I don't remember the names of the outfits, but we were flying a fairly good sized operation with 2 other AHC's. Somebody (desk jockey CO) came up with a great idea; instead of blasting an LZ on top of the mountain we would insert the troops in an existing LZ? made by a couple of arty rounds in the side of the mountain. Well, everybody was scratching their heads when Lt. Shelton said "no problem, just follow me". So we went into the side of the mountain, touched the tips of the skids on the side of the mountain and hovered while the troops bailed out. Of course these troops were from the 4th Inf., so we had to tell them not to run uphill until the ship cleared out of the way.(DUH!) Well, a ship from another AHC went in as we observed. He was really all over the place and sure enough he knocked the tail boom off and all there was was a ball of fire rolling down the mountain side. What a waste! We forgot to take into account that the 119th could do things that others had problems with.

Gator 409