“Thanks for Saving My Life”

submitted by: Alva Leon Matheson


On October 11, 1971, I took off on a SOG support mission. I had been an O-2A FAC for about a year, out of Pleiku in the highlands, and was launching that morning with a special call sign of “MIKE 14” to fly the same type of Prairie Fire mission I had flown for about six months in support of CCC at Kontum. I took off solo, as it was getting light, about 0600. I was to fly “cap” in the area of the Ia Drang for a team that (I found out later) had parachuted into the Ia Drang, a bad neighborhood where an NVA regiment was said to be bivouacked. The team was the usual small team of Green Berets, but this time all U.S.
I expected an uneventful cap until my time on station was up, as the weather was unusable for TACAIR fighter support if the team got in trouble. I had been on station, just in radio range, for hours. My fuel tanks indicated it was about RTB time. The team had “whispered” all was OK several times to me over Fox Mike. They were somewhere beneath a nearly solid undercast deck. I had been in and out of clouds and rain, between multiple layers, that went well above me.
With about 30 minutes of fuel left, the FM radio came alive with the sound of gunfire in the background and the team leader clearly on the run, shouting, and urgently requesting TAC air support. The big problem was that the weather was the aftermath of a typhoon and was about 80% overcast, with a many-layered deck system, lots of ground fog, and intermittent drizzle. TAC air support was out of the question. SSGT John “Plasticman” Plaster, who wrote the book “SOG” as a retired Major, has this incident in his book and his later large photo book. He later said this was the worst weather he had flown in during three tours (John, as Covey Rider, and pilot 1/Lt. Glenn Wright, later relieved me on station after they had gone back to Pleiku to get an M16 to shoot out the window.)
I was the only “TACAIR” nearby and able to provide any support, with only my 14 Willie Pete smoke rockets. I decided to try and find them and “strafe” the enemy chasing the team, with my marking rockets. I remember starting to descend through the weather thinking “here goes nothing” to myself (figuring the odds of finding them in all that weather about zero.) I began to ask the team leader for his position relative to the sound of my engines. I flew toward his direction until he said it sounded like I was overhead. I then spiraled, and banked, and dove down looking for holes. I descended, alert to breaking out of the “soup.” What happened next might be classified as a miracle.
I accomplished a number of spirals after starting down from about 3,000 feet over the undercast deck. I saw patches of ground at about 500’ and was at about 200’ or so when I broke out in a tight left bank. I spotted bomb craters nearly directly beneath me. In the middle of one crater was an orange marking panel about six feet square. I asked the team leader if he was in that bomb crater with an orange panel out. He said “affirmative”, and requested TAC air support.
I replied that TAC air was a negative, but told him I would give him what I had. I asked him where the enemy was and he stated “all around in the tree line.” I told him to take cover as I was going to use my rockets. As I rolled in on my first pass, and armed my master arm switch, I remember thinking, “this is wild”. I frankly don’t remember much concern about my altitude, for I was so focused on the crater and helping out. I proceeded to make multiple, low passes; firing multiple, single, and sometimes dry rocket passes while “jinking” to beat the band. I didn’t bother using the gunsight, but just eyeballed my shots. At that range, it was a piece of cake to hit the tree line all around the crater.
When I asked him how I was doing he enthusiastically responded, “Great, keep it coming!” I called for a helicopter extraction and gave them a TACAN radial and distance to come to. I stayed over them as long as I could, but decided to RTB when I knew 1/Lt. Wright and SSGT Plaster were on their way in another O-2A, that choppers were on the way, and I had just enough fuel to make it back to Pleiku.
I passed Wright and Plaster and several Hueys, all of us very low and in-and-out of the weather, as I flew back under the scud in a north- easterly direction towards Pleiku. We were all flying along the bed of the Ia Drang River or a tributary. They, of course, were headed in a south- westerly direction. Wright and I rocked wings at each other as we passed (I never knew that he was the relief FAC until 29 years later when we discussed the mission at the first FAC reunion!). Plaster swore he was looking out side ways at tree branches when we passed each other. I landed back at Pleiku with one tank on empty and the other tank a needle width above empty. The crew chief later remarked about how dry my tanks were. I debriefed and went to my hooch.
The next day I was at Kontum, the location of the CCC compound, for another mission briefing. As I stood in a chow line, a voice from behind got my attention. I turned to see a handsome, blond haired sergeant with a big grin on his face. He asked me if I had been “MIKE 14” the day before. I responded rather routinely, “yep,” not really getting why he was asking. He then stuck out his hand and enthusiastically shook mine and stated, “Thanks for saving my life.” I responded “sure, no problem” and turned back to get lunch. He had been the team leader in the bomb crater the day before.
The impact of his words didn’t hit me until much later. His “thanks” made my entire tour worthwhile. It summed up the bond we Covey FACs had with the extraordinarily gutsy and gallant Green Berets of SOG.

Editor’s Note: See the story titled ‘HALO’ by Glenn Wright in this section.