Texas Tech football player Lou Breuer has never been forgotten: Part 3

It seemed like an eternity that I was in there. I have never figured out yet why God let us out of there. I really don't know. Just can't believe it. I was looking right down the barrel of a .51 once, trying to get out. And I just was punching off rockets, hoping that some people (enemy fighters) put their heads down.

Damn if I didn't get a lucky hit on a .51. He was holding me down pretty good. It wouldn't have been long before he got me. I had tracers going on either side of my canopy. Neither of the Snakes (Cobra helicopters) took hits. I really can't believe that, but none of us did. We got out, got the crippled little bird (Loach helicopter) back. The pilot was hit with glass. He wasn't hurt.

Went back, rearmed, refueled. Collingsworth said, 'Would you do it again? Can you try it again?' (Expletive.) I sucked the seat up between my cheeks there. I was so (expletive) scared. I said, 'Yeah, I'll go again.'

1st Lt. Lou Breuer, spring 1972, Vietnam

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Bruce Shearer and his wife Vickie grew up in Indianapolis and try to get back there at least every other year.

It's a long haul from Glendale, Arizona, where the retired U.S. Army major lives.

On one such trip four years ago, Shearer made it a point to finally do something he'd long intended. He'd talked about Lou Breuer for years. His wife knew the former Texas Tech football player-turned-Vietnam Cobra helicopter pilot had been buried at Fort Sill.

And so he found himself at the lieutenant's headstone.

"I got to spend some time just talking to him and telling him I appreciated how many times he saved my bacon," Shearer said. "And then my wife wanted to go over by herself and spend some time talking to him. It surprised me, because sometimes she says, 'It's like you're still in Vietnam sometimes.' I say, 'Yeah, sometimes I am.' She said she just wanted to thank him that I was here, that I made it home."

As was the case with other men, Shearer knew Breuer for only a few months. He was shipped to Vietnam in October 1971 and was in the same unit with Breuer beginning in February 1972.

Shearer was a 19-year-old. Breuer turned 26 that spring.

"He was like the morale of our unit," Shearer said. "He always had something nice to say. He would tell a joke or two. In that stressful environment, it just meant the world that an officer would talk like that to us enlisted guys and not look down his nose at us. There were some that were like that. He was not one of them. That just gained him so much respect in the unit.

"Plus, within the officer corps, he was just like The Man. He would light up a room if he came into it. So we just had total respect for him and respect for his ability as a Cobra helicopter pilot to make sure that we would get out of that LZ, that landing zone, or that PZ, that pickup zone, with as little damage as possible, because he would be doing his best to keep the enemy's head down."

More: Texas Tech football player Lou Breuer has never been forgotten: Part 2

Shearer flew with Breuer only once, and not in combat. They flew a colonel down to Cam Ranh Bay for a meeting. While they waited, Breuer decided they'd go to the officers' club for lunch, a burger and fries or perhaps a steak being a welcome change from C-rations. Breuer told Shearer and another enlisted man with them to turn down their collars so their rank wouldn't show.

No one paid them any attention in a roomful of officers — except for a nearby table of perhaps a half dozen Marines who decided to heckle their Army counterparts.

"There's a lot of intra-service rivalry about who's the best," Shearer said. "Marines think they're at the top, and us infantry guys or us aviation guys are kind of at the bottom. Somebody made a crack and somebody else made another crack. I thought, we're going to be fighting these guys, because I, for one, didn't care for what they were saying."

Finally having heard enough, Breuer stood up, walked over with his soft drink, proposed a toast to the Marines and took a swallow. Then he bit into the glass and began chewing.

"And you should have seen the faces on these Marines — like, 'Oh, this guy's crazy,' " Shearer said. "He walks backs over to our table and spit it out. You could have heard a pin drop, and they didn't bother us the rest of that time."

That move wasn't a one-time thing. Cobra pilot Bob Monette described Breuer as "big, full of energy, liked to party a lot, as we all did."

"Have you heard about the beer-can thing?" Monette asked. "He would take an empty beer can, smash it basically on his nose or his forehead, and then take a big bite out of it. He especially would do it around Air Force and Marines. A few of those guys tried. A lot of cut lips came out of that, where Lou didn't cut his lip."

In Shearer's presence, Breuer's bite out of a glass produced the desired reaction.

"I never forgot that moment," Shearer said. "If he'd have said, 'I want to fight everybody in this club,' I would have been with him, even though we would have gotten our hats handed to us. I would have followed him anywhere and done whatever — if he'd have said, 'Let's charge the gates of hell with buckets of gasoline.'

"He was just that kind of guy. He inspired a great deal out of each person. He made you feel important. And for an enlisted man, a young enlisted man — I was 19 — that just meant the world."

Shearer ascended to be a door gunner and a crew chief on the Bell UH-1H Iroquois, the helicopter known as the Huey. He himself earned a Silver Star — ultimately presented in 2017 — for helping rescue occupants of a downed and flaming Hercules C-130 plane near An Loc on April 18, 1972.

Shearer knew at least 17 men who lost their lives in Vietnam. None of the deaths jolted him quite the way Breuer's did.

"It was like the air just went out of our sails," Shearer said, "and I, for one — and I talked to some of the other guys — felt more vulnerable. Because if he could get killed, as big a guy as he was ... It was like John Wayne getting killed. You can imagine, if John Wayne can get killed, holy crap, what about us guys?

"It took a long time to get over that, to feel like we weren't so vulnerable."

He'd gone out there that day and he'd talked to some people the night before, and he said, 'I'm going to die tomorrow.' They said, 'You're crazy.' 'No, I am. I'm going to die. I feel it.' 'Don't fly.' He said, 'I got to fly.'

Went out there that day and we're flying out — beautiful morning — and he comes up on the radio just happy as hell. He says, 'You know, this is a fine day to die. It's really pretty.' Everybody (responds), '(Expletive) What is this nut, freaking out? Shut up, man. Go away.' He died. I wonder. I really wonder if he knew. That's weird. (Expletive). Two days he talked about it. Finally did.

He didn't do anything wrong. He got shot in the tail rotor, hit the tail rotor driveshaft and disintegrated the tail boom and he flipped into the trees. He was only doing about 40 knots, treetop level. He should have lived. Loach is a very crashworthy aircraft. He shouldn't have died, but he did. I wonder if he really actually knew that he was going to die. Weird.

At his home in Atlanta, where he's lived for the past 44 years, Bill Adams still has two keepsakes that were presented to Texas Tech football players of his era: the red jacket with black leather sleeves given to sophomore lettermen and the blanket awarded to seniors with their names and the years they lettered scripted in one corner.

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Junior-year lettermen were presented a black leather jacket with a scarlet Double T.

Adams laid his atop Lou Breuer's closed casket just before his teammate, roommate and fraternity brother was to be lowered to his final resting place. He wanted a part of Texas Tech to buried with Breuer.

"That's the worst feeling I've just about ever had in my life," Adams said recently. "He was doing what he was meant to do. He was a warrior. He was a competitor there just like he was in anything else. If he was going to do it, he was going to be the best at it."

They conducted Breuer's funeral the first Saturday in July at a church in Richardson. Then the procession made its way to Fort Sill.

"It was rough," former Tech offensive tackle Jim Arnold said. "We were all young and buddies, and ... it was rough."

"I remember going up there, going to his funeral was probably one of the saddest days that I've ever had," defensive tackle Jim Moylan said, "because everybody just loved him. I mean, he was a competitor, but he knew how to have a good time, he appreciated friends and he enjoyed being around people."

The graveside service included an Army helicopter flyover with a missing-Cobra formation and a 21-gun salute.

Mike Patterson who, as Tech's starting right tackle, had lined up side by side with Breuer, has been to several military funerals in the years since.

"That one was as impressive as I'd ever been to," said Patterson, a retired coach who lives in Abilene. "But Lou didn't want us to mourn. He wanted us to party. He mentioned that in one of the tapes: 'Don't mourn my loss if I get killed over here. You celebrate me.' We tried to. It's hard to do."

The fire up in An Loc's unbelievable ... You can't get near it. They got that new missile down there now, a heat seeker. It's not that accurate, thank God.

On a cream-colored cassette with a faded gold label, the words of 1st Lt. Lou Breuer are still audible 50 years after he spoke them. For 60 minutes, he talks mostly in a matter-of-fact monotone to his family and his Texas Tech friends. The cassette case is addressed to his Tech teammate Bill Adams, in care of Breuer's parents on Belt Line Cove in Richardson.

On the label, Breuer or someone had written, "To Be Played Around 'Hardened' ears," an advance warning of his unfiltered, salty language.

As the cassette wheels turn, Breuer describes a variety of close calls and harrowing experiences as a chopper pilot in Vietnam. He acknowledges his belief in luck and marvels at how much of it he's had. He cynically downplays the actions that led to his being awarded one of the two Silver Stars he earned.

The date or dates on which Breuer recorded his thoughts are uncertain, but this much is apparent: His life was almost over.

The Battle of An Loc, he said, had been ongoing for 40 or 50 days. If so, he was speaking in late May, perhaps even early June, less than a month before he was killed in action.

"It really sort of brought chills down my back," Adams said, "some of those things he was telling me about. He was definitely in the thick of it, no question."

In the days after Breuer died, newspaper accounts noted that his tour of duty had been up on May 1, 1972, but he agreed to a four-month extension. None of the people contacted for this story knew precisely the thought process that led to that decision, but they all agreed: Staying to finish a job sounded exactly like Lou Breuer.

He believed in the cause.

People back home screaming, 'Stop the bombing. Stop the bombing.' I think it's wonderful. It gripes me so many people back there don't know what the hell's going on that protest so much. Hell, you've got to stop these people somewhere. I'm tired of backing up all over the world for 'em. I know I'm going to have a terrible time adjusting to these idiots when I get home. I hate 'em. I hate 'em for what they're doing to this country — those protestors, that is.

Near the end of the tape, Breuer turns to lighter subject matter. He'd picked up some camera equipment a few days before, but was still on the lookout for a Pentax for his dad, who wanted it for a friend. He'd also been "trying to find some good Seiko watches," but inevitably, by the time he made it to the PX, they were sold out.

In closing, Breuer told the people who loved him: "If you can find a cartridge player like this, send me back something. I'd really appreciate it."

Knowing that Breuer was soon to meet his fate makes the words all the more haunting, especially those he spoke about the weapon that downed him.

Navy pilot shot down a couple of days ago. Parachuted into the rubber about 500 meters off the perimeter at An Loc in the rubber trees. Somebody had to go down and look for him, I guess. I was there, so I went down. ... Found his chute, couldn't find him. When he (the enemy) shot at me, I went out, went around and came back in. I was right on the trees, dragging the skids through the trees. Then they opened up on me. I got out. ...

They had a bunch of bunkers down there and all they had to do was jump out of bunkers and shoot me, but they were scared. I'll go down there and look one more time. They shot at me again. I came up, heard the guy still talking on the radio. (Expletive), I've got to go down and try again. Went down again. And this time they hit me about eight times. Fortunately, I made it back to Lai Khe (base) ... . Don't actually consider getting shot down, but it's as close as I ever want to come.

This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: Texas Tech football player Lou Bruer gained respect in the trenches