Photo of the Day

It is May 12, 1968.

Larry Houck, a 24-year-old Marine helicopter pilot

aboard the USS Iwo Jima in the South China Sea,

The USS Iwo Jima was a Navy helicopter carrier.

is writing to a hometown buddy who also serves in Vietnam.

Below, an excerpt:

“There’s been a lot of action up around here lately.

Last Sunday morning, April 28, I was on night medivac duty

when at 0110 a call came to go pick up 3 emergency and 2 priority medivacs

at a zone 7 miles north of Dong Ha [combat base].

We got to the zone and landed OK,

but just as the last medivac was placed aboard all hell broke loose!

From only 30 feet away on our right, left, and dead ahead

the NVA opened up on us with 30-caliber automatic weapons fire

and grenades.

Marine medical evacuation aboard a UH-34D.

Almost as soon as they opened up the pilot got hit in the eyes

and a piece of shrapnel hit my clear night visor

sending pieces of plastic into my right eye

and putting 6 cuts on my cheek below the right eye.

When he [had] sat the bird down the guy who was flying it

dropped his rotor RPM below flying RPM

in an effort to seep sand and dust from blowing all over the medivacs,

that’s something we just never do at night in an unsecure zone.

For a few seconds he didn’t know whether to fly out or shutdown

and his grip was frozen on the controls making it impossible for me to fly.

Suddenly he realized that he couldn’t see and threw his hands to his face.

When he took his hands from the controls

I attempted to get back flying RPM and power,

after precious seconds of what seemed like an eternity they built up

and with a bounce or two we were airborne.

Since it was NVA territory to the west,

I decided to head to the right (east) toward the ocean.

We flew at treetop-level for about a mile before picking up altitude.

Cua Viet [naval base]was in the distance about 4 miles

so I flew there and shut down.

Our chase helicopter picked us up at Cua Viet

and took us back out to the ship.

Everybody in our bird was hit

and the medivacs were rewounded (one died 2 hours later).

The crew chief, gunner and corpsman each got shrapnel wounds,

and I got some on the cheek.

After spending a day about the Navy hospital ship USS Repose

where doctors cleaned the plastic out of my eye

and treated the scratches on the eyeball and cleaned up the cuts on my cheek

I was back flying again in 3 days.

I wanted to get back flying soon so as not to lose too much nerve.

7 of those armor-piercing rounds came in my area of the cockpit

and 4 came within 2 inches of me.

Never in my life have I felt so small and completely helpless

as I did that night when those rounds were hitting the plane!

There was just no place to go!”

1LT Lawrence E. Houck II (1944-1969)

Nine months after this letter, Larry was killed when his helicopter collided with another in Vietnam.

I’ll see you tomorrow.

— Brenda

Larry’s full 24-page letter can be found here. The excerpt above has been lightly edited for brevity.