Preserving The Oral HistorIES of Combat Veterans
2:16 | It was a lucky shot from a Viet Cong fighter. Door gunner Kevin Hathaway tells how his aircraft commander displayed superb flying skill as he landed his chopper with the gearbox disabled.
Keywords : Kevin Hathaway Vietnam door gunner helicopter (chopper) pilot tail rotor Perforated Steel Planking (PSP)
Raised in the projects of South Boston, Kevin Hathaway was so impressed with John F. Kennedy's speech about what you can do for your country that he quit high school and joined the Army. At basic training, he met a man who changed his life, his drill sergeant.
Kevin Hathaway was only seventeen but he was serving with the mechanized infantry in Germany. He knew he would be going to Vietnam once he turned eighteen, but he figured out a way to get reclassified as a door gunner on a helicopter. He would fly over rice paddies instead of slogging through them.
Kevin Hathaway already knew the M60 machine gun very well when he arrived in Vietnam. Now he had to learn about the helicopters. He was a new door gunner, which means he had to help the crew chief maintain the choppers.
After a while, door gunner Kevin Hathaway got in a groove and the helicopter assaults became routine. He recalls one troop insertion which required the troops to jump as the chopper hovered over water. He knew the water was deep and he tried in vain to warn a very short soldier.
Kevin Hathaway talks about the enemy weapons he encountered in Vietnam. They had a lot of old .50 caliber machine guns from the French that they rolled around on carts. One day, he found an arrow from a crossbow in the tail boom of his chopper.
Door gunner Kevin Hathaway had a great pilot on his ship who had started out poorly, but grew quickly into his job as an aircraft commander. One day, he saw a Cessna spotter plane crash near an ARVN encampment. He came down to a low hover and had his gunner jump out and retrieve the injured pilot. (Caution: coarse language.)
Kevin Hathaway would often remember something his drill instructor told him in basic training. Never do anything stupid. He tried to follow that rule but, one night, as a rocket barrage started, he did something stupid.
At the end of his Vietnam tour, door gunner Kevin Hathaway was in gunships. No more ferrying troops, just shoot 'em up. On Halloween night of 1967, he was in an epic battle which included human wave assaults. (Caution: coarse language.)
You can run into old friends at unit reunions. You can also embarrass them, as Kevin Hathaway found out when that happened to him. Near the end of his tour, he and two buddies took a trip to Vung Tau, a beautiful beach resort. One of them he ran into at the reunion. The other never made it to any reunions. (Caution: coarse language.)
When he came home from Vietnam in his uniform, Kevin Hathaway's attitude was that he didn't care what you said to him, but you better not get in his space. There was no work to be found, at first, but he finally landed a job at Pratt and Whitney refurbishing jet engines. (Caution: coarse language.)
Newly laid off veteran Kevin Hathaway had to lean on family for a while. His father-in-law got him a good job with a bakery. Then, he was lucky to land an even better one as a police officer. (Caution: coarse language.)
