Keeping the Promise: The Story of MIA Jerry Elliott, a Family Shattered by His Disappearance, and a Sister's 40-Year Search for the Truth

by Elliott Donna E.

  At approximately 5:00 PM, seven Black Cat slicks approached the LZ in a staggered trail left formation. Two Alley Cat gunships provided cover on the right side on the convoy, with the third gunship on the left. Jerry felt the pitch of the chopper’s rotors change. Beneath his jump boots, he could feel the immense power of the Huey’s turbine engine as the aircraft descended. The South Vietnamese troops jostled in preparation to leave the chopper. Jerry watched the ground come closer, felt the bounce as the Huey went into a hover.

  As the first slicks touched down, all hell broke loose. Camouflaged spider holes burst open on the hillside as the 11th Company of the NVA 304th emerged from their hiding places. The highly trained regulars swarmed the LZ like a horde of insects as they sprang the ambush. Initially, the gunships thought it was South Vietnamese ARVN troops meeting the helicopters. Suddenly, the radios broke open with frantic distress calls from aircraft and crews calling for immediate suppressive fire.

  Chalk #1, piloted by McKinsey and Stiner, carried Seymoe and several ARVN passengers. Specialist 5 David Howington served as crew chief. While his regular gunner took a well-deserved break, SSGT Billy “Tex” Hill functioned as door gunner. Typical of a first-rate NCO taking care of his men, Hill, a brown-haired, blue-eyed Platoon Sergeant (PSGT) with a silver front tooth and a quick smile, had assigned himself as the door gunner replacement on this mission.

  Chalk #1 hovered a foot off the ground for a few seconds. As the chopper began to depart the hot LZ, Jerry heard a loud explosion. He instinctively knew the blast hadn’t come from any ordnance the Black Cats carried. A startled, “Oh, shit!” came through his helmet speakers. After a moment of stunned silence, the radio burst into incomprehensible shouts and screams.

  “Lead, you’re on fire!” Lee screamed over and over again into the mike. “Lead, do you read?” There was no response. Smoke boiled out of the engine as the rotor blades turned in slow motion. Hit by an 82 mm warhead B-40 antitank rocket fired by Tran Dinh Ky, 11th Company, 9th Battalion, 66-B Regiment, NVA 304th Division, Chalk #1 exploded into a huge ball of fire. The wounded aircraft pitched about twenty feet forward on its nose, and tumbled down the side of a steep ravine.

  Jerry heard the rat-a-tat-tat of small arms and machinegun fire intensify dramatically. Between Chalk #2 and the crashed chopper, deadly rounds ricocheted off the crumbled white concrete foundations of old military structures. Rifle shots cracked. He heard the ping of bullets striking the chopper. Lee responded by immediately lifting the helicopter into the air. As they gained altitude, Jerry saw Chalk #1, forever remembered as Black Cat #027, in a slow, flaming roll down the east slope of the hill.

  Chalk #2 pitched and yawed as Lee maneuvered his helicopter into an immediate three hundred sixty degree left turn back into the hot LZ. On second approach, Jerry searched through his gun sight for the enemy. Big hands tense, the M-60 grips bucked from the bullets his machine gun hosed out as Lee held the chopper in a hover amid the dust and fury that surrounded them. Jerry zipped the flak vest around his chest for better protection, and readied himself. He knew they would not leave the area without an attempt to rescue the surviving crewmembers from the crash.

  From the air, Jerry could see the crashed and burning Huey about fifty-feet down the hillside; it would be a mad dash to get there safely. He considered the situation, his face a wall of grim, tight-lipped determination. Damned good thing he was fast on his feet. Experience had taught him fear visits after the fight. To help the stranded men on the ground, he would need to leave the relative safety of the chopper. There was no other choice. This was what a soldier would do, and he was a soldier.

  Lee dropped the chopper into position behind Chalk #3. Jerry shook off his trepidation, exhaled forcefully, and bailed out of the gunner’s seat onto the plateau. The rotors backwash kicked red grit in his face and half-blinded him. Caught in the middle of a furious battle, he couldn’t get his bearings on the downed chopper. Jerry ran towards Chalk #4 and leapt through the open cargo door on the left side. He quickly moved past the crew chief, SP4 Joe Sumner, to speak briefly to the pilot, MAJ Ronald Rex.

  Sumner couldn’t hear the conversation up front because of his flight helmet and the noise of the increasing gunfire. Joe and Jerry weren’t strangers; they bunked in the same hooch. Sumner was surprised Jerry exited his gunners seat in the midst of a firefight. He was even more puzzled when Jerry jumped out of Chalk #4 without a word; gone as quickly as he had arrived.

  Tracers zipped through the open cargo doors. As Sumner took aim and fired his M-60 in the direction of the lethal gun barrel flashes, two Air Force Phantoms came into view. The jets flew so low overhead, it seemed like he could almost reach out and touch them. The planes dropped two bombs off to his left. After the blast, there was sudden quiet, and a chance for escape. Major Rex lifted the chopper off the ground, made a ninety-degree right turn down the side of the hill, and flew low level before climbing out for the return flight to La Vang Airfield. Sumner briefly wondered who the F-4 pilots were, without their help no one would have made it out of the LZ alive. He’d sure like to thank them someday. He thought about Howington. His friend was dead. Sumner had seen the helicopter Howington was riding on blow-up. They had joined the Army together in Georgia on the buddy program; what was he going to say to David’s parents?

  Specialist 5 Danny Williams vaulted from the gunner side of Chalk #3. Halfway down the hillside, he came across Howington, stunned from being blown out of the chopper while still in the air. Williams steered the dazed crew chief topside, then pushed him towards the open cargo doors of Chalk #3, where Wally Cox grabbed Howington by the back of his helmet, and quickly pulled him inside the chopper.

  Flung from the chopper as it crashed, a landing skid pinned Seymoe under the burning debris. Stiner and McKinsey had crawled out of the fiery wreckage through the smashed bubble canopy of Black Cat #027. Unhurt, McKinsey returned fire while Stiner and Williams attempted to pull Seymoe from the wreckage.

  Specialist 4 Heidi Atanian, crew chief on Chalk #2, exited the left side of the chopper at the same time Jerry bailed out of the right side. As Atanian moved toward the nose of the aircraft, a round hit the microphone on his helmet. His M-16 took two rounds in the stock. When a bullet ripped through his uniform pocket, he decided it was time to get back on the helicopter. Atanian turned and hurled himself on the chopper floor as pieces of the aircraft flew through the air. He yelled at the pilots, “Get the hell outta here!” As the helicopter lifted, Atanian noticed Jerry’s empty gunner seat and notified Lee.

  At this point, the warning lights on Lee’s instrument panel lit up. All major flight systems threatened to fail, forcing Jerry’s pilot to depart the LZ before the rescue of Black Cat #027 was complete. Lee circled the area in an attempt to spot Jerry. He knew if possible, his door gunner would return to the landing spot for pick-up. “Leave no man behind” was a doctrine all combat soldiers tried to live by.

  Chalk #7, or “Tail-end Charlie,” the only aircraft loaded with ammo and troops, made a slow, shallow approach. This put Pullen in a unique position to observe activity on the ground. An NVA soldier stood up and began to fire his AK-47 at close range. The pilots could see tracers headed in their direction. They heard the impact of bullets hit beneath their seats. A scream came from the cargo hold as blood splattered on the windshield and stained Pullen’s left shoulder.

  The gutsy Marine volunteer, PFC Brittingham, flipped his weapon on automatic fire and began to rock n’ roll. He fired into twenty or thirty of the enemy on his left, then ten or fifteen on the right. Below the chopper, a single adversary emptied his rifle and tried to run. As Brittingham attempted to shoot him, the 66-B soldier stopped in his tracks. Pullen caught the NVA with the left skid, threw him to the ground, and landed on him with 9,500 pounds of metal. Brittingham struggled to gun down eight or ten NVA who made it twenty-feet from the ship as they endeavored to capture the ammo onboard. Pullen watched a line of bullets strike the ground. The rounds stopped about six-inches
from his helicopter door. He stared as tracers advanced towards the windshield. One hit his chest protector and barely missed his throat. The last tracer bounced in front of the door window and did a burning flip to the ground.

  The 258th Quang Tri Regional Forces fell from the concentrated fire as they attempted to exit the slicks. The passengers on “Tail-end Charlie,” designated to unload the aircraft, were either dead or wounded. Senior CIA Advisor Robert Brewer would later report that “surprisingly,” survivors from the RF Company made it back to the Khe Sanh Combat Base (KSCB) by the next day. Pullen realized the NVA had control of the LZ. He had no choice but to depart the landing zone with a severely crippled aircraft, the heavy load of ammo still onboard. This required a long running takeoff in a straight line.

  When Pullen took off, the Low-RPM warning horn buzzed in his ears as he struck another NVA soldier with the skids. Private First Class James Payne blasted an enemy fighter who clung to the skid. As the chopper flew over the east side of the plateau Payne exclaimed, “Holy shit, there’s an American down there.” His words astounded Brittingham. Before the Marine MP could look down, he received a critical wound and lost unconsciousness.

  Fifteen feet off the ground, Pullen could see Black Cat #027 on the ground. Near the crashed helicopter, he saw McKinsey fire his weapon at targets to Pullen’s rear. Stiner and Williams ran towards the lone figure. Williams did not appear to have a weapon. NVA troops fired on the Black Cats with mortars and grenades. The crew of “Tail-end Charlie,” bloody and praying, hung on tight as they went over the east side of the LZ where the chopper could freefall into the river valley 3,000 feet below. He banked left towards the combat base.

  On the ground beside the crashed chopper, Williams didn’t get a signal when he called out to McKinsey. Moving closer to assist, he crawled uphill until the two men lay side-by-side in the jungle undergrowth as gunfire blasted. Reaching over, he shook his friend and urged the plucky young pilot to retreat, “We gotta move, buddy. Mac, hey, Mac!” No reaction. Pulling the flight helmet off to check vitals, a startled Williams grunted when he discovered a bullet wound to the head had killed McKinsey.

  An Alley Cat pilot warned everyone to clear the area while the gunships strafed the plateau. The NVA disappeared back into their camouflaged spider holes. The gunships continued to assault the hilltop until they ran out of ammunition. The crew then pulled their personal weapons, and circled the LZ to look for survivors. They fired out of the windows until their handguns were empty. The gun pilots discussed a rescue attempt. After several low passes over the LZ, the gunships saw no survivors, American or Vietnamese. The Alley Cats decided to fly to Khe Sanh, refuel, and check damage.

  The 26th Marine pilots at the Khe Sanh Combat Base tried to get helicopters in the air to search for survivors from a high altitude. Under siege, the Combat Base could not get aircraft off the ground. The 220th Reconnaissance Airplane Company “Cat Killers,” flying high altitude fixed wing aircraft, stayed on station until dark. The pilots could not assist the soldiers trapped in the village except to relay information and radio transmissions.

  Seven UH-1 slicks flew the mission; only one made it back to Marble Mountain at Da Nang. The remaining choppers managed to reach safety at the Khe Sanh Combat Base, Dong Ha, or La Vang Airfields. The ambush lasted less than ten minutes. Of the twenty-eight 282nd AHC crewmembers assigned to the mission, only eleven made it home that night. With a dozen men wounded, Stiner and Williams escaped and evading in the jungle, McKinsey Killed-In-Action (KIA), and Elliott and Hill listed as Missing-In-Action (MIA), it was indeed a Black Sunday.

  Alley Cat pilot Ronald McBride recalls this as “...a day that changed everyone’s life. We all became soldiers! If you were there, you understand and you will never forget! If you were not there, you probably won’t understand what happened that day.”

  The NVA captured an undetermined number of South Vietnamese RFs at the Old French Fort, to include the company commander, 1LT (First Lieutenant) Nguyen Dinh Thiep. Caught when they fled in the direction of Lang Khoai (Sweet Potato Village), the POWs were marched west towards the 304th HQ at Lang Troai. The Bru Montagnards, ousted from their villages near Lang Vei and Khe Sanh by the NVA, sought shelter at the Combat Base. Denied entry onto the main post due to infiltration fears, they were quartered at Forward Operating Base 3 (FOB).

  No reports of American MIA sightings officially went on record in the hours after the ambush, except for one brief radio transmission from FOB-3 at the Khe Sanh Combat Base: “Intelligence sources indicate that on 21 January 68, thirty Americans were captured at Khe Sanh (coordination XD 848 417). There was no additional information.” Possibly, the Bru refugees mistook the ARVN POWs in fatigues for the reported thirty U.S. G.I.s in the darkness.

  January 21, 1968, marked the beginning of a different type of battle for the survivors, and the families of the MIAs. No dogtag, nor tooth, or fragment of bone marked my brother’s presence at the Old French Fort. Amid the chaos and screams, bullets and death, Jerry Elliott, last seen alive surrounded by hundreds of NVA soldiers, had simply vanished.

  Jerry in vietnam. Top: With Locals in Tuy Hoa.

  Left: With Pathfinder mascot, “Tiger.”

  Chapter Eight

  A Knock at the Door

  Startled from a deep sleep, I found myself wide-awake and alert. I blinked, rubbed my eyes, and looked around the bedroom in the predawn stillness. Soft light of the coming day filtered through the curtains, and reassured me nothing was unusual. My little sister, cuddled next to me for warmth, slept soundly. Everything around me appeared the same. Inside, I felt slightly out of balance with my world. I couldn’t shake the feeling something was terribly wrong.

  From a young age, every so often I encountered an odd sensation that something significant would soon happen. When I got the “butterflies gone berserk” feeling in my gut, I instinctively paid attention. My hunches were always pervasive, and hard to ignore. Experience made me cautious. I escaped harm on more than one occasion by listening to my instincts, but being aware things weren’t weren’t exactly as they should be didn’t mean I could stop the whirlwind I sensed coming. I hated the tense wait because at best, I could only try to get out of the way.

  I didn’t convey these feelings outside of the family unless I strongly felt a need to warn someone that something unpleasant might take place. Forewarnings made people uneasy, regardless if they believed me or not. I inherited this odd ability from Mama’s side of the family. She said the women in her family had always experienced premonitions. They called it “woman’s intuition” because their “knowing” usually linked events to their children, or other family members.

  This particular morning, Sunday, January 21, 1968, I awoke “knowing” something dreadful had happened to Jerry. I sensed he was in very serious trouble. This premonition was different, stronger. More importantly, this time the premonition concerned my brother. I stopped to wonder if Jerry was dead and and the thought froze in my mind. Wait, no, he was not dead. I felt too connected to him, as if he willed me to know he was alive.

  I lay in bed and tried to sort my feelings into something less bewildering, or frightening. An abrupt, solid knock on the front door shattered the quiet. I knew in my heart soldiers stood on the other side of the door, waiting solemnly with terrible news about Jerry.

  In their bedroom down the hall, Mama woke Daddy. “Bill! Bill, get up. Someone is knocking on the front door.” Daddy rolled out of bed with a sleepy, resigned groan. His footsteps were heavy but quick as he walked down the hall. Mama moved around in the bedroom as she searched for her robe in the dark. I imagined her wrapping it around her tightly, like a shield. She walked into the living room as Daddy turned the light on. The front door made the familiar whoosh when opened. From my bed, I could see down the hall to the entranceway to glimpse Army green dress uniforms as two soldiers stepped inside. Their dramatic appearance somehow involved Jerry. The news would not be good. One of the men closed the door behind them.
A deep male voice spoke in a hushed tone, “Are you Mr. Elliott?”

  “Yeah, Bill. Just call me Bill. This is my wife, Mary,” Daddy answered.

  They identified themselves as Army Casualty Officers. In a steady, calm voice, one spoke bluntly, “We regret to inform you that your son, Private Jerry William Elliott, has been listed as missing-in-action.”

  I sat up in bed, leaned stiffly against the headboard, and took a deep breath. I didn’t really want to hear what the soldiers had to say. Regardless, their words had drifted down the hall and charged the air like thunderbolts. When I finally exhaled, my shoulders slumped with the weight of the world.

  Too astonishing to absorb, the words “missing in action” hung in the air. I couldn’t breathe for the lump in my throat that threatened to choke me. My heart hurt, as if an elephant had stepped on my chest. Hiding my face in my pillow, I tried to shut the words out, but they bounced around in my head, “Missing, missing. Jerry is missing in Vietnam.”

  Mama screamed and began to wail, “Oh no, oh no, not my Jerry! It can’t be Jerry! I told him not to be a hero!” Mama’s cries pierced my heart. I wanted to run to her, but afraid to see her in so much pain, I did nothing. I closed the door to a crack, cowered in my bed, and stared at Cindy’s sweet little face, still untouched by tragedy.

  The soldiers solemnly read from the Report of Casualty. Jerry served as a “Gunner of a military aircraft on combat operation, which, while on the ground after the passengers had disembarked, was hit by hostile small arms fire, exploded, and burned. He was last seen engaging the hostile forces in a firefight after leaving aircraft to assist crew. Search is in progress.”