|
|
Home > Fact Sheets > Background Information by A1C Harry J. O’Beirne
BACKGROUND INFORMATION BY A1C HARRY J. O’BEIRNE
A1C Harry J. O'Beirne, friend and co-worker of A1C Pitsenbarger's, had this to say, when asked if Pits knew what he was getting himself into when he volunteered to go down the hoist to rescue the wounded on the ground.
O'Beirne: Yes, I do. Bill had gone down many a time before. He had gone down on his own. In fact only two weeks ago he went down there in very dense jungle. Later on he went in with the help of a Special Forces team. The Special Forces team themselves even said that if we're hit, which there were six of them down there at the time, they said we would definitely be killed in minutes. And Pits himself had gone in there three hours earlier on his own looking for a pilot and got the pilot and got him out in spite of the VC. He knew the score pretty well and he had been fired at quite a bit before. He knew the chance he was taking and it wasn't a case of going in there blindly.
Q: In other words he volunteered to go in knowing what was on the ground.
A: Yeah, he did and he's been down picking out Army before, he's been under sniper fire before. He knew all about it.
Q: Well what type of guy was Pitsenbarger?
A: Well the usual thing everybody says is that he was a really fine fellow but in this case it's the honest truth. I think just about everybody in the squadron liked him. He was very pleasing. You can't even say anything really bad about him. He's probably had some small faults, just about everyone has, but all over everybody liked him. I'd say that he was almost the most popular guy in the squadron.
|  |
|
|
|
|
Printable Fact Sheet
