An anniversary, of sorts ... it was 38 years ago last Friday ...

[TahitiNut]

On February 24, 1969, Airman First Class Levitow and the crew of his AC-47 gunship, Spooky 71, were flying over the besieged American force at Long Binh, dropping magnesium flares to illuminate the positions of Vietnamese troops. The plane was hit repeatedly with enemy fire. One such mortar blast wounded the gunner, who dropped an armed flare inside the plane. Levitow, the loadmaster, saw the immediate danger and repeatedly dove for the flare, though the plane was in a thirty-degree bank and though Levitow himself had been hit by more than forty pieces of shrapnel in his back and legs. Reaching the flare, he managed to eject it from the aircraft seconds before it ignited. The plane eventually landed; by that time, its fuselage contained more than three thousand shrapnel holes.

For this action, Levitow, who was discharged from the Air Force as a sergeant in 1969, after having flown over 200 combat missions, was awarded the Medal of Honor by President Richard Nixon on May 14, 1970 (Armed Forces Day) at the White House.

http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/jllevitow.htm



http://www.mishalov.com/Levitow.html

I saw this happen ... from the ground below. It wasn't until many years later that I found out about Sgt. Levitow and the award of the Medal of Honor. I saw the AC-47 right after it got hit and saw it fly off, I guess directly to Bien Hoa Air Field which was right "next door."

Each year, right about this time, I think about this. I think about how a guy was covering my sorry ass and got the Medal of Honor. I'd only been in-country for about seven weeks ... 'tested' only by several scattered nights of incoming that made us wake up and scramble for cover. We stood perimeter guard on rotation. We were on alert - three of us in the bunker. Instead of "one up; two down" or "two up; one down" we were all awake. Something was up. When we popped an illumination flare, all hell broke loose.

It was right above our position along the southern perimeter of Long Binh Post ...

... where Levitow's AC-47 got hit.

At our position and to our east, an augmented battalion of NVA had attacked. We repelled them and, according to scuttlebutt, only three sappers made it through the wire.


Well, I survived. I made it through another nine months (gestation?) in Viet Nam.



Yeah. That's me. I drag this photo out occasionally and look into my own eyes ... remembering the 'kid' I once was. I was told it'd be a "learning experience" - and it was.

So there I was last week, thinking about that night 38 years ago and, as usual, using DU. The 3-4 times/year resurrection of the ignorant rants about the (so-called) "myth" of veterans being spit at was again being 'discussed' and I again (stupidly, I guess) told of my own personal experience. And I was again and again called a liar - and worse. Those posts were, after quite a while, removed. Then I got a PM from a DUer calling me a "disgusting, lying piece of filth" and a "punk ass bitch" and a "fuckface liar." This DUer said "I bet my life savings you never even served!" (No, I'm not going to call anyone out or identify the DUer - someone not banned for behavior I regard as beyond despicable. No - I don't want to break DU's Rules - and have my post removed or get banned. Ironic! Really fucking ironic!)

I'm tired. I'm tired of malicious, despicable attacks and slanders from a person who was only 5 years old at the time Levitow got a Medal of Honor while covering my sorry butt. I'm tired of people who weren't even born then who arrogantly and maliciously call me a liar and worse - and pretend to know more about my first-hand experiences than I do. I'm tired of traveling alone and getting spit on - then only to have other veterans (and 'friends') later turn their back on me. That's gotten too fucking old. For merely telling the TRUTH.


So, here's a redacted image of my DD-214. NOBODY should have to do this! No veteran should EVER be attacked for telling the truth!



Welcome home, GI. Yeah. Right. :puke: