On the 29th of December 1971 the 134^th Assault Helicopter Company was deactivated, but our journey was far from over. Nearly 26 years later, on the 16^th of September 1997, I began sharing our story on the World Wide Web. This marked the start of my web development adventure, with the first lines of our website's code being written.

Adobe Flash was user-friendly and perfectly suited to tell our story, enjoying a successful 23-year run. However, I never anticipated that the software would become obsolete. Approximately years ago, it was determined that Adobe Flash had numerous security vulnerabilities and was incompatible with newer web standards like HTML5, WebGL, and WebAssembly, leading to its ban. Flash Player played a significant role in web history, but it also had its drawbacks and limitations. Its end of life marks a transition to a more secure, faster, and open web.

In the beginning, I had a need to learn to use Flash code in order to get some coding and web design experience. Flash allowed me to quickly display some in-country photos with captions. Once posted, it didn't take long for 134^th AHC brothers, resourceful as they are, to find the site and subsequently contacting me providing photos and stories for posting. The first brothers to reach out to me were Donnie Forsee and Stan Gause. Donnie and I served together in Tuy Hoa during '70-'71. When Stan contacted me he was already in the process of writing the history of the 134^th Assault Helicopter Company and asked if the history he had compiled so far could be posted on the new site. And so began our consecutive year run. Many thanks to all you contributors for your photos and stories. Keep'em coming.

As is customary during the annual reunion meeting, I provided an update on our website's status. I suggested that since the site was no longer functioning as intended, it may be appropriate to take the 134^th Assault Helicopter Company Website down. I was pleasantly surprised by your overwhelming response, which expressed your desire to keep the site up and running. Since no application existed that could be used to transfer the code to a new language, I made a promise to look into a rewrite from scratch using languages that could best display our story. I added, the rewrite would require some time and that I learn and become proficient with three new to me programming languages (HTML, CSS, and Java Script). BTW, I not only became proficient with the coding languages, what you are currently viewing is a product of what I've learned and implemented. During the last months our site has undergone a complete rewrite and as promised, here it is. I present to you the new and improved offical 134^th Assault Helicopter Company Website. I now can visualize many new possibilities. Hardly a day passes without a new idea popping into my head. Did I mention I love to write code? (I love this stuff.) A wise man said: Don't be afraid to start over again. This time, you're not starting from scratch, you're starting from experience. This is our ongoing story and I believe the site will always be in a state of modification or upgrade as more photos and stories become available. Don't get too used to menu items or placement because they will ultimately change as our story continues to evolve. Please continue to bear with me as our site goes through daily updates/improvements. It's now possible to keep track of daily updates by looking at the Whats New menu option.

It has been an honor to have been a part of the 134^th Assault Helicopter Company and to serve as your webmaster for these years. My vision for our site has always been to create a lasting tribute to our fallen comrades and to preserve the legacy of the 134^th Assault Helicopter Company. I also aim for our site to be a place where we can reconnect with old friends and share our pride in our service. I hope you feel the same way when you visit our site and say, this is the unit I served and the men I served with during the war and This is my website. As the saying goes, Those who did well in war deserve to do well in peace. I hope you have found peace in your life as well.. I appreciate your trust in me to tell our story and showcase our achievements. I am grateful to everyone who has contributed stories and photos to our site. Without you, there would be no site. I am always here for you and looking for new material to add to our site. I also want to thank everyone who is actively involved in our unit's ongoing activities. You and your families continue to show the qualities of motivation, dedication, morale, camaraderie, and esprit de corps that Stan Gause (RIP) mentioned in our unit history. Your calls and messages inspire me to keep going. We are in each other's lives for a reason. Thank you for being there. Please continue to feel free to contact me anytime. Thank you for visiting our site and we wish you a splendid day.

In summary, I just wanted to take this opportunaty to add a few website statistics...

1. On the 27th of November at 1845 hours, the last Demon aircraft to fly a scheduled mission in Vietnam touched down at Hell's Half Acre. Aircraft 177 with WO1 Hank Pietrzak (RIP), 1LT Barton, SP5 IKE Pena (RIP) and SP5 Jeff Lemon (RIP) had flown a mission to Pleiku and back. At 1848 the blades ceased to turn, by 1915 the ship was postflighted and pushed into the revetments for the last time. On the 29^th of December 1971, years ago today, the 134^th Assault Helicopter Company passed into history, but our story did not.


2. The 134^th Aviation Company served in Vietnam for 1 year, 12 days as a Caribou outfit and 4 years, 35 days as an Assault Helicopter Unit. The 134^th Aviation Company flew almost 14,000 hours in Caribous and as the 134^th Assault Helicopter Company just short of 95,000 hours in UH-1's. Miraculously, only 12 men were lost during this entire 5 year period despite the many hazardous missions.


3. Today we post and display the story of our illustrious unit with over 22.7 gigs of files (19,900 files), directories and photos here on the World Wide Web.


4. Of those mentioned files, approximately 4,711 are reunion files, over 2,000 are in-country photos and just under 220 Then N Now photos. No doubt there will be many more files and photos in the future.


5. As webmaster, it's my job to manipulate those files, photos and text files to display our story. And what a story it is!


6. The Web hosting and security have been supported by financial contributions of the 134^th Assault Helicopter Company for the past years.


7. For nearly years, I've have been generously providing free web coding services. My contributions encompass web design, writing all the source code for webpages, upgrading computer hardware and software, and uploading content to web servers. Additionally, for the past years I've been dedicated to keeping the unit roster up-to-date.

Important to note; though our site will open on a cell phone, for the best viewing experience a 16 inch or greater display is recommended. Keep in mind that our site is still a work in progress. Auto resizing for phones and tablets is on my todo list but not yet there. Just because it's taking time, doesn't mean it's not happening.

Lastly, the background image on this page features the Maryland state flag. I spent my early years in Maryland, leaving in 1969. After a fulfilling journey through both military and civilian careers abroad, I'm thrilled to share that we returned to our home state in 1997 and have been here ever since. It has been a long and winding road.

Last Modified: Sunday November 24^th, 2024