The Times - Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley

DAYTON-Listening to a veteran's story was the perfect topic at the November 11 Dayton Kiwanis Club Meeting.

Kiwanis members invited Eric Thorn, a local veteran who served in Vietnam, to share his experiences as a Chinook pilot during the war.

"It's coming up on almost exactly fifty years since I got back from Vietnam," Thorn began. "I think it's in another month."

The United States became involved in Vietnam when President Eisenhower declared support for South Vietnam in 1955. President Kennedy furthered support efforts in 1962. South Vietnam's president, Ngo Dinh Diem, was killed in 1963, just weeks before the assassination of President Kennedy. President Lyndon B. Johnson sent the first U.S troops into combat in early 1965.

"By 1967, there were 500,000 of us in Vietnam," Thorn said.

Thorn, who graduated from Dayton High School in 1965, said that his high school years saw the buildup of the conflict. A draft was in effect until President Nixon ended it in 1972. Thorn noted a few exemptions to the draft, including for education which he and many friends used to finish college.

"We never knew, at that time, what life after college would be," he shared. "Those in my class who didn't go to college, they got drafted right out of high school."

Many of the helicopter pilots in Vietnam were as young as eighteen or nineteen. Thorn said he was considered the "old guy" when he joined at the age of 22.

After graduating college in 1969, he said that many of his friends and Alpha Gamma Rho fraternity brothers were anticipating joining the military

"We formed a circle after graduation, in front of the fraternity house, and held out our hands and pledged to each other that we would meet at our social barn dance five years hence," Thorn shared. "We all made it."

In preparation for the possible draft, Thorn shared that many of his friends and classmates were members of the ROTC, but he chose to focus on his education first, military second.

"Every Thursday night, they had to polish their shoes and shine their brass for inspection on Friday," Thorn shared with a smile. "I'd chuckle at them. Three years later, when I was going to flight school as a warrant officer candidate, which meant I was living on post, marching to class, they would drive by and laugh at me."

When making his branch decision, he said that he only knew that he wanted to fly. He enlisted in the Army, in the Warrant Officer Program. He graduated in May and was active by September 1969. He went through basic training at Fort Polk in Louisiana. He married his wife, Elizabeth, on Christmas Eve in 1969.

In March of 1970, he went away to flight school.

"About five months at Fort Wolthers, Texas," Thorn explained. "Two primary trainers at Fort Wolthers, two tiny helicopters."

He learned to fly in a Hughes 55 trainer helicopter, which was only big enough for a student and a teacher. He said around 40,000 pilots trained at the fort from 1956-1973. At the height of training, there were up to 500 helicopters flying each day.

"There were several benchmarks that you had to meet. One of them, one of the first, you had to solo in ten hours. If you couldn't, you were kicked out of flight school and sent to the infantry," Thorn said.

He said he was having an awful time, unable to hover the trainer helicopter as his ten-hour limit was almost up. Vietnam vet turned flight instructor Dennis Lockhart was credited with saving Thorn's life.

"He was just back from Vietnam, and he was a flight instructor at Fort Wolthers. He wasn't my instructor, but he visited me at the dorm one evening and asked how I was doing," Thorn said, getting emotional. "I told him that 'I don't know, it doesn't look good. I told him that I didn't think I was going to meet the ten-hour deadline for soloing."

Lockhart offered to work with him over the weekend, and within 20 minutes, Thorn said he was able to hover.

Thorn said that if he hadn't worked with Lockhart, he wouldn't have met the deadline and been handed over to the infantry.

He graduated and received his wings at the end of training before heading off to Fort Rucker, Alabama, to fly Bell UH1 helicopters. The pilot's motto during Vietnam: 'We fly above the best."

After Rucker, he said that most pilots received their orders to head overseas. He said that there were options, however, for the transition. Some pilots opted to fly crane helicopters, which transport bulldozers and equipment to make firebases on the tops of mountains.

Other options included piloting Chinook helicopters, classified as medium-lift helicopters, or becoming medevac pilots, which required additional training. There were also gunner aircraft and Light Observation Helicopters (LOH).

Thorn decided to fly Chinook helicopters, which required him to sign up as "indefinite," which no one was ever able to explain to him. He took the chance, and in March of 1971, he landed at Tan Son Nhut Air Base near Saigon, South Vietnam.

He said within 24 hours of filling out his 'dream sheet,' which allowed soldiers to voice where they wanted to be stationed, he arrived in PhuBai. He flew in the areas between PhuBai and QuangTri.

"Our mission was not as dangerous, enemy-wise, as the folks that were doing guns, LOHs, and Uh-1's. Our danger was in mechanical problems, human error, and weather," Thorn said. "I think I found one bullet hole, the whole time I was there, in our Chinook, and a couple of fellows got shrapnel in their wrist or ankle, but no one got shot down while I was there,"

Thorn went on to say the most dangerous time was off-loading supplies at firebases. If the enemy was in the area, they might take a shot at the helicopters. The exhilaration, he said, came from trying to control the aircraft and set the load down exactly where it needed to be. Water, for example, had to be set on frames so that the spigots on tanks would work. Once the helicopters left, soldiers on the ground had no way to lift heavy items.

He flew on flare trips, as well, which meant that he was often on combat standby. He was called out once, in terrible weather, flying to coordinates provided by ground troops. The fuses on the flares had to be set to a certain time so that they would ignite below the fog.

At dawn, his crew was informed that they could return to base. About halfway through, all the instruments quit working, and they had to navigate using a stopwatch, heading out towards the ocean to avoid obstacles.

"We got about two-thirds of the way home, looked out the side, and there was a hole in the clouds," Thorn said. "In aviation terms, it's known as a sucker hole because usually when you get down through it, it closes up on you. It looked like the best option at the time, so we made a fast descent, got through the clouds, and made it home."

Thorn returned home in 1972, flying over 1,000 hours in 10 months. He went on to Fort Lewis, where he was processed out of the military. He contacted a younger fraternity brother, who helped him surprise his wife upon his return home.