Into Cambodia - Keith Nolan [199]
Fourteen other men were wounded. Pulling his company into a hasty perimeter, Captain Thursam directed in three attempted helicopter mede-vacs, only one of which was able to land to take out three men, the other two taking hits as they cleared the trees. Thursam then reported that he was pinned down and needed air strikes to dislodge the NVA around him, but that he had run out of smoke grenades to mark his position. In response, WOl Bob Gorske of the Aviation Section, 199th LIB–Fireball Aviation–came to a hover over a particular spot in the jungle while those on the berm line at FSB Brown, from where he had just lifted off, watched through binoculars. Charlie Company was below Gorske through a small mine shaft in the canopy, and his crewchief dropped out ammo and smoke grenades as bullets slammed through their thin-skinned machine. Gorske veered off and returned to Brown to pick up more ammunition. Although Thursam tried to warn him off as the NVA were waiting, the helicopter hung suspended over the mine shaft again. This time it literally vibrated under the hail of enemy fire, but Gorske again managed to bank safely away after the extra ammo had been kicked out.
Gorske landed his Kiowa back at FSB Brown–it had fifty bullet holes in it–and rushed over to the Loach that was landing with Colonel Clarke from the 1st Cav. The brigade commander's pilot had gone to flight school with Gorske, and Gorske quickly convinced him to fly back with him with more ammunition. Incredulous at such a suicidal scheme, Gorske's crew chief refused to come along. Instead, the young supply sergeant of the pinned-down company volunteered to leave his firebase post to shove out the ammo crates. Taking the Loach this time, they sailed off toward the distant ridge line. For a third time, they came to a hover over the hole in the trees. It must have sounded like a swarm of angry bees around the stationary target as the Plexiglas shattered. The pilot was shot, and Gorske, taking control, was also hit in his armored seat. The Loach belched smoke as Gorske managed to bring it around toward FSB Brown. Blumhardt followed above and to the rear in his Huey. Gorske radioed that his engine had failed, then that it had restarted–a bad sign, since it meant that he had an onboard fire–but that he was going to try to make the firebase. Within five hundred meters of Brown, the tail boom suddenly blew off the Loach and it nosed over straight into the treetops, exploded, and crashed through to the ground.
Smoke funneled through the green canopy.
Gorske was killed instantly. The comments about his sacrifice by Capt. Forest L. (Mike) Ramsey II, CO, Aviation Section, 199th LIB, were bittersweet:
A long debrief of the crew chief afterward revealed that he was very angry at Gorske, and had terrible guilt feelings that he should have been aboard. I tried hard to convince him that he had been right in what he had done. Understand, I liked Bob Gorske very much and I enjoyed him as my roommate, and I absolutely do not want to sully his efforts and heroism. As his commander, however, I had a difficult time trying to convince him that we had a dangerous job to do every day and that you could not afford to take unnecessary risks–we took too many “necessary” ones daily as it was. I tried to impress many, many times on him that you never went anywhere three times in a row. Gorske never believed it. His stated goal was to win the Congressional Medal of Honor. I had hoped he would receive a real scare that would make him understand how lethal our mission was. But his first and only scare was Cambodia. I've always felt that I failed him, that I didn't fulfill my obligation as his commander and friend. He was my only fatality.
Captain Lodoen of E/5-12 Infantry lowered his binoculars from the smoke rising from the crash site