Dust-off chopper pilot Jack Leininger ‘one of the lucky ones’

Jack Leininger freely admits he’s one of the lucky ones.

However, luckier still are the military personnel he came in contact with during his tour in Vietnam.

Leininger, a U.S. Army vet and former site manager for the Marseilles National Guard training area, in his younger days was a medical evacuation helicopter pilot during some of the most intense fighting of the Vietnam War and lived to tell the tale of action that took the lives of so many others.

Thanks to Leininger and his fellow medics in their “dust-off crew,” their 1,227 missions flown in a one-year period beginning in June 1967 helped get 2,700 wounded soldiers to aid stations and field hospitals for care they desperately needed, saving countless lives.

And it won’t be long before Leininger and other dust-offs – so named for the dirt and debris kicked up each time a helicopter landed or took off – will be honored by an act of Congress.

The Dust-off Crews of the Vietnam War Congressional Gold Medal Act, honoring about 3,000 pilots, medics and crew chiefs who flew missions as he did, has been passed by both the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate and now awaits only a presidential signature.

“That’s quite a deal,” Leininger said. “There were guys that got the Congressional Medal of Honor, and they sure deserved it, but in my opinion, all of the crews – especially in ‘68, when things were so bad – deserve one. We all went in, maybe going after one person or maybe several, but that was our job, and we just did our job.

“Today, if we’re wearing an insignia and an infantry guy sees you were a dust-off, they say thank you, that we saved his life or his buddies. That’s our thanks. That’s really all the thanks we need.”

A native of Varna and a 1959 graduate of the now defunct Mid-County High School, Leininger worked for a time at Joe Allen’s lumber yards in Toluca and Varna but was sent by Allen to the University of Illinois so he could return and be its business manager. He did and, along the way, married the former Jackie Krueger, a 1961 grad of La Salle-Peru High School.

In 1966, however, he was drafted. Because he “didn’t want my feet in the mud,” Leininger chose to enter the Army aviator program.

After basic training at Fort Polk, Louisiana, Leininger completed warrant officer training and his initial flight training at Mineral Wells, Texas. He then went to advanced flight school at Fort Rucker, Alabama, and chose medivac training so he could be home when his son, Jeff, was born.

“He was born on a Sunday afternoon, and I shipped out at noon Monday,” Leininger said, “so we cut it kinda close.”

Leininger was deployed to South Vietnam in June 1967, serving the first few months flying H Class Huey helicopters with the 45th Air Ambulance Company in Long Bihn province. In January 1968, he was transferred to the 571st Air Ambulance Detachment in Quang Tri province, the northernmost province in South Vietnam, where the infamous Tet Offensive was taking place.

Named for the Lunar New Year, the series of surprise attacks on U.S. and South Vietnamese forces claimed 6,100 lives, plus those of 12,500 civilians.

The “old man” at 26 in a squad of mostly 18- and 19-year-olds – all of whom had flight skills but no combat experience – Leininger flew multiple missions daily during the Battle of Hue, the Siege at Khe Sahn and other areas of major conflict throughout that front.

“When the dust-off crews went on duty, they gave us three weeks to live, and if you survived that, they’d give you another three weeks,” he said. “We had a pretty high casualty rate. … But those in infantry, when they got hit, they knew they’d hear a dust-off coming for them.”

For those quick departures, Leininger’s hunting experience came into play. When hunting pheasant, he remembered that pheasant would take off directly away, climb and then veer either left or right once a short distance away to escape gunfire. Leininger did the same and for the same reason.

“I always called it my pheasant departure – [it] makes you harder to hit, but we got hit a few times,” he said. “When we went into wherever the wounded were standing, laying or hiding, we tried to get as close as we could so we could get them out of there as quickly as possible. … We’d be going in right on top of the trees at 130, 140 miles an hour, then we’d bring the nose up and turn it sideways and land. Within 30 seconds or so, we’d be out of there.

“And if there wasn’t a place to land, we made one. I have photos of how badly I tore up the rotor blades getting down into it.”

When he returned to the U.S., he spent 18 months teaching chopper pilots in Texas, claiming: “I could teach a monkey to fly a helicopter, I just couldn’t teach him to talk on the radio. If I could learn it, anyone could.”

After his discharge, Leininger worked in manufacturing in Champaign for a while, but it didn’t take long for him to return to the military. As a member of the National Guard, he qualified for the Warrant Officer Senior Course and was in the first class to graduate from it.

A short time later, a friend told him that the National Guard in Marseilles needed a site manager, so he applied and got the position. He served in the National Guard for 32 years before he retired.

In his time in that city, Leininger has been a member of the La Salle County Board; a tireless worker for the American Legion, VFW and the Veterans Administration; as well as a great supporter of the Middle East Conflicts Memorial Wall and Museum.

Along the way, he has helped many friends and friends of friends navigate the VA system.

Although his wife of 57 years, Jackie, died in 2007 after a long battle with ALS, their children still are thriving: Jeff graduated from Illinois State University, was in the Air Force and is now a retired police officer living with his family in Springfield, and Juli, a member of the 1987 girls basketball state champions at Seneca, is a successful physical therapist in Ottawa.

When not spoiling his four grandchildren, Leininger still meets with some of his fellow servicemen from Vietnam, bonding and swapping stories and jokes, just as they did almost 58 years ago.

“I was told once that God takes the good ones young. I guess that’s why I’m still around,” Leininger said with a chuckle. “That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.”