Pilot sought 'Nam; others avoided it
Kevin Frye got his wish.
Days after saying goodbye to his parents and siblings in Jacksonville, the 20-year-old pilot landed in the middle of Vietnam.
By the spring of 1970 -- with the U.S. military death toll nearing 50,000 and anti-war sentiment growing -- young men across America were doing everything possible to avoid Vietnam. Pulling family strings. Going to Canada. Coming up with innovative ways to flunk physicals. Anything to avoid going to 'Nam.
Kevin Mark Frye had done everything possible to get there.
Fearing it would take too long to fulfill his childhood dreams -- flying Navy fighter jets -- he left the University of South Carolina after one year and switched from the Navy to the Army.
The Cobra's attraction
At the time, the Army was pushing a fast-track "high school to flight school" Warrant Officer Candidate program. Frye wanted to fly the Army's new helicopter, the Cobra, billed as the world's first attack helicopter. There were only two Cobra slots for his flight school class of 224.
He got one of them.
Then he waited for his orders. Waited impatiently, going to Jacksonville Naval Air Station every few days, checking for news.
Despite his own mixed emotions about the war, he didn't just want to get to Vietnam. He wanted to be in the middle of it, in a unit that others were avoiding: Charlie Troop, 1st Squadron, 9th Cavalry of the 1st Cavalry Division.
This was the unit that would be portrayed in Apocalypse Now. And although the soldiers from that unit hate the portrayal -- hate the idea that someone would believe they wiped out a village so they could go surfing -- they will tell you the 1st Cav did have a swashbuckling image.
"They were reputed to be a division full of crazy bastards who wanted to win the war single-handedly," Randy Zahn wrote in the book Snake Pilot: Flying the Cobra Attack Helicopter in Vietnam. "I put in for every unit I could think of that had Cobras ... other than the Cav."
The 19-year-old Jewish kid from California ended up in the Cav, assigned to a room with a 20-year-old Catholic kid from Jacksonville: Kevin Frye.
The roommates bonded quickly, drawn together by a shared experience that went well beyond the Kool-Aid and Kraft macaroni and cheese sent from home.
"I knew we were going to be friends for the rest of our lives," Randy said.
'Frye's flying circus'
Not long after getting there, Randy bought a $19 cassette tape recorder from the PX and started sending home audio "letters." One night, Kevin grabbed the mike and launched into a playful monologue for Randy's parents that 30 years later would elicit laughter and tears as part of a BBC Radio series called Voices from Vietnam.
To keep in touch with his own family, Kevin stuck with a blue ballpoint pen and cursive handwriting. He was a prodigious writer. He once wrote his mother a 22-page letter. "Another fabulous fable from Frye's flying circus," he called it, a jab at the misconceptions back home about the war. Days after successfully completing a routinely dangerous mission -- "during an evacuation, Warrant Officer Frye maneuvered through dense terrain to reach the badly needed ground troops," it said on the certificate awarding him an Air Medal -- he sat down and wrote his sister, Paige.
He didn't mention what he had done. Instead, he wrote about what she had done.
Well, congratulations! Mom wrote that you made the Honor Roll again! I am really proud of my little sister.
I'll bet you've grown about a foot already. How much do you weigh now?
When are you going to write? I've been writing and writing. You'd better write soon or I'm going to fly my helicopter over there and beat you up.
He never told anyone, except his father, about one letter. He wrote it the night before leaving Jacksonville, sealed it and told Warren Frye to open it only if he didn't come home.
Memory of Carla
Once in Vietnam, it was impossible not to think about that possibility. But Kevin didn't just think about death. He planned for it, even at times hoped for it.
Randy vividly recalls coming back to their room one day and finding Kevin sitting at the side of his bed, staring at a picture of Carla, his first love.
Kevin often looked at the picture. He talked about her fondly, saying how much he missed her. Yet he never wrote her and she never wrote him.
"What gives?" Randy asked.
Randy wrote in his book that he half-expected to hear that Kevin had gotten a "Dear John" letter. He instead learned that Carla Hembree had been thrown by a horse in Gainesville, hit her head and died. She was 18.
"I've had a year and a half to get used to the idea that she won't be there when I go home," Kevin said, "so I don't really give a damn if I go home or not."
"Bull----," Randy said. "Don't even talk like that. Is that what Carla would want? Come on, Kev, I can't imagine what you've gone through, but damn it, we've seen our friends die and we've agreed that life has to go on. I know that circumstances are different, but I'm sure Carla would want you to be happy."
"You can't understand, Randy," Kevin said. "Life isn't worth living without her. I want to be with Carla."
He didn't just tell Randy this. He wrote Carla's parents and asked: If I don't make it home alive, can I be buried next to Carla in Gainesville? They wrote back saying they would be honored, but they were hoping and praying that time would never come.
Turmoil in America
Back home, life was going on. The country was fighting among itself. Kevin's peers were protesting in the streets. His father was stationed at Cecil Field, serving some of his 30 years in the Navy. His mother was going to Florida Community College at Jacksonville, studying to become a registered nurse.
To Irene Frye, her oldest son seemed like a natural pilot -- he had been doing it since he was 13 -- but an unnatural warrior.
"You've heard about these kids who catch a fly in their hands, then go to the sliding glass door and let it go?" she said, describing the son whose hand she had held at the airport. "Eleven days later he is decorated for heroism because he had to kill someone."
It was the first of many honors. Nearly two dozen Air Medals. A couple of Bronze Stars. All adding to a tally that ultimately made the unit one of the most highly decorated in Army history.
Some of those honors were earned on July 28, 1970. Kevin was flying with Dave "Zeke" Zimmerman that day. He was doing it to help diffuse some tension. A day earlier, Randy had flown with Zeke and gotten in a heated argument. When pairings were made for the next day, and they were together again, Randy got so upset he walked out of the room.
Kevin stepped in and brokered a change. He would fly with Zeke.
Randy has gone back and meticulously documented what happened that day. It was monsoon season. And because of the weather, they didn't get off the ground until the afternoon.
They were on a visual reconnaissance mission in an area where North Vietnamese troops had been spotted by long-range patrols. From their helicopter, Randy and Hubert Kuykendall spotted some camouflaged crates hidden near a worn trail. American troops converged on the area and uncovered crates full of machine guns, rifles, AK-47s, rocket launchers and ammunition.
At 3:05, from several miles away, Kevin called in a report. "Grid Yankee Tango two four five five seven zero," he said. "We spotted one individual and engaged him with organics. One KBH [killed by helicopter]."
No mission was without danger. But compared to some they had flown, this one seemed to be going relatively smoothly. There was no enemy fire, no sign of unexpected problems.
Yet shortly after 4 p.m., something went wrong with one of the Cobras. The one Kevin was in.
The engine cut off.
The blades stopped spinning.
The Cobra began to fall.
"Going down," Zeke called. "Going down."
(http://www.jacksonville.com/tuonline/stories/042905/woo_18609208.shtml)
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