Join us Monday, October 12, for VBC Live with retired U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel Joe Finch, a decorated Vietnam War helicopter pilot and author of *Angel’s Wing: A Year in the Skies of Vietnam.”
Finch arrived in Vietnam in 1969 as a young lieutenant assigned to A Company, 25th Aviation Battalion—the “Little Bears”—of the 25th Infantry Division. Based at Cu Chi and flying the UH-1 Huey, Finch and his fellow aviators did just about everything the soldiers on the ground needed: carrying troops into and out of combat, delivering ammunition, food, water and mail, and picking up the wounded. As Finch puts it, the mission was simple: “You accomplish what those guys on the ground need most.”
For Finch, medical evacuation was more than another assignment. Badly wounded soldiers who might otherwise die could be delivered to a surgical team in a matter of minutes by his efforts.
By Finch’s account, he medically evacuated 826 wounded personnel during his Vietnam service, often flying repeatedly into landing zones under enemy fire. He received two Silver Stars and the Distinguished Flying Cross for missions involving rescue and resupply.
One of those rescues came back to him decades later. While Finch was signing copies of his book, *Angel’s Wing*, a stranger approached and asked for his Vietnam call sign. “Little Bear 26,” Finch answered. The man had been shot through the femur by a .50-caliber round and remembered the helicopter pilot who refused to leave him behind under fire. He had come back to introduce Finch to the wife and children he had lived to have because that Huey waited for him.
Finch tells these stories in *Angel’s Wing*, his memoir of his year with the Little Bears. The book captures both the extraordinary and the everyday experience of helicopter crews in Vietnam—the noise, confusion, fear, dark humor, improvisation, and the tremendous responsibility placed on very young men flying complicated machines in unforgiving conditions.
On VBC Live, we’ll talk with Joe Finch about learning to fly the Huey, life with the Little Bears, supporting infantrymen on the ground, flying into hot landing zones, medevac missions, the men he carried out, and what those experiences have meant to him more than half a century later.
As always, we’ll take your questions and comments live.
