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“Thank you, gentlemen. I’ll fly with each of them and sign them off for AC until we get an instructor pilot, which I expect will happen in the next twenty-four hours,” the major announced, meaning that the pilots would have to choose someone pretty damn quick.
After the CO left, the discussion turned to who the new instructor pilot would be. As far as the warrant officers were concerned, there was a likely choice, CWO2 Barstow. He was on his second tour and had been a flight instructor at Hunter Army Airfield. He had been an AC for a month and had been in the unit for two months, just long enough to learn the area of operations. He had even been an instructor for some of the newest pilots when they had gone through Huey transition in the second half of Advanced Flight Training. As all eyes turned to him, he began objecting.
“Hey, not me. I’ve done my time with instructor duty. One of you guys needs to take on that responsibility,” he protested.
“But, sir,” Mr. Bailey chimed in, “you have all the prerequisites and the experience. You’re the best choice for the job.” Bailey didn’t really need to address him as sir, as rank amongst warrant officers was like virtue amongst whores, but the effect was notable.
“No, I don’t want the job and that’s final,” Barstow continued to protest.
“All those in favor of Mr. Barstow, raise your hand,” directed Lou. In truth, most guys thought Lou should be the instructor pilot, but he was halfway through his second tour. He also kept the fact that he had been an instructor at Fort Rucker pretty quiet, so it was known only to a few people. Of the fourteen ACs, fourteen hands were raised.
“Looks like you’ve been elected, Rick,” Captain Beauchamp said. “I’ll tell the CO.” Captain Beauchamp was the senior platoon leader in the company as well as an AC. A field artillery officer, he also served as the Operations officer for the unit.
“Son of a bitc
h!” Barstow fumed. “You guys railroaded me on this one. God help you if the old man puts any of you up for a check ride with me.” Standing and picking up his beer, he headed for the door. “I’ll tell the CO right now. Might as well get it over with,” he mumbled over his shoulder as he departed.
Looking over at Lou, Captain Beauchamp smiled. “You know, Lou, if he ever finds out you were an IP at Rucker, he’s going to be unmerciful on you.”
Smiling back, Lou said, “Hey, sir, what’s he going to do? Bend my dog tags and send me to Vietnam?”
“There are fates worse than that,” Captain Beauchamp said as he pushed back from the table. “It’s late and I got a letter to write, so I’ll see you ladies in the morning. Night, all.”
“Night, sir” was heard as everyone started finishing their beers and leaving as well. Even though the NVA had taken a beating in Cambodia two months before, that didn’t mean that combat operations in III Corps were over with. Not by a long shot.
Chapter 2
The Game Changer
As usual, the Operations clerk moved through the hooches at 0430 hours, waking up pilots for the missions assigned to the unit for the day. Specialist Brown had learned over the course of his time as Ops clerk not to get too close to the pilots when waking them up. Everyone reacted differently to being told to wake up at 0400 hours. He was assisted frequently by the unit’s pet rooster, who would start crowing right outside the officers’ hooches at the same time.
“Mr. Bailey, sir, time to wake up.” After a thirty-second pause, he repeated, “Wake up, sir.” Finally, frustrated, he snapped, “Hey! Mr. Bailey, get your ass out of bed. You launch in one hour,” and Mr. Bailey’s boot landed on the bed.
The word was never to touch a sleeping person, but you could throw stuff at them. The Ops clerk habitually received mumbling and grumbling from the pilots as they rolled out of bed and attempted to find boots and pants and move outside for the ritual morning piss. Specialist Brown continued down the hall, waking more pilots. At least I can head straight into the mess hall after I get the last of them up, he was thinking.
Breakfast in the mess hall had improved over the past year. The normally undercooked bacon and watery powdered eggs had been replaced. Besides the usual fare of crispy bacon, link sausage, eggs to order, fried potatoes with bits of onion and green peppers, and pancakes, there was cold cereal for those so inclined. There was always fresh milk and first sergeant coffee, which was coffee so thick you could stand a spoon up in it. First sergeant coffee was syrup-like, but it did keep one awake. The improvement in the chow could be attributed to one man, Staff Sergeant Greeko. Prior to his arrival almost three months earlier, the mess section tossed it out and if you ate it, fine. If you didn’t, fine. Staff Sergeant Greeko had changed all that. Some mornings, even fresh hot buns were served as well.
“Hey, Staff Sergeant Greeko, can I take a plate of buns back to Flight Ops? We have some early launches this morning,” Specialist Brown asked as he piled a plate with eight buns.
“Yeah, but no more than two per man. Who all is in Ops this morning?” Greeko asked, counting buns as they were loaded on the plate.
“Me and Captain Beauchamp and Sergeant First Class Robinson,” Brown replied.
“Well, put two of those buns back, then. Got to be sure we have enough for everyone that comes through. If any are left over, I’ll split them with Ops and Maintenance. Since you’re going by the orderly room, take this plate up for the CO and First Sergeant Miller,” Sergeant Greeko said, moving to supervise the food steam table and handing Brown a second plate with four buns on it.
At 0600 hours, the first of the aircraft started their engines. Start times depended on the mission for the day and how far the crews had to go to get there. Usually by 0830, all the aircraft would be gone except those that had a down day for maintenance, which was never more than two aircraft since the unit had left Cambodia. As things had quieted down since then, Maintenance wasn’t seeing a lot of battle damage to the aircraft. Besides that, Doc Christeson, who had replaced the previous flight surgeon, or Band-Aid Six as the pilots referred to him, wasn’t seeing a lot of sleep deprivation in the flight crews as the flying hours had dropped off considerably. Crews were now averaging six to eight hours a day, and generally everyone was getting a down day about every ten days. Things were almost boring for those crews that had been with the unit before and during Cambodia.
Doc Christeson was a flight surgeon but not a pilot. This became obvious one day when a new aircraft commander put Doc in the right seat and told him to hover the aircraft out of the revetment. With a shocked look, Doc explained that flight surgeons were never trained to fly the aircraft, just fix the crew members.
Arriving at the orderly room, Specialist Brown noticed First Sergeant Miller sitting behind his desk.
“Morning, First Sergeant. Sergeant Greeko said for me to bring these to you and the CO,” he said, holding out the smaller plate with four buns.
Pushing back from his desk and grabbing his coffee cup, the first sergeant took the smaller plate while at the same time sipping his coffee. “Thanks, I’m sure the CO will enjoy these. Who are those for?”the First Sergeant asked, noticing the larger plate.
“Those are for us in Flight Ops,” Brown indicated.
The unit first sergeant’s office was located outside the door from the CO’s office. As the senior noncommissioned officer in the unit, he was the commander’s principal advisor on all matters affecting the enlisted men in the unit. He was also the chief administrator for the unit supervising the personnel clerk.
