ASHTABULA, Ohio—-Army veteran Nate Shaffer, of Spencerville, returned home from the Vietnam War nearly 40 years ago.
Now, he has a new homecoming to celebrate.
“I started looking for pilots and crew members back in 1994, I started looking for 990 also,” he said.
In the 1990’s, Shaffer started searching for the ZIT 990, a helicopter he flew every day in Vietnam. Shaffer was a gunner, and the unit had a vital life—even beyond his military tour.
“It had like 21 world records for flight,” he said. “It flew with the National Guard in Chicago, then it flew in the national guard In New York. Then it went with Texas Border Patrol.”
Yet, this past year, Shaffer heard the government planned to scrap the chopper. He had other plans for it.
“If I could find the helicopter I flew in, I`d like to acquire it some way,” he said. “That’s all that I wanted.”
With the help of congressional reps—and his persistence—Shaffer trucked it all the way down to Arizona and brought it back to Ohio.
“I kept it for 18 days” he said. “We stripped it down, cleaned it, sanded it painted it. It looks exactly like it did in Vietnam. “
When Bruce Campbell saw ZIT 990, he said it was like a step back in time.
“Goose bumps. I had the biggest goose bumps everywhere,” said Campbell, Shaffer’s pilot during the war. “When I sat down in the seat, looking at the console and stuff, lots go rushing through. I mean, so much that, you kind of don’t go there.”
The helicopter is now on a platform at Motts Military Museum in Groveport, Ohio, putting ZIT 990 closer to fellow Vietnam gunner Russ Houser of Youngstown.
“It’s hard to explain. You get some flashbacks,” Houser said. “It’s very special to all three of us.”
Yet, for Shaffer, this isn’t the only piece of the war that’s resurfaced in recent years.
A fellow soldier once surprised him with dogs tags he lost in Vietnam, and another veteran also had a surprise for him at a reunion.
“He brought back a pair of jump wings that I had. They were lodged in a bunk where I slept. He dug them out and kept them for 25 years,” Shaffer said. “It’s unbelievable.”
Shaffer said he prizes the bonds he’s built after the war.
Now he, Campbell and Houser are reunited with a piece of the war they cherish most.
“The chance of getting it. I thought about it all the time. I’m going to get, I’m going to get it,” Shaffer said. “I was determined to get it. And luckily, it did work out that I basically did get it.”