I have to start this out right. HEY! This is no Sh--!

We were in Phase II of Opereation Wayne Grey. We had moved troops and arty into LZ Cider. They had started moving more and more people outside the perimeters. Running short range patrols, bomb damage assessments, ambushes. All the scarey things that Eleven Bravos do.

They had us under restricted fire zones near the firebases. I don't know how the NVA knew but they always did. So anyway every peasant with a flint-lock were taking shots at us this day. I think the dinks would sometimes load a full magizine with tracers just to the scare the Ba-Jesus out of us. Its late in the afternoon and Hud is headed into Cider with one last sortie. He lands and off loads. Takes off and banks right and the sky is full of tracers. The EGT goes through the roof. The oil pressure bottoms out. RPMs are no where to be found. In that same mono-tone voice he calls LZ Cider and asks for permission to crash on their pad. He auto-rotates on to the pad as if he still had full power. I talked to Bob Legecy, his crew chief, on the way back to Holloway that night and he said they landed like a feather on to a pillow.

The crew gets out of the ship and starts to inspect the damage. Hud comes back on the radio and states that its not burning but he did think that he might need a tow. One of our ships went a got an extraction ladder and we pulled the crew. By the time this had been done it was dark. Real dark. On the way back to base Hud's big concern was that the O club would be closed and the rest of the pilots would miss diner because of him.

The next morning, there he was back on the flight line, strapping another Huey on his back and ready to go back. If you think that heroes are dead you never met or flew with Mr. Hudkins. That's my story and I'm sticking to it!