THE WALL OF FACES

Brit and I were WOCs at Ft. Wolters (I was a Red Hat); he was ahead of me at Rucker, but we were allowed to stay off base in Enterprise, AL in a Trailer Park while Brit transitioned into guns b4 ‘Nam; having completed a VN tour prior to flight school, ended up at Ft . Sill for a short stint, b4 heading to the Korean DMZ for a 13 month tour. I graduated in Nov 68, and got married; Brit drove his Dodge Charger to NYC to attend my wedding. When I came home on a mid-tour leave, I arrived 2 days after Brit’s funeral; however, in 1994 I took my young 14 year old son to the “Wall” in DC, and etched his name. I’m 79 now, retired, with 2 sons, and 4 grandchildren; I have shared my memories about my best friend, and prayerfully I Will journey to Chicago to to Brit’s grave, and pay my respects.

CW2 Oscar L. Brittenum Jr. was a helicopter pilot serving with the 336th Assault Helicopter Company (“T-Birds”), 13th Combat Aviation Battalion, 1st Aviation Brigade, U.S. Army Republic of Vietnam. Arriving in Vietnam on January 6, 1969, by mid-December, Brittenum was in his final days of his tour before rotating home where he reportedly wanted to begin a second military career as a fighter pilot. On December 16th, Brittenum’s scheduled final flying day, he was assigned co-pilot in a UH-1C (#66-15161) gunship. Their area of operations (AO) was 30 miles north of Vinh Long in Dinh Tuong Province, RVN, and they covered several troop insertions in the morning with no enemy contact. While set down at Vinh Long Airfield for lunch, Brittenum asked the aircraft commander (AC) if he could fly right seat (pilot) that afternoon. Since it was his last flying day in-country and he had been a Fire Team Leader, the AC agreed. When they returned to the AO, the friendly ground troops were in heavy close contact with the enemy. On their first gun run, to avoid hitting friendlies, they came in from about 500 ft. Brittenum was on target firing rockets when they started taking automatic weapons fire. What was believed to be a single round of small arms fire came through the windshield and struck Brittenum on the right side of his head. The co-pilot was barely able to pull the aircraft out of a fatal dive. Brittenum had kicked in full left pedal on the foot controls and the crew had a difficult time getting the stricken pilot’s foot off the pedal. The crew chief crawled over the console from the rear cabin and moved his foot while the co-pilot was on final approach to Vinh Long. Brittenum was still alive when they landed but expired a short time later. [Taken from coffeltdatabase.org and information provided by Larry Congen (November 2001) at vhpa.org]

Taken from 336ahc.com

Never forgotten.

HOOAH

You will forever remain in our hearts and prayers