220th Enlisted Member Recognition—1965-1971:
The Advance Party in June 1965 included the following Enlisted Men:
| Early July | Gustaf Fajerson was instrumental in the design of the 220th unit patch |
| 3 Sep 1965 | Specialist Gustaf Fajerson was selected as 14th Aviation Battalion Soldier of the Month (assume this was for August). |
| 10 Dec 1965 | Specialist Kenneth Selby was awarded Army Commendation Medal for locating a badly wounded ARVN soldier during the search for survivors of Operation Harvest Moon |
| 17 Feb 1966 | Specialist George Castleberry was recommended for the Soldiers Medal for his unsuccessful attempt to rescue a US Army Lieutenant trapped in a burning USMC CH-34 which crashed at Hue Phu Bai Airfield (No record of award) |
| 5 Apr 1966 | Specialist Roger Bradley was recommended for the Bronze Star Medal for meritorious service for single handedly crewing eight aircraft for five days during political uprising in the city of Da Nang (No record of award).[The rest of the crew chiefs (and some of the pilots) were "holed up," actually restricted to their billets at that time in Da Nang, during the uprising and could not get to the Marble Mountain Airfield.] |
| For July 1966 | Bill Schmale recognized SP5 ( ? ) Richter, 3rd Platoon, Da Nang, in a letter to "Woody" Harrison dated 27 October 1967, in that he crewed the high aircraft hours flown for the month - 234 hours. Average hours per bird in July was 143.2 hours for the entire company. The 2nd Platoon in Hue and the Hq (Maintenance Platoon and pilots) were also kept quite busy turning airplanes around during Operation Hastings. Bill´s note (in the same letter to "Woody" Woodhurst) [he kept a lot of notes on just about everything] stated that after being declared operational on 1 August 1965 we closed out through 31 July 1966 with 30,721 hours with an average of 114 hours per aircraft per month. During that time we also had a lot of crew chiefs, mechanics, cooks and other people in the Company Hq and Maintenance Platoon working around the clock. |
| October 1966 | According to the same letter written by Bill Schmale after he had departed the 220th and was writing up his command after action notes, he had been informed that the 14th Aviation Battalion was submitting the nomination of the 220th for the 1966 Army Aviation Association of America (AAAA) Aviation Unit of the Year. This was obviously a great tribute to the entire 220th, its aviators and enlisted men, for the manner in which the Company was viewed by its higher headquarters, which was primarily a helicopter unit, at some distance from the "flag pole" outside Qui Nhon. However, the larger unit, the new 1st Aviation Brigade, beat out the smaller unit and was named as the recipient of that award. As Bill further stated in his letter, at least it was the thought that counted. I am sure that there were some higher "politics" and a few General Officers along the command structure who may have also had a lot to do with that decision. |
| 6 Apr 1967 | SSG Roger Putnam (and CPT Joe Hodges, his pilot) were recommended for Silver Stars for valor in action near Hoi An (Awarded later at a ceremony at Fort Rucker, AL) |
| 27 May 1967 | Specialist Fourth Class Morton R. Copland received a Lotter of Commendation from the operations officer for outstanding performance of duty as Operations Specialist. |
I have not found any other special mention of our enlisted crew members—still looking. If you have documents inputyou wish to submit, please do. We would like to carry the years out to 1971.
Note: During 1966-67 we tried to be sure that enlisted members of the Company who served well in responsible positions were recommended for the Bronze Star or an Army Commendation Medal for their meritorious service for their tour of duty. Unfortunately, that developed into a rank structured process, among other things.
Special note: Since we have been working on the history of the 220th, we owe particular thanks to Dewey Grocox, Lloyd Oake, Jose Munoz and Angel G. De La Fuente, and most recently Dennis Currie, who have contributed to the unit history files (there may be others who I have missed). If you have a story to tell and need assiatance ion putting it together, please contact Dennis Currie (see 4th Quarterly Newsletter, 2011).
COMPILER: Gene Wilson
