&nb= sp;

FOX&nb= sp;<= ![endif]> FAX

---------------------------------------------------= ---------------------------------------------------------------------------= ---------

Journal of the 199^th Recon Airplane Comp= any RVN 1967-70 Vol. 3 , Issue 4 Apr 06

---------------------------------------------------= ---------------------------------------------------------------------------= ---------

Swamp Fox Coordinator 2004-6 Bob Woolley - Fox 26 &n= bsp; bjdubu@ao= l.com

Reunion Coordinator C&C &nb= sp; &nb= sp; Don Nicholson - Fox ?? &n= bsp; lontri= ps0@aol.com

Unit Historian = &nb= sp; Charley Baker - Fox 46 cbkbwdb@starpower.net

Treasurer = &nb= sp; = Dan Aldridge - Fox 56 = ; &n= bsp; Deepsea3= @aol.com

Patch and Shirt Project &n= bsp; Gary Simon - Fox 16 GaryLBB@aol.com

Web Master / Commo Chief= &= nbsp; Ray "Doc" Jennings - Fox 032A r.jennings14@verizon.net

---------------------------------------------------= ---------------------------------------------------------------------------= -------------

WEB SITE = www .SwampFox199thRAC.co= m

------------------------------------------------= ---------------------------------------------------------------------------= ----------------

We have a nice, long Fox Fax this month. Just to make = sure every one is wide awake, before you start to read, run the attached wav fil= e.

Cheers

- editor

What ar= e they doing now?

Mark McRae, son of Swamp= Fox 26 Ralph McRae

Secretary of the Army Francis Harvey has sworn in Mark= McRae of Leesville (La.= )as
one of three newly appointed Civilian Aides to the Secretary of the Army.
CASAs were first formally recognized in 1922 &a= mp; are appointed for each state,
in addition to the U.S. territories of Puerto Rico, Virgin Islan= ds &
American Samoa. Once appointed, CASAs serve a two-year term without
compensation.

Thank you = for wanting to use my column, and please do so.

It was pub= lished in the Sweetwater Reporter on 1-15-06.

Lynn Adams<= /i>=

=

=

Sharing the Sweet = Life

         =    “Each man’s life touches so many other lives …”<= o:p>

Clarence the = Angel to George Bailey

“ItR= 17;s A Wonderful Life” (1946)

         =    It was 1967-68 when Sweetwater touched the lives of several young men, never realizing the impact of its actions.

         =    The men were from across the nation, but were half a world away in a very inhospitable place called Vietnam.

         =    They were the officers and men of the 199th Reconnaissance Airplane Company – the “Swamp Foxes” in their familiar military parlance – which formed at Fort H= ood, Texas. Although the w= ar was a widely unpopular one and its veterans were not always appreciated upon th= eir return to the United= States, there were those communities – like Sweetwater – which recogniz= ed the sacrifices and hardships of those serving their country while trying to preserve democracy for another country.

         =    So it was in 1967-68 that Sweetwater adopted the 199th RAC. No one fr= om the Swamp Foxes really knows who took the lead from Sweetwater – it w= asn’t important – but the Chamber of Commerce at least played a supporting role*. Care packages of brochures, newspapers, possibly personal affe= cts – reminders from home for a G.I. living each moment as it may be his = last – were sent to Southeast Asia in t= he Vietnam Delta at Vinh Long. Cookies, they say, were included at Christmastime and were a favorite. And every package with a stateside postmark, especially those from the 79556 zip code, wer= e eagerly anticipated.

         =    Jerry Faust was a U.S. Army Lt. Colonel with the Swamp Foxes. He̵= 7;s now the mayor of St. Anthony, Minn., a northeast suburb of Minneapo= lis. Joe Johnson was a Staff Sergeant with the 199th RAC. He’s now retired and living in Augusta<= /st1:City>, Ga., home of the Masters Go= lf Tournament.

         =    Jerry and Joe greatly appreciated the gifts from “home.” = And for much of the past four decades, they promised themselves they would find= an opportunity to thank their adopted hometown of Sweetwater.

         =    For Jerry, that opportunity came in mid-December. Not knowing where to start or who to contact, he started with an e-mail to the Chamber. He wrote of the care packages he received from Sweetwater, and how they “made an impression on me throughout my life.” It was just this past September that Frede= ricksburg hosted a Swamp Fox reunion, and Jerry reports that “everyone remember= ed your generosity of 37 years ago.”

         =    “I want to thank you and your community for your generosity,” w= rote Jerry, who is also a member of the St. Anthony Chamber of Commerce, “= and no good deed goes unrewarded. Your efforts inspired me to get my Cham= ber of Commerce to do the same for our soldiers in Iraq. ” St. Antho= ny adopted an aviation unit in Iraq, and collected more than $3,200 for teleph= one calling cards and Army Air Force Exchange gift cards which were sent to the Middle East for the holidays. Accompanying the modern-day care packag= e to the troops was a letter relating the story of Sweetwater’s role with = the 199th RAC.

         =    “I hope this makes your day as much as you made my day some 37 years ago,” Jerry wrote to Sweetwater. “My compatriots and I ha= ve never forgotten Sweetwater, Texas!”

         =    Likewise for Joe, his opportunity to thank Sweetwater came Jan. 6 when he walked in the front door of the Chamber offices. He told me he had promised himself that if he was ever in the Sweetwater area, he would stop = and thank someone for the kindness Sweetwater extended the= 199th RAC. Although in his mind he thought Sweetwater was further southwest than it is, Joe was on his way to Lubbock when I-20 took him right to Sweetwater. Joe’s brother, who live= s in Colorado City, was in a Lubbock hospital recovering from a recent heart attack and subsequent heart valve problem.

         =    So for those who were among those who adopted the 199th Reconnaissance Airp= lane Company in 1967-68, there are at least two very grateful veterans who want = to tell you a heartfelt and great big “Thank you!”

         =    Lynn Adams is the Executive Vice President for the Sweetwater Chamber of Commerce and Director of the Convention & Visitors Bureau. He can= be contacted at lynn@sweetwatertexas.org.

=

* I believe this was arranged through Larry Joyce (199= ^th, deceased) of Sweetwater, Larry Panzer and Richard Gese= n (JayCees).

- editor

=

=

=

= "Ranger", a Fox Tale

&nb= sp;

&n= bsp;

&nb= sp;

Stuart Jamison      pic - second from left Jim Mckee, WO Burn= s, Mike Roberts, far right Rick Bozeman =

NOTE TO SWAMPFOX READERS: On January 31, 1968, I was the Senior Advisor to 1^st Battalion,15^th Infantry, 9^th Infantry Division, stationed at the nowhere villag= e of Xa Xiem, located 20= -odd kilometers southeast of Rach Gia in Kien Giang Province.   My advisory team consisted of 1LT George Heatherington, SSG Joseph Church and SSG Joe Pinkham.= The battalion was commanded by Major Nguyen Van Hunyhl= (pronounced “Win”).

January 31 was the start of the annual lunar New Year celebration, Tet. The Communists initiated the celebration in the northern half of the country on 30 January. Our turn came the next da= y.

On the 31^st, the enemy attacked Rach Gia with two battali= ons – sort of. The city was invaded by the local two-company battal= ion, Chau Tanh B, while = the heavy hitters, U Minh 10, were held in reserve. The enemy believed th= eir own propaganda and genuinely thought the local boys would precipitate the long-awaited Popular Uprising. They didn’t. Chau Tanh B was butchered= in the streets, and by the time my battalion got to the city, hundreds of enemy corpses were laying on the lawn of the Pro= vince capitol building and the local soldiers were sitting around cleaning weapons. We got a mop-up assignment which cost us five wounded, but, = by and large, we got an easy start.

We had been allowed to have 50% of our men on leave for Tet. The early launching of the offensive in the north allowed us an extra day to recall troops, so we started our campaign with about 350. = ; We were to need all we could get.

We hunted for U Minh 10 for the next 3 days, and found someone to scrap with every one of them. But the serious bad guys kept slipping away. Then, on 4 February, we found them. The ensuing battle led to the destruction of U Minh 10 and the end of significant enemy action around Rach Gia. The following is an excerpt from an unpublished manuscript chronicling our adventures during the Tet Offensive. The chapter from which it is lif= ted, “Day 5 – 4 February” runs 32 pages in the manuscript.&nbs= p; I’ve cut it down to about a page to focus on the roll played by Swampfox CPT Jim McKee , t= he Little Ranger. McKee won the fight. The rest of the chapter is blow-by-blow, blood & guts infantry stuff, of no particular interest to aviators.

The second excerpt recounts my one and only flight with McKee. It’s the adventure that got Doc to name me an honorary F= ox, which I consider an honor indeed.

Sunday, 4 February, 1968

* * * * * * *

Ranger had been up since before we had first crossed the canal, and his fuel was getting low. We heard on the radio that= we had a FAC inbound, Bart 96, due in fifteen minutes, and that Bart had jets fifteen minutes behind him. All Ranger had to do was stay on station until = Bart arrived, mark the VC position, and then go home for gas.

         =    Except no one now knew exactly where the VC position was. We had been out of contact for over an hour and a half, and the PRU had been even longer. The = Charlies were somewhere in the two kilometers between= the two friendly units, probably in the woods, but we didn’t know where. It went without saying that, if we had to go into the woods for them with rifles and bayonets, it would be a blood bath. It also went without saying that the airstrike we had coming= would be the only one we were going to get, so we had to make it good.

         =    “Bourbon Bucket Three-One, this is Swamp Fox Three-Two. I’m goi= ng off station a few minutes. Be right back. Got an idea, over.”

    =         “Three-One, roger.”

         =    McKee turned east and flew away. Three minutes later, I was startled when my radio erupted:

         =    “Yaaaa Hoo!&n= bsp; Got the bastards!”

         =    Little Ranger had flown out of sight, turned around, and cut his engine. He= had silently glided back to the battlefield and was less than 300 feet up when = he came over and caught an entire company of U Minh 10 out of their holes rearranging their camouflage.

         =    Ranger flipped his switch, the engine caught, and he climbed out before the= VC had time to react and open fire. Then, with his jury-rigged machine gun, he strafed the Chucks to hold them in their holes until Bart 96 (A.F. FAC) arrived. McKee gave his fellow flier as fine a hand-off briefing as has ever been conducted, marking the limits of the enemy position precisely with his rockets.

* * * * * *= * * *

        &nb= sp;   It was time to gather up our casualties, prisoners and captured weapons and head for home. Ignoring the Province Chief’s orders, we left the dead= VC where they lay. The final and official count of dead bad guys was 80, most = of whom, in all fairness, were victims of the Air Force. We had another 14 prisoners and enough weapons for a reinforced company. It had cost us 6 dead and 32 wounded. It would prove to be the most lopsided victory in which I w= as ever personally involved. The real hero of the day was Jim McKee. <= /o:p>

Tuesday, 6 February, 196= 8

         =    We slept with the battalion in its position on the northern edge of the cit= y. The night passed quietly. In the morning, with nothing else to do, we went = over to the club to take advantage of the showers. It was there I ran into Ranger McKee.

         =    Yes, Virginia, soldiers do have heroes, and Ranger was mine. His participat= ion on the 4^th had been decisive. I adored him.

         =    McKee was a caricature of Black Irish. He was short, about 5’7” (hence, the “Little” in Little Ranger), slender, with black hair and flashing dark eyes, mercurial of mood, with frenetic energy. The boy was hyper. He was 25. He had won my appreciation early in my tour with his quick and enthusiastic reaction to all my requests for aerial reconnaissance and support, day or night.

         =    McKee came bouncing over to me.

         =    “Wanta go flying?”

      “Where? Why?”

         =    “I’m going up to Long Xuyen. Got a = bunch of VC weapons up there I need to pick up. Got a deal co= oking with the Navy for a Honeywell.”

         =    My Instant Air Force was, apparently, unsatisfied with mere rockets and mac= hine guns. Ranger was negotiating a trade for an automatic weapon to fire 40mm grenades.

    =         “Look, Ranger, this is my day off. I don’t need any trouble.= 221;

         =    “Hey, no trouble, man. I’m just going straight up there and straight back. It’ll be a milk run.”

         =    There was a certain appeal to the idea. An airplane ride might be fun. Then= I had an inspiration: Long Xuyen was the site of = our regimental headquarters. There was also an airstrip there with a couple of resident helicopters; maybe I could arrange for one to come to Rach Gia for Laan’s body. Huynhl wanted to send Laan* home to his family but had no way of getting him there.

*(Laan (pronounced “= Lun”) was Lt. Laan,= my friend and the commander of 1^st Company. We had lunch toge= ther on the 4^th. He was killed= (along with our cook) in the final charge two hours later.. - SJ)

      “Yeah, I’ll go. When?”

      “Why not now?”

         =    “Tell you what: why don’t I meet you at the Short Strip in about half an hour? I gotta run back to my battalion and tell them where I’ll be.”

    =         “See you in 30.”

         =    I hopped in the jeep and got over to Huynhl’s headquarters as fast as I could. When I told him what I had in mind, he was almost pathetically grateful.

         =    Within minutes, Pinkham dropped me at the Short Strip and I joined McKee at= his plane. He handed me a flight helmet, I climbed into the back seat, and he showed me where to plug into the intercom. Then he started the engine, we taxied out, and were off.

         =    The flight was as advertised. Ranger took it up to 3,000, took a northerly heading, and Long Xuyen hove into view in less = than half an hour. On the trip up, we passed the time with small talk.

         =    On the ground, we went to Ranger’s -— what? -- hooch? Warehouse? The place w= here he kept his booty. It was a bloody arsenal of captured weaponry. The souvenir weapons (those it was legal to take home) were separate from the working weapons -— those you could carry in the field, but which were illegal for export. He selected four or five AK47s (“The swabbies love ‘em&#= 8221;) and stuffed them into a duffel bag.

         =    There was a helicopter in, and I found the crew. It took some arm-twisting.= No one was enthusiastic about going out of his way to pick up a stiff, especia= lly a Vietnamese stiff. But they had to take something down to Schick at Rach Soi anyway, so it wouldn’t be any big deal to make a short side trip. We settled on an = ETA, exchanged call signs and agreed on the frequency, then parted company. Alth= ough it was now only about noon, they wouldn’t be there until around six, having other missions ahead of mine.

         =    As I climbed back aboard Ranger’s Bird Dog, he handed me the duffel b= ag of weapons to hold on my lap. In the cramped back seat of the L-19, I no lo= nger had any freedom of movement. By holding my elbows close to my chest, I could barely move my hands in front of my face, and McKee handed me a pair of binoculars. I’m claustrophobic, and said so.

         =    “Hey, that’s O.K. We’ll be home if a few minutes.”<= /p>
         =    We took off and headed south. We had been up less than five minutes when he spoke the four most dreaded words known to man:

         =    “Ever been to = Cambodia?”

         =    “No! And we’re not going! You said this was gonna be a milkrun!”= ; I was degenerating into whining. “This is my day off! Goddamnit, I can get shot at on Company time!”

         =    Ranger, caught up in his idea, was becoming almost breathless with anticipa= tion.

         =    “Look, with this thing going on all over the coun= try, I’ll bet no one’s even been over there to look in a week. I bet we can catch ‘em coming across in bro= ad daylight.”

    =         Wonderful.

         =    We banked to the right, heading west. We picked up the Basaac, one of the branches of the Mekong, and f= lew it to the border.

         =    And Ranger was right. They were coming across in broad daylight.

         =    It was a convoy of huge sampans, half a dozen of them, each a good 75 feet long. They were covered with camouflage netting, hugging the south side of = the river. I suppose they intended to pull into the bank and be invisible in ca= se aircraft approached. They either hadn’t heard us coming, or didn̵= 7;t think us a threat, for they kept moving.

         =    They had pedestal-mounted 1.27 cm guns on their sterns. Anti-aircraft guns.

    =         Ranger attacked.

         =    We were only carrying two rockets on the port wing today, both HE. McKee fi= red them both on the first pass and missed. It got their attention. They pulled into the bank, becoming stationary targets.

         =    The strafing passes were a hoot. McKee would climb to about 3,000 feet to b= egin the run and then turn his engine off. He fired the M-60 by pulling a wire a= ttached to its trigger. With one hand on the wire and the other on the stick, he gl= ided down on the enemy transports, adjusting the attitude of the aircraft to move the strike of the bullets. The little Bird Dog shuddered with the recoil of= the gun.

         =    When he reached 500 feet, he would stop firing, restart the engine, and cli= mb out for another pass. In the few seconds between when we ceased firing and = the motor caught, we could hear the crack of the fat 51s coming up. And in those seconds, after the nose had come up, but we had not yet made our getaway, I felt as if we were in some fat blimp, just hanging there begging to be shot down. A line from the old Cockney World War I song “I Don’t Wan= t To Be A Soldier” kept running through my mind: “I don’t want= a bullet up me arse ’ole/I don’t want= me bollocks shot away...”

         =    Including the rocket run, we made four firing passes. Being immobilized by = the duffel bag, I was on the verge of shrieking insanity. Finally, thank God, we exhausted the machine gun ammunition and headed southeast for Rach Gia.

    =         Ranger had sunk one sampan and left two burning.

I vowed= never to fly with him again. Two days later, the battalion was sent to Vinh Long, where it would eventually be destroyed. I never saw McKee again. But he remained one of my heroes.

&n= bsp;

-- Stuart Jamison

jamison@inet-systems.net

=

=

=

=

=

&nbs= p;

WEB SIT= ES of INTEREST

=

=

=

=

&n= bsp;

= ;

www.quietaircraft.org/pages/2/index.htm

&n= bsp;

L-19 fo= r MS Flight SIM FS2004 from Abacus

=

Civil Air Patrol Pilot - Missions of the C.A.P. - now shipping= =

With more than 64,000 members, the Civil Air Patrol flies over 100,000 hours e= ach year performing search and rescue, disaster assessment, emergency medical delivery, air taxi into remote sites, among others. In conjunction with t= he CAP, we bring some of their essential operations to Microsoft Flight Simulator. Read our Press Release.

We rolled out this new add-on at the CAP's Natio= nal Conference last weekend in S= t. Louis. To learn more about the CAP, please visit the Civil Air Patrol website.

Civil Air Patrol Pilot is now available click here.

Note: Civil Air Patrol members are eligibile for a discount for this package. Please have your CAP ID available during Check= out.

=

=

=

=

www.= abacuspub.com

=

=

&n= bsp;

Coming = Events

&n= bsp;

=

183^rd RAC SeaHorse Gr= and Reunion Sept 2006 Washington D.C.<= /b>

&n= bsp;

ATTENTION!!!!!!! The 183rd is inviting all Bird= dog Companies to its September 7th through the 10th 2006 Reunion in Washington DC. We had a great time with the Aloft (74th) and the Swamp Fox (199th) group at our la= st reunion and hope to see them and other birddoggies at this one. At this reunion, all birddog members are welcome: The Shotguns (221st); Petrodactyls (185th); Non Stop (184th)= ; Catkillers (220th); Headhunters (219th); Hawkeyes (203rd); Warriors (73rd); Night Hawks (131st= ) and Black Aces (21st).

=

SEAHORSE NEWSLETTER = =

February, 2006 =

2006 183^{rd RAC SEAHORSE REUNION}

The third, and indeed the biggest, reunion is now officially contracted with the hotel and you need to mark yo= ur calendars. The reunion is going to be in Washington, D. C. = at the Crystal Gateway Marriott located at 1700 Jefferson Davis Highway, in Arlington, Virginia. The official reunion activities will begin on Thursday, September 7th and end on Sunday, September 10^th. &n= bsp; If you would like to see more about the hotel, the hotel website is www.crystalgatewaymarriott.com. We have very speci= al room rates, of $109 per night, well below what it normally charged. For those of you who wish to come early or stay longer, the = rate will apply three days before and three days after the reunion. The ho= tel is very conveniently located in an area that is on the Metro System, close = to shopping and a wide variety of restaurants, and very near most of the main attractions in Washington, D. C. There is complementary shuttle servi= ce to and from Reagan National Airport which is a short five minutes from the hotel.

Instructions on how to register with the hotel and receive the discounted room rate will follow in next month’s Newsletter. You will also need to register for the reunion activities with the Seahorses. That information will also fol= low in next month’s newsletter.

This is= partial information from the 183^rd web site.       www.183seahorse.org

=

=

2= 19^th RAC HeadHunters Reunion Sept. 2007 Atlanta Georgia

=

9/17/2005  = HEADHUNTERS decide to hold their NEXT REUNION scheduled for SEPTEMBER 2007 in= ATLANTA, GEORGIA. The hosts will be Steve Butler (RVN 1/68-1/69 P= leiku) and Tom Morris (RVN 7/65-7/66 Nha Trang, Tuy Hoa, Phan Thiet & NonCo). The host location will be Peachtree City Sout= h of Atlanta. MARK YOUR CALENDARS!

=

www.219headhunters.com/Reunions.htm

=

&n= bsp;

220th Reconnaissance Airplane Comp= any (RAC) "Catkillers" Reunion

Friday, October 6, 2006 until Sunday, October 8,= 2006

Mark Your Calendars!

South<= span style=3D'font-size:12.0pt'> Shore Harbour Resort & Conference Center
2500 South Shore Blvd.
League City, TX 77573
Phone: 281.334.1000
Fax: 281.334.1157

=

=

Carl Drechsel

Catkiller 30

Reunion C= hairman

sdrexel@yahoo.com

=

=

EAA cal= endar

&n= bsp;

http://www.eaa.org/events

&n= bsp;

=

AAAA Annual Convention

9 - 1= 2 Apr 2006Gaylord Opryland Convention Center, Nashville, TN

=

www.quad-a.org

&n= bsp;

IBDA

&n= bsp;

Fall-winter 2005 issu= e has picture of us at Fredericksbur= g

=

Contact Rob for back iss= ues of the BowWow.

=

www.ibdaweb.com=

Rob Ro= binson

Membersh= ip Director, IBDA

200 Sugar Hollow Road

Hendersonville, North Carolina 28739 U.S.A.

828 696 8414

828 606 7440

saltire@bellsouth.net

<= /b>

FOX HUN= T

&n= bsp;

Status quo

&n= bsp;

SWAMP F= OX NETWORK

=

Stuart Jamison, MACV Rach Gia, Vinh= Long

Stuart has been a good contributor of pictures, maps a= nd other Swamp Fox related information.

Welcome to the Swamp Fox Network.

=

Soldier= s Angels

Do check out this web site if you are looking for char= ity to support our troops.

www.soldiersangels.com<= /o:p>

=

Site Ne= ws

&n= bsp;

=

=

If you have something to add to the Fox Fax, I need= it before the fifth of the month.

Cheers Y'all - Editor r.jennings14@verizon.net

=

(EOM)