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“Howdy, Dan Cory,” I said, extending my hand.
“Bill Hess,” he responded as he got out of my chair.
“Really glad to meet you.”
“Oh, why’s that?” he asked with a puzzled look.
“Because I’m no longer the new guy. You are,” I said with a smile.
Lou cracked a smile and finished his beer. “Hey, new guys, plural, get me a beer.” Some things just don’t change.
Bill had joined the Army almost right out of high school. He was from Newburgh, New York, and had the New Yorker accent and manners to prove it. From his build I would bet money he was a football player in high school, guard or linebacker. I had been a bench warmer masquerading as a linebacker. It appeared that he might be trying to grow a mustache, or just forgot to shave his upper lip for the past two weeks.
Chapter 10
Reality Sets In
Since my orientation ride, I had flown for the last ten days. My butt was starting to feel it too. Captain Goodnight had warned me. I was glad that I had a down day to sleep in and relax. I could get some laundry done, write some letters and go over to the PX to buy some beer. I’d heard pilots being woken up to fly today but had rolled over and gone pleasantly back to sleep. Finally the heat had gotten to be too much and I had known it was time to roll out.
Around 1400 as I was writing a letter home, I noticed a flurry of activity over at the Ops tent. Someone ran to the CO’s tent, and he came out and headed to Ops. The assistant maintenance officer was even heading over there. Wonder what’s up with this? Curiosity killed the cat, and I headed that way, as did a couple of other pilots that had the day down.
“Hey, Bob, what’s going on?” I asked as I walked up. The radios in Ops were turned up loud and monitoring our battalion frequency, but the conversation was one-sided.
“Roger, Lightning Bolt Six, diverting three aircraft from Badger Six to your location. Chicken-man One-Two is off Lai Khe and en route to your location,” I could hear coming from the Ops tent. I stayed out of the tent as it didn’t appear that they needed anyone else in there.
Bob looked over at me with concern on his face. “It appears that Captain Pierre, who’s flying Yellow One today with a six-two package, has himself a hot LZ. The LZ is only a three-ship LZ and he had eighteen sorties to get in there. He got the first three in okay when all hell broke loose. Our aviation battalion commander, Lightning Bolt Six, is up in Chuck Chuck and called for more aircraft. The maintenance officer just took off with another aircraft to replace one that was too badly shot up, and it sounds like the battalion commander is pulling other aircraft from missions to use on this mission.”
Throughout the rest of the afternoon, the mission continued, but as we could only hear bits and pieces between the battalion commander and battalion headquarters, we realized that we would have to wait until crews came in that night. That evening, we were in our tent discussing the day’s activity. The assistant maintenance officer came in looking for a beer.
“Hey, John, how’s it going?” I asked.
“Give me a beer and I’ll tell you how’s it going.” One of the other pilots opened the refrigerator and handed him a cold one. “We have thirteen of our twenty-one aircraft shot to shit. Two have got to be evacuated back to the States they’re shot up so bad, 251 and 228. Of the remaining eleven, we have an estimated three thousand hours of work ahead of us to get them in flying condition. Tomorrow we’ll have a total of six aircraft that we can put in the air, as I already had two in for periodic inspections. The first of those shot up today will be up the day after tomorrow, and that’s 740 as I only—only—need twenty-four hours of maintenance to solve that one. I can tell you that maintenance platoon is not going to get any sleep for a few days,” John responded. I silently thanked God I wasn’t a maintenance officer.
A few minutes later, Kevin walked in and dropped his gear on his bed. He looked tired and worn as he was flying copilot with Captain Pierre. Someone handed him a beer; no one said anything but allowed him to take a long pull. He sat down and started explaining.
“We had a six-two package for First of the Twelfth. Simple mission, eighteen sorties, three turns, in a three-ship LZ. Everything starts out fine with two groups of three separated by one minute. Before we get to the LZ on the initial lift, Chalk Six goes back to the firebase with a maintenance issue. First three birds get in and out, but Chalk Four and Five are on approach and all hell breaks loose with at least two .50-cals and a .30-cal from bunkers on three sides of the LZ. Both of them take hits. I think Chalk Four had something like fifteen holes. They never got on the ground but came back to the firebase. In the meantime, we had already picked up the grunts from Chalk Six and were taking them to the LZ. Captain Pierre heard that Four and Five couldn’t get in, so he comes around to the north and makes an approach.” Pausing, he took a long pull on his beer just as Lou walked in and threw his gear across the tent on to his bed. I got him a beer.
“What the hell!” Lou shouted. “I’m too short for this shit. Damn. Kevin, what the hell was he thinking? Didn’t he know that me and Five got shot out of there?” Lou was Chalk Four on this mission.
Looking up at Lou, Kevin replied, “We couldn’t get in on the original approach, so we set up for a different approach when we were raked good by a .50-cal. Lobo was laying d
own rockets and Blue Max expended everything he had. We went in again from the south and again got nailed with AK-47s and one of the .50-cals. We’re so full of holes at this point that our aircraft is smoking and oil pressure is dropping.” Kevin stopped long enough to finish his beer and accept another as the rest of us were listening spellbound.
“While you were changing aircraft, the grunts are calling arty in on the bunkers on the south, east and west of the LZ,” Lou added. “At this point, there are only eighteen grunts in the LZ, and God only knows how many gooks were there. We head back thinking that the arty would have opened things up for us and Lobo Six is flying cover. As we’re on final, the damn .50-cal opens up again, along with a dozen or so AK-47s, and we’re out of there again. This time we have a wounded grunt on board, so we get him back to the firebase and the grunts call in more arty. While we’re heading back to the firebase to regroup, Chalk Three was asked by the grunt battalion S-3 to fly in with ammo and bring out wounded, and he’s heading that way. Who the hell is in charge? Everyone and no one.
“Paul goes in with Lobo overhead and lands to drop the ammo and get the wounded out. Ammo goes out quick, wounded loading isn’t so fast, so he’s sitting there taking hits when Lobo comes over like a little bird, low and slow, putting down suppressive fire directly into the bunker openings, and he’s taking hits. Paul’s taking rounds through the windshield, so he picks up to a hover, does a one-eighty pedal turn and sets it back down. So now he’s taking hits in the ass while the wounded are getting on.
“His door gunner, Specialist Leonard, is laying down suppressive fire and expends all his ammo, so he has to resupply off Chalk Six, as did a couple of others. When Paul gets back to the firebase, he’s so shot up that he barely got back there, and that bird is done for the day.”
“Done for the day, my ass. That bird is being evacuated back to the States it’s so shot up. How he got it to the firebase is a miracle to me,” John interrupted.
Kevin continued, “By now, a couple of aircraft that were pulled off other missions have joined us. I think one was from Bravo Company and two from Charlie. Lightning Bolt Six is in Chuck Chuck and has us load up and orbit to the east while the ground commander brings in an air strike of napalm. Captain Pierre pulls together another flight, and again three and three, we make a run to get troops in as well as ammo and get wounded out. Some aircraft get in, some don’t and everyone’s taking hits. I think one of Charlie Company’s aircraft had a gunner and a crew chief wounded. What should have been an easy one-hour mission took us six hours. I think the grunts had six KIA and eighteen or so wounded. Finally it just got too dark to continue the mission. I think we got fifty-eight troops on the ground before the insertion was called off.”
“Where did you guys refuel and rearm?” asked someone.
“We went back to Bien Hoa. Lobo cleaned them out of rockets, fourteen hundred. The ammo resupply point people had to make a run to the ammo dump to get more rockets, 40 mm and ammo,” Kevin added.
“Did we have anyone hurt?” I asked.
