The Seawolves of Vietnam

My dad and his best pals fought in Vietnam. For those who survived, their reward has been a fifty-five-year party that’s still “chugging” along.

“We few, we happy few, we band of brothers; for he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother.”

-- From Henry V, William Shakespeare

Mac Hinman’s War Room

Growing up, my dad’s home office—like his tools and guns—were off limits. Which meant fair game for the likes of me. Whenever my folks were gone, which was every Friday and Saturday night, I’d sneak into my dad’s office and excavate his past. Ignoring the worn leather couch, squeaky swivel chair, and exhausted wooden desk, I’d survey photos, finger souvenirs, and don military garb my dad earned two decades before in America’s ten-thousand-day war.

A personal favorite was a captured enemy mortar round (gunpowder and primer removed), standing fins down on his desk. I’d grip its power in my hand, see the Chinese characters stamped upon it, and wonder how the hell he got it.

I’d then turn to my dad’s arsenal of firepower in the closet—dozens of rifles, shotguns, and pistols, many of which belonged to my grandfather and great grandfather. He even had a powder horn my ancestor used two centuries before in the Blackhawk Indian wars.

Within the Hinman family armory, I always grabbed my dad’s “deer rifle,” a high-powered rifle with a scope that fired a 7.62mm round (think Full Metal Jacket). Smaller, but equally as cool, was his .22 caliber pistol that resembled a German Luger from World War II. Gripping them, I’d ensure an empty chamber, aim the weapon, and practice dry firing. When I squeezed the trigger and heard an audible click, a charge would rush through me. One day, I thought, I’ll fight in a war.

(Don’t worry Mothers of America, I’d already fired all my dad’s guns with him after he taught me weapons handling and safety.)  

Deeper in his closet hung a leather flight jacket with more patches than Maverick’s, including my personal favorite along the left shoulder of his coat. The patch showed a stick figure in a conical Vietnamese peasant hat holding an AK-47. Above it said, “Viet Cong Hunting Club.” The swinging-dick bravado of that patch was about the coolest thing in the world for a 10-year-old Eddie Hinman, and if I’m honest, I still think it’s cool. In fact, for my last Army-Navy football game, I wore that exact patch on my jersey and ran out the tunnel of Veteran’s Stadium in Philadelphia thinking about my dad.

In the corner of this treasure trove was the old man’s hat rack sprouting up like a metal tree with caps hanging from every branch. Among its dangling headgear was a World War I leather flying helmet with goggles. When his pals were over and my dad surpassed what he liked to call his “critical beer,” he’d don the cap and roll back into the party like the Red Baron ready for a refill.

Hanging from other branches of the rack were squadron ballcaps like HT-18, HS-4, HSL-30, and HSL-36. Standing out from the rest, however, was a black beret from the most prestigious helicopter squadron in US Naval History: Helicopter Attack Squadron (Light) 3, abbreviated as, “HAL-3,” and known to friendlies and enemies alike as “The Seawolves.” (Watch this trailer about them.)

25-year-old Lieutenant (junior grade) Mac Hinman, Republic of Vietnam 1970-1971

Scramble the Seawolves

Scrambling from a dead sleep and running to their iron birds when the desperate call came in from ambushed SEAL teams or brown water patrol boats, the men of HAL-3 roared to life and were airborne in minutes.

Weather be damned, neither pitch-black nights nor raging thunderstorms stopped the mighty Seawolves. As rain hammered the windshields and Vietcong insurgents blasted machine guns and rockets from the ground—and even detonated claymore mines from the trees—Seawolf pilots like my dad would roll in like a dragon from Game of Thrones and set the jungle afire with a torrential flame of munitions. More than once, SEALs arrived at my dad’s hootch the next day with a case of beer thanking him and his crew for saving their lives.  

Except for a few experimental flights, there were no helicopters in World War II, and those in Korea were never armed. It was only in Vietnam where the helicopter gunship made its debut into the annals of war. When Viet Cong guerillas heard the whispering death of distant rotors, they knew the cavalry was on its way, and bringing some serious ass to the party.

Armed with 2.75 inch high-explosive, white phosphorous, and anti-personnel flechette rockets, plus two mounted “Gatling” min-guns, and two more machine guns fired by grim-faced door gunners, the UH-1 Huey Gunship became a flying tank without the armor. With a payload of fourteen rockets and 8,000 rounds of ammunition, the Seawolves became the 911 lifeline for any ground-pounder stuck under fire along the deadly rivers, islands, and rice patties of the Mekong Delta.    

Donning my dad’s flight jacket and black beret, I’d stare at a painting above his office couch showing a low altitude Seawolf gunship diving into a swarm of enemy tracers slicing up from the murk below. Beside it was a framed photo of about twelve green-drabbed men, squatting and standing in front of a gunship. Lean, tan, and all in their late teens or early twenties, these spry men stared back with squinting eyes and big grins. They looked like they were having the time of their lives, living like every generation of young men had before the modern era—with danger, exhilaration, and brotherhood.  

Who were these guys? I thought. Though I didn’t recognize them, I loved them because they kept my dad alive and enabled my existence.

Beyond that photo, however, there were Seawolves I did know—men who still occupy some of my earliest memories.  

Courtesy Uncles

Most kids grow up with a few courtesy aunts and uncles; I grew up with many. Nearly every pal of my dad from Vietnam was “Uncle So and So” along with his wife, “Aunt Such and Such.”

There was my Uncle Turkey, who once got “grounded” for a mock gun-run just above his San Diego neighborhood (think Maverick “buzzing the tower,” except for Turkey, it’s your house). Then there was Uncle Dunner, who’d knock on our door wearing a bathrobe and say, “I’m staying the night. Where’s the Jameson’s?” And my colossal Uncle Don who captained the 1966 Navy Football team and spent two years in Iran with my dad, training the Shah’s pilots and going 10 and 0 in bar fights against the Iranians. The sole Marine of this motley crew was my Uncle Jack Tucker, who after spending more time in bars than gyms, rode to the Marine Corps Ball standing up in his VW van (head poking out the sunroof) so his dress-blue trousers wouldn’t tear. And there were many more, including my Uncles Chooch and Chuckles.  

But the Alpha of the Alphas was my dad’s best friend, Dennis J. Rowley (seen here on Jocko’s podcast.). Uncle DJ’s Commanding Officer once placed him on “social probation” for sneaking under the head table at a Navy Ball and biting the Admiral’s wife on her ankle. (I believe he also pissed in the water pitcher.)  

Landing his Huey at Binh Thuy one morning after a dawn mission, my dad eyed a young officer walking across the flight line with an open bottle of Mateus wine in his hand. “It’s 7am. Who the fuck is that guy?” my dad asked his crew chief. “Oh, that’s Mr. Rowley,” he said. And so began my dad’s fifty-six year and counting friendship with the liveliest, loudest, and most fun-loving naval officer to ever sail the Seven Seas.

After the war, every one of these guys stayed in the Navy—swapping the exhilarations of Vietnam for the alcohol-fueled hedonism of military life in 1970s and 80s America. Whether Chula Vista, Pensacola, Jacksonville, Virginia Beach, or Newport, Rhode Island, the cops of every city visited our partying house at least once for noise complaints. To say, “it was a different time,” is an understatement. Kegerators were encouraged, swimsuits were forbidden, and inviting the cops in for a drink was standard operating procedure for these Airedales and the women crazy enough to marry them.  

Of all my parents’ parties, the annual Hinman “hat party” became as legendary as my Uncle DJ and Aunt Gayle’s annual St. Patrick’s Day party. For the hat party, my parents would gather at least four kegs of beer plus rows of boxed wine and plastic bottles of booze on folded tables in the backyard. And while there was no food at the hat party, there was a rented jukebox and an infinite number of shenanigans. And when I’d hear the inevitable knock on the door from [City] PD followed by, “Ma’am, can you please keep the noise down,” I’d hear my mom (and I swear this is true) slur, “Surrrrre, occifer. Now how ‘bout you fellas come in for a drink.”

How to Live

This heyday of revelry seems like a lifetime ago—long before our digital age of optimization and life-hackers. No one was hawking their book (like me), no one was gobbling supplements (like me), and no one seemed to give much of shit about anything other than the bare essentials and having a good time. They weren’t monitoring their sleep patterns, injecting peptides, or stressing about professional goals, politics, or paydays. They were living in the moment, grateful to be in one piece, and celebrating their one and only life with gusto. Looking back, I can say with conviction that my dad and his military pals were the happiest middle-aged men I’ve ever seen.

When I think of the Seawolves I knew growing up, I recall this scene from the movie Platoon, where the salty King tells a young Chris, “All you got to do is make it out of here, and it’s all gravy. Every day for the rest of your life: gravy.”

For the last fifty-five years, my dad and his Seawolf buddies have been biscuits in a deep vat of celebratory gravy—enjoying a life they are lucky enough to live. So many times, my dad has told me, “Eddie, I’m just grateful to be alive.”  

So amidst the million and one self-help books, podcasts, and symposiums targeting every adult chasing that brass ring and existential fulfillment, we can learn this one one simple rule from my dad and his Vietnam pals: have some fucking fun.

Mac Hinman flew 550 combat missions at tree-top level concealing a guerrilla force desperate to kill him. He has never forgotten that. As a result, he has had one hell of a good life. He runs, he hikes, he skis, he reads, he laughs, he fishes, he dines, he parties, and he yes, he drinks—because drinking too much beer and whiskey will never be as hazardous to your health as a gun fight with the Viet Cong.

The great C.S. Lewis, veteran of the First World War and legendary writer, once said this with a giant smile: “There’s no sound I like better than adult male laughter.”   

So take a breath fellas and call upon your pals. Drink too much, eat too much, tell offensive jokes, raise hell, get loud, and consider your hangover a reminder from God that life is meant to be lived with hearty laughs and pervasive hugs.  

So here’s to my dad and his band of brothers who escaped the grim reaper in Vietnam and saw every day thereafter as gravy. As the years and decades have passed, they’ve never forgotten how to live—embracing, celebrating, and coveting the most important ingredient for a happy life: Fellowship.