May 6, 1967

Dear Lorraine,

Hi! Honey, How are you? I’m OK.

Let me start this letter with an apology for the contents, I was hoping to be able to get through this year and shelter you from most of the realities of war but today my cup ran over and I need to vent. I can’t talk to the other guys even though we are all feeling the same things.

Today started out with a call for an emergency extract of one of the A-Teams we had out. We got in the ships and headed west out of Dak To toward the pick-up point. We were flying low over the trees and about 20 minutes into the flight the gun ship on my side just nosed over and crashed into the jungle. There was no explosion until after they crashed, all I saw was smoke coming from the engine area as they went down.

Doing what we do over here I know that we will have good and bad days, but today became personal. When I first started flying we lost a 119th crew and it was a bad feeling but being new and not really knowing any of them I had not yet become attached to the guys. It’s different now and if something happens to one of us it happens to everyone. I know I will continue to do my job to the best of my ability but I will remember this day for along time and each time we take off I’ll most likely think about what could happen to any one of us.

We were able to get Mike, the Crew Chief, out Ok but the Gunner Guppy the Pilot Mr. Bullington and the Peter Pilot Mr. Kearny did not make it. I can’t imagine how he managed to survive other than God was watching out for him. I guess it just wasn’t his turn. We took Mike to the field hospital at Pleiku; he has a broken nose and some minor burns. I’m sure he also has some pretty crazy thoughts going on in his head to. I wonder if he will come back and fly again? No one will blame him if he chooses not to fly.

I have been in country for almost 8 months now and I have seen many horrible things but today is by far the worst day I’ve had. I can honestly say that today I want to kill and I would not give it a second thought.

I Love You Very Much.

Tom