Villager William W. Shawn stopped and watched as the distinctive sound of an Army helicopter gunship filled the air Friday morning.
The retired lieutenant colonel, who served his country for 36 years, paid close attention as the restored AH-1G Cobra’s owner and veteran Vietnam pilot, Roger Renzulli, made a couple of passes over the Rolling Acres Sports Complex in Lady Lake. And then Shawn watched intently as Renzulli, of New Smyrna Beach, executed a picture-perfect landing while Vietnam-era veterans and others snapped photographs of the sleek, flat-black Bell helicopter that saw service in Southeast Asia and was shot down four times.
“This is great,” said the Village of Pine Ridge resident, who came to the soccer fields to pay his respects at the Traveling Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall and to see the Cobra gunship. “I haven’t seen one up close like this that’s flyable in probably 30-some years.
Shawn said it took him back to the days when he was qualified to fly the gunship.
“It’s a beautiful aircraft,” he said, his mind clearly drifting back to his younger days in the Army. “I flew helicopters for 28 years with the military. I got shot up twice but I didn’t get shot down.”
Shawn, who was in Vietnam in 1967 with the 9th Infantry Division and again in 1970 with the 34th Group, 610th GS Maintenance Company, said seeing the Cobra also brought back some tough memories.
“There’s a lot of emotions because I had a lot of friends I lost over there,” he said. “By the grace of God, I’m standing here talking to you all right now, because I shouldn’t be here.”
Shawn said he started every day in Vietnam with a simple-but-powerful prayer.
“Lord, help me to do what I’ve been trained to do,” he said quietly. “If it gets beyond my control, it’s in your hands.”
As to why he made it home and some of his close friends didn’t, Shawn said he really doesn’t have an answer to that question.
“I can’t even hardly watch TV shows on Vietnam,” he said. “Even though I wasn’t on the ground with the soldiers that were there, I saw a lot and I worked with them with my aircraft.”
Shawn also took some time Friday to find the name of a fellow pilot and close friend on the Vietnam Wall, which was brought to the area by the Band of Brothers. Capt. Charles “Chuck” Abel, who went through flight school with Shawn, was killed on Sept. 13, 1966, when he was hit in the chest by a .50-caliber shell while flying a Huey helicopter.
“He was such a strong Christian,” Shawn said, standing a few feet away from the panel where Abel’s name was inscribed. “He was a good man, a very good-looking guy. He could have been a movie star, as far as that goes, but he was very humble and very quiet-spoken.”
Whenever he thinks of Vietnam and what it means to him, Shawn said his thoughts quickly go back to his days with Abel.
“Nobody should have to die like that,” he said. “Chuck could have been such a contributor to society when he came back home. He was probably the best friend I lost over there.”
These days, the 78-year-old Shawn is busy working on a special project that in many ways will pay tribute to those he served with. It’s a replica of an AH-1G Cobra on his four-seater golf cart. And if things go well, Villagers will see the tribute vehicle in the Dec. 8 Christmas parade at The Villages Polo Fields.
“It’s going to have about a 16-foot rotor system,” he said. “It’s got 2.75-inch rockets on it, a machine gun, a 40mm grenade launcher, five lights and an instrument panel. I’m making it as pure as I can make it. And when people see it, they’ll be able to recognize what it is from 100 yards away.”
Like most Vietnam veterans, Shawn still holds strong feelings about one of the most controversial wars in history. He said he believes in everything the U.S. military was doing in Vietnam and he believes Americans were there to help the Vietnamese people and defeat the spread of communism.
“We could have won that war and we should have won that war,” he said. “We won every battle in (the Tet Offensive) and the North Vietnamese were ready to quit.”
But as massive protests broke out, the enemy quickly realized things weren’t necessarily good in the United States, he said.
“They said, ‘Hold off, the American people are turning against this war,’” Shawn said. “We could have won that war if they had given it to the Army and said, ‘Just go get it done.’ That is the biggest regret I and most people who went to Vietnam have, is that we were not allowed to win.”
As for war and people saying it’s glorious, Shawn said he completely disagrees.
“War is not glorious,” he said. “War is designed to break things and kill people.”
But he quickly added that war sometimes is necessary and the only option.
Look at World War II. If it hadn’t been for America, we’d be speaking German right now,” he said. “But it’s a hard road to go down. There’s a lot of sorrow, pain and suffering. Some people never recover from it.
“I’m very fortunate because I have both my mental and physical capacities. But a lot of people don’t. I recognize that and I ask God to be with them.”
