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in reserve for some particular contingency, but rather to totally integrate it into the 1st Cavalry Division and to train its troops completely in airmobile tactics. We rounded out the battalion with a fourth rifle company from headquarters and supply units and placed their armored personnel carriers at a central position near landing zone UPLIFT. The companies would go out on airmobile operations just as other companies of the Division and if a mission appeared that needed a mechanized unit, we extracted the troops to landing zone UPLIFT and deployed them in their primary role. The 1st Battalion, 50th Mechanized Infantry proved to be a very valuable asset and, when we had lost our attached tanks to their parent organization, we often employed the Armored Personnel Carriers with their .50 caliber guns in tank-like formations. In using the mechanized battalion in this manner, we felt we enjoyed the best of both worlds. We had the additional troops which were completely trained in air assault tactics and we had the mechanized capability when the terrain and situation demanded.

On 1 September 1967, the first Huey Cobra (AH-1G) arrived in Vietnam. The initial six aircraft were assigned to their New Equipment Training Team, under the supervision of the 1st Aviation Brigade. Cobra New Equipment Training Team training started on 18 September with pilot transition courses and instruction on air frame, engine, armament and avionics maintenance. The Cobra was a major step forward in the development of the armed helicopter. For those pilots who had been flying the old, make-shift UH-1C's, it was a giant step.

After all this time there were many people, both in and out of the military, who didn't understand the role of the armed helicopter. Ever since Colonel Jay D. Vanderpool had tied a machine gun on a H-13 in the mid-50's, there were those who saw the armed helicopter as a fragile toy dreamed up by frustrated fighter pilots in the Army who were unable by regulation and budget to own really sophisticated attack aircraft. The consensus was generally that a semi-skilled skeet shooter or even a good slingshot artist could knock any helicopter out of the sky at short range and that an encounter with more sophisticated antiaircraft weapons would be suicidal. This attitude is quite understandable in duck hunters who never had the challenge of ducks shooting back. Also the very nature of the helicopter, which looks very ugly and fragile com[pared]