|
 As high school graduation approached, Gary
discovered that Air Force pilots needed to have a degree, so he
enrolled in college. But then he saw an article in a local newspaper
with the headline “U.S. Army wants high school graduates for
helicopter pilots.” He dropped out of college in the spring of 1963
and took the article to his recruiter in Dixon, Ill., where his
family now lived.
In January 1964 Gary began the Warrant Officer Candidate Program. He
went straight from basic training to Primary Helicopter School at
Fort Wolters, Texas, where 50-60 percent of his class washed out of
the program. Not Gary, who thrived on the discipline and quickly
mastered the basic piloting skills. On November 4, 1964, Gary became
a newly minted Army warrant officer, and proudly wore a new set of
Army aviator wings.
Warrant Officer Joyner had also received orders for Vietnam, but
first he looked forward, along with the rest of his class, to a full
month of leave. Inexplicably however, while everyone else got the
full month, Gary only got two weeks. “I was the only one. I have no
explanation for that,” he said.
Later, Gary would reflect on the strange quirk of fate that probably
saved his life.
While the rest of his class enjoyed leave, Gary arrived in Vietnam
at the end of November, one day before his twentieth birthday. He
was initially assigned to an aviation platoon in the delta region of
South Vietnam, flying UH-1 Huey gunships and “slicks” (troop
carriers). He was then transferred to the Da Nang area farther north
where he once again served as a helicopter co-pilot on Huey
gunships, seeing plenty of action as the intensity of fighting in
Vietnam steadily ramped up.
In one memorable mission, his gunship was flying in support of a
flock of Marine helicopters inserting troops into enemy territory
near Da Nang. As soon as the Marines hit the ground, they began to
take heavy enemy fire. After completing the mission, Gary’s gunship
left the area to refuel, but they were immediately called back to
support the Marines, laying down heavy suppressive fire against the
enemy.
Over the din of battle, with all six of the gunship’s machine guns
firing, Gary and the pilot could not hear the helicopter’s engine or
the impact of incoming fire. “Eight to
twelve rounds came in through the windshield and hit the bulkhead
between us two pilots. … It cut the wires that ran from the
transmission and engine to the instruments that we had in the
cockpit,” Gary said.
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Thinking they had lost engine power, and following
the protocol for a power loss, the pilot “rolled the throttle off
and put the collective down in auto rotation” – in other words, they
prepared for a very hard landing as the aircraft fell to the ground.
Only then did they notice they still had power, and the pilot once
again took control of the gunship.
Months later, Gary was stunned when he received a Distinguished
Flying Cross for the action.
Like everyone else in Nam, Gary maintained a short-timer’s calendar,
relishing the chance to mark off another day closer to home,
especially after receiving orders that would send him to Fort Bragg,
N.C.
“One day I was in the company area and I got a call that said,
‘report to the executive officer.’ Well, that’s like telling a
student in high school to report to the assistant principal. … ‘Oh
boy, what have I done now?’,” Gary said.
But he wasn’t in trouble. Gary recalled the conversation this way:
“‘Gary,’ he said, ‘your orders have been changed.’
“I said, ‘really!’
“‘Instead of going to Fort Bragg, you’ve got new orders to go to
Fort Wolters, Texas, and according to your reporting date here, you
ought to be gone today, or tomorrow.’”
Two days later Gary was back home, two weeks before his tour was
scheduled to officially end. But the coincidences did not end there.
“While I was home on leave, a couple of weeks after I left Vietnam,
they started the war in the Ia Drang valley, and the gunship that I
flew routinely – my aircraft – was involved in that battle, and it
had a maintenance problem and the rotor blades separated from the
helicopter at 1,400 feet in the air and the whole crew was killed,
flying the helicopter that I would have been flying,” he said.
While grieving for his friends and struggling to understand the
incident afterward, Gary concluded that “I think it happened because
I got that two-week leave instead of four. And why did I get two
weeks leave instead of four? … I think God was protecting me. … He
decided I was not to be in it.”
As far as Gary is concerned, it is one of the mysteries of life.
“God takes care of people,” says Gary, “and fools like me.”
Mark DePue is the Director of Oral History at the Abraham Lincoln
Presidential Library. You can listen to Gary Joyner’s entire
interview at
www.oralhistory.illinois.gov |
Veterans
Day memories
