We all remember the R.O.N. mission at Dak To, They had some crazy "Gotch Eyed" Colonel bn.commander who loved to put teams out late in the afternoon, or early evening just before dark, everybody hated that including the LRRPS, because they had no time to scout the area before dark and set up their night perimeter. I always knew when there would be a Tac-E and on this particular night, I was right again.

We had been C/Aing all day putting ARVNS in at the "Dogbone", and we finished up about 4 pm. and went to the LRRP "club" for a cold beer. We had'nt been there 30 minutes when we were notified
that we had to cover an insertion west of Dak To about 10clicks south of Ben Het not too far from the river, so here we go!, by the time we get the L/Z spotted and re-conned it's almost dark. We get the team in with no problem, and on the way back to Dak To I tell Chip Banish who was flying "peter", Man I got a bad feeling about this one and and I bet him 10bucks that we would be back on a Tac-E before the night was over, and sure enough about 9:30 that night we were drinking beer in the LRRP club after chow, and we were notified that there was a Tac-E at the same co-ordinates we had made the insertion,Bob Nilius was flying the slick and it was barely a one ship L/Z during daylight. The LRRP's were in contact and running, we could hear the AK's every time they keyed the mike, they were out of breath, panicked, and scared shitless. They did'nt want to stop running, and by the time we convinced them to stop they had run about 500 meters from the L/Z,Bob finally convinced them that if they wanted out of this; they would have to head back to the L/Z, and they finally agreed, and while all this was going on me and Chip, and I think it was Golly Golly flying my wing were firing up the L/Z.
Man! we had the L/Z ablaze, and Bob had no problem seeing the L/Z but how he was going to get in was another problem, He finally hovered down and rocked old 409 back on its skids and blew fire away enough so the LRRPs could scramble out and get on board, and we were taking fire the whole time, I dont remember how many holes we had but there was a whole bunch, and Bob's ship looked like swiss cheese when we got back to Dak To and surveyed the damage.
T.A.N.B.