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When I got to the Troop in July 68, Fred Michelson was the Commander and Tom Bourgeois was the XO. The Operations Officer was Robert Timmermeyer (he was Opn Off from Feb 68 to Aug 68). I understudied him until he DEROSed.
For me it was a steep learning curve but the "can do" attitude of everyone in the troop was amazing. No mission too small or large. One of the things that surprised me is we would get taskings straight from Division without going through the Squadron. Some of those missions were right up our alley and we pulled them off with our usual flair.
When I got there we had a 50/50 split between Cobra's and Hogs. It seemed that, although the Troop was designated the first unit to get them, the Aviation BN commander decided to split the incoming aircraft and give some to his unit. For operations that presented a problem. Putting up a mixed gun team with a fast Cobra and slower Hog was not optimal. However we did so when we needed to get the mission done.
Another complication was that the Avn Bn would not fly their Cobra's at night. So when division tasked them as number 1 gun and their Hogs were broke, we wound up pulling the mission in their stead. This was a complication for maintenance as well. They might have been planning to do some work on the aircraft that we now had to keep in the ready rack. Finally I asked them what they were going to do when they had all Cobras? No answer.
Ultimately they did fly their Cobras at night because they had no alternative. I think part of the problem was all the in-country transitions didn't do much night flying. As newbies came in from Hunter (where a fair amount of night was involved, they began to see the light. So nothing against their bravery, they just need an attitude change.
