Fixin' To Die Rag

FIXIN' TO DIE RAG is the true story of the men of Charlie Company of the Army’s First Cavalry Division’s 229th Assault Helicopter Battalion in Vietnam and Cambodia during 1970. When three young warrant officer pilots joined Charlie Company at their Tay Ninh base near the Cambodian border, they entered a war that was hot, and getting hotter. Charlie Company’s commanding officer was killed by enemy fire while piloting a UH-1 Huey. One of his men later described his commander’s death as “a one in a trillion tragedy.”

During the Cambodian Incursion, Charlie Company lost a door gunner to a rocket attack followed by the loss of five soldiers in a severe nighttime thunderstorm. In a “hover down and kick out” mission inside Cambodia, they lost a pilot that should not have been flying that mission.The three young warrant officer pilots survived the Cambodia Incursion, but tragedy soon struck. One survived a violent accident in which his Huey was destroyed. The other two went on a mission from which they never returned. The radio crackled to life to announce their doom:

Gooood Morning Vietnam… We’ve Just Had a Mid Air Collision