Jim Sheetz was my Loach gunner the day he was shot twice in the chicken plate and knocked out the opposite side of the aircraft hanging by his monkey strap. I took 6-8 hits in the seat armor and he took two in the chest armor. aircraft was shot to shit as I recall. The litle SOB (that was shooting at us) was hiding under a large sampan. The area was so bad we couldn't land the aircraft so we dumped all the bombs, bullets, flares and so forth and limped back to Can Tho. I was really pissed off so I got another aircraft and returned to the area, found the little bastard and killed him with mini and mg fire, then pitched c-4 bombs on him to fragment his body and ensure sure the bad guys understood "low level hell". This was in Sep 71. - Joe Eszes