Always A Warrior by alwaysawarrior

Welcome To Always A Warrior By Terry Sasek

In honor of all veterans who have fought for freedom in the world, no matter if it was
in the past, the present or in any future wars or conflicts. I support brave young men
and women who defend our freedom and keep us all safe from the harm that lurks in
this world of ours. I served our nation and citizens from Feb. 1968 until Feb. 1974 and
had one combat tour of duty in South Vietnam, I was there at a remote South Vietnamese
air base called Binh-Thuy and I served my first two months of my 12 month tour of duty
with the 632 Security Police Squadron helping to defend our airbase from attacks from
November 1968-January 1969, the experience of having served with these very brave and
very dedicated Security Policemen changed my life forever and I will never forget them
or the bond we all shared with each other there and knowing that we all would have died
to protect our fellow airmen serving at Binh-Thuy AB. It was an honor and also a great
privledge to have served with them, I have dedicated my site here to honor all of them
and also all veterans who have served our nation whether in war or peace time service.
This is my small way of honoring those I served with and it was because of them that I
had survived that experience in my life. I'd spent the remaining 10 month's of my tour
of duty maintaining all of our crash-fire and crash-rescue vehicles which answered the
call everytime a battle damaged aircraft returned to our airbase and there was a great
risk that there would be a crash landing of fire as a result of battle damage to their
aircraft. The men who served on the crash-fire & rescue vehicles and those firemen who
flew on the HH-43 rescue helicopters and operated the fire supression bottles as they
were hovering over an aircraft making an emergency landing were also another bunch of
very dedicated and brave men who risked their lives everyday to save the lives of the
pilots and aircrews of these aircaft regardless of whether they were American or they
were South Vietnamse pilots & aircrews who were coming in all shot up. I have put some
pictures here of both groups and also a couple of our U.S. Air Force heroes who served
at other bases in South Vietnam and who had carried out some absolutely amazing feats
of courage while they served their tours of duty in South Vietnam. Two of them were
SSGT Pete Piazza and SSGT Jackie Kays, who were both extremely couragous and brave
men who were both highly respected Non-Commissioned Officers and they were leaders
of young airman. They had both by their own personal actions of great bravery and
courage not only brought both great honor & respect to themselves, but also showed
and maintained the highest traditions and standards of the U.S. Air Force as well.
They are both extremely humble men and they will tell you that they were just doing
their jobs and that is all, but for those of us who served over there, we also know
better and will always have the greatest respect for both of them for what they had
done to save the lives of others. They were heroes who not only talked the talk, but
when it got bad there they also walked the walk and they led their men by example!

SSGT. Pete Piazza awarded the Silver Star for Gallantry in halting a major VC attack
on his base, he had taken over the defense of a defensive bunker when the officer was
killed and had called in air strikes on the VC forces and held out against great odds
as those enemy forces kept attacking his position. SSGT Piazza had saved his base and
countless lives by keeping the enemy forces from getting past his defensive bunker and
onto his base to destroy the aircraft and personnel assigned there.

Jackie Kays book that tells some of the stories about us who defended our bases
in Vietnam, some are very serious, some were funny stories, and some delt with
the everyday things we faced over there during the war. I was extremely honored
to have some of mine included by him with those of our fellow warriors stories.

SSGT. Jackie Kays was the NCOIC (Non Commissioned Officer in Charge) of
a four man perimeter patrol team at the south end of the runway at Danang AB
when a C-123 flareship was trying to make it back to the air base and it ran
out of fuel due to it having stayed to long over an on going battle dropping
flares to light up the area for their defenders to see the movements of enemy
VC troops. As it was getting close to the air base it rapidly lost altitude and
could no longer stay in the air and crash landed outside the bases perimeter
wire. His patrol was right by the crash site and he responded immediately and
ran out through the airbases own minefield to reach the aircraft to rescue it's
crew members who were injured and were unable to get out from the wreakage of
their aircraft by themselves. He himself was then injured when he fell from the
wreakage as he was climbing back out and hit his back. It was an injury that
would put an early end to U.S. Air Force career as a Security Policeman and
he was medically discharged from the service. There's been an ongoing effort
to get the U.S. Air Force to review the facts in that incident that night and the
members of the crew that he had saved have made a request that SSGT. Kays
be decorated for his selfless and couragous act that night, it is still being
considered at this time by the U.S. Air Force. I not only personally feel that
SSGT.Kays was a hero that night, I truly believe his feet had been guided with
each step as he ran out through that minefield to those crew members. I think
it was a complete miracle in and of itself that he even had made it through a
minefield let alone was able to rescue that aircrew that night, I truly hope
that some day very soon that the U.S. Air Force will finally award SSGT. Kays
his rightful honor and his rightful place among all of those U. S. Air Forces
heroes who went above and beyond the call of duty at long last.

A1/C Chester Bland

Huey Helicopter taking off on patrol

Peasants harvasting rice from paddy

7th Air Force Patch

Security Alert Team in V-100 APC

Guard tower on the perimeter road at Binh-Thuy

50 caliber heavy machine gun defensive position

Guardmount before being posted to our night defensive positions

Flares lighting up the night sky

Defensive machine gun bunker

Huey gunships on the flightline at Can-Tho airfield

Perimeter road near the Paddy Control Position

Perimeter road

One of the area check points

AC-47 Spooky Gunship

Perimeter tower with M-60 machine gun

Sgt. Bill Morris near the perimeter

Me heading to my guard tower at the Hilton Annex Compound

A U-10 Psycop aircraft

A U-10 Psycop plane dropping leaflets over VC
positions along the Cambodian border "1969"

Cessna O-2 Forward Air Control plane

Cessna O-2 instrument panel

Cessna O-2 radio communications rack

M-151A machine gun patrol jeep

Binh-Thuy AB "1968"

Hilton compound tower #2 looking at tower #3

M-60 machine gun position

A1/C Bryd and QC guard at front gate at Binh-Thuy

A1/C Byrd and Sgt.MacFarland at the front gate

Warning sign along the road to Can-Tho City

A1H Skyraider fighter/bomber

C-123 Provider cargo plane taxing in at Binh-Thuy

Huey gunships on the flightline at Binh-Thuy

VNAF Security QC Sgt.Tran

U-10 Air American aircraft (CIA)

Front gate bunker - H-34 helicopter in the background

K-9 team on patrol in the rice paddies

Binh-Thuy Hilton Compound sign, at the bottom it
says "A government sponsored ghetto"

Water buffalo wandering through the rice paddy

Sgt. Hicks and a QC guard at a checkpoint

AC-47 Spooky side view of it's electric driven miniguns

AC-47 Spooky Gunship up close

One of three General electric mini-guns on Spooky,
(it fires up to 6,000 rounds per minute per gun)

AC-47 Spooky gunship firing at a ground target

Binh-Thuy AB Vietnam - Gone but not forgotten patch

632 Combat Support Group patch

This is the Security Police Statue located at
Wright-Patterson AFB in in Dayton, Ohio

I want to recognize and also honor the extremely brave airmen who served with us
and at other air bases in Vietnam during the war and whose courage and gallantry
fighting fires caused by mortar and rocket attacks on our bases and aircraft fires
caused by the battle damage received while flying on their combat missions. Pilots
knew they would be rescued from their battle damaged or burning planes after making
an emergency landing at our airbase and many aircrews were saved by these dedicated
firemen. Also pictured below are some photo's of these brave men and the crash-fire
& the crash-rescue trucks they had used during the war, some are at Chanute AFB, in
Illinois where I took my training to learn how to maintain and repair these Special
Purpose Vehicles, others are from Binh-Thuy AB, Can-Tho Army Airfield, Bien-Hoa AB
and Danang AB, Vietnam. There's a few photo's of brave firemen in action during the
mortar & rocket attacks we had often and some are of crash landings caused by battle
damage to their aircraft while on their combat missions during the Vietnam war.

An 010 South Vietnamese crash-fire truck

Looking out the 2nd floor window at the fire department looking at the flightline at Binh-Thuy AB 1968

This is me repairing shrapnel holes in an 011-A crash-fire truck from the previous nights mortar attack

SGT.Perry sitting on a 530B pumper fire truck taking a break

A HH-43 Pedro fire fighting helicopter with a fire supression unit

A 010 crash-fire truck at Chanute AFB in Illinois 1968

A 011-A crash-fire truck at Chanute AFB 1968

A Dodge powerwagon rescue truck

The assistant fire chiefs Chevy pickup truck

Same two trucks on the taxiway by a U.S. Navy P-3 Orion aircraft

Two P-2 crash-fire trucks and a 010 crash-fire truck on a training exercise

A 010 crash-fire truck putting out a training fire

A 011-A training

A 011-A training

A 011-A training

A 010 crash-fire truck at Chanute AFB in Illinois

A 06 Foam truck used to foam the runway for any plane that had battle damage and couldn't get
it's landing gear down, so it would land on it's belly, the foam prevented sparks that might
start a fire from leaking fuel tanks

A 530B pumper truck

A 530B pumper truck

A 530B pumper truck

A P-2 crash-fire truck, it was the biggest and best crash-fire truck in the world in 1968

A 011-A crash-fire truck at Chanute AFB in Illinois

A 010 crash-fire truck at Chanute AFB

A 010 pumping water from all three nozzles

A 010 crash-fire truck with a HH-43 Pedro helicopter over a crash site

Two 011-a crash-fire trucks along with a 010 crash-fire truck and a HH-43 Pedro washing
down an RF-4 photo recon aircraft that came in leaking fuel caused by anti aircraft fire

A P-2 pumping a mix of fire retarding foam & water

A U.S. Air Force Fire Protection badge

Navy huey gunship that crashed on base

Navy huey gunship that crashed on base

Navy huey gunship that crashed on base

Navy huey gunship that crashed on base

Navy huey gunship that crashed in a canal off base

Navy huey gunship that crashed in a canal off base

Helicopters destroyed in mortar attacks on our base

Helicopters destroyed in mortar attacks on our base

South Vietnamese Army truck set on fire by mortar fire at Can-Tho Army Airfield 1968

U.S. Army Fire Department patch from Can-Tho Army airfield 1968

ON MAY 1, 2011 A DATE THAT WILL LIVE IN EVERY SINGLE AMERICAN'S HEART,
MIND AND SOUL FOREVER! MAY ALL THE INNOCENT VICTIMS WHO DIED ON 9/11
AND EVERY SOLDIER, SAILOR, MARINE, AIRMAN, COAST GUARDMAN AND ALL THE
INNOCENT VICTIMS OF OSAMA BIN LADEN'S TERRORISM NOW REST IN HALLOWED
PEACE NOW THAT HE'S BEEN BROUGHT TO HIS FINAL JUSTICE FOR HIS CRIMES
AGAINST HUMANITY. HE WAS GIVEN THE CHANCE TO SURRENDER PEACEFULLY
BUT HE CHOSE TO DIE RATHER THAN FACE BEING ARRESTED & BROUGHT TO
JUSTICE AND NO HUMAN BEING SHOULD EVER SHED A SINGLE TEAR OVER HIS
DEMISE. CONGRATULATIONS TO NAVY SEAL TEAM SIX AND ALL INVOLVED!!!!

Don't forget to bookmark this page and thank you for visiting my site,
I would ask that anyone reading my poems here to please not enter any
of my poems into the poem contest, the poems I have written here are
my way of saluting my fellow warriors who have served in our nation's
Armed Forces defending all of us and our Freedoms and Rights under
the Constitution and the Bill of Rights of the United States of America.
The poems posted here are not posted for any type of self promotion,
for glorification or for any egotistical reasons in life, they are simply
my way of showing my respect and honor to all of the brave young men
and women who are now serving or have served our nation and citizens.