginning to go off. We drove onto the LZ again. It was a raging inferno. Explosions were everywhere. We got another man with a big shrapnel wound and took him to Charlie Med.
On the return trip – this would have been our third time in there – to see if there were any others, someone intercepted us and said there was no one else left. We three Corpsmen, the only men on the entire base to respond to the crisis, had gotten all the casualties out! No one died in the fire and explosions.
As we were racing back to our battalion area, a piece of shrapnel about 1½ feet long from an exploding artillery shell tore through the side walls of the canvas cover of the ambulance, about a foot from my head. I heard whoosh whoosh whoosh, and each side of the canvas had a slit in it that wasn’t there before. We could not believe we had done what we did when we returned. We just sat and shook for a while.
Later that evening, some Col. came to the BAS and commended us. As a result of the action, we were awarded the Navy and Marine Corps Medal, the highest military medal awarded by our nation for heroism not occasioned by enemy action.
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HM1, I was there! I was a PFC in the first platoon. The grunts from Delta 1/4 had just got back from the field for a little rest. This was at LZ Vandergrift. We were billeted just over a small rise so we could see the fire and smoke, but not the actual ammo dump exploding. I’m glad you got everyone out safely. We joked that some NVA private probably took credit for blowing up the dump.
You guys should have received Bronze Stars. You just would not have had the “V” device. Every second lieutenant got one just for being there so no combat required. They didn’t give many medals to enlisted men. Yours were well deserved. You guys are so damn brave.
Four months later, on August 29th, now as the squad leader, at the exact same location, I was hit with shrapnel in the face from a 240mm rocket. You corpsman saved my life with your quick thinking and expert knowledge. I’m forever grateful for your service.
Michael, We were actually nominated for a Silver Star, but since there was not combat involved it was downgraded to a Navy and Marine Corps medal. That is actually higher than a Bronze Star (especially one without a combat V!). So I am
very honored to have this medal” written across the bottom).
i was next to the lz when the 53 went down. happened just as explained. hit tail rotor, made a couple rotations and crashed in a ball of fire. we where going to help when our plt. leader stopped us and said nobody could have lived. we spent the entire nite in a bunker there. lots and lots of explosions all nite. god bless the corpsmen.
Mike, Thank you for that affirmation of ow it all went down. I’ll guarantee you one thing. Your platoon leader was right if we had not gone and quick! Believe it or not, I have found these men we saved and have tried to make contact, but they didn’t seem very interested.