Vietnam veteran recalls battle fall of helicopter

BANGOR – A local businessman who earned a Purple Heart and several other medals in Vietnam had one of his proudest moments this summer when the helicopter in which he was shot down was dedicated at a memorial in Kent, N.Y.

John Cashwell, president of Seven Islands Land Co. in Bangor and manager of forest land for the Pingree family, was a chief warrant officer of Troop D 3/5 Cavalry in Vietnam. The last weekend in June he traveled to Putnam Veterans Memorial Park to participate in the dedication of an AH-1G Cobra helicopter that was shot down twice in Vietnam.

Cashwell, now 55, was not involved the first time the helicopter went down, but he was there the second time.

“I was flying it the last day that it flew in Vietnam,” Cashwell said. The date was Oct. 19, 1969, less than two weeks before his 22nd birthday.

Cashwell’s mission that day was to cover overhead for scout helicopters hovering near the ground searching for enemy troops.

The Cobra was hit by five or six 50-caliber bullets, Cashwell said, knocking out the electricity.

“My radios were out,” he said. “I couldn’t call anybody.”

Cashwell said he flew the helicopter a safe distance and landed it in the U Minh Forest in the delta of South Vietnam. From the cockpit, it was difficult to tell the extent of the damage to the craft, he said, and the key was “just to get it safely on the ground rather than wait for more problems to develop.”

There was one other person in the Cobra with Cashwell because flying was done in pairs, he said, and there were several other helicopters flying in the area. One of them landed and picked them up.

Cashwell had two tours in Vietnam, the first from August 1967 to August 1968.

“I was shot down the last day that I flew over there,” he said, adding that it happened just 12 days before he was due to go home.

It was during his second tour, from March 1969 to December 1969, that Cashwell was shot down in the AH-1G helicopter dedicated at the Putnam Veterans Memorial Park.

He flew 1,765 air combat hours in Vietnam, several of them flying AH-1G Cobra models.

Cashwell received two silver stars in Vietnam, a Distinguished Flying Cross, a soldier’s medal earned for saving people’s lives in a noncombat situation, a bronze star, 43 air medals and a Purple Heart.

“I was just a kid,” Cashwell said, adding that he went into the Army at 19 and left at 22.

Almost 34 years later, Cashwell attended the ceremony at Putnam Veterans Memorial Park dedicating the very craft he flew.

“I was the keynote speaker,” Cashwell said of the event. His speech was about the cycles of pride a young man in the military experiences.

One cycle includes the change in thinking a young person experiences – from the concept that he’s going to serve his country to having it become very personal when he actually arrives in the conflict area and has to protect the ground troops.

After returning home, Cashwell said, the time spent in the military becomes “a silent event in your life.” He also spoke of the shift he’s seen in people’s thinking – from blaming the war on the warrior to refocusing and blaming government policy.

“I’ve never been prouder than to stand and speak to several hundred people that cared to remember,” he said.

At the Putnam dedication, Cashwell for the first time met the brother of one of Troop D 3/5 Cavalry’s pilots, who was killed in Vietnam. He described the meeting as a “real personal connection to the event.”

The pilot, Kenneth Williams, from Farmington, Mich., was shot down and killed in June 1969. He had just married in February of that year and Cashwell had been the best man at the wedding.

Cashwell also saw fellow troop member Michael Rasbury of Lafayette, Ga. Rasbury was flying with Williams when he was shot down, “so it was pretty personal,” Cashwell said.

The Cobra that Cashwell flew in Vietnam has flown several thousand hours in the states since 1969. All the Cobras are being retired from military service, and being given to museums and memorials, Cashwell said.