Charlie Troop 1/9th Cavalry Myron MY roommate by Kurt F. Schatz

                                                                                   

WO 1 Myron R. Lamont, Cobra pilot extraordinary and my roommate. Myron had just turned twenty years old and approached me about buying a hooch that was For Sale by some departing C Troopers. I had been living on a cot surrounded by rocket boxes filled with dirt with pieces of steel runway plates for a roof. It was so small you couldn’t even sit on the cot.

I didn’t even know Myron but we soon became best of friends after buying our new home. Can you imagine a Scout and Gun pilot living together; we were at it constantly, always trying to pull something on each other. Myron was a Mormon and a very naïve virgin; yes a virgin who didn’t drink or swear. This Scout had a lot of work to do before Myron would be christened into the brotherhood of the Cav.

Myron fought me every step of the way during his transition. He was constantly trying to get out of the Cav. On one occasion, in November of 1969 he was coming into one of the Cobra revetments at Phouc Vinh when the shit hit the fan. Myron had just shut the Cobra down and it was being disarmed to go into PE. The CE that was disarming it had stacked the rockets against the inside wall and was clearing the minigun when he shot a tracer. Of course, it went into one of the stacked rockets, igniting the motor. The rocket went up, armed itself, and fell straight down, setting off Armageddon right there on the C Troop flight line. The entire Fire Support Base came outside of their hooch’s, clubs and bunkers watching in amazement at the “rockets red glare of bombs bursting in air”. The sun had set well over an hour when the fire works display was initiated. There were at least fifty 17-pound rockets against the revetment walls along with cases and cases of 40mm and 7.62 rounds. The exploding rockets were the most fun to watch some even took off impacting at various points around the base. One even hit a hooch across the runway in the 227th’s area, no one got hurt. It took almost an hour before the Cobra had completely disappeared, only the tips of the rotor blades gave a clue of what was once a helicopter. It really wasn’t fair to blame Myron for that one

Good old Myron trying to get out of the Cav again, but what he didn’t know was that we had more Cobras than pilots. Sooooo the next week he decides to take some Infantry Lieutenant for a joy ride around the base. As they are hovering just beyond view Myron begins to instruct the Lieutenant on how to shoot the 40-mm directly under the Cobra. It took the sheet metal people the entire week to get all the holes repaired.

The next thing I know Myron goes out to provide cover for our Blues (Infantry folks) and gets a little off the mark and shoots up the Blues with the 20mm gatling gun and spent a week on the ground with them as punishment. None of the Blues had been hurt, just scared shitless. He didn’t make any friends on that one except the Troop Commander, I think Myron had become friends with him after the numerous visits.

Knowing that he needed some cheering up and knowing how depressed a guy can get when he can’t fly for an entire week I introduced him to my best friend, Jim Beam. Myron was very glad to meet him; Jim cheered him up almost immediately. I had a difficult time getting Jim to leave our hooch that night, so I gave up and went to bed.

The sun was even hardly up when our next door neighbors Hunter & Battel woke me up accusing me of putting Myron in their bunker and convincing Myron that it was the shitter. Poor Myron, Jim still had a firm grip on him, he had shit all over himself, if it wasn’t for Hunter an Battel holding him he would have had to crawl home and everyone knows that isn’t the Cav way. Myron just didn’t understand that shittin in another mans bunker will not get you out of the Cav in fact he was becoming one of the boys now that he understood Jim Beam. But most of all, only a Cav guy would sit on a wooden chair and go shit and fall asleep doing it.

Now that’s Real Cav!

Myron never did get out of the Cav but got out of the Army as soon after getting back to the States. He tried the Reserves as a fixed wing jock but didn’t like that either especially when the wheels of that brand new U21 didn’t come down. I thought those things had some sort of warning to tell you not to forget to put your wheels down.

Anthony Brian Battel
WO Cobra pilot
Cavalier 27
KIA January 28, 1970

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Michael Woodrow Hunter
WO Cobra pilot
KIA January 28, 1970

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