I was born in Sedalia, Missouri, on the 12th of March, 1943.
My father was a career pilot and the driving force behind everything I did.
I had great respect for him for a lot of reasons.
And I always wanted to be a pilot in the Air Force.
I never wanted to be anything else.
That's why I went... why do you go to college?
I didn't want to... work for a living.
So I went to college to be in ROTC and be a pilot.
And I did. I became a pilot in the Air Force and was for 30 years.
NARRATOR: James Fleming graduated from Washington State University in 1966
and was commissioned a lieutenant in the Air Force.
Halfway through pilot training
the Air Force needed helicopter pilots to go to Vietnam.
Fleming's desire was to fly in combat, so he volunteered.
By 1968 he was living in the jungle of Vietnam
and flying special forces units deep into enemy territory for reconnaissance patrols.
Before you took off you would brief, you would go over,
and you would shake hands and hug the team members and the crew members.
Not a lot of talking going on.
And what's going on here is what you see in
football when men stand around and hold hands,
these big guys hold hands.
There's a bonding going on there.
In fact, the hair stands on my neck when I think about that.
There's a bonding going on there.
No talking.
But what you're doing...
is you're saying, "I'm gonna take you...
and I'm gonna put you out in the middle of hell.
If you have to come home, I'll bring you home."
I'm telling him that.
That's my duty. It's my honor.
That's what I do. I will do that for you.
That's what I'm gonna do.
And he is taking into his heart,
"I'm gonna go out there and do my job because you know what?
I know if I get in trouble, Jim is gonna come and get me."
Real hot area we were going into, all up and down the Cambodian border.
When we went on a mission we went in a formation of five helicopters.
Two gun ships,
the insert or X-fill slick,
the guy that puts them in or the guy that picks them up,
and an empty slick...
to pick up anyone that's shot down because we're behind enemy lines.
No one's coming after us.
No air support, no artillery support, no ground support.
We're on our own.
And, of course, we had a forward air controller,
either an O-1 or an O-2 that would lead us in.
NARRATOR: On November 26th
Fleming and his crew inserted a seven-man Special Forces team
across the border into Cambodia for an intelligence gathering mission.
After getting a team OK from the ground they went to a remote location to wait.
We're sitting around listening to rock and roll from
Armed Forces Radio and eating C rations and smoking cigars and,
you know, sitting alert out in the middle of this miserable little place.
When I put the team in, they got their 20-minute OK.
They moved up to this road and set up a watch position and an ambush position.
They had been there a couple hours,
and here came a large enemy force down this trail.
And one of these enemy soldiers walks over and starts to relieve himself.
The guy saw Frank's eyes.
He looked forward and looked at him. And all of a sudden he jerked back.
And Frank hit him. And that opened up the ambush.
All seven of these guys that were there
opened up an ambush and knocked down whoever was in front of them
then started leapfrogging back to get out of the area.
And as soon as they did that,
the radio operator with them keyed the mic and said,
"Tango 5-1, contact, need extraction."
As soon as that happens, we get it. We're on our way.
Now they're after him.
They chased him to this large river
which is the border between Cambodia and Vietnam.
And they can't get across the river.
So they're now with their backs to the river,
set up a defensive position,
put Claymore mines out...
that they had with them,
and they're fighting off these people that are starting to come in on them.
The FAC has identified where he thinks they are 'cause they're moving.
He's got a general idea where they are.
He knows they're on the river but exactly where he can't really tell.
And, of course, the first guys that get there are the gun ships.
What do gun ships like to do more than they like to do anything else?
Rock and roll. Full automatic.
Well, lo and behold,
they go across and we didn't know these people
were pulling some Chinese .51 caliber machine guns with them.
They hit the first gun ship.
He starts trailing blue smoke and he yells,
"I'm hit. I'm hit. I'm going down."
He turns back, goes across the river and crash lands.
The empty slick spirals down.
They get in that helicopter and they go home.
They can't help anybody. So they're going home.
The third medic helicopter has engine trouble and goes home.
The second gun ship,
Leonard Gonzalez, who gets the Air Force Cross this day,
goes across the team and takes battle damage and starts trailing blue smoke.
So while this is going on, the forward air controller
is talking to me and he's saying, "What are we gonna do?"
I said, "Well, I'll tell you what,
these guys down there have seen one helicopter crash,
one of them leave trailing smoke, other helicopters leaving.
I'm the only one here.
Get me low, way out...
throw me in there.
I bet you I can sneak in there and get them."
So I hit that river bank.
And my right door gunner starts shooting.
And we're starting to take damage. We're starting to take rounds.
And all of a sudden the radio operator says...
"Get out. Get out. They got us. Get out."
I hear that. We're taking damage.
So I put the nose down, go down the river, leave the area.
And as I leave the area I pop up...
go over. And I look over.
There are people everywhere.
The enemy is now focused in where they are.
So the enemy's starting to go in.
At that time they blew their Claymores,
Claymore mines, and knocked them back.
So I see the Claymores go off and the dust come up.
And I tell the FAC, "Bring me in one more time.
I know where they are now.
Bring me in one more time."
As I say that, Leonard Gonzalez says,
"You going back in?" I said, "I'm gonna try it one more time."
He said, "I tell you what, follow me."
He said, "I'll go over them one more time
I'll give them everything I got, and I gotta go home."
He goes over them, over the smoke, and he rocks and rolls.
This is urban legend, but in my urban legend...
the other crew members are shooting their pistols out the window, you know?
So they give them everything they got, and he says,
"See you at home, Jim."
And he takes off.
So I hit the river bank again. And we're doing the same operation.
And Fred Cook yells, "Go right.
They have to be right 'cause that's where the bullets are coming from."
And as we get further down,
we're starting to take some pretty good damage.
And Fred is shooting and yelling and,
"Go right. Go right. Stop. Stop. I got them."
They had made it down to the river bank.
And they were half in the water... half of them,
in the reeds, the sort of underbrush.
And the blades had blown the reeds and we found them.
And Fred Cook, God bless him, I hear him go...
"Hold your hover. Hold your hover. I got one."
And what he's doing is he's leaning down
and grabbing these guys and jerking them in.
And I'm looking around and I see people darting up and,
you know, just sort of jumping up and down, up and down,
and shooting. And he's shooting and...
there's seven of them out there. You know, we got six.
And as I look over,
Randy Harrison jumps up. He was the last man.
And he waited till everybody was aboard.
He gave them a last burst of his automatic weapon,
threw it down, and took off to the helicopter and jumped in the water,
sort of a flying jump in the water trying to hit the helicopter, missed,
and took about one stroke in the water and got his arm over the skid.
And Fred Cook reaches down and grabs him
by the rucksack and yells, "Let's go."
And we dragged him through the water and off we went.
And went back and the rest is history.
I was injured in January 1969... and medevacked to Japan.
And I spent from January, February, March...
in the hospital in Tachakawa Hospital in Japan.
And when I got back to Vietnam one of our helicopters
showed up, picked me up, was gonna take me back to the unit.
I get on the helicopter...
and of course you know how guys are.
"How was it, Jim? Did you have a good time?"
"Yeah, I had a good time."
You know, that sort of stuff.
And the guy flying was George Livingston.
He said, "Well, Jim, you're going home."
I said, "Yeah, I got another three or four months of this left."
He said, "No, you're going home tomorrow."
I said, "I'm going home tomorrow, why?"
He says, "The President's nominated you for the Medal of Honor."
It was by Richard Nixon in the White House in May of 1970.
And they flew us in, my family and I, and my mother and father were flown in.
And my father had his uniform on.
I doubt if I'd seen him in a uniform in the entire time I ever lived at home.
He always wore a flight suit. He was a crew dog.
He flew airplanes. That's what he did.
But he had the uniform on.
And I looked down at his ribbons and he had an air medal.
And I said, "Dad, where'd you get the air medal?"
And he looks at me and he goes, "Iwo Jima."
I said, "Iwo Jima?" He said, "Yeah."
I said, "What'd you do at Iwo Jima?"
He says, "I was the pilot of the C-47, one of them,
that went down that beach dropping gun barrels and blood plasma to the Marines."
And then the band-- the band! They had a band
--does the "Hail to the Chief."
And it was like... the waters had parted.
In walks President Nixon.
It was just great.
He says, "I tell you, I'm just so proud to be an American today...
and so proud to be able to bestow on these Americans
the highest honor I can possibly bestow on them.
Today is not my day; it's your day."
How many helicopter pilots were in Vietnam? Thousands?
How many helicopter pilots did what I did
and got shot down and died, no one saw it? Hundreds?
I know that. I was recognized.
And I owe a lot to those that weren't.
Sometimes I haven't been quite as good as I should have been,
but I think I've held it up pretty well.