Deceived!   The day was typical for the Delta—hot, a little hazy with scattered clouds around 3000 feet and busy.  We were flying a field standby out of Tan An and had been there for nearly three days.  Tan An was a small military compound located on the edge of the “city limits” of the Tan An village.  The military compound had a “bird dog” airstrip, hot refueling and rearm points but no aviation units were stationed there.  With the South Vietnamese now occupying Dong Tam, the former home of the 9th ID, there were not many US troops between Saigon and Vin Long.  Flying in the Delta was now a lot more lonely—more so if one were to be shot down.    During the early morning, we had flown several missions responding to South Vietnamese troops being injured.  Around noon, a call came in for the “extraction of wounded RVN troops injured by a booby trap—no contact in the area, US Advisors on the ground with the RVNs”.  We had several missions on the sheet with this one being the priority.  Flight time from Tan An to the pickup site was about 30 minutes to the south.  It was my co-pilot’s turn to fly, mine to navigate and to plan the next sequenced mission—to pick up a pregnant Vietnamese civilian.   Ten minutes out from the landing zone (LZ), I contacted the ground unit to get an update on the tactical situation, number of wounded and the type of wounds.  The “US” Advisor indicated there was no ground contact—injuries were due to a booby trap.  They had three injured soldiers all with fragmentation wounds; none were critical.  The advisor said he was not located with the unit that had the injured soldiers but was in radio contact with them.  Normally, our policy was not to make an extraction where there were no US advisors with the unit.  With the advisor being in radio contact with his subordinate unit and no enemy contact, we said that we would make the extraction.  If we didn’t, it was a safe bet that we would have to return later in the day or at night.   About two miles out from the LZ, we called for the unit to pop smoke and for them to identify its color.  The advisor relayed this to his subordinate unit.  He radioed back saying, “yellow smoke is out.”  Smoke was rising directly off the nose of the aircraft and it was a nice yellow plume.  I confirmed the color with the advisor and the co-pilot set himself up for a tactical approach.   The LZ was a dry rice paddy bordered on the north by nippa palm trees approximately 75 meters in depth and two hundred meters in length.  The ARVN soldiers threw the smoke canister mid way out into the dry rice paddy.  The winds were calm.  The co-pilot setup for a low tactical approach coming in from the southeast to northwest—flying across the one tree line before the intended LZ, then dipping down into the open rice paddy for the landing.  The “death zone” for helicopters due to small arms and light automatic weapons fire was from the surface to 1500 feet.  In flat open spaces, my preference was to drop down from cruise altitude away from the intended LZ and approach between 50 to 75 feet above the ground depending on base surrounding obstacles.  I liked to carry an airspeed of 100 knots while approaching the LZ until on short final approach where we placed the helicopter in a rapid deceleration, with the nose and in a “slip” if necessary—being careful not to balloon upwards.  Ideally, we would  arrive over the intended point of touchdown with zero airspeed and within two feet of the ground.   In most situations where there had been no enemy contact and the area was considered secure, one or two soldiers were generally present in the vicinity of the smoke, guiding the aircraft in—kind of John Wayne style.  As we approached this LZ, the co-pilot dropped down rapidly, pulling out at less 100 feet and traveling “my” requisite 100 knots—approximately a quarter mile from the LZ.  There was the one tree line in front of us prior to reaching the rice paddy LZ.  As we approached the first tree line, the co-pilot eased the nose up, bleeding off airspeed, hugging the tops of the trees and acquiring the yellow smoke as the LZ became visible.   The aircraft line of flight was on an angle to the right of the smoke.  The co-pilot changed the heading slightly to put us on short approach to the smoke.  A first read of the LZ caused us to realize something was wrong--there was no one around the smoke in the “secure LZ”, plus the smoke was out in the middle of an open rice paddy.  Mental warning lights began to go off—I told the crew that something was wrong and we were going to carry airspeed over the smoke and get out of there if things didn’t change—and change real quick.  I told the co-pilot that I had the controls and for him to stay on lightly as a back up.  The cheeks of my butt were now tight, my gut said things ain’t right and my guardian angel riding on the back of my seat was jumping up and down yelling at me to get the hell out of there.  Didn’t know angels were allowed to cuss—I must have a male for a guardian angel.  Just as I made the mental decision to get out of there, the medic said he saw someone waving from the tree line.  I glanced over in the direction that he had indicated and sure enough, I saw the soldiers signaling to us.    Today it might be known as multiple tasking.  Back then we were making rapid fire decisions with only seconds to assimilate the information at hand.  We came to a hover away from the tree line but in the vicinity of the smoke.  Both the co-pilot and I were on the controls.    Working with ARVN troops was different than with US troops-more-flighty and not organized.  If they were scared or came under fire when bringing the wounded to the helicopter, it was not uncommon for them to drop the wounded and charge the aircraft to get a “safe ride” out of harm’s way.  I had one medic who carried a hard rubber mallet to smack heads and fingers of those who tried to grab on to the helicopter at the last minute.    My gut was saying this ain’t right, but the visual sensing said it was a typical screwed up Vietnamese operation.  The medic and crew chief were hanging outside the aircraft-eyes wide open looking for anything that was abnormal—more so now.  I started a quick hover towards the soldiers who were waving at us.  The faster hover speed was to keep the helicopter flying in case we needed to make a hasty retreat.  About half way between the smoke and the tree line—with the nose of the helicopter pointed towards the tree line—all hell broke loose.  We all saw it at the same time!!  Small arms and automatic weapons fire—trained on the red cross affixed to the nose of our aircraft.  Its odd how that when “stuff” happens, the brain can conjure up expletives that one didn’t even think were in the vocabulary —even my guardian angel was pissed.   I kicked hard right pedal (rudder for you fixed wing guys), pulled in power and headed out of there.  The instant the flank side of the helicopter was exposed to the enemy fire, we could hear bullets whizzing through the open passenger compartment.  The crew chief and medic were trying to become as small as possible to avoid being hit.  As the tail came around, the enemy fire became more intense and was focused on the cockpit.  Of the rounds “passing” through the aircraft, I took three rounds directly in the back of my kevlar-plated seat.  Two rounds struck the smoke grenades that were hung on my seat frame causing them to detonate and dislodge from the seat frame.  We were scrambling to get out of there, smoke from the grenades rolling around in the cargo compartment filled the cockpit.  It was hard to see and breathe.  The crew chief and medic were trying to grab the elusive grenades and toss them out of the helicopter.  Underneath the magnesium cargo floor decking are the fuel cells.  Smoke grenades burn with an intense heat and we were in danger of the grenades igniting the fuel cells.  The rounds that impacted my seat back knocked my guardian angel to the cargo floor.  Besides cussing and swearing, he was also trying to get  hold of the grenades.  Finally, out the door went the grenades and we were clear of the LZ.    The only thing I heard over the radio was—“Maybe next time GI!”   We gathered our composure the best we could.  We rapidly scanned our flight and engine instruments to determine if everything was in the “green”.  The helicopter was flying—that was good and we were putting distance between us and the a’holes who suckered us into the LZ.  Everyone checked out okay—no wounds.  Why none of us had been hit escapes the imagination.  They had a target lock on us by evidence of the damage to the back of my seat.   As luck would have it, the heading we departed from the LZ placed us on course for the next scheduled patient pickup location.  The village was just a few kilometers away and had US advisors on the ground.  We figured if we could keep the aircraft flying to that point, we would land, shut the helicopter down and check out the damage.  We transmitted a MAYDAY call on frequency 45.70 FM (standard DUSTOFF frequency for that area) and on Guard 243.0 UHF letting people know that we had an emergency in progress.  We made quick contact with the advisors at the next pickup point and told them we had been hit and we were coming to their location if all of the parts continued to fly successfully in tight formation with one another.   The flight controls all seemed to be functional but even with that, we carried a higher final approach speed to the village landing pad.  The advisors were on the ground waiting for us—obviously impatient to get their pregnant female enroute to a hospital.  During our post flight, we found holes in my seat back, avionics compartment, and the most critical damage was near the 42 degree tail rotor gearbox (the gear box that changes the drive shaft angle along the tail boom to parallel the vertical stabilizer).  The cables that are used to change the pitch in the tail rotor blades run along side of the drive shaft.  The right side cable was severed by more than 50% of its thickness—which isn’t all that thick to begin with.  A structural member in the tail boom was also severed by ground fire.  There was transmission fluid all over the place but we couldn’t find any damage.  We weren’t going anywhere in this helicopter!    We were all feeling real studly—knowing that we once again we cheated death to fly another time.  With knees still a little wobbly, we began to remove the radios from the downed helicopter and secure the aircraft so that it could be “hooked” out.  Our sister aircraft dispatched from Saigon to come get us informed me that the company commander (a Lieutenant Colonel) said that since there were advisors at this village, the crew chief would be required to stay overnight with the aircraft until it was evac’d the next morning.  I had previously told this commander to get screwed when he had challenged my decisions as an air commander—probably a mistake in retrospect.  He suspended my aircraft commander orders for two weeks until he realized he was more comfortable with me out of Long Binh flying combat missions from field locations.   I relayed to the inbound aircraft that I was not going to leave a crewmember on the ground.  This message was relayed back to the commander in Long Binh who came on the radio and said that if I disobeyed his order, I would be court-martialed.  Since the Commander did not value Warrant Officers or Enlisted Men, there was no doubt in my mind that he would carry through with his threat if I challenged his orders.  We talked it over as a crew and the crew chief said he would be okay staying with the advisors.  We loaded him up with extra ammo and I gave him an order not to stay in or near that aircraft that night—“You stay within an arm’s length of the advisors.  “If they leave, you leave also—screw the aircraft.”   We were picked up by the sister aircraft who had orders to drop us off at our field location in Tan An.  Here we were thinking about a real cold beer or two and maybe a steak.  The commander said he was having a spare aircraft flown down to us.  Sure enough, just after we were dropped off at Tan An, another aircraft arrived from Long Binh.    We preflighted the new bird and went to look for a beer and steak.  We figured we could drink one beer and not compromise our innate ability to fly.  The steak turned out to be meatloaf and mashed potatoes.  The “mess daddy” gave us a little extra, so we were happy.  As the sun was just emitting its last gasp of light, we were sitting around our radio room, also known as a bunker, when a medical evacuation request came in over the radio.  The co-pilot and the remainder of the crew headed out to crank up the helicopter while I got the mission sheet from the radio operator.  Something about those ground coordinates seemed awfully familiar.  Damn!  Right back where we got hit earlier in the day.  What the hell was going on out there?   Within three minutes of the mission coming in, we were airborne and heading south to something we were not happy thinking about.  When I told my co-pilot where we were going, I thought he was going to jump out of the aircraft.  He did not want to go back there in any way, shape, or form.  I exclaimed, “Folks, we don’t get to vote on this.”  But his fear and anxiety were so intense that he was nearly incapacitated.  We were now a single pilot aircraft.  Looking towards the horizon, we could see the illuminated parachute flares floating in the sky.  We also noted there was a massive stream of red tracers extending from the sky to the ground.  A Spooky (AC-47) was hosing the area big time. When Spooky is called, there is big “stuff” happening and nobody is playing ‘paddy cake, paddy cake, baker’s man.’   Our mission sheet showed that we had several soldiers with gunshot wounds. Approaching the area, I contacted our gun ship escort that was already on station.  First thing I asked them was if they had contact with the ground unit?  “Yep—US Advisor!”  “Is he really US?”  Long pause on the comeback but they said “sure”.  We made contact with the advisors on the ground, asked them what the numerical difference was between Jack Benny’s age and this radio frequency.  They got the answer right which was a bit more self assuring.  But then again, any respectable NVA soldier probably knew what Jack Benny’s age was.  The Advisor said his Vietnamese infantry company had made contact with an NVA battalion-sized unit.   We had to orbit east of the LZ until the Spooky finished its work.  To long of a delay would certainly place a strain on our fuel if we were going to make multiple trips into the LZ to extract wounded.  Spooky finished up and we made our first extraction of wounded soldiers and headed back towards the Dong Tam area to a Vietnamese hospital.  A quick turn around placed us back at the LZ with less than one half of our fuel remaining.  Even though Spooky tends to destroy anything within its zone of fire, the enemy had re-engaged the friendly unit.  As the gun ships laid down suppressive fire, we made our second and last extraction and were on our way back to the Dong Tam area for the patient drop-off.   Departing the Dong Tam area, we found ourselves VFR on top of fog layer with the tops at about a two thousand feet.  Flying at night in Vietnam on a moonless night was much like flying up the proverbial well digger’s asshole—it’s totally black everywhere.  Of course there with no electronic navigation aids to assist us in finding our way back to our home base. We were down to about 250 pounds of fuel and we typically burned 550 to 600 pounds per hour  At this point, we were 5 minutes into a 20 minute flight back to Tan An.   As William Bendix often said, “What a revoltin’ development this is.”  We were flying VFR on top in the general direction of Tan An keeping a very close eye on the fuel gauge when the 20 minute amber caution light suddenly illuminated.  About 15 minutes of flying left on 20 minutes of fuel.  The guardian angel riding on top edge of my seat was pissing and moaning again.  My co-pilot was still ineffective for much more than just sitting there but he was getting less anxious after we flew away from the enemy action.   Flying in the Delta has its pluses as well as its minuses.  One major plus was the terrain was flat and nearly at sea level.  So I figured a let down through the cloud layer would be reasonably easy.  I told the co-pilot to watch the instruments, since the primary instruments for IFR flight are located on the right side of the instrument panel.  We found a little “sucker hole” which helped us find our way to the ground.  We broke out of the overcast at 300 feet and dropped down to 200 feet (AGL) to remain clear of the cloud layer.  We made radio contact with our base at Tan An and used FM homing to get a directional lock on where “home” was.  We arrived at Tan An having flown 15 minutes into a 20 fuel remaining light.  We grabbed a full load of fuel from the hot fuel point and parked the helicopter for the night.  Before hitting the sack, for what we hoped would be a few hours of respite, I called back to Long Binh and arranged for a new co-pilot to be flown down in the morning.  My guardian angel headed off to have some brewskies with his buds.   Were there lessons learned here for a 20 year old Aircraft Commander?  Absolutely!!  I think the first lesson was to go with the gut feeling until you have information that proves that feeling incorrect.  Your prior experiences and training come to rest in the pit of your gut and when things aren’t right, it will be your first indication.  The second lesson could very well be the number one lesson learned here.  Don’t listen to incompetent leaders.  Do what your mind and heart say are right and blow off the consequences.  I still regret leaving the crew chief on the ground.  He and the aircraft were evac’d at first light the next morning and they made it back to Long Binh well before I did.  But it’s the ‘what if’ that is hard to swallow and put into perspective.  The third lesson is to always be cognizant of your surroundings and in critical situations, always question the information at hand.  It was obvious the NVA had gained access to our insecure radio network, called in a mission request for a medical evacuation and hatched a plan to entrap a helicopter crew.  We were skillful in our ability to make decisions and fly the aircraft but at the same time, we were extremely lucky.  One inch here or there would have produced a totally different outcome.