The Vietnam Tour of Jerry Esmay

June 25, 1967

I flew a two-hour “Standardization” check ride.  Included making sure that I knew how to do maneuvers the 121^st way instead of the way we were taught in flight school.  I was a little rusty, but the ride went fairly well.

The people that I’ve met so far seem to be very jovial and good-natured.  The ones who work on the base are very trustworthy.  We never lock anything up in our rooms.

I will ride co-pilot for 25 hours on Command & Liaison missions that consist of re-supplying Special Forces outposts and hauling people around.  After that I will spend about 150 – 200 hours as co-pilot on combat assault missions before I get the chance to be an aircraft commander.  I guess this usually takes about two months and if I want, I can then put in for the Gunships and I think I will.

The environment here is just about what I expected.  It’s so hot and humid that you sweat constantly 24 hours a day.  The country is as flat as a tabletop around here and most of the land is farmed for rice.  This is the rainy season so about 2/3 of the land is covered with water right now.  There are canals running all over the place that were built by the French many years ago.  The people are for the most part poor, so you see a lot of filth and sickness around.

This is a seven day-a-week war over here.  Sunday (today) is just like any other working day as I guess the V.C. caught on to the fact that the Americans usually have Sundays off.  We still get a lot of time off though due to weather and a lack of missions.

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