Night missions were the closest thing a seeing person can come to being blind. After dark Viet Nam the darkest closet you were ever in when you were a child. First of all no lights other then that of towns or base camps. To find a landmark was almost impossible. During the day I always knew where I was at in case we went down. I was more afraid in using the McGuire Rig or the ladder then going into an LZ because judging distance at night is impossible and hovering above the trees with the ropes or ladder hanging a hundred feet below you was not the best thing. I was always afraid of getting the guys hang up in the trees or after we did get them out dragging them on the ground when we tried to land. The only good thing was at night it was easy to see if you were taking fire. The tracers and the muzzel flashes were hard to miss. It was a Sat. night because they were having a steak fry at FOB II. We had spent the week pulling Alpha mission. Jumping the fence into Laos. Two days before we had put a team in west and north of Hotel 9. WE were all milling around the mess hall waiting for the cooks to uncrate the steaks when the word came down that our team was in trouble. My ship was one of the four which headed out. The Croc crews who were there were takened back to Kontum to get their ships by the guys in second flight. The sun was going down fast as we got to Dak To and started to head northwest. We picked up Hotel 9 and were guided to the team's location by an Airforce Birddog. The radios are going nuts. The birddog talking to us,the Crocs coming on station,the team who is not happy at all and the FOB II team leader who is now on station who is trying to bring calm to this R/F in the making. The team had made contact and was on the move for several hours. They weren't sure of their position and had no idea how close the bad guys were. Their were on the side of a ridge and the trees were about sixty feet tall. The birddog which had a fix on their location using a slow count to guide us to the team as we hovered over the trees. Lt. Rock was my A/C and Lt. Burke was the peter-pilot. SP/4 Greg Hahn was my gunner. As we hovered toward the team looking for their stobe lights you could see the tracers headed sky-ward. The top ships had their lights on to draw fire as we hovered in with our lights out. Every now and then we would get hit by a stray round. The sound of a round hitting the tailboom is like someone hitting their flat hand against a wall. We spotted the team and hovered over them. We had the skids almost touching the tops of the trees. Because of our height and the trees the hover was very unstable. Me and Greg tossed the sandbags out the doors which contained the ropes of the McGuire Rigs. We only had the four lines. Of course one of the lines became caught in the trees before it hit the ground. I was wearing a monkey strap so I was able to get out on the skid and hang down and free the caught line. While I doing this Greg is laying on the floor of the ship trying to guide the pilots to where the rope is hang up. My mike cord wasn't long enough for me to hang outside the ship and be connected to my helmet. You bet the next day I had twenty feet added to it. So I get the rope undone and we start to pull the guys up. By now the bad guys have an idea where we are. They start throwing mortars in our general direction. The fast movers start dropping their goodies on the mortars and the Crocs move in to cover us. We are still trying to hover straight up to get the guys out of the trees and get the hell out of "DODGE". We clear the trees and there are tracers everywhere. We are moving so slow trying to gain altitude and get out of range. I have long since ran out of ammo on my M-60 and my M-14 that I am now using my .45 and throwing empty ammo boxes out the door. We finally get out of there and start heading for home. Now the problem is fuel. We spent so much time hovering there to find the guys and getting the ropes to them and now with them hanging a hundred feet below us we cann't go balls to the wall and get home. The Crocs cann't make Kontum because of low fuel. They have to go to Dak TO and get a fuel truck to gas them up. We cann't land at Dak To because they have no lights and we cann't judge the distance of the guys below us to the ground. So we head for Kontum and call to the 57th AHC to get every truck they have to the runway to light our approach. Some where between Dak TO and Kontum our twenty minute fuel light came on. Why somebody thought a twenty minute fuel light was a good idea is beyond me. Unless they thought it was good for one "Our Father and five Hail Mary's" before you kissed your butt good-bye. So we get to Kontum. The trucks have lined the runway and we start hovering we our human cargo swinging below us. The guys on the ground are guiding us down so we can put the guys on the runway without bouncing them like a basketball. They touch down and we finally land. The fuel gauge is empty. We shut down and wait for a fuel truck. There's about a dozen holes in the tailboom. There is two holes in the skids about three feet from where my butt was seated when I was undoing the ropes. The team was excited to be alive and they wanted us to go back to FOB II for drinkes and steaks. We decided the hell with it and just head back to Holloway. We get home and we land by the maintance hangar to get our holes fixes. Of course the mess hall is closed and me and Greg have guard duty. I'm glad they put us in for a DFC because that was the only thing we got that night.