Bert McCauley: The boredom, terror of a career flying birds

All Bert McCauley wanted to do was go to college.

Sure, as a kid he had a fascination with flying as most boys do.

Growing up in Indiana, he built and played with model airplanes - but the thrill of aviation wasn't something he ever really thought of as a career.

All he wanted was to earn a degree and go on to medical school.

Fast forward, and the retired Lt. Col. in the United States Marine Corps., now 82, is sitting comfortably in his home off Fernan Hill Road, with boxes full of medals for his 30 years of service.

But don't tell him he's a hero. Not to his face, at least.

"The real heroes are the solders who were wounded and killed, and I've seen a lot of them," he said. "I'm not a hero, they are. I don't want to hear any of that."

Looking back now, he's not surprised the trajectory his life took.

He never went to medical school.

Instead, he enlisted at the age of 17 as a way to pay for school.

"We weren't affluent by any stretch of the imagination," he said of his family.

Then began the sidetrack that was his education.

He would go on to earn a degree in military science at the University of Nebraska and a M.S. degree in aerospace management from the University of Southern California - but before all that his country called.

The Korean War, the Cold War and finally the Vietnam Conflict. Once the military taught McCauley to fly, he didn't want to let it go. And they didn't want him to, either.

He flew for 14 months as a dive bomber during the Korean War, and another 13 months - more than 650 combat missions - as a helicopter pilot rescuing wounded and dead solders from firefights during the Vietnam Conflict.

"As long as I was in an active squadron I was happy as a pig in a mud," he said. "As long as I could go out and fly every day, I couldn't have been happier."

Planes and choppers to him are still called "birds." Sometimes they're "old birds" and sometimes they're "damn birds."

But since then, he and his wife, Jean, moved to Kellogg where McCauley formed the JROTC unit at the high school, a program that's still thriving. Later, he hung up his military career for good and spent the next 10 years in real estate, before settling in Coeur d'Alene, happy to be in the Northwest.

He has boxes full of medals: The Navy Cross, the Silver Star, Distinguished Flying Cross.

But that doesn't make him a hero, he said. The boys he rescued, the boys sacrificing their lives and limbs are.

Remembering his journey as a boy wanting to go to school to a decorated pilot, the motto for flying during peace or war was always the same.

"Hours and hours of boredom interrupted by moments of stark-raving terror," he said.

You flew 650 missions in Vietnam?

We flew everything. Our squadron was tasked with the medevac mission so I got a lot of medevac calls. We had to have two aircraft and crews at all times ready to go as medevacs. That was our No. 1 priority. Regardless of how badly we were shot up as a squadron, we had to provide the medevac. That had priority over any other mission we flew.

What exactly are medevac missions?

It's where you run in and pick up the wounded, or the causalities. You go in and pick up our guys. That's when you get into a lot of these scrapes. I had 42 choppers shot up. I was fortunate I only got hit once. I got sprayed a few times, they hit the cockpit with some rounds and knocked the windows out and so forth. We wore an armor vest. And we had a little bit of armor in the seat and in the back of the seat so we were very lucky, because we got hit a lot of times, but not too badly. I was lucky, 42 birds shot up but I was never shot down. I had to make it into some safe zones numerous times and park them. If we're leaking fuel real badly, we'd dump them on the beach so in case they caught fire they wouldn't endanger other aircraft.

You were hit once, a flesh wound?

Yeah, I got hit one night, but it was a bad mission... My anniversary was last week, the 31st of January... (On the night mission) I had to wait quite a while and that woke the VC, and then when I lifted up - and I was heavy, I had a full load of causalities aboard - I had all my lights off, but I had to have my instrument lights on to see my engine instruments. They zeroed in on it and that's when they hit the cockpit. I got hit in the face and arms, but I was able to fly it back. I couldn't give it to my co-pilot because they shot out all of our communications, my radios and intercoms and stuff. Anyway, I got back and got those guys into the hospital then I went back to the base and they took me over to the hospital and got me patched up. I was in the hospital for 10 days, and I was back flying.

Do you stay in touch with a lot of people from then?

I hear from quite a few of them periodically. I keep in particular touch with a co-pilot who got badly shot up. He lives down in Florida. I lost track of him for 33 years. I got a directory from the Marine Corps. Association that they just printed out and there his phone number was and I called. He got badly shot up in his legs... I was breaking him on the medevacs. He was only in the country a couple of weeks, and I was breaking him in on a milk run so to speak to show him what the procedures were. As we lifted out of the zone they opened up on us and caught him right through the left ankle and shattered his left ankle, went through his right leg and came up and hit me on the side and fell off. I told him, 'Boy I'm glad you're a sturdy son of a gun.' So we gave him the bullet... But we've reestablished contact... We get together and chat every three or four months. We have an hour chat, see how we're doing. He and his wife visited. He has trouble getting around.

Anyone else?

One of the guys over here in Deer Park, I'd lost track of him a long time ago, he was a young lance corporal. About three years ago I got a Christmas card from him. He said, 'I found your address. I wanted to call you and tell you with Christmas coming up it dawned on me that if you remember Jan. 7, 1967, was the day our chopper was shot down and we were getting overrun by VC.' He said, 'You came in and pulled us out. So I told my family I'm able to observe Christmas with you because we got pulled out just at the last minute.'

What's that mean to you?

Every once in a while you run into that. When I was in the hospital I ran into guys I pulled out. That's your real reward in this stuff. I mean, you get all these medals and crap, but the big thing is the kids you worked with... But those kids are all in their 60s now."

How was it afterward? Retiring and getting back into civilian life, was it hard to assimilate?

No, it worked out for me. They gave me a outfit (teaching parachuting to Marines in North Carolina) and I really loved it. It couldn't have hit me at a better time... Then they called me up and said they were going to send me to Embassy duty in Africa. That got sidetracked and all at once they said they were going to send me to Washington. And I didn't want to go to Washington at all.

Why not?

Have you ever been to Washington? It's a zoo out there. It's so political and it's all paper shuffling.

How did you get to Kellogg?

I wanted to get out and teach high school. (A friend of mine) said, 'Have you ever thought about junior ROTC?' I said, 'I've never heard of it, what is it?' He told me, and he said I'll give you the name of the guy who runs that program. I called him up and talked to him and it sounded pretty good. He said, 'I don't have anything open right now but when it opens up I'll give you call.' Anyway, he called me up several months before I was going to retire and he said, 'Hey I got an opening in Kellogg, Idaho.'

Had you ever heard of Kellogg, Idaho?

No. I said, 'Where the hell is Kellogg, Idaho?' And he said, 'I don't know, get a map'... It dawned on me a good friend of mine who had flown with me a lot was from Grangeville ... so I called him up and he said, 'Oh yeah, you'll want to go there, it's the greatest place in the world.'

What was your first impressions when you came out here?

I liked it. It was kind of the Wild West back then, it really was. The mine was going and things were booming. Yeah, I liked it. Very much. I've always said I think I was born 200 years too late. I would have rather been born back in the pioneer days... So we opened up the ROTC in 1971.

How long did you stick with it there?

8 years.

How big was it the first year?

You had to have at least 100 - all boys, you couldn't have any women - so they had 300 people in the school, and we had 110 of them in the ROTC the first year. That's one of the reasons Kellogg got that unit. It was the smallest school that ever got an ROTC Marine unit, it's because they were gung-ho about getting the thing. A lot of other schools were turning them down because of the anti-war atmosphere of Vietnam. They really accepted us 100 percent.

Is the program still going strong?

Yes. Interestingly enough, the person who took my job over there - which was SMI, senior military instructor - was one of my first students.

After 8 years did you retire in Coeur d'Alene?

No. I get bored easily. I thought, 'Gee, I'm saying the same all over, the same thing last year I said in class.' So I decided to do something else so I got into real estate. I had a friend, who was in the Air Force, a retired major, I ran into him and he talked me into going into real estate. I worked for Century 21 over here for 10 years.

Looking back, when you were young and just wanted to go to school and medical school, would you have ever guessed your life would have taken this trajectory?

No, when you're young you think you're going to do this, that and something else and circumstances change. The problem I was seeing was by the time I was eligible to get out after I'd gone to flight school, because I had obligations with service I was going to be 26 or 27 years old before I really got into college. Do I really want to do that or do I want to continue in what I'm really enjoying doing?

Did you ever get scared?

Yeah, hell, you get scared. Who doesn't, you know? But's it's not something you dwell on. I don't want to say you become numb... But I decided early on that I'm going to do my very best to fly the damn bird. And God will decide if a bullet hits me or not. And I can't do a thing about it. So I might as well do the best job I can and if I do that I'm not going to kill myself, let somebody else do it. So, it's nothing to worry about.

Date of birth: Dec. 15, 1928.

Family: Married to wife Jean for 59 years, two sons (one deceased) and two grandchildren.

Hobbies: Mechanics, fiddling with cars, fixing up the house, getting together with friends for poker and snacks, and donating blood.

Favorite book: "Dereliction of Duty."

Favorite movie: "Saving Private Ryan:" "It wasn't all Hollywood-ed up."

One thing you consider your greatest accomplishment: Perhaps taking 40 acres in the Silver Valley and developing it into a homestead, a 30-year project.

Person who most influenced your life: The women in my life, my mother and my wife.

Best advice you ever received: "The harder you work the luckier you get."