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Our commanding officer had been a great commander, but his time was up. A new CO took command of the company without fanfare, at least not for the flight crews, as we were all flying when he arrived and our old CO left. We said goodbye to the CO in an appropriate fashion. He knew he would be missed. Most of us met the new CO when we came into the club that night for a beer and a meeting. Initial impression was good.
Major Sundstrum said all company policies would remain in effect and, keeping his word, he took his orientation ride with me the next day. He had been on the division staff, so he knew the landscape well and had some insight into what the overall picture and tactical situation was. I sensed in a few comments he made that there was something more that he wasn’t sharing, but we all had our secrets, so I let it drop.
A few nights later, Captain Kempf stopped by my room while I was writing a letter.
“Hey, Dan, you got a minute?”
“Sure, sir, want a beer?” I offered as I reached for one in my mini refrigerator. Wonder what this is all about. He’s never visited me before.
“Yeah, I could use one,” he said as he dragged over my one spare broken-down lawn chair and sat. Something told me this was not going to be a short conversation.
Handing him a cold one, I took my seat and said, “So, sir, what’s up?”
Leaning in close, he asked in a low voice, “Did the major say anything to you the other day when you flew with him about aircraft availability?” The expression on his face told me he was worried about something.
“N
o, sir, he talked about flying stuff but nothing about availability. He asked about blade strikes and tail rotor strikes but that was it. Why?”
Taking a sip of his beer, he hesitated for a moment. “He told me to have one hundred percent availability by the end of the month. I was wondering if he said anything to you about it.”
“One hundred percent availability? Really? Have we ever had one hundred percent? I mean, you always have at least one or two aircraft in for periodic maintenance, don’t you?”
“Yeah, but he wants me to manage our maintenance flow and aircraft availability for missions so at the end of the month we can report one hundred percent availability.”
“Did you ask him about it? Why is it so important?”
“I did, and he told me, ‘All in good time, all in good time.’ What the hell does that mean?” He took a long pull on his beer.
“Sir, I don’t know what to tell you. He said nothing to me about availability. We just talked flying stuff and sort of reviewed everyone’s flying ability since I’ve flown with about everyone in the company on check rides. Have you asked some of the other RLOs?
“No, the major said to keep it close, and if I ask one of them, I’m sure they’ll be asking the XO or Ops or even going straight to him and asking why. You warrant officers generally keep to yourselves and don’t run to the major with questions,” he added with a smile and drained his beer. Tossing the can in the trash, he asked, “If you hear anything, will you let me know? And keep this between us, please.”
“Sure, sir.”
“Best get back to the shop. You have a good night, Dan.”
“You too, sir.” And he was gone. Wonder what this is all about.
Chapter 37
The Pace Picks Up
April proved to be a typical month. Hardly a day went by without some aircraft returning with battle damage from enemy fire. Most of it was minor and could be patched fairly quickly with some sheet metal work. Each damaged aircraft added to Warren’s anguish as he was attempting to get to one hundred percent availability. A couple of pilots returned with battle damage as well. Hot LZs were becoming a frequent event. The NVA were stepping up their game. So did the division. More and more hours were being flown, and crews were getting tired. We were still short of pilots, with little room if a pilot was lost to rotation home or leave. As much as we hated to see a guy go on leave or R&R, we were glad to see him get out of the area for those ten days. The good news was we had a couple of pilots extend. Bill Hess and Mike George decided to stay for another six months. They were on leave, but we knew they would be back. And our unit got the Night Hunter Killer mission back, with a few changes.
“Mr. Cory, you’re on Night Hunter tonight, so you might want to sleep in today,” the ops clerk told me as he was waking pilots up at 0500 hours. I rolled over and went back to dreamland. When I finally rolled out of bed and got some coffee, I went out to check the aircraft. Specialist Lovelace was there with some maintenance personnel.
“What’s up, Lovelace?” I asked as I approached and noticed that the aircraft was being modified.
“Sir, they’re replacing the .50-cal with a minigun,” he said. Previously, the aircraft had been equipped with an M2, .50-cal machine gun in the crew chief’s position and the searchlight with starlight scope mounted on top in the cargo door. This time, instead of a .50-cal, a 7.62 mm minigun was mounted in the crew chief’s position. The only problem with this arrangement was that the minigun expended three thousand rounds in a minute at a slow rate of fire! If a crew chief got carried away, he would use all the ammo up very quickly. Short bursts were needed, not sustained suppressive fire. Our guns were there to get us out of trouble. Let the Cobra do the suppressing.
“Just don’t burn through all the ammo on the first pass,” I instructed. Lovelace loaded three more cans of ammo, a total of nine thousand rounds, just for the minigun. Arriving at the brigade TOC for our mission brief that evening, I was met by not only the operations officer, S-3, but by the brigade S-2 intelligence officer and a lieutenant colonel from division intelligence. I knew the brigade officers; I had never met the lieutenant colonel from division.
“Mr. Cory, how are we tonight?” asked the S-3.
“I’m good, sir, but I can’t speak for you,” I replied. We had joked and bantered before over the months, so I didn’t feel that I was being disrespectful, nor did he.
“If you’re good and the aircraft’s good, then I’m good too. This is Lieutenant Colonel Mills from division G-2.” The lieutenant colonel nodded in acknowledgment. He was across the room and made no effort to move to me, so I made none towards him.
