I remember droping flares one night while stationed at Dakto April May 67. We were assigned to SF Team A-244. I believe it was called Project Omega. The AO for Omega was guess where?? Places like Hotel 9 and Mike 6 ring a bell with any one. Any way since we did not have any teams out that night it was party time SF style. Thats when the alert hit, we already had 851 loaded with flares since it was our turn. There was no intell. that suggested any problems but when you least expect it expect it. Everyone beet feet to get the birds off the ground. Roy should remember this since
Dobbs was quite tipsy. we dropped flares around the perrimeter until the all clear. I remember Dobbs rocking the ship in a gentle fashion and singing something.

The next morning we decided to retrive as many of the shutes as we could since they make great decoration for the hooches. Hovering around pulling flair shutes out of the tree tops is not as easy as it sounds. Since most of them were in trees surrounded by taller trees I dropped out the rope ladder and down I went. Hanging upside down by the knees while my gunner Jim Bradford directed Dobbs over the shutes. This worked great except for 2 shutes that were down in the trees close to the ground. Dobbs hovered to an area close by where I could get off the ladder. No weapon just me and off I went through the jungle for the last two shutes. When we got back the SF guys jumped all over us for the activity since Charlie (NVA) had been out last night and we were well outside the camp. At that time in 67 Dakto did not have an actual perrimeter.

Like we have all said before, Did some STUPID things and lived to tell about it.

Tom Gator 851