SUBMITTED BY:

MSGT USAF RETIRED Shayne Meder

Aircraft Restoration News
"Old Friends" visit the OH-6

On Feb 22^nd a couple of "old friends" visited the museum to see the OH-6, bringing with them several photos of a life that sometimes seems like yesterday.  

David "DJ" Pelkey and Jim Hnizdil approached the OH-6 as if it were yesterday when they would climb in with their 60 .cal machine gun and take off for the jungles over Vietnam. Both were gunners in B Troop, 1^st Squadron, 9^th Cavalry in 1970, stationed at Quan Loi, RVN.

Now living in Santa Rosa, California, "DJ" travels to Riverside occasionally to visit his parents. After learning the OH-6 was here at March, he couldn’t wait to come and see it. Almost like a kid with a new bike, he was quick to show us around the little helicopter, pointing out all the details we could never get from a book. 

Jim Hnizdil and Loretta Stager now live in Perris, Ca., just south of us, and also can’t believe we have a famous "Loach". Loretta gained interest in Army helicopters years ago while trying to locate an old friend of Jim’s from Vietnam. What she found was an endless amount of history waiting to be told. Now the Web Administrator for the B/1/9 website, Loretta has re-joined buddies from 30+ years ago and online has published hundreds of combat photos never shared before. It was Loretta who first found the OH-6 here at the museum. 

Together, they had photo albums that overflowed with pictures of OH-6s, hueys and cobras flying in combat. C123s, C-130s and OV-10s flying into dirt runways in the jungles. The classic photos most of us only see in books: young, barely adult guys without shirts, shaving next to a tree with a piece of sheet metal for a mirror. The occasional BBQ of burgers and beer showing a few smiling faces, trying to forget the horrors they may have witnessed just hours before. Many of them armed and ready to go, riding out the side of their helicopter with a look of uncertainty of why they were there and when or would they go home. Their photos showed their living conditions as well as their flightline with plenty of helicopters ready to deploy.

Not all the stories had happy endings. Many of the helicopters in the pictures ended up as piles of scrap in the unfriendly jungles, falling victim to ground fire. Many of the young faces, too many to count, too many to remember all their names, never came home. They gave the ultimate sacrifice for their country and it is for this that we owe them to remember and honor them.

There were 1,434 OH-6 helicopters built by 1970 for the U.S. Army. Few made it back from combat. Today there are only 8 on display in the U.S. Having a combat veteran OH-6 is rare. For us as a museum, it is now our duty to restore it to the way it was when these young innocent faces flew into harms' way in it, to tell their story to future generations and to those who today still don’t understand the Vietnam War, to pay tribute to those faces who didn’t come home, and to those veterans here today to say "Thank you".

Over 31 years have passed since "DJ" was in Vietnam. Standing proud in his black leather Cavalry hat with the gold crossed sabers, he added life, character, and a sense of purpose to the stripped out Loach. Jim, too, 31 years later came wearing his 1/9^th Cavalry shirt and though more quiet than "DJ", spoke with an air of pride, perhaps being cautious with his emotions. Both men and Loretta are now "friends of the museum", spreading the word about our OH-6. Their enthusiasm and support for our project is an inspiration, putting more wind in our "rotors".

We can expect future visits from "DJ", Jim and Loretta, as we are now home to one of their "old friends."

 

	David "DJ" Pelkey,age 22 - 1970 Saber Air Strip, Quan Loi, RVN B Troop, 1st Sqd, 9th Cavalry		Jim and DJ with the museum’s OH-6 22 Feb 01
			Located just off the I-215 Freeway at the Van Buren Exit in Riverside, California
	Cobra being loaded at Loc Ninh, Special Forces, 1970		CLICK on the Museum logo above to visit their web site.
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