John Sonneveld - Colonel Grey

Running time
1 min 47 sec
Date made
Copyright
Department of Veterans' Affairs

Transcript

I have the utmost respect for these colonels, they were lieutenant colonels, who were the commanding officers of battalions, utmost respect. Their job was vital. I believe they knew every person in their battalion, by name, by sight. And I think they all felt the risk responsibility that, they were like a brotherhood, and they wanted to get them home alive. Okay? So you'd be flying these battalion commanders around.

It could be during an actual contact, where there's bullets flying, or you could be doing a reconnaissance with that commander or you might simply be taking him to one of the platoon or company locations. He might want to go and see a captain or a major or whatever and have a briefing about what they might want to do. And so, these guys were pretty special and I can talk about how they reacted under fire too.

Now, Colonel Grey, was a pretty special sort of a guy. Very hard-nosed, very, very strict, but a brilliant, brilliant leader. And you did what you were told with him. Okay. Now I was flying him, one day there, we're on the Long Hai mountains which had been bombed out, they were a haven for the Viet Cong, there's a lot of caves there and we were flying so low we could see the dimples on the ground made by the Ho Chi Minh sandals. And he knew what to look for. He studied the province. He knew things that, through the intelligence that he gathered.

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