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“Roger, Crescent Six, Yellow One is a flight of three. Over.”
“Yellow One, where the hell is the rest of your flight?”
“Crescent Six, this is all of my flight. White One was sent on another mission. I was part of his flight and was told to bring three aircraft to your location, over.”
“Dammit, Yellow One, I need more than three aircraft.” Mike could tell that Crescent Six was pissed.
“Crescent Six, I don’t know what to tell you. I only do what I’m told. Now what have you got for us? Over.”
“Yellow One, wait one,” Crescent Six replied, annoyance in his voice. After a few minutes, Crescent Six came back. “Yellow One, here’s the situation. I have one rifle company in the first LZ and a company minus a platoon in a second LZ about a klick to their east. I need to get another platoon into the second LZ. Both elements also need a resupply of ammo and water. Both LZs are not secure, repeat, not secure. Over.”
“Roger, Crescent Six. What is the priority, over?” Mike asked.
After a pause, Crescent Six indicated, “Yellow One, the priority is getting the water and ammo in, over.”
“Roger, Crescent Six. May I recommend one aircraft resupply the rifle company minus a platoon with ammo and water and two aircraft resupply the other? We’re coming up on Bu Gia Map now and can pick up the resupply now. Over.” Again Crescent Six was delayed in responding to Mike. Mike switched to the company push.
“Flight, this is One. When we land, roll them back and prepare to take on ammo and water. They’re not ready for us at the LZs. When we go, Yellow Two, you follow me, and, Yellow Three, you break off on final and go into the western LZ which is the first LZ we went into. These are hot LZs, so you may be just making a fast pass over and kicking out. How copy?”
“Two is with you.”
“Three copies.”
With that, Mike set up for a long approach into Bu Gi Map. As he made his final approach, he saw that the artillery batteries were still firing. A CH-47 was sling-loading a load of artillery ammunition into the firebase. From the level of activity, Mike could tell that things were moving at a furious pace. As his flight of three approached, a yellow smoke grenade went off, getting his attention. Next to the smoke was a pile of small-arms ammunition, mortar rounds in boxes and water cans. A ground guide was waving for the flight to land at his location, which they did, rolling back the engines to idle position, thus saving fuel. The ground guide came over to Mike and opened his door.
“Sir, I was told you were coming. We have three loads to get in ASAP.” The kid was dirty and sweating, his face caked with mud, the result of clay dust and perspiration mixing together.
“Okay, load the mortar rounds onto this aircraft, and split the water and small arms between the three of us.” With that, the kid and two others started humping the supplies to the aircraft.
“Hey, Mr. George, Kelly and I are going to help the grunts get this load aboard, okay?” Smith told Mike rather than asked.
“Yeah, go ahead,” Mike responded. He could see the same happening in the other two aircraft. Crew chiefs and gunners un-assed the aircraft and pitched in to load the aircraft quicker.
“How much do you want to load, Mr. George?” asked Kelly.
“Everything they have. Leave nothing behind,” Mike answered. Mr. Reid was watching the loading as it began to stack up in the aircraft.
“Mike, that’s a fair-size load. Are we going to be able to get off the ground?”
“We may have to make a running takeoff, but we’ll be considerably lighter when we get to the LZ. We really don’t want to have to go back in there a second time if we pull this trip off. Let’s get as much as we can,” Mike said.
Finally, Kelly gave Mike an up.
“Flight, this is One. Look, we may have to do a running takeoff. Use the runway to build up your speed until you hit translational lift, and then we’ll join up together. Wait until I’m off before you start your takeoff.”
“Roger” was the response from Yellow Two and Yellow Three.
Mike switched to internal intercom. “Okay, guys, here we go. I have the aircraft. We’ll slide along until we hit translational lift and then get in the air and wait for Two and Three. Any questions?”
“Do you want me to take a piss before we go? That’ll lighten us up some, Mr. George,” said Kelly.
“Only do any good if we all do,” said Mike as he pulled up on the collective. The aircraft started to come to a hover, only to settle back to the ground. The aircraft was overloaded. Mike allowed the engine to come back to full power and did it again, but this time eased the cyclic forward and pumped the pedals.
“Cory showed me how to do this, and it’s paid off over the last year,” Mike told Reid.
“He’s gone now, isn’t he?” Reid asked.
“Yeah, he went home a couple of months ago. Let me talk you through this. Pay attention, you’re doing the next one,” Mike said, emphasizing next one. “Okay, we want to be right at max power, whi
