W. Jack Savage

Door Gunner

There was this one time and for some reason we were alone; heading back to refuel or something. We started taking fire from off to the left somewhere and you could hear a couple of the rounds hit our ship.

Our's was a Gunship: rockets, 40 millimeter rounds on a belt and we two, crew chief and gunner with M-60s. We turned and flew right at them. That's what we did. We were a gunship and that's what we did and we didn't care how many of them there were. You shoot at us or somehow expose yourself while we're going by and we will turn your way and kill you.

A young soldier leaning against a helicopter.

We will use all our rockets and every 40 millimeter round and every bullet in our machine guns to illustrate that messing with us is unacceptable. It was unacceptable yesterday, unacceptable today and perpetually unacceptable and all of us, the pilot, aircraft commander, crew chief and gunner were of one mind about that.

There was no protection for us aside from our bulletproof vests and no cover of any kind. Just our determination to make you pay and pay you will. I'd like to say that it took more courage than I thought I had to sit in that doorway and lean out to get a better shot at that ridge line we thought the fire was coming from.

We were not just confident in our armaments. We were confident in ourselves. We fought every chance we had.

But that was the job. The truth is courage didn't enter into it after a while. That was the job and you did that job and gave yourself to those risks because you were a crewman on a gunship and we were not just confident in our armaments. We were confident in ourselves.

We fought every chance we had, we fought. It was long ago now but I did that every day and sometimes for weeks on end.

I wouldn't change a thing.