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Chapter 07

  by Kathy Hufford

   SMALL GUNS  AND BULLET HOLES

Kent Hufford outside the hooch at Bien Hoa in June 1967 holding a Thompson 45 CAL submachine gun.

I have no idea where the hat came from. I never had one of those camo hats. I had been in Viet Nam about 5 months, you notice the jungle fatigues are faded and worn by now. On my first tour to VN, we wore jungle fatigues when flying. On my second tour, we wore flight suits that was OD, and made to look like jungle fatigues, but made out of fire retardant NOMEX.  That saved more lives.

The Army gave pilots COLT 45 automatics. The 45 carried only 7 rounds. It had to be cocked by hand. We all thought that this was not enough firepower. Besides you needed two hands to cock it right. So, most all pilots got their hands on other weapons to carry with the 45. We got most of the weapons from the Special Forces or the Infantry teams we supported. They had lots to give away. We “traded” helicopter rides for weapons. In my hooch, we had an assortment of weapons. The above Thompson is one. Would have made Elliot Ness proud. We also had some BARRs, this was a big long rifle that held lots of big bullets, that fired real fast. Had some Swedish SKSs, this was an infantry rifle left over from the French days of Viet Nam . Had lots of Russian made AK47s. We got lots of ammo for these, and tried to fire them whenever we could. I carried a CAR15, which was a shortened M16 rifle. It hung over the seat backrest in the aircraft. We were armed to the teeth.

On one flight, my co-pilot got shot in the leg.  We made a direct flight to the 24th Evacuation hospital helipad.  I landed, they came out with a stretcher cart and put him on it and wheeled him into the emergency room.  Then I moved the aircraft to the corner of the helipad and shut the aircraft down and we went inside to see how he was. The doctor was working on him. When he saw us, he asked if our aircraft was outside, I said, yes. He asked if he could have his picture taken with it, I said, sure. He got his camera out of his desk drawer; got his medical aid man and we went outside, leaving Stump on the emergency room table. The doctor climbed up on the helicopter, and asked if he could have his picture taken behind the one of the machine guns. Sure, I had the gunner make sure it was not armed. The medic took his picture, and then sheepishly told the doctor he was out of film. I asked the doctor if he was going to finish working on my co-pilot. He reacted like he forgot about him. We all went back in. The doctor took out the bullet, stitched him up, and let him go. We all got back into the aircraft and went back to base. The co-pilot got back to flying in about a week. When I was shot in the head 6 months later, I was taken to the 24th Evac.  Doctors, nurses, aircraft and the crews that fly them seemed to have an attraction to each other.  I even married a nurse.