June 26, 1967
Today marked my first flight on Command and Liaison missions, a nearly six-hour stretch in the air that offered a broad, unsettling view of the land below. We spent most of the time ferrying personnel from one outpost to another, moving them like pieces on a board none of us designed. From above, the countryside rolled by, patchworks of green cut through by rivers and scorched clearings.
A quiet war-zone disguised in sunlight. What struck me most wasn’t the terrain but the scattered presence of Americans, small teams embedded in remote villages, isolated from the larger operations, often living among the very people whose survival hangs in the balance. These soldiers work not with rifles in hand, but with blueprints, medicine, and translated words. Their mission is to train, to organize, and to help the villagers build a fragile sense of security against the Viet Cong. They show them ways to improve their lives, dig better wells, repair schools, plant food in soil that may not see peace for decades.
It seems like a lonely existence, stationed in some forgotten corner of a foreign country, far from the camaraderie of base camps and the relative safety of the larger units. Yet, there’s something quietly noble in their purpose. It isn’t loud. It doesn’t make the newsreels or the headlines. But it matters. You can see it in the eyes of the people they serve, in the slow but steady return of trust. It’s a kind of warfare that most never hear about, one that trades bullets for belief.
Back home, this part of the war is almost invisible. The focus is always on firefights, the fallen, and politics. No one talks much about the ones who build instead of destroying, who try to leave a place better than they found it, however temporary that improvement might be.
Today, I saw that other war from the sky. It left me quiet. It left me thinking. And it reminded me that even in a conflict defined by loss, there are still those who choose to plant something lasting in the ashes.
The flying here is different from what we were taught in several ways. We fly above 1,500 feet whenever we can to stay out of small arms gunfire range. We aren’t supposed to fly IFR, but we actually do sometimes trying to maintain 1,500 feet. The approaches and takeoffs are really steep, so we don’t have to be vulnerable to gunfire for any longer than is absolutely necessary.
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