Speaker 1: Welcome to Veterans Chronicles. I'm Greg Corumbus. Our guest in
Speaker 1: this edition is retired US Army Lieutenant Colonel Bruce mckentee.
Speaker 1: He served twenty one years in uniform, and he is
Speaker 1: also a veteran of the Vietnam War, where he flew
Speaker 1: Cobra attack helicopters. He was also shot down by an
Speaker 1: enemy SA seven heat seeking missile and barely escaped with
Speaker 1: his life in nineteen seventy two. We'll hear that story
Speaker 1: and how he was rescued in great detail in today's podcast.
Speaker 1: We'll also learn all about the cobras and what types
Speaker 1: of missions he was flying over Vietnam. Bruce mckentye was
Speaker 1: born into an army family, and he says his path
Speaker 1: from being the son of an officer to an ROTC
Speaker 1: cadet to becoming a career Army officer seemed natural from
Speaker 1: a very early age.
Speaker 2: I was born into the Army. My father was a
Speaker 2: World War Two, Korean War, and Vietnam veteran. He served
Speaker 2: thirty one years in the field artillery. I grew up
Speaker 2: in the military environment and enjoyed it. I went to
Speaker 2: high school. I went to school all over the United States,
Speaker 2: and I went to high school in France. So that's
Speaker 2: a pretty good start in life. Go to high school
Speaker 2: in Paris, France. How many people can do that. I
Speaker 2: went to college at Texas A and University, and I
Speaker 2: went there strictly to obtain a commission in the United
Speaker 2: States Army. I was planning to be a career officer
Speaker 2: ever since high school. So I completed Texas A and
Speaker 2: M in nineteen seventy graduated, and I went to went
Speaker 2: into my Officer Basic course. I was a Field Artillery
Speaker 2: officer on active duty, but I was also obligated to
Speaker 2: go to flight school because I went through the ROTWC
Speaker 2: flight program at Texas.
Speaker 3: A and M.
Speaker 2: In January of nineteen seventy one, I went to my
Speaker 2: Officer Basic course at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, completed that. I
Speaker 2: had four months to wait until I could go to
Speaker 2: flight school. So I was an OCAs tack officer and
Speaker 2: the local officer candidate school battalion and as a tack
Speaker 2: officer until I went to flight school, and I think
Speaker 2: it started in April of nineteen seventy one. Went to
Speaker 2: Fort Walters, Texas, where I went through ULSER Primary Helicopter School,
Speaker 2: in the THH fifty five helicopter, and I really enjoyed
Speaker 2: that because I went to school in Texas, I felt
Speaker 2: like I was right at home. So that was a
Speaker 2: four month course, I believe. Once we completed that, we
Speaker 2: went to Fort Rucker, Alabama for our advanced helicopter training,
Speaker 2: which we did instrument training, we did contact training, and
Speaker 2: to learn how to fly the UH one helicopter, which
Speaker 2: was the basic workhorse of the army.
Speaker 1: Mckentie completed flight school in April of nineteen seventy two,
Speaker 1: and soon he was off to Vietnam as an attack
Speaker 1: helicopter pilot, specifically in cobras.
Speaker 2: It's an H one G Cobra attack helicopter made by
Speaker 2: bel Helicopter was made and made and fielid into the
Speaker 2: Army in nineteen sixty seven. Was built strictly as an
Speaker 2: attack helicopter. He was the first helicopter to be built
Speaker 2: just as an attack helicopter. Tandem seating front and back seat,
Speaker 2: fully closed canopy just like a jet a fighter jet
Speaker 2: had air conditioning. Because it was a closed canopy, that
Speaker 2: was a nice feature Vietnam.
Speaker 3: It's only three feet wide. The fuse launch. It was
Speaker 3: a very unique helicopter.
Speaker 2: I decided that if I was going to go to
Speaker 2: Vietnam and get shot at, I wanted to be in
Speaker 2: something that could shoot back, and this could do the job.
Speaker 1: McKenty just explained a bit at the end of that
Speaker 1: last response why he loved flying the Cobra so much,
Speaker 1: the weaponry, and he told us quite a bit more
Speaker 1: about the power the Cobra could unleash upon an enemy.
Speaker 2: Well special about it as it had a lot of
Speaker 2: weapons on it. There were multiple configurations that you could
Speaker 2: put on that aircraft, from the two point seven to
Speaker 2: five inch fold in fen Areo rocket at seven point
Speaker 2: six two millimeter miniguns at a forty milimeter grenade launcher automatic.
Speaker 2: I forget the rate of fire for the forty millimeters,
Speaker 2: but it was it was something like four hundred rounds
Speaker 2: a minute or something, and the miniguns were two thousand
Speaker 2: or four thousand rounds per minute you could fire. And
Speaker 2: the rockets they went on the rocket pods and the
Speaker 2: wing stores, and you had eighteen shot rocket pods and
Speaker 2: seven shot rocket pods, so you had indoor pods and
Speaker 2: you were which were normally the heavier pods, which were
Speaker 2: the eighteen shot rocket pods and M two hundred I
Speaker 2: think it was called, and then they had M one
Speaker 2: five eight pods, which were the seven shot rocket pods
Speaker 2: on the outboard.
Speaker 1: Mkenty also says the Cobra had good speed and could
Speaker 1: stay in the air for quite a while before needing
Speaker 1: to refuel.
Speaker 2: The top speed was about one hundred and eighty miles
Speaker 2: an hour in the one hundred and eighty.
Speaker 3: Knots nautica miles per hour.
Speaker 2: The fuel range was about two and a half hours,
Speaker 2: and we normally, you know, flew for about two hours
Speaker 2: two hours fifteen minutes before we returned to the station
Speaker 2: for fuel.
Speaker 1: By the time McKenty went to Vietnam, much of the
Speaker 1: American public and especially people his age, had soured on
Speaker 1: the war effort, but McKenty says he was laser focused
Speaker 1: on training and getting ready for the duty that he
Speaker 1: knew would be coming.
Speaker 2: Well, I went to a military school, Texas Stadem, although
Speaker 2: it's not a military academy, at a pretty strong military school,
Speaker 2: just like the Citadel and VMI.
Speaker 3: So everybody's pretty gung ho.
Speaker 2: Military were very patriotic, and we did what our president.
Speaker 3: Told us to do.
Speaker 2: So I had no doubt that once I completed helicopter
Speaker 2: training and I was going to Vietnam, although most of
Speaker 2: my class de duct out of Vietnam, because it was
Speaker 2: at that point in the Vietnam that they were starting
Speaker 2: to stand down the military divisions and ground troops and
Speaker 2: sending them home.
Speaker 3: In fact, when I arrived.
Speaker 2: In Vietnam, there were a very very few ground troops there.
Speaker 1: When he arrived in Vietnam, McKenty became very aware of
Speaker 1: certain things that were very different than they were back home.
Speaker 1: From the climate, to the enemy threats, to the general
Speaker 1: condition of the country. He immediately knew he was in
Speaker 1: a whole new world.
Speaker 2: What impressed me it was very very hot, It was
Speaker 2: very very human. He broke out into a sweat as
Speaker 2: soon as you got off the airplane. We're all in
Speaker 2: our lightweight tw uniforms, and it was instant sweat as
Speaker 2: soon as you walked down the ramp.
Speaker 3: What really stuck with me was riding in.
Speaker 2: We got on a bus to ride to a processing center,
Speaker 2: and as your driver down the bus had had like
Speaker 2: a wire on the on the windows. It was like
Speaker 2: a chain link fence on all the windows. So and
Speaker 2: I've tried to figure.
Speaker 3: Out what that was all about.
Speaker 2: And the guy goes to grenades, so grenades don't get
Speaker 2: in the bus and go off, they hit the screen
Speaker 2: and bounce out. So that plus, when we got into
Speaker 2: a civilian part of the country, all the structures that
Speaker 2: I could see there were so many just old tin
Speaker 2: roofs and they were arrested, and just pieces of metal
Speaker 2: that don't even match covering the tops of the rous
Speaker 2: and I was just amazed.
Speaker 3: I mean, my father spent a couple of tours in Europe.
Speaker 2: I went to high school in France and never saw
Speaker 2: anything like that, so that was quite shocking.
Speaker 1: Mkenty didn't go up in the Cobra immediately, he says,
Speaker 1: for a short time. Other duties took up his time.
Speaker 2: I actually stayed they called it Camp Alpha, which is
Speaker 2: right there in Saigon, and stayed there a couple of
Speaker 2: days until they decided which unit that I was going to.
Speaker 2: I don't know how they made those decisions. All he
Speaker 2: knew was I was a cob rated commissioned officer and
Speaker 2: so they were limited. I couldn't go to just any
Speaker 2: helicopter unit. I had to go like an aerial field
Speaker 2: arty unit or to an air cavalry unit. Where they
Speaker 2: had Cobra helicopters. So I just sat there and waited.
Speaker 2: I wanted to go to the first calve. I ended
Speaker 2: up in the first calve, so I was very happy.
Speaker 1: When it was time to fly. Mkenty says he was
Speaker 1: very confident in his skills, but was keenly aware he
Speaker 1: had never used them in combat, so he learned everything
Speaker 1: he could from the more experienced pilots.
Speaker 3: No, I was focused on learning my job.
Speaker 2: I was I knew how to fly the alicopter and
Speaker 2: did really know how to perform the mission of an
Speaker 2: air cavalry troop. So I concentrated on trying to learn
Speaker 2: from the experienced The aircraft commander that I was flying
Speaker 2: with cover is a two person helicopter. You have an
Speaker 2: aircraft commander who is a rated pilot in the back seat.
Speaker 2: He flies the aircraft and controls the winging, stores all
Speaker 2: the rocket firing. Then you have a front seat who
Speaker 2: was also a rated pilot, and he has controls up
Speaker 2: there that he could fly the aircraft, and he can
Speaker 2: yes switches that he could take over, and he could
Speaker 2: fire rockets that he could fire machine gun in forty
Speaker 2: millimeter either see could do that, but the aircraft commander
Speaker 2: sat in the back, and he's the guy that has
Speaker 2: all the experience. He's been there probably in country five
Speaker 2: or six months already, and he's now the aircraft commander.
Speaker 3: And I'm a pilot.
Speaker 2: I'm a pilot copilot gunner, and so I learned from
Speaker 2: him the mission of the air cavalry and how to
Speaker 2: navigate across that strange land. I mean a lot of
Speaker 2: jungle of bryce patties and mountains or pretty diverse terrain
Speaker 2: to learn how to navigate around. And I learned how
Speaker 2: to when we were out in free fire areas. You know,
Speaker 2: we'd do some target practice on trees or something, just
Speaker 2: learning the fire better when we weren't actually looking for
Speaker 2: the bad guys.
Speaker 1: That's retired US Army Lieutenant Colonel Bruce McEntee. He's also
Speaker 1: a Vietnam veteran who was wounded twice while serving as
Speaker 1: a Cobra attack helicopter pilot. One of those times he
Speaker 1: was also shot down. That story and the dramatic rescue
Speaker 1: that followed are straight ahead. I'm Greg Corumbus, and this
Speaker 1: is Veterans Chronicles.
Speaker 3: Sixty Seconds of Service.
Speaker 4: This sixty Seconds of Service is presented by T.
Speaker 2: Mobile.
Speaker 4: T mobile offers exclusive discounts for a veteran and military
Speaker 4: families and are proud supporters of the National Defense Network.
Speaker 4: Visit tmobile dot com slash military to learn more about
Speaker 4: how they support our military community and Indiana ambulance service
Speaker 4: providers trying to address shortages and look out for veterans
Speaker 4: at the same time. Transcare's new training program aims to
Speaker 4: do two things. First, addressed to EMS personnel shortage. Second,
Speaker 4: provide veterans and recently transitioned service members and easier return
Speaker 4: to civilian life. The intent is to help veterans understand
Speaker 4: that there are occupations out there they may have not considered.
Speaker 4: The company usually provides transports between hospital facilities, but Operation
Speaker 4: EMS is part of their effort to train and certify
Speaker 4: emergency medical technicians and paramedics. Today's sixty Seconds of Service
Speaker 4: is brought to you by Prevagen. Prevagen is the number
Speaker 4: one pharmacist recommended memory support brand. You can find Prevagen
Speaker 4: and the Vitamin Aisle in stores everywhere.
Speaker 1: This is Veterans Chronicles. I'm Greg Corumba's. Our guest in
Speaker 1: this edition is retired US Army Lieutenant Colonel and Cobra
Speaker 1: Attack helicopter pilot Bruce mckentie, who now begins the story
Speaker 1: of how he was shot down over Vietnam in nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy two.
Speaker 2: That day I was flying with Bobby Reinhardt. He was
Speaker 2: a CW two experience. He's probably about seven or eight
Speaker 2: years older than I am and had probably about tener.
Speaker 3: Eleven years of the army.
Speaker 2: The other helicopter was combated by CW two Bob Minette.
Speaker 2: We call him Buffalo Bob, and one of my best
Speaker 2: friends to this day. He was on his second tour.
Speaker 2: He was also one of the instructor pilots of the Cobra.
Speaker 2: Very experienced, and I had a lot of flights with him.
Speaker 2: And his front seat was First Lieutenant Danny Buddha, another
Speaker 2: new guy like me, right out of flight school, first
Speaker 2: tour in Vietnam, and then Wally Wall He was a
Speaker 2: City of B two and he he was an experienced
Speaker 2: helicopter pilot and he was on his second tour. He
Speaker 2: was flying the six Alpha, which is their scout helicopter.
Speaker 2: So and George Hewlett was the troop commander, and First
Speaker 2: Lieutenant Jefferies was the.
Speaker 3: Co pilot for the.
Speaker 2: Command and Control ship and they we all took off.
Speaker 2: We were flying in the Razorback Mountains, which was in
Speaker 2: between the city of Tannin in the Tetan province and
Speaker 2: in the Cambodian border.
Speaker 3: Up around the parents.
Speaker 2: Beat kind of low mountainous, not big high mountains there
Speaker 2: a couple thousand feet first of all, the C and
Speaker 2: C ship gets up around four thousand feet where he
Speaker 2: could get sight.
Speaker 3: Of the whole area.
Speaker 2: We're flying altitude. When I first got in country, we
Speaker 2: were flying right on top of the trees because we
Speaker 2: didn't have IR suppression kits, and they had lost a
Speaker 2: lot of cobras in the months of the Eastern Offensive
Speaker 2: of nineteen seventy two. He'd lost a lot of cobra
Speaker 2: helicopters to SA seven he seeking missiles. So when I
Speaker 2: got there, they were retrofitting all the aircraft with IR
Speaker 2: suppression kits so we could fly at altitude. Did most
Speaker 2: of my flying before this right on top of the
Speaker 2: tree tops at one hundred and fifty miles an hour,
Speaker 2: flying circles around a little bird in the middle, trying
Speaker 2: to protect him and to react if he got shot at.
Speaker 2: We'd been flying at altitude for several months, but it
Speaker 2: was still uneasy because the clouds were low, with the
Speaker 2: cloud through about two thousand feet. We were flying at
Speaker 2: about eighteen hundred feet below that, which is put you
Speaker 2: in the range for SA seven heat seeking missile. It
Speaker 2: also puts you in range for all their heavier anti
Speaker 2: aircraft weapons, the fifty one caliber twenty three millimeter. We're
Speaker 2: just out of range, so there's small arms, just the
Speaker 2: rifles or AK forty seven. Buffalo. Bob goes flies down,
Speaker 2: but they call trolling. He goes down in his cobra
Speaker 2: and he just tools goes through it about one hundred
Speaker 2: miles an hour or one hundred knots on top of
Speaker 2: the trees, the trolling to see if there's any bad
Speaker 2: guys down there. He didn't take any fire, so he
Speaker 2: came back up and he put the little bird on
Speaker 2: the trees. So he's just going down there and make
Speaker 2: sure we're not putting the little bird into hornet's nest.
Speaker 2: The little birds stand on the bottom, and we get
Speaker 2: into a racetrack pattern where we're flying about one hundred
Speaker 2: and eighty degrees out from each other at about eighteen
Speaker 2: hundred feet in a big circular pattern, and so that
Speaker 2: both the aircraft could keep an eye on a little
Speaker 2: bird command and control ship because of the cloud cover.
Speaker 2: He's flying at the same altitude we are, except he's
Speaker 2: flying a bigger circle around us. We're flying around and around,
Speaker 2: and I'm waiting for something to happen because I'd bet
Speaker 2: at this position before the first time I got shot.
Speaker 2: It was just a weird, eerie feeling that day. It
Speaker 2: comes with being close to the cambody in border. When
Speaker 2: you're flying on a mission in Vietnam at that time,
Speaker 2: there are no good guys on the ground. When you
Speaker 2: get shot down, you're in bad trouble if your immediate
Speaker 2: guys are flying with can't come and get you. So
Speaker 2: it's kind of spooky. Cambodia is spooky. It's like you
Speaker 2: can't see the border, but you could feel it.
Speaker 3: You get and we were.
Speaker 2: Flying close to the border. But our mission is to
Speaker 2: protect that little bird, so and as the co pilot gunner,
Speaker 2: I'm supposed to be taking notes on whatever he's finding
Speaker 2: down there. So I got straight on doing that, but
Speaker 2: I still have this weird feeling in the back of
Speaker 2: my head. We had BET up for fifteen minutes or
Speaker 2: twenty minutes, and all of a sudden.
Speaker 5: Silence. We were complete. I have to tell you I
Speaker 5: don't talk.
Speaker 1: About this often retired US Army lieutenant colonel and Cobra
Speaker 1: Attack helicopter pilot Bruce mckentee. You'll hear the rest of
Speaker 1: his incredible story in just a moment. This is Veterans Chronicles.
Speaker 1: This is Veterans Chronicles. I'm Greg Corumbus. Our guest in
Speaker 1: this edition is retired US Army Lieutenant Colonel Bruce McKenty.
Speaker 1: He's also a Vietnam veteran. He flew Cobra Attack helicopters
Speaker 1: over Vietnam and narrowly survived being shot down by an
Speaker 1: enemy SA seven heat seeking missile in nineteen seventy two.
Speaker 1: McKenty now picks up the story right after his Cobra
Speaker 1: was hit.
Speaker 3: We had.
Speaker 2: Absolute silence, which was just areas because part of that
Speaker 2: there was a lot of rotorblade noise and a lot
Speaker 2: of injined noise, and a lot of communication traffic on
Speaker 2: three different radios because the little bird was reported a
Speaker 2: lot of activity, and that you know, little one band
Speaker 2: trails we saw yesterday or the day before were now
Speaker 2: you know, jeep tracks or something, you know, vehicle tracks
Speaker 2: bent that there were people coming across the border, and
Speaker 2: that's why we were up there on the border to
Speaker 2: find out if they were coming back.
Speaker 3: And because Adlock the.
Speaker 2: Easter Offensive of seventy two, you know, started in like
Speaker 2: March April of seventy two and ended the end of June,
Speaker 2: beginning of July, and I got there in July. We
Speaker 2: weren't sure if it was complete, if they were done,
Speaker 2: so we knew there were a lot of bad guys
Speaker 2: on the other side of the border trying to get across.
Speaker 2: It was eerie because all that noise went away and
Speaker 2: all of a sudden, it's.
Speaker 3: Like, what's going on?
Speaker 2: Uh, Well, we knew it was called on. I mean,
Speaker 2: we got hit and we didn't know with what we
Speaker 2: knew it was big because the aircraft shook and the
Speaker 2: UH and we could see the flames outside the canopy.
Speaker 2: The aircraft was on fire and we caught uh fire immediately.
Speaker 2: We lost our engine immediately, we lost uh A not
Speaker 2: on the engine, electrical you know, hydraulics, we lost everything.
Speaker 2: We couldn't even talk to each other. We had to
Speaker 2: yell back and forth in the canopy and UH Bobby,
Speaker 2: being experienced UH pilot you know, entered all the rotation. Uh,
Speaker 2: yelling back and forth. You know, we don't have hydraulics.
Speaker 2: Hydraulic reservoir which is about eighteen inches behind his head.
Speaker 2: On the other side of a thin firewall exploded, burned
Speaker 2: into the cockpit with us. The cockpit started filling with smoke.
Speaker 3: And fumes and fire.
Speaker 2: The fire came started to commit. Bobby's screaming that he's burning.
Speaker 2: I can't see Bobby. He's back behind me. We have
Speaker 2: a instrument console in between us. So he says, help
Speaker 2: me get on the controls and so I but they
Speaker 2: slide away, grabbed by little short controls I have in
Speaker 2: the front, and we are trying to slow the aircraft down.
Speaker 2: We were doing about one hundred and twenty knots when
Speaker 2: we got hit. Airspeed for all rotation is eighty nuts.
Speaker 2: We're trying to slow this thing down. We're heading towards
Speaker 2: the only clearing that we could see as an arc light,
Speaker 2: scarred terrain in the middle of the jungle where they
Speaker 2: dropped one hundred and eight five hundred pound bombs. That's
Speaker 2: what our arc light consists of from B fifty two's
Speaker 2: so we could see that. So that's the only place
Speaker 2: that we could see where there might be a flat
Speaker 2: terrain for us to land. So we're now fighting trying
Speaker 2: to get control of the aircraft, but we're also fighting
Speaker 2: trying to breathe. We can't breathe. It is talk, it
Speaker 2: is we're coughing our gutsa. So we're at about fifteen
Speaker 2: hundred feet fourteen hundred feet and I said, you know,
Speaker 2: we need air. I opened my front I left canopy.
Speaker 2: You know, I supposed to open him above sixty nns
Speaker 2: or it's gonna rip off. I don't care, you know,
Speaker 2: I'm I need fresh air. All that did was feed
Speaker 2: the fire, and the fire just enveloped both of us.
Speaker 2: The entire cockit was covered, was in flame. And I
Speaker 2: was gonna jump. I was gonna undo my seatbelt and jump,
Speaker 2: and I said, I'm going I'm jumping. Bobby opened his
Speaker 2: canopy and as soon as he opened his canopy, it's
Speaker 2: on the back right, it created a cross draft of
Speaker 2: one hundred not win and it just took all the
Speaker 2: fire and all the smoke right out the back and
Speaker 2: we buckle up. So we decided to buckle back up,
Speaker 2: and we're going to ride this.
Speaker 3: Puppy in.
Speaker 2: So now we can breathe. We're not getting burned anymore.
Speaker 2: Bobby got burned bad. But we now have to get
Speaker 2: control of this aircraft to get it on the ground.
Speaker 2: We're headed in the right direction. We're still trying to
Speaker 2: slow this thing down. We do we were doing in
Speaker 2: excess of a one hundred knots and we need to
Speaker 2: get it back to eighty. And the bad thing is
Speaker 2: at the very bottom. We need to pull back on
Speaker 2: that cyclic some more, to do a little flare action
Speaker 2: to slow down from doing eighty knots to you know,
Speaker 2: something like thirty or forty knots before we can touch
Speaker 2: down and cushion with our collective. And we are just
Speaker 2: straining with all of our might to slow this thing down.
Speaker 2: We finally can feel that we're slowing it down, but
Speaker 2: we don't We're not going to have anything at the bottom,
Speaker 2: so we have really no control of where we're gonna
Speaker 2: set this thing down. We're just heading for that park
Speaker 2: Lake area and hope we don't hit trees.
Speaker 3: I just remember at the very.
Speaker 2: Bottom, I remember, I mean we're fifty feet and we're
Speaker 2: still traveling fast and I don't know, forty miles fifty
Speaker 2: miles an hour, maybe faster, I don't know, but we
Speaker 2: were going in fast, and we're pulling on both controls,
Speaker 2: both of us, as hard as we can to try
Speaker 2: to get at the slow down. Otherwise we figured it's
Speaker 2: going to be in said death if we hit at
Speaker 2: seventy or eighty miles an hour. And what do we hit.
Speaker 2: We don't know. We're going to hit wherever we hit
Speaker 2: because we don't have that control. We're pulling with all
Speaker 2: of our might, and then all of a sudden, the
Speaker 2: ground is right there. I let go of the controls
Speaker 2: at that point and did this just try to cover
Speaker 2: my face, and that's all I remember.
Speaker 3: I was knocked unconscious.
Speaker 1: As McKenty said earlier, there weren't any good guys on
Speaker 1: the ground except the ones he flew in with, and
Speaker 1: they are exactly why he's here today to tell his
Speaker 1: story because, as McKenty explains here, his fellow pilot was
Speaker 1: a hero that day and moved him away from enemy
Speaker 1: forces in the nick of time.
Speaker 2: Everything I I'll tell you now is what was told
Speaker 2: to me later by Bobby and Buffalo, Bob and Wally,
Speaker 2: who were flying the other two aircraft, the Little Bird
Speaker 2: and the other Cobra, which they told me later because
Speaker 2: they were out the cobra and the little bird.
Speaker 3: We're out flying and.
Speaker 2: Shooting the bad guys who were trying to come.
Speaker 3: And get us.
Speaker 2: Bobby tells me later that he's out of the aircraft
Speaker 2: and he's.
Speaker 3: Going with Bruce, and there's no Bruce.
Speaker 2: When our aircraft hit we apparently the skids spread flatten.
Speaker 2: It hit the ground, bounced upside down, cut the tail
Speaker 2: boom off with the rotor, and landed upside down. I
Speaker 2: assume I was knocked out when we initially hit the ground.
Speaker 2: So Bobby gets out and there's no Bruce, and he
Speaker 2: looks back at the aircraft and sees me hanging upside down,
Speaker 2: covered in. My face is covered in blood.
Speaker 3: So he assumes I'm dead.
Speaker 2: But he's not going to leave my body there to burn,
Speaker 2: so he came back.
Speaker 3: Now we're on fire.
Speaker 2: We have a full load of ammunition rockets forty millimeters
Speaker 2: in minigan, so we're upside down there in the fire.
Speaker 2: Where it was on the top, now it's on the
Speaker 2: bottom and it's burning up towards all that ammunition. Bobby
Speaker 2: comes down and cuts me out of my seat, drags
Speaker 2: me out of the aircraft, and he was I don't
Speaker 2: know if he was going to drag me all the
Speaker 2: way back to the rescue after aircraft or what he
Speaker 2: was going to do. But I started to come too
Speaker 2: and moaning and groaning. Then he goes, oh, you're alive.
Speaker 2: So he stops and he picks me up and he
Speaker 2: so I'm standing there all of a sudden, and everything
Speaker 2: else is still not totally there. I just know that
Speaker 2: I'm running and Bobby's dragging me. I fall, Bobby picks
Speaker 2: me up, We run some more. We could hear the
Speaker 2: helicopter rescue helicopter. We could hear the rotor blades of
Speaker 2: the engine, but we couldn't see it. We had jungle,
Speaker 2: not real big thick jungle, but we had jungle trees.
Speaker 2: And we took the right path, I guess, because all
Speaker 2: of a sudden we busted out into a little clearing
Speaker 2: and there's George Hewlett in his uh one h sitting
Speaker 2: there waiting for us, and we were so happy. So
Speaker 2: we run over the aircraft and we climb on board
Speaker 2: the cour chief. He gut her and pulls of some onboard.
Speaker 2: The first thing I did was run up.
Speaker 3: And give Georgie a big hug and I.
Speaker 2: Started smoking on the first time I got wounded in Vietnam,
Speaker 2: and so I grabbed a cigarette and I first had
Speaker 2: a little cigarette.
Speaker 3: They took off the other cobra with Buffalo.
Speaker 2: I think they fired up some rockets on our arcob
Speaker 2: to make sure it burned up and blew up, and
Speaker 2: we did hear some stuff cooking off as we were
Speaker 2: running away from it. I'm glad Bobby came back and
Speaker 2: got me when he did, because it'd been much longer
Speaker 2: I'd have probably gotten caught and all that, so pretty
Speaker 2: traumatic day. They flew us back to like Hay where
Speaker 2: we were standing on over and another aircraft took us
Speaker 2: down to We switched into another hue and they flew
Speaker 2: us down to Sagon where the third Field He hospital
Speaker 2: is and which is where we got taken care of.
Speaker 1: Bruce McKenty recovered from his burns quite a bit sooner
Speaker 1: than Bobby Reinhardt, the pilot who saved him. He then
Speaker 1: took some scheduled time off back in the States, but
Speaker 1: after McKenty told his story to his father, who was
Speaker 1: still an active duty Army officer at Fort Hood, his
Speaker 1: dad made sure Bruce got more medical tests and an
Speaker 1: X ray showed he did, in fact have a fractured skull.
Speaker 1: He was still fit to serve, including as a headquarters
Speaker 1: company commander back in Vietnam, but he would not fly
Speaker 1: in Vietnam again. In reflecting upon his career, Mkenty says
Speaker 1: he is most proud of the leadership roles he held
Speaker 1: and the people he helped to influence.
Speaker 2: That was very, very proud of my ability to command.
Speaker 2: I enjoyed commanding. I had the headquarters company in Vietnam.
Speaker 2: Later on had the a battery, third seventeen Field Artillery
Speaker 2: in an artillery assignment in Germany. For two and a
Speaker 2: half years. As a major, I was a commander for
Speaker 2: the Headquarters United States Army. What a title? Headquarters for
Speaker 2: the United States Army. I owned all the soldiers in
Speaker 2: the Pentagon. So I enjoyed command. I'm very proud that
Speaker 2: and hoped that I influenced a lot of younger officers
Speaker 2: and that listed people to follow on my footsteps and
Speaker 2: become career military. I know that there was some field
Speaker 2: artillery spec fors ephors that they came to flight school
Speaker 2: because of Mata. I was an aviator in an artillery
Speaker 2: unit and they would talk to me about flying, and
Speaker 2: two of them came to flight school later on, and
Speaker 2: I bumped into one of them as a young warrant
Speaker 2: officer when I was at In fact, it was a
Speaker 2: Thanksgiving dinner at Fort Myer, Virginia, and bumped into him there.
Speaker 2: He was there with his family. He was from DC.
Speaker 2: So that was that was it. I hope that I
Speaker 2: inspired others to do well, to serve their country and
Speaker 2: to make this a great country it is.
Speaker 1: That's retired US Army Colonel Bruce mckentie. He served twenty
Speaker 1: one years in uniform and he's also a Vietnam veteran
Speaker 1: flying Cobra attack helicopters. He was shot down by an
Speaker 1: enemy SA seven missile in nineteen seventy two. I'm Greg
Speaker 1: Corumbus and this is Veterans Chronicles. Hi, this is Greg Corumbus,
Speaker 1: and thanks for listening to Veterans Chronicles, a presentation of
Speaker 1: the American Veterans Center. For more information, please visit American
Speaker 1: Veteranscenter dot org. You can also follow the American Veterans
Speaker 1: Center on faceboo, book, and on Twitter. We're at AVC update.
Speaker 1: Subscribe to the American Veterans Center YouTube channel for full
Speaker 1: oral histories and special features, and of course please subscribe
Speaker 1: to the Veterans Chronicles podcast wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: Thanks again for listening, and please join us next time
Speaker 1: for Veterans Chronicles