As a door gunner on a chopper in Vietnam — one of the war’s most dangerous responsibilities for a U.S. serviceman — James Washington was getting ready to eat some C-rations after his pilots landed their helicopter.
“We were in an LZ (landing zone) that we thought was safe, and the pilots had shut down the rotors,” said Washington. “I let the back ramp down so we could take a break for lunch. I walked out and sat down on the edge of the ramp and was opening a can with my P-53 (can opener).”
At that moment, an unseen enemy sniper took a shot at him.
“I had taken off my flight helmet, and heard that bullet whiz by right in front of me,” he remembered. “It just so happened that an infantry group there heard the shot, spotted the sniper up in a rubber tree, and they got him. We let up that ramp and got on the machine guns then. But I tell you that was the closest a bullet had ever come to me, and we had them come up through (pierce) the bottom of the chopper sometimes. A lot of times we didn’t even know until we got back and did an inspection.”
James Washington, 83, not only received citations and commendations for his service in Vietnam — including two Army Air Medals — but he also brought the body of his cousin and best friend Bill Dwight back to Dalton after Dwight was killed in action during their separate deployments.
Washington, a Dalton native, was born in 1941 five months before the attack on Pearl Harbor that began World War II for America. He graduated from the old Wilson High School in Ringgold, and then went on to study auto mechanics and mechanical drafting at Monroe Tech in Albany. He finished his technical school training in Atlanta at General Motors, and then got married to his wife Pauline. He was drafted into the Army in 1967.
After boot camp, Washington trained as an aircraft mechanic at Fort Rucker, Alabama — since he almost aced the mechanical aptitude test — but after deploying to Vietnam rarely did maintenance and repairs. Instead, he was given the job of door gunner on the workhorse helicopter of U.S. forces, the CH-47 Chinook.
“I told them I knew nothing about guns, but they took a couple of blankets and put them on the ground and showed me how to take apart and put back together the M-60 machine gun,” he said. “You had to learn quick over there.”
Eventually, Pvt. 1st Class Washington became a Specialist 5 (sergeant) with Company A of the 159th Assault Helicopter Battalion, 101st Airborne Division, and worked his way up to become crew chief and then flight engineer. Along the way there was combat action and more “close calls.”
“The barrel of the M-60 would get so hot during heavy firing it turned cherry red and we had to use an asbestos glove to remove it and attach another barrel,” he noted. “On our ‘sorties’ (flight missions) we would carry troops, transport water bladders, and we could haul two jeeps inside that Chinook. It was powered by a turbine engine on each end of the helicopter.”
Flights were near Hanoi, the capital of North Vietnam, and to a mountain known as the Eagle’s Nest where a U.S. Army firebase was located.
“They would get hit so much up there (with enemy fire) that they wanted a .50 (machine gun) — it had more firepower than the M-60 — so we carried it up there and it did a good job for them,” said Washington. “We hauled all kind of stuff. If our guys got into a hot LZ — like the Big Red One (1st Infantry Division) — and they were holding off the enemy, we’d go in there and pick them up, those troops in the field.”
When the helicopter took a round, the crew would take a stencil and paint a red cherry on the side of the aircraft so there was a row of them denoting how many holes were in the bird.
“The guys we picked up could see how many times we got hit and were still flying,” he pointed out.
‘Just be alert’
Washington was asked about his thoughts when his chopper was going into a hot LZ and he knew it was likely they were going to draw enemy fire.
“I thought I was going to be zapped (killed), that’s what’s going to happen to me!” he replied, adding with a chuckle, “Just be alert when you’re that door gunner.”
There were other dangers as well.
“The flight engineer had panels of gauges to monitor — for instance, to show if the engine, transmission or drive shaft was running too hot — and let the pilots know so they could compensate,” Washington said. “They obeyed the flight engineer, and they weren’t allowed to ‘hot rod.’ Lots of young (pilots) that came over there wanted to hot rod, and that would overheat the helicopter. Because that Chinook would really run with those two turbine engines.”
Among Washington’s commendations there is not a Purple Heart for being wounded in combat. He was asked about that.
“I never did get hit,” he confirmed. “But we had a hard landing one time. When we hit the ground my bulletproof vest came down on the back of my neck, and they had to fly me out to a Navy ship to tap my spine. I went back to the company and told them I didn’t want no Purple Heart; give it to somebody that deserved it, somebody that got shot. That ended that.”
Washington said during his tour the company only lost one man.
“Officer Rose was flying a chopper and a round came up through the ‘bubble’ (a transparent window allowing the pilot to see the ground) and caught him up under his chin,” he described.
Washington said when he went to Vietnam he left a church family back in Dalton at Hopewell Baptist that he knew was praying for him.
“I had some close calls, and know it was God that got me back,” he testified.
Bringing Bill home
Washington’s cousin from Dalton, William Lamar “Bill” Dwight, served in Vietnam at the same time.
“We were about from Dalton to Ringgold from each other, around 16 miles,” he said of their separate units. “I was at Hue and he was near Phu Bai. Bill had joined the Marines on the buddy plan with (Daltonian) Ken Willis. Bill was over there before I was by nine to 10 months, because he was getting ready to come home — he was what we called ‘short.’ Really, he should have been pulled out of the field. They got ambushed.”
The cousins, whom Washington said were more like brothers, made a pact that if one of them was killed in Vietnam, the other would bring him home. Although they knew their proximity to one another, they never saw each other during their deployments.
“I heard from him one time before he got ready to come home,” Washington remembered. “I was flying the day he got killed (Dec. 2, 1967), and his Marine company notified the Army for me to come back to the company area. But I didn’t know what happened till they got me back. I couldn’t believe it because he was that short; he was out on patrol, and if I’m not mistaken it was about nine or 10 of them that got hit.”
After escorting Dwight all the way back home and attending his funeral, Washington’s family tried to keep Washington from going back but to no avail.
Trip back home for the final time
Washington made it back to Georgia after his tour ended. The trip home was bittersweet.
“It was like being born again, it made you feel good to leave that country,” he said. “It made you appreciate home. I thank God for bringing me back and letting me have three nice boys, a good wife and a good life.”
What does he think about on veteran-related holidays and at Christmastime?
“Oh man, it’s rough,” he replied. “Officer Rose, I didn’t know him that well because he wasn’t one of our pilots that I flew with, but he was in our company. I didn’t think about him a whole lot, but Bill I did. It’s like you’re eating, and he’s not there. He was like a brother to me, because my daddy died when I was about 3 or 4 years old. I don’t even remember him. Bill’s daddy — my mother’s brother and my uncle — he raised me. Bill and I were like brothers, we’d fight and then make up, get into devilish stuff together — that’s what brothers do. We built cars together because I was a mechanic even back then, and I taught him because I was about three years older than Bill. Both of us had ‘55 Chevrolets and we ‘hopped’ them up, and then I lost him.”
After returning stateside, Washington was required to meet with a psychiatrist about the trauma of being in a combat zone and losing his cousin.
“She was asking me questions and I told that lady ‘I don’t even wanna talk about it,’” he recalled. “But she made me talk about it, and boy, it was rough. On the flight back from Vietnam, from the front to the rear it was full of dead bodies. and I was the only one sitting back there, in the jump seat. I was thanking God, because it could have been me in one of those bags. I still think of Bill.”
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