The One-Eyed Ugly Angel: Captain Ben Cascio

On the night of April 30, 1968, a Marine pilot named Ben Cascio took a round to the face over the Cua Viet River. He described what it felt like later: like being smacked with a raw steak. He was blinded instantly.

He flew the helicopter home.

Bleeding, unable to see the instruments, the horizon, or the incoming fire, Cascio lifted a fully loaded, shot-up UH-34D Seahorse out of a hot landing zone in Dai Do, followed radio calls from his wingman turn by turn across ten miles of hostile territory and open ocean, and put every wounded Marine aboard down safely on the deck of the USS Repose. His squadron called him The One-Eyed Ugly Angel. He earned it before sunrise.

Captain Benjamin Raymond Cascio flew with Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron 362, HMM-362. The unit's history runs deep. They were the first Marine aircraft unit to deploy to South Vietnam, touching down in April 1962 to run helicopter support for the ARVN under Operation Shufly. Their commanding officer was Lieutenant Colonel Archie Clapp, and for a while they were called Archie's Angels.

The name evolved as the war did. By the time Cascio arrived in 1967, they were the Ugly Angels, a nickname with disputed origins. The leading theory involves the ungainly look of the UH-34D they flew. Another has a rescued Marine looking up at his saviors descending through smoke and saying, "You are the ugliest angel I have ever seen." Both feel plausible. Neither version makes the name less appropriate.

The Ugly Angels patch is still worn today. VMM-362 flies MV-22B Ospreys now, but the name went with them.

Cascio's path to the cockpit was not exactly voluntary. He grew up in Palisades Park, New Jersey, lettered in football and wrestling at Leonia High School, and spent his summers as an ordinary seaman on Military Sea Transport Service cargo ships starting at age 16. When he enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1959, he went into Force Reconnaissance. Intel gathering behind enemy lines. The kind of work where the radio is the most dangerous item you're carrying because it means the enemy can find you.

He commissioned as a second lieutenant after finishing his degree at the University of Bridgeport, expecting to go back to recon work. The Marine Corps had a pilot shortage. He got orders to flight school whether he wanted them or not. Cascio later said he had never been in an aircraft except to jump out of one.

He earned his wings in November 1965, made Captain in January 1967, and deployed to Vietnam in April of that year. Over the next twelve months, he flew 850 combat missions. More than two a day. Every day. For a year.

The UH-34D Seahorse was already considered an aging platform by 1967. It ran on a piston-driven radial engine and burned Avgas. In practical terms, any enemy round that found a fuel line had a reasonable shot at turning the aircraft into a fireball. The newer turbine helicopters were coming online, but the UH-34 was what the Ugly Angels had.

It was tough, though. Marine pilots called the airframe forgiving, which in aviation is code for it absorbs a lot of punishment before it quits. The cockpit sat high above the nose-mounted engine, pilot and co-pilot positioned side by side. That layout matters for a lot of reasons. On April 30, 1968, it mattered for a reason nobody had anticipated.

Cascio and his crew were on medevac standby aboard the USS Iwo Jima, a Landing Platform Helicopter sitting about five miles offshore. Late that night, the call came in from 2/4: five critically wounded Marines, needed extraction now. Cascio launched with his wingman, 1st Lieutenant Robbie Robertson, and flew eight miles inland in the dark.

The landing zone was tight. The Marines on the ground had barely broken contact. The enemy knew the helicopters were coming and were close enough to do something about it.

Cascio put the aircraft down. The wounded started loading. Then the NVA opened up on the stationary helicopter with automatic weapons and grenades. The airframe took extensive damage. As the last casualty was being loaded, a round came through the cockpit and hit Cascio in the face.

He lost his vision on the spot.

Standard protocol when an aircraft commander goes down is to transfer the controls to the co-pilot. Cascio reached for the handoff. His co-pilot was slumped and not responding, overwhelmed by what was happening around him. Cascio was now the only person flying a shot-up helicopter in the middle of an active firefight, at night, with no vision.

He got the aircraft off the ground by feel, listening to his crew chief in the back calling out altitudes and obstacles while Cascio worked the controls by instinct. Once clear of the LZ, he raised Robertson on the radio. Robertson talked him turn by turn across ten miles. Cascio also found the switch for his exterior lights, giving Robertson something to track in the darkness so the escort could keep visual contact on a crippled ship with a blinded pilot.

He talked to his co-pilot the whole time. Keeping the cockpit from going sideways. Keeping the one person who could theoretically take over from completely shutting down.

He landed on the deck of the USS Repose. Every wounded Marine aboard survived. Cascio was evacuated immediately.

Cascio was working as a recruiting officer in New York City when the reality of his situation hit him. He told a fellow officer he had no idea what to do with himself: "All I know how to do is fly, and no one is hiring one-eyed pilots." His colleague suggested law school. Cascio applied to Fordham, got in, passed the New Jersey Bar in 1973, and built a municipal and land-use law practice in Franklin Lakes.

Cascio never asked to be a pilot. He was handed orders and he became one of the most decorated Marine aviators in the Vietnam War. He lost an eye on a medevac run and spent the next several decades making sure the men who died in that fight weren't forgotten. He learned the law. He restored a helicopter by hand with other old Marines. He went back to the rice paddy where it happened and shook hands with a former enemy.

There's a memorial table in his house with nine names on it.

Captain Benjamin R. Cascio, USMC

Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron 362 (HMM-362) | "Ugly Angels"

Silver Star | Distinguished Flying Cross | Purple Heart

New Jersey Aviation Hall of Fame, 2000