In July 1969 a young American GI-barely 21 years old and enticed
into the military just a year prior by his dream of flying-finds
himself on a plane bound for South Vietnam and the 101st Airborne
Division as a CH-47 Chinook helicopter pilot. So begins a year-long
journey in a combat zone of the Vietnam War-a journey of fear and
exhilaration, pain and joy, sadness and survival. Surprises of both
grief and delight pockmark the daily grind and accompanying
countdown to the day he can fly back home to the USA (called by
soldiers simply "the world") on the wings of a Freedom Bird. But
the one-year journey in Vietnam was also the beginning of another
journey-a spiritual journey of self-identity-which would take a
lifetime to unfold. In his memoir, Dale Petersen uses descriptive
prose and excerpts from letters to give the reader an intensely
personal view of that life-shaping experience over 37 years ago.
Golf 2 Tango 4 takes readers back in time to what it felt like to
be 21, homesick and unsure of what lay ahead...but willing to reach
down inside for the courage to find out.
Review This Product
Sat, 13 Nov 2010 | Review
by: Bernie W.
Bernie Weisz's Review of "Golf 2 Tango 4" 10/15/09 [email protected]
When reflecting on U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, most people hold varied, often clashing views of this intricate subject. Home to War : A History of the Vietnam Veterans Movement Doves against hawks, pro Vietnam verses dissenters, ones that claim they are experts, others that barely remember little more than Walter Cronkite's nightly toll of those both wounded and killed in action figures. Our history books are filled with famous names like Richard Nixon, Ho Chi Minh, William Westmoreland, Jane Fonda and William Calley.
There is a plethora of memoirs written about everything from how G.I's came back from the war with shattered bodies and minds. Strong at the Broken Places There are others about vets who came back with feelings of mingled pride and betrayal, and there are stories of some that never came home at all. Finally, there are more from CIA agents and media reporters, Hanoi boat people, even cameramen who took famous photo's of the war. However, this is the first memoir I have ever come across that sends a strong spiritual message of courage, faith, love and Godly devotion from the first to the last page. Don't get me wrong! This book will not preach to you Christianity, religion or the righteousness of the church. What it will do is make you realize, with Petersen cleverly inserting strong and inspiring biblical quotes at the beginning of every chapter, that "God's will was done in my life during my time in Vietnam". Petersen firmly feels that the Lord has our best interests at heart and works all things out, good or bad, whether we understand the circumstances or not, for our own good.
Writing "Golf 2 Tango 4" 37 years after he left Vietnam, Petersen had something of key importance that enabled him to write this catharsis. His wife, Donna, who helped him jog his memory of dates, people and places. Donna kept every single letter Dale had ever written her in a box under the downstairs bed. Petersen admits in the preface that his memory might be suspect: "I remembered some of the days and incidents of 1969-70 as if they'd happened yesterday. But more often than not, there was a certain haziness to my memories-in some cases so faded that the memory was almost impossible to recall.
Furthermore, Petersen adds: "Then, there was the issue of looking back through the lens of all the experiences I've had since I was in Vietnam, which color the memories of that year. This made it especially difficult to discern my spiritual standpoint at the time of Vietnam, considering the 37 years of increasing spiritual maturation I've undergone". Other Vietnam Vets have written similar accounts after the fact using saved letters to their spouses as a mental reservoir with resounding success. 1500 feet over Vietnam: A marine helicopter pilot's diary Regardless of Petersen's concerns pertaining to the trustworthiness of his memories, this memoir is an unqualified success in describing the sights, sounds, feelings and events of Peterson's 1969-70 tour of duty.
"Golf 2 Tango 4" starts out with daily dated entries, the first one being July 27th, 1969. Explaining that at age 21, Petersen had lost interest in college, and with an intense desire to fly, coupled with the Army's new "warrant officer" program (a "WO1" was not required to have a college degree, and the Army used this rank to rush thousands of helicopter pilots through flight school and into "Hueys", "Cobras","Chinooks" above the jungles in S.E. Asia) he anxiously signed up for the war. Petersen vividly describes his 19 hour TWA flight from Travis AFB, in California to Bien Hoa Air Base, in Saigon.
Assigned to the 101st Airborne Division (Airmoble), 159th Assault Support Helicopter Battalion, Petersen would fly a Chinook, i.e. a heavy lift, twin-engine, tandem rotor helicopter in "Bravo Company" which was located at Camp Eagle, I Corp., slightly south of Hue. Describing the women he encountered in Vietnam to his wife, he wrote: "Several of them were attractive..until they smiled and showed off their black teeth. In fact, virtually everyone except children had blackened teeth. All the Vietnamese chew betel nut. It makes their teeth black". In describing how the Vietnamese lived, Petersen wrote: "Everything seemed so crowded. poorly constructed shanties were everywhere. Some hovels were nothing more than pallet-size cardboard boxes emblazoned with "Pentax," Panasonic," and "Budweiser" obvious discards from a military post exchange".
For an entire year, Petersen continues his story with little anecdotes of missions he flew in his C-47 Chinnook. fighting the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong Communists. Peterson details how in flying his Chinook as an AC (aircraft commander), his missions were to place artillery batteries in perilous mountain positions inaccessible by any other means, and then keeping the firebases and landing zones resupplied with large quantities of food, water, mail and medical supplies, and ammunition. Initially used as a troop transport alongside the Huey, Petersen explains that the Chinook soon proved to be such an invaluable aircraft for artillery movement and heavy logistics that it was seldom used as an assault troop carrier. Petersen also explains that the CH-47 was also equipped to drop defoliants ("Agent Orange"), CS (tear gas) and a version of napalm called "Foo Gas" from the rear cargo ramp or a sling load carried externally onto the enemy. The Chinook CH47 was also equipped with a hoist and cargo hook, to recover and salvage downed aircrafts.
Petersen explains that although Donna is his wife today, he hadn't known her very long when he went to Vietnam. Not knowing what to make of his relationship, and afraid that in his absence from the States he would get a "Dear John" letter, he constantly emphasized how important it was for both himself and his fellow officer's morale to get mail from significant others back home. Another theme throughout the book is time. 365 Days With expressions like "double digit midgit", "sixty day loss" and "14 days and a wake-up" for his DEROS (Date of Estimated Return from Overseas Service-the day he goes home), Peterson makes it blatently obvious throughout the book that he couldn't wait to go home and get out of Vietnam. A dozen of Petersen's fellow officers and enlisted men in his company were killed by hostile ground fire, and he took each and every one of their deaths to heart.
After 5 pilots and crew members were killed when their Chinook was shot down and there are no survivors, Petersen wrote: "God, please help me. I don't know what I want you do do. I feel like crap, and I'd like it to go away....Are you even there? Maybe not here in Nam. Maybe for some reason he's just washed his hands of this place". After watching the U.S. war strategy of creating fire bases and outposts, then abandoning them, then going in and taking them back again,as well as hearing about the Cambodian incursion and Kent State, 2 weeks before Petersen ended his tour he wrote: "Were we fighting this war effectively? Or were we just getting lots of American and Vietnamese kids kids killed only to have the NVA and VC wait us out and survive, and in that way win?How We Lost the Vietnam War I just didn't know. I wished God would somehow show us clearly what was right and wrong in this. All I really knew was that I wanted to be able to go home, safe and sound."
Dale Petersen named this book after the name of "Freedom Bird" flight number which took him out of this jungle hell. A "Freedom Bird" was an expression the soldiers in Viet Nam used as a name for the airliner that brought them back to the U.S. after their tour of duty was completed. The Seaboard World charter DC-8's flight number was called "Golf 2 Tango 4", hence the name of this book. Interestingly, he shows the reader there was a drug problem in South Vietnam, as before a soldier could go on an airplane to return to "the world", he had to pass through an amnesty booth. The Drug Hazed WAR in Southeast Asia If a soldier had any intention of smuggling any drugs back to the U.S., there was a slot in a private booth to get rid of the contraband without any sanctions. Once he passed through the amnesty booth, there were drug-sniffing dogs and MP's on the other side, and there was no more amnesty.
Why did Petersen wait 37 years to write this book? He explains: "Vietnam was truly back there, behind me, more of a thing of remembrances and memories, no longer a present reality. I wanted the memories to fade, I didn't want to think about them anymore." He concludes the book with the following heart warming and patriotic comment: "In recent years I have been able finally to arrive at the conclusion that it was honorable for me to "answer the call of my country" when it came to Vietnam". This is truly an amazing story, a memoir and history lesson that must be read!
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