This collection of stories from Bill's life will take you on his search for love as a child, his search for himself in early adulthood, through the Vietnam war, and into marriage, parenthood, and now as a grandfather. Search for your own spiritual awareness, your own gifts, as Bill takes you through the pains, the loves, the wisdoms, the inspirations, and the epiphanies of his divinely-guided life.

While reading Bill's stories, I cried, laughed, prayed, and reflected. Some stories scared me, while others made me ecstatic. Even the sad stories caused me to reflect on the good that comes from all experiences, if we only take the time to look for it.
Bill McDonald's love for life shines through in each of his stories. From haunted houses to magical rainbows, heavenly angels to unearthly beings, horrific war to blessed weddings, out-of-body soaring to helicopter flight, Bill takes us there with each of his told-from-the-heart tales.

Now sit back, relax, and prepare to run the gauntlet of your emotions as you enjoy the journey of one man's incredible life...one man who has touched so many other lives, as he will yours.

From the foreword by Jan Hornung

W. H. McDonald Jr., is a published poet and author. He was part of the flight crew for the Vietnam War documentary In the Shadow of the Blade.
Bill is a Vietnam veteran who did his tour of duty with the 128^th Assault Helicopter Company, South Vietnam, from October 1966 through October 1967. He is no stranger to combat and was shot down several times while flying as a crew chief/door-gunner on a UH-1D Huey helicopter. He was awarded many medals including the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Bronze Star, the Purple Heart, and 14 Air Medals.
He earned his B.A. degree at the University of San Francisco and his A.A. degree at San Jose City College.
His website, is the Vietnam Experience www.vietnamexp.com,

Author's note: There are some events in life that hang with you for years and years afterward...this was one of those emotional experiences.

Out, Out, Damn Spot!

The 1^st Infantry was involved with a big operation called "Operation Billings." They were inserting troops into some very hostile areas. The dense jungles held not only VC (Viet Cong) but also a large number of NVA (North Vietnamese Army) troops fresh from their trip down from the north. Our company was engaged in supporting this operation from the beginning. We had been landing in some very hot (under fire) LZs and had experienced lots of damage to our helicopters over the first several days of the operation. We had been coming back into those same LZs to resupply ammo and food, and to bring in replacement troops. We often left with wounded and dead, taking them back to the base camps or to the closest MASH (Mobile Air Surgical Hospital) units.

One day we received a frantic call for assistance from a group of about 100 men who were trapped and fighting for their lives in an LZ that was being fiercely defended by the enemy. There were NVA and VC units surrounding this group of men in the beleaguered LZ. In some places the LZ's perimeter had partially collapsed. There was hand to hand fighting on the edges of the clearing that was being used for our Hueys to land in.

We could tell from the voice of the radioman that they were in the thick of a firefight. We could hear the gunfire and explosions in the background as the guy yelled over his radio. They needed a dust off (medical evacuation) as soon as possible. As it turned out, we were the only available aircraft in the sector, so we turned around and raced to their location. We were not sure what we were going to find when we got there.

When we approached within close proximity to the LZ, we saw the yellow smoke that they popped to guide us to our pickup point. We could also see red and white tracers bouncing off the trees and the ground. Looking back at it now reminds me of battle scenes from the Star Wars movies where they are firing lasers at each other; the tracers were lighting up the sky and the ground in much the same manner. There also were several explosions from enemy mortar rounds falling into the LZ. I assumed some of the explosions in this open meadow were from hand grenades. It was a living hell for those men inside that LZ. The smoke drifted through the broken trees that had fallen and were on fire. Men were running and moving in all directions. There seemed to be no organized plan of action...it was total chaos unfolding below us. No area in this lethal place looked secure or safe from the action.

We were flying at treetop level as we pulled into the LZ. This made us an easy target for the VC and NVA troops in the surrounding jungle. We could feel the belly of the helicopter taking hits. Tracer rounds also were flying through the open areas of the ship where we had taken off the doors. The ship rocked and bounced along the treetops. Intermittent, violent upheavals from ground explosions rocked our aircraft. I thought it was going to be torn apart by the pounding of the blasts. Every explosion caused our helicopter to rock and roll as if it were going to suddenly drop out of the sky and into the trees a few feet below us.

I had my machine gun fully at the ready but could not pick out any clear targets below. I could not fire since the good guys and bad guys were mixing it up in the LZ. There was no way to see who was whom. I had to sit there while the enemy took his potshots at us. It seemed to take hours to travel that last 100 yards to where our soldiers had popped smoke for us to land. By the time we set down, we could see hand-to-hand combat taking place a short distance from us. We were the biggest target in the LZ, and we could not hide anywhere. We needed to load the wounded and get out of there as fast as possible.

There were more explosions just yards away from us. I could feel the dirt and pieces of tree branches hitting my face and body. All around me, men were dropping. Their bodies were being ripped apart by automatic gunfire and mortar rounds. The green grass was turning red from all the flowing blood. I unplugged my communications line from my flight helmet and jumped off the ship as soon as we were parked on the ground. I ran about 20 yards to the medics who were dragging wounded men toward our ship. I grabbed someone's leg to help out. There were bullets hitting the ground all around us, and some were hitting the wounded men we were trying to evacuate. It was a miracle that all of us were not killed.

The pilots were yelling at me to hurry up and get back into the helicopter. Every second we were on the ground, we allowed enemy mortar teams to sight in on our ship. All it would take was about 30 seconds or less before they could get us in their range and drop a round or two on the helicopter. Getting out of the LZ as fast as possible was our key to survival.

To make matters even worse, the trees and the grass had caught on fire. We now had a raging forest fire engulfing the area. It was hot and the smoke made it hard to breathe. I kept going back to help load more bodies onto the floor of my Huey. There was nothing gentle in this act as we threw these men in the ship as fast as we could. Within about half a minute we had loaded six wounded soldiers on the floor and two more on the canvas seats.

By now, all hell had broken loose. The mortar rounds were landing just yards away, and we were the focus of attention for all of the automatic weapons' fire. There was a wall of tracers coming at us, which we had to fly through to get out of there. I jumped back onboard and looked at the medic who stood watching me as we began to hover and lift off. His eyes were full of tears that rolled down his face, turning his dirty cheeks muddy, as he raised his hand to wave goodbye and to somehow bless his men. It was the saddest goodbye in the world. He knew he was probably not going to make it out of there alive. He got his buddies on the ship and that must have given him some satisfaction at the time. Our eyes connected for a brief moment, and I raised my hand to bid him goodbye...but it was more than that. I knew and he knew that he might not be alive when I came back. I silently sent him my prayers. We were all in God's hands now.

The pilots pulled up on the collective stick and tried to rise out of the LZ as straight up as we could fly. However, the heat of the day, the height of the trees, and all the extra weight onboard forced us to fly directly over the fighting. We slowly gained enough altitude, we hoped, to clear the surrounding trees. We could see the tree line coming up at us, and it appeared that we were not going to clear it. We needed more room to get enough transitional lift to compensate for all the weight we were now trying to take out of this LZ. We continued toward the trees and somehow managed to clip only a few branches with our skids.

I looked back, trying to get a good shot at the enemy troops with my M-60. I was able to let off about 1,000 rounds into the outer jungle areas where I knew our troops were not engaged. I then was able to take a quick glance back at the LZ as we began to climb above the tree line. The medic with the sad eyes was running for his life. There were bodies falling everywhere I looked. This was the worst LZ I had ever seen in the war. I sat back for a minute to try to regain my composure, and I tried to take a very deep breath. I felt my heart racing and pounding in my chest, and I was having trouble catching my breath.

I remembered the troops that we had loaded on the ship. I set my gun down and looked at where they were lying on the floor and seats. What I saw made me feel sick. There were large pools of thick red blood flowing on the floor of the ship. Since the doors had been removed, the wind blew right through the aircraft. The rotor blades and air speed also made for a lot of wind at the speed we were traveling...and it made the blood fly all around the inside of the ship. Fresh warm blood was splashed on the walls, the windshields, our clothing and helmets, and all over my gloves and face. The pilots had trouble seeing since so much blood had splashed on the inside of the windshield. There also were severed body parts that had fallen off and were laying in the pools of blood on the floor.

I was absolutely stunned by the sight of all this, but I quickly realized that I needed to take some action to help these guys. There was no medic onboard and no medicine. I did not have the knowledge or the means to stop all the bleeding. I was helpless to do much except offer my prayers and some moral support. I went over to check on their condition, and I was angered to find that not one of them was still alive. All 8 men were dead. They had continued to take hits when we were lifting off. Their bodies were riddled with holes.

I became upset about risking all of our lives to bring back only dead bodies. I told the pilots so we could change our destination to the nearest camp. We did not need to fly to the MASH unit anymore.

I sat there looking at these young men. Most had their young, frightened eyes still open. We stared at each other while the ship continued to speed back to the closest camp. We needed to dump these bodies, clean the windshield, and go back to that LZ. We were the only lifeline, the only link with the outside world that they had. I sat there in a daze, thinking about what we had just been through. The eyes of the medic still haunted me, as did all of those dead men lying there next to me. I sat there with all of my clothing soaked in red blood, and I knew I would never forget this scene before me.

Suddenly, something caught my attention. I looked over at one of the young men lying there with his dead eyes wide open, staring directly at me. I could feel his presence. I could feel him reaching out somehow. I could feel all of them. It was as if they were still there with their bodies. They were confused and frightened and lonely. I could sense the sorrow of their thoughts and almost hear their cries. It was really spooky I did not know if I had cracked up and been caught in the horror of the moment by my own fears, or if I was really sensing the souls of these men. I sent up a prayer for all of them. My feelings were all locked and controlled. I looked at all these dead men and couldn't find it within me emotionally to even shed a single teardrop...and part of me really wanted to.

I went back to my position behind my machine gun and sat there gazing out at the vast landscape beyond. I felt such sorrow and waste. I felt so much pain within that I thought I would never be able to completely express it to anyone. No one would ever understand what had happened. No one would even want to hear about this experience. I felt terribly alone and isolated from the whole world.

We finally got to a nearby base camp and unloaded the dead. We took a short five-minute break to clean the windshield and wipe some of the pools of blood out of the ship. Then, we jumped back onboard and took off again...heading back to hell.

We were joined by some other aircraft from our company on the return trips, so we had some help for the rest of the day. We ended up flying about 15 hours into and out of this LZ, taking several dozen men, many of them dead, out of the LZ that day. We were able to save very few for the MASH unit. The LZ had been a disaster for those men. I felt bad that I was not able to give them better support. I often wondered if that medic ever made it out alive. His eyes still burned in my heart as we went back to our own base camp that night in the darkness.

We landed back at Phu Loi late at night. All I wanted to do was to get that blood-soaked clothing off and to take a shower. I wanted to get rid of the smell and feel of death that was on me and in my ship. When we were unloaded, we were informed that there was no more water available for a shower or to clean up the helicopter. Well, there was no way that I was not going to get cleaned up. My gunner and I decided to use some jet fuel, since that was the only available liquid to clean anything with. We washed out the entire inside of the helicopter and all the seats. It smelled bad and was a fire hazard for sure, but there was no way that we were going to let all that blood stay in our ship.

We took off all of our clothing on the fight line, then poured the jet fuel over our bodies to rinse the blood away. We washed our entire bodies with that stuff, including our private parts and our hair. We were careful about not being close to anyone who was smoking, or anything else that might cause a spark.

We walked back to our hooch naked save for our underwear, boots, and dog tags. We put on some clean underwear and climbed into bed smelling up the entire place for everyone else. We did not sleep at all. With the smell of the gas and the thoughts and images of that day still with us, we could not rest.

The next day, with the heat (the temperatures reaching over 95 degrees) along with the high humidity, our bodies began to redden and chafe. We were hurting and uncomfortable as our bodies exploded with a red rash from head to toe that looked as if we had been painted red. We both took a lot of kidding about how we looked and felt, but it was still better than going to bed with all that dried blood all over us.

When I went on R and R, I took a lot of enjoyment in taking long showers with warm, clean water. I just wanted to clean off the Nam and all that blood. Sometimes I still feel the need to wash away those blood stained memories..."out, out, damn spot!" But those Nam stains go very deep into the soul.