Hugh Mills flew the OH-6 “Loach” as a low-level aeroscout in Vietnam — statistically the most dangerous flying job of the war. Shot down 16 times, three Silver Stars, four Distinguished Flying Crosses, three Purple Hearts. Author of the classic memoir Low Level Hell.
📖 Low Level Hell: https://a.co/d/0glrcnww
CHAPTERS
00:00:00 Introduction — how Greg Coker connected them + “Low Level Hell”
00:02:59 Growing up across the street from Bill Clinton
00:29:49 Officer Candidate School — marching inside a dumpster
00:49:50 He promoted himself with drugstore mercury
00:52:00 Stepping off the plane — what Vietnam smelled like
01:20:23 His first mission at 20 — adjusting live artillery
01:35:49 The minigun and the grease-pencil gunsight
01:47:48 “That’s not Mr. Jones” — the burned pilot
02:07:59 Thunder Road — “orange basketballs” and getting shot down
02:14:36 The “dead” NVA officer and the map case
02:42:48 Capturing an NVA major — the tax collector (Bronze Star)
02:58:25 The Silver Star mission — an AK-47 between his pedals
03:06:00 “Bad Day for the ARPs” — 28 men vs a regiment
03:19:39 Three Purple Hearts — shot through both cheeks
03:31:43 Losing Jim Amy and Jimmy Slater
03:43:43 He landed his helicopter on a sinking plane’s wing
03:55:42 Margaret — the love he found and lost
04:26:44 The A Shau Valley — “the worst place I’ve ever been”
04:51:32 His own rocket blows off his tail rotor
05:10:31 “Where’s your hat?” — “Somewhere in Laos”
05:16:04 The rescue — the blind PJ, “I’m 701”
05:28:32 Third tour and the general — “check your grid”
05:32:51 He attacked an NVA flag from inside North Vietnam
05:46:03 Pony One Six — the name he hid for 30 years
06:03:17 His wife of 52 years
06:15:31 Why none of his pilots ever took their own life
06:21:24 My Lai — the real hero nobody remembers
06:24:54 The OSS medic who saved Ho Chi Minh
06:40:18 “The way I fought a war is gone”
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