We had a request from the AFSPA looking for info on
an AP [Al] last name Handy (TDY from George AFB) that was supposed to have
killed the sapper that killed Terry Jensen. Of course [Al Handy is now
a VSPA member, and was TDY from the 831st APS to Da Nang in 1965], the
VSPA would like to find this individual as well. Did you know Handy and
can you put something on the Web about trying to find him? On another
note, if you think you might use the second story I sent you I would like
to review it one more time prior to publication. I've done some additional
research on the KIA's since I submitted the story to you and may wish
to amend it somewhat? Thanks for all you are doing. I've been reading
the comments you have been getting. I concur completely with all the good
things people have had to say about your Web site. Later, Steve Ray [Not previous VSPA president]
Airman Al Handy was
TDY from George AFB, and had been in country about a week.
A then friend of mine, an A1C Joseph (can't remember the
first name) who was part of the Response Force, but some distance
from where I was, related the following to me:
"As we swept
down the taxiway, Handy came running and stumbling toward
our group shouting his name. When he reached us, he said that he was out of
ammunition, and wanted to get more! According to A1C Joseph,
Handy was really a mess, and could barely talk coherently.
At some point, Handy was transported back to the compound,
and OSI grabbed him to debrief him about the death of SSgt
Jensen."
Now here is the part that nobody talks about -
In traditional fashion, the OSI tried to play "HANG THE COP"!!
The first "theory" that the OSI came up with was that Handy
had "panicked" and shot SSgt Jensen by mistake! I am proud
to say that I "shot holes" in that theory!! A couple of days
later, an OSI puke, contacted me in the armory and showed
me four pieces of 7.62 X39 brass, and asked me to I.D. it.
I immediately I.D.ed the brass, as the type used with the
AK-47 assault rifle. The OSI person then told me that was
the brass they had picked up near SSgt Jensen's body, and
then he related: "Well, I guess that gets Handy off the hook."
The OSI agent then coldly tossed SSgt Jensen's .38 cal. revolver
on the armory work bench, and said: "Here - you might want
to clean that up!" It was completely caked with SSgt Jensen's
blood.
After the OSI agent left, I picked up Terry's
.38, and opened the cylinder to check it. It was still loaded.
Three rounds had been fired. I detailed stripped the weapon,
and cleaned it thoroughly then I put it aside in the armory.
Later that same day, I asked the Operations Sergeant (TSgt
Herbert Steer), if there was any way that we could send Terry's
weapon to his family as a keep-sake. I was told to "forget
it." The weapon was returned to the inventory, and reissued
as far as I know.
As to what happened to Airman Handy -- well, when
he was brought in for interrogation by the OSI, he reportedly looked down at some point, and saw blood and brain tissue
all over the front of his fatigues, and upon seeing the gore,
his eyes rolled back in his head, and he went "catatonic."
He was air-evaced out the next day (don't know where to).
I heard a few days later that they had put him in for the
Bronze Star w/V, but I don't know if he ever got it. Many of us
were put in for decorations, but most of the paperwork ended
up in the trash can. I remember pulling mine out of the trash
and reading it! I was so numb about the whole event that I
didn't even care! I guess that even then, it was not "politically
expedient" for lower ranking Cops to get medals. As we used
to say: "That's okay - It don't mean Nuthin - Never did -
Never Will!"
Like SSgt Jensen, many of us were very upset
about the way that the war was being fought, and especially
how we (the Air Police) were being used. They used to send
teams of us out to secure the sites where those Firebee reconnaissance
drones would crash after they got the hell shot out of them
while flying up North, and over Laos and Cambodia.
[Photo above: US Firebee reconnaissance AQM-34 drone and precursors of comtemporary unmanned aerial systems.]
[Photo left: China developed the CH-1 by reverse-engineering US Firebee reconnaissance AQM-34 drones recovered during the Vietnam War.]
The Air Force did
not equip us properly, did not provide us with communications
gear that would even reach the Base, and most of the time
CSC did not even know (or care) that there were troops in
the field on an operation! We could have all been killed,
and the Squadron would probably have marked us AWOL! What
a mess! Those of us who went out on those Ops. regularly,
scrounged enough field gear, extra ammo, grenades, and tactical
communications equipment so as to be able to survive out there,
and hopefully get back on our own, or by the good graces of
the Army chopper pilots! (God Bless those guys!) We had plenty
of "contact" on those ops, and put in our time "in the bush."
You would not believe some of the things that
Cops were involved in, and did on their "own time"! We were
strictly forbidden and threatened with court martial if we
were caught taking part in any "unauthorized" activity. Well,
that just "lit the fuse" with some of us, and we went out
at every opportunity, doing anything that would get us a chance
to get a crack at "Charlie"!
Terry Jensen, and another troop named "Brandenburg"
(first name not remembered*) used to fly as door gunners regularly
on the old HH-34 choppers with the Vietnamese!! Boy you talk
about a "death wish" Those two were really nuts! I remember
once when they "got back," Terry had been nicked by a slug
in the upper left arm. Not a serious wound, but nonetheless,
a wound! To get treatment, he had to go over to the Vietnamese
hospital, and slip the doctors there "beucoup piasters" to
treat him and not report the injury! If he had gone to the
USAF dispensary, he would have been investigated, charged,
and would have undoubtedly gone to jail! Yup, it was a wonderful
war! Go figure! I flew as a door gunner on the Army choppers
myself several times.
The Army didn't give a damn, and it gave some
of their troops a break! Everybody was happy ... we got
our "action" time, and the Army got extra bodies! Nobody said
anything, and the Air Force was none the wiser. But - we received
no flight pay, several of the guys had enough missions for
an Air Medal which they never got, and a couple of them had
to really argue and plead like hell to keep the Army from
putting them in for decorations for some of the absolutely
heroic things that they did while flying on those "illegal"
missions! Got real sticky there a couple of times! I accompanied
Marine Corps Force Recon units of Ops west of Hill 327, over
in "happy valley"! I went on ops with Special Forces a couple
of times (damn near got my ass shot off on one of those -
and still have a hearing problem in my left ear that I could
never report). We had guys that flew as gunners on the those
old HH-43 twin bladded choppers with Air Rescue and who were
"on the ground" up North with the P.J.'s looking for Pilots
that had bailed out!
On one op, a P.J. named "Silvers" wanted to put
the Cop in for a medal because he stood his ground and laid
down heavy suppressive fire that kept the NVA at bay, while
the P.J. recovered the injured Pilot! The P.J. was awarded
the Silver Star for that "save" - the Cop was never there!
Some of us knew that the Base was going to be
hit 30 days before it happened. How did we know? Because we
went out there beyond the wire on unauthorized patrols, and
found all kinds of "sign." We found foot prints right up to the concertina wire that showed that they were practicing
the infiltration! One night we watched them digging one of
the mortar pits!
Troops on town patrol were getting Intel from
the bar girls, and shoeshine boys that something big was going
to happen at the Base! Nobody would listen, and nobody wanted
to hear it! Cops weren't suppose to be smart enough to do
those kinds of things! OSI was worthless. They had no ground
intelligence capability whatsoever, they didn't liaison effectively
with Army Intel, and all they were interested in was catching
G.I.s selling cigarettes and booze [and U.S. currency] on the black market! They
put their heads in the sand and kept them there!
I had three pretty rough years after I got back
from Nam. Six of us went to Lowry AFB Colorado upon reassignment,
and out of the six, one killed himself, and one went to jail
for murder! It was really odd. Among the six of us that were
in Nam together, we hardly spoke to each other when we were
at Lowery! It was like none of us wanted to remind each other
of what we had been through! Since we were among the first
Cops that had been to Nam and come back, we were treated like
"lepers" by the rest of the Squadron! They said that we were
all "crazy", and "killers", and really walked on eggs around
us! It was really strange! All we wanted was just to be treated
like everybody else.
I can remember several hearing muffled remarks
from my own Flight Chief to others saying, "Don't mess with
Bush, he's one of those Viet Nam Crazies." I will never forget
how I laughed until I cried when he got his orders to Saigon!
Boy, you talk about being "white around the mouth"! That guy
stuck to me like glue for the rest of the time that he was
there trying to pump me for information about "what to expect
when he got to Nam"! You can just guess how much help I was
to him!
Thanks to a GREAT lady that I married, I made
it through the post-Viet Nam problems (we are going on 31
years together now)! I stayed in for 22 years, and retired
in 1980. Staying in helped me "cope" with the experience.
I trained troops to stay alive in combat. When the SPECS program
finally was established, I was able to contribute significantly
to its development, and at last Air Force Security Police
finally received the training and equipment that they needed
to function as a first-class fighting force! (I understand
that all of that was been done away with and that the
Cops were almost right back where they were prior to Viet Nam!
I guess they even changed the name and now call them "Security
Forces" instead of Security Police! What's that all was about?
While I was in, I went to eight years of night
school, earned two college degrees, and graduated from the
FBI National Academy (113th Session). I kept one foot in the
civilian community, and successfully "packaged" myself for
a job on the outside after retirement. Nine days after I hung
up the blue suit (or Cammies in my case), I went to work as
Security Director at an R&D facility in Ann Arbor Michigan.
The company was a DOE contractor, doing research in inertial
confinement laser fusion. I spent two years there, then landed
a job as head of physical security with EG&G Energy Measurements
Inc. in Las Vegas Nevada. EG&G was a prime contractor to the
US Department of Energy in support of Nevada Test Site Operations.
I built up the Physical Security section into
the Physical/Technical Security Department, and had 17 people
working for me including two Electrical Engineers. When Operations
Security became Big in 1988, I did a lateral transfer to a
Staff position, and worked in developing and implementing
the DOE Nevada Operations Operations Security (OPSEC) Program.
Had a lot of fun, and my DOE counterpart got awards for the
best OPSEC program in DOE, and the best in the Federal System
for 1980!
I did a stint in Albuquerque as Task Manager for
a contract start-up operation for Review Evaluation and Inspection
of Nuclear Productions Facilities, and other DOE facilities,
and once that was off the ground, I decided that I had had
enough of the Stress and BS that goes with jobs at that level!
In short, It just wasn't fun anymore! I am now semi-retired
(although I still do consultant work and technical writing
for DOE whenever I feel like it), and I have a nice little
no-brainer security job with the Nevada Power company here
in Las Vegas! Once in awhile, I will write something "spectacular"
for my "Boss" and make him famous! He, in-turn, lets me pretty
much do anything that I want to do, and I have a lot of fun!
I will never go back to the "Corporate mind grinder" again!
Don't need it - Don't want it! We have everything that we
need, and I will just kick back and putts along until I can
draw from my little Anuity fund when I'm 59 and a-half, and
then I think that we may take a cruise around the world or something
like that!
If you ever get over to Las Vegas give me
a call! We can get together and hoist a couple of brews in
memory of those who didn't "make it back", including the ones
that are still alive!
I knew that SSgt Jensen had one daughter that was
an SP, but I didn't know that he had two! I had heard that
one of them was stationed out here at Nellis when my EG&G
office was out there. Never tried to find her, but I would
have liked to talked to her/them about their father. I could
tell them some stories!
Take Care!
