War Stories28

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The Day Deros Almost Died
By Baby Huey

Most of the dogs in Vietnam were scroungy looking. But one of our mascots in Phouc Vinh was a feminine looking dog named Deros, who almost lost her life to the hostile enemy in October 1970. It all started when someone in the chain of command in Phouc Vinh told us we had too many mascots and some would have to go or at least move to another field site. As a result, Deros moved from Phouc Vinh to Mace, an old Fire Support Base (FSB), in the fall of 1970. When the artillery abandoned FSB Mace, it was replaced by Charlie Company, 15th Medical Battalion.

Deros was a famous dog mascot at FSB Mace (you can even google her). She was a beloved member of the 15th Medical Battalion and often accompanied soldiers on medevac missions.

Deros was more than just a pet; she was a source of comfort and morale for the soldiers. She was known to lick the wounds of injured soldiers, keeping them awake and alert until they could be evacuated. Deros' presence also provided a sense of camaraderie and lightened the mood in the often-tense environment of a war zone.

FSB Mace was in southern South Vietnam, east of Saigon. It served as a base for various military operations, including helicopter assault missions and search and destroy operations. C Company's role was to provide medical evacuation (medevac) services to wounded soldiers from the battlefield to clearing stations and hospitals.

I was sent to Mace for a week-long Medevac standby, which was also going to be my Aircraft Commander checkride administered by Little Okey (Hank Tuell, Medevac 1). A few days before the incident I’m telling you about, we received a mission to rescue a member or two of a Long-Range Patrol (LRP, pronounced Lerp). The team had set up an ambush that worked, but one or more team members were wounded during the firefight.

From previous missions, we knew what was coming next after contacting the team in the jungle. Since the LRP team was composed of around five to eight members, losing one or more members, and not to mention their position being compromised, we’d hoist the wounded members out of the jungle only to receive a plea to hoist the remaining uninjured team members. Our standard fee for complying with the team's request was that they fork over their LRP food pouches.

Freeze-dried LRP meals significantly advanced military food technology during the Vietnam Conflict. Designed to be lightweight and easily portable, they were vastly different from the heavy, canned C-rations that soldiers were previously issued. To reconstitute the meal, all one had to do was add warm water, preferably.

As would happen on more than one occasion, we’d receive a mission just as the mess hall opened, only to return and find the mess hall closed. Because of the timing of this medevac request, we knew this mission would cause us to return only to have the mess hall closed.
The chili con carne meal was one of the better LRP meals, but the rice was still a tooth-bender after adding the hot water to reconstitute the meal. We had a crew member for this week who solved the rock-hard rice kernel problem. He meticulously picked each rice kernel and marinated it in a cup of water for ten minutes before adding the softened rice back into the LRP pouch with the rest of the meal.

Before receiving the mission, this crew member bragged about how great the chili con carne from a previous mission would taste using his tried-and-true method for softening the rice. Throughout the mission and the return, this crew member annoyed us with banter over the intercom about how well done and tasty the rice would be when we returned. Numerous crew members shouting shut up over the intercom answered most of the bragging.

After dropping the wounded at the clearing station at Mace, we refueled our Medevac and restocked it with medical supplies. Then, it was time to “hit the hooch.” Okie and I entered our wing of the hooch, and the enlisted crew members entered their wing. It was no time at all that Okie, and I heard one of the crew members screaming at the top of his lungs that he needed a gun to shoot our mascot, Deros. You see, while we were on the mission, listening to how great the rice would be, Deros had tipped over the cup of rice and ate it all!

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