MADISON STROHLEIN by Author Unknown
	I recently read SOG by John L. Plaster. I loved the book and read it with interest and looking for that “story” that might have something to do with A/101, Comancheros and my flying days with them on CCN missions. I remember these missions with mixed feelings. They were always a adventure, as CCN hardly ever came out in a cold PZ, but they gave you the feeling that you were working with the pros and doing something for your country when you flew these missions for them. They also had the best chow in I Corp. :-)) Although the book SOG was very exciting reading through the first fifteen chapters, nothing jumped out at me as a mission that I was on. Then came Chapter sixteen “Fighting Soldiers From The Sky”. As some of you may already know this chapter has to do with the SOG HALO teams and there missions. I had a remembrance, although just partial, of an extraction that we performed for SOG in the summer of 1971. My memory told me that the SOG team had parachuted in and had injury’s on landing. I have been told that this did not happen, because SOG did not have HALO teams. Well my CRS memory has been vindicated somewhat by page 317 of “SOG”. John L. Plaster wrote the story of Sergeant Major Billy Waugh, Staff Sergeant James “JD” Bath and Sergeants Jesse Campbell and Madison Strohlein and them being members of SOG HALO team. After weeks of training for this jump they were put in a target DZ 60 miles southwest of Danang on 22 June 1971 on a intensely dangerous night jump at 14,000’ from a Blackbird. The book goes on to tell that Bath’s chute had blown out in the canopies center and he had almost no control in his descent. He got separated from Strohlein, Campbell and Waugh in the heavy rain and his chute collapsed on a tree branch and he plunged to the ground wrenching his knee and knocking himself out. Strohlein crashed through the trees and was caught up in the tree with his chute. He was in his harness with a broken arm he was stuck in the tree and could not operate his descender . He could only talk with Bath by radio. Waugh and Campbell landed safely. They all reported that they saw NVA during the night, but were not discovered by them as some of them hung helplessly from there positions. The A/101 Avn., Comancheros, got the call be be the extraction birds the next morning. We were chalk two in a four bird flight and chalk three and four had Bright Light teams on board when we went out at O dark 30. Once in the area of the team the plan was to go after Bath first, but after talking with him on the radio he convinced us that Strohlein needed to get out first because of his injuries and the position he was in. Chalk one and two were redirected to the adjoining embankment to look for Strohlein. While three and four circled above waiting there turn to insert the Bright Light teams. We had a hell of a time trying to find him as it was at least triple canopy jungle that he was hung up in. He was on the radio talking to us and trying to vector us toward him by the sound of our rotors. This took for what seemed like a hour and we could not see him anywhere. We once thought that we were very close and he said he could hear us overhead. The rotor wash moved the jungle away and I spotted a "yard" standing below looking up at us. I leaned out and threw a string to him and it landed at his feet, a perfect shot. He just looked up at me and smiled but did not grab and attach to the string. We were hovering about 25 ’-30’ above him and I motioned wildly for him to grab the string and hook up. The "yard" just stood there with his rifle slung over his shoulder and looked at me with a stupid look on his face. I was getting pissed that he was standing there looking up at me and smiling, while I was hanging half in and half out of the bird and we were sitting ducks in Indian country while this idiot acted like he did not want a ride. The GIF ask me what the problem was and I keyed the intercom told them the SOB would not grab the string that was laying at his feet. Then I remembered that this guy was supposed to be hung up in a tree, I keyed the mike and asked the AC if the team was all round eyes or if "yards" were among them, as was the usual with SOG teams, and if they could tell him by radio to hook up to our string. I went back to motioning to try to get this “yard” to grab the string. The AC then came back to me with “All round eye team - NOT OUR MAN”. What happened next seemed like it took forever to transpire and all of it happened in slow motion, but could not of been more than a couple of seconds. The pucker factor moved to maximum as I realized that I was trying to get a NVA to hook up to my rig. Oh shit, I reached back to grab my M16 that was within my reach in the CE well while I was laying on the floor. Just as I locked and loaded it and stuck my head back out to shoot this guy just as he too realized that I had found out that he was not who I thought he was. He started to take his gun from a position of slung over his shoulder. I pulled the trigger before he got his AK up to aim and cut him down. Why he did not shoot us before this I can’t explain. He had enough time to fire his whole clip in the bottom of my Huey and me as I lay on the deck. As it turned out this is the only time I ever shot a NVA/VC that I could see his eyes. Maybe he did not want the bird to fall on him! I can still see it just as though it was yesterday. After explaining to the GIF what had just happened we got back to trying to find Strohlein and I to trying to calm my nerves. Strohlein heard the shots and we told him that Indians were in his AO. Strohlein then threw a smoke in a attempt to help us locate him. It was then we found out that he was actually hearing chalk one over him all this time, but was talking to and directing us. Then we found the smoke but could not find his location exactly through the canopy jungle and the smoke was not helping pinpoint him. After several minutes of trying to locate him he warned us off because he heard NVA around him and he did not want to give his position away. The weather was getting real bad and we were almost out of fuel so Chalk three and four inserted the bright light team to locate Campbell and Waugh on the opposite ridge line, they located them and extracted them and we headed back to refuel. After going back and refueling we again went back out as lead in what was now the early afternoon with a flight of three because Chalk four CRS took hits and was red Xed. We could not reach Strohlein on the radio, so Chalk two and three rappelled in a bright light team to go after Bath. They found him and and he and the team were lifted out on strings. After circling for a while longer and trying to reach Strohlein on the radio without any luck. His ridge became engulfed in fog so we could not get in to low level search for him. We finally started taking same light AK ground fire and took a couple of hits but nothing that seemed to cause a problem, but again running low on fuel we had to leave the AO and abandon our search for Sgt. Strohlein for the day. After shutting it down we found two holes in the sheet metal of the cowling for AK rounds, but no real damage done. The next day we inserted a Hatchet force platoon to go after Strohlein. They found his map and CAR-15. No blood was found, however AK and CAR-15 brass were around the location. Sergeant Strohlein was never found and is still listed as MIA. I did not know his fate all these years until I read about it in “SOG”. I was able to tell this story from the information I found in SOG by John L. Plaster and what little memory I have of the incident. It is heart breaking for me to now know the fate of Sergeant Madison Strohlein. I still have the feeling that if we had just tried a little harder we could have found him. I will look him up on the Wall the next time I get the chance. At Fort Bragg there is a vertical wind tower where Special Forces HALO parachutists perfect their skills, Strohlein Hall, named for SOG HALO jumper Madison Strohlein, MIA and believed captured, but never returned to his loved ones. RB