They were college kids and young soldiers who wanted to fly, and they knew little about Vietnam other than what they read in the newspapers before going there.

But Ia Drang, Kontum, Bong Son, Pleiku, Dak To, and dozens of other places soon became their trials by fire as they flew the grunts into and out of hot LZs and exposed themselves to some of the most intense combat of the war.

Their mission was to fly into isolated jungle hilltops and muddy rice fields often without knowing what they would face. Consequently, the crewmen who flew the helicopters and manned the door guns suffered some of the highest percentages of dead and wounded in the history of American warfare.