"See you later, Cap."
I walked back to my tent slowly and picked up my flight helmet, camera, and notepad and then started shuffling along to my helicopter to do a preflight. Johnson, the crew chief was already at the aircraft. I thought to myself that he must live in the darn thing. Well, maybe he did?
I began my preflight while Johnson finished with a few odds and ends. As I climbed up to inspect the rotor hub, push pull tubes and swash plate assembly, I noticed that he was loading some "C" rations and extra drinking water. Everything was within tolerances up on top. I climbed back down and finished just as Bill came walking up to the ship.
"Well, I wonder where we're headed today." Bill asked.
"Three guesses; the first two don't count. A little earlier I saw Cap Richardson at the “Shitter,” he said “we were headed back to the lager area at Bong Son air strip."
"Hmmm, sounds as good as any place to go, I suppose," Bill replied.
"Everything's loaded like you asked, Sir," said Johnson.
"What's he talking about, Sam?" asked Bill.
"I suggested that he replenish the "C" rations and water supply, that's all, just like we said yesterday."
"Good idea Sam, I'm sorry I forgot," said Bill. "Let's hop in and relax for a few minutes before the others arrive," Bill suggested.
"Fine with me," I said, “I feel like I've been up all day already."
As we sat in our ship, the sun came up painting the subtle purplish shadows of the morning into the more solid forms of the jungle that surrounded our camp, out past the green line.
Within a few minutes Captain Richardson came ambling out toward his ship followed, a few minutes later, by the remainder of his Lift pilots. For some reason they looked like a group of men coming to the field each with their own basketball in a special bag for some weird game of some kind. Our flight helmets were round and we carried them in grey helmet bags with handles attached. They definitely looked like they should be basketball bags. It just struck me funny.
Within approximately fifteen minutes later we were all cranking up our turbines preparing to lift off, Recon Platoon on board, heading to our lager area at Bong Son. It appeared that we would have another boring day sitting by the airstrip being hustled by the local kids.
As we flew close to the lager area, I noticed a few naked women bathing in the river illuminated by the reflection of the glistening morning sunlight. I could easily distinguish their female forms in the bright glow of the morning light. I wished I could break formation and swoop down to totally enjoy this natural scene. How many thousands of years had these people, and their ancestors, used these rivers in the same manner. What would these people do with our democracy, or with Russian or Chinese communism? It sure puzzled me. We were just fighting so they could make their own natural choices, right? I couldn't help but think that their choice would be, "Let me the hell alone, everybody just leave me to myself so I can live in peace and farm my small fields, fill my own rice bowl, enjoy my life and my family the way it was meant to be."
"Sam, Sam, what's wrong?"
"Oh, nothing, I’m just day dreaming while looking at those naked women over in the river. You did see them, didn't you?"
"Not really," replied Bill. "That's all you younger guys think about."
"Bill, you’re full of crap. My thoughts contained more than your gutter thinking. I was doing more than just admiring their physical forms."
We came in on final approach, and then hovered over by some trees, as usual, to take advantage of the shade they would soon provide.
We had no sooner landed than the pint-sized peddlers began to assemble around our helicopters. I caught myself philosophizing again. All these kids had ever known was war; even long before the Americans had become involved. Probably the only life their parents could remember had been one of war too.
We sat around in the shade smoking cigarettes, which we got free from the cigarette companies, and swapped stories and jokes, hoping, and not hoping, for something to happen. Johnson always seemed to be busy checking over the helicopter, checking hydraulic lines, or push pull tubes, control linkages or something. At least he had something productive to do when not riding with us.
I looked down at my watch and noted that it was almost 1145 hours. My stomach had not deceived me. While thoughts of a good lunch danced in my mind, I noticed Captain Richardson walking briskly toward our helicopter.
"Bill, Sam, I want you two to fly back to the main base at An Khe and pick up an interpreter. They will be waiting for you when you arrive at the unit pad. Refuel and proceed with the interpreter to that seaside village where we worked the other day. There you will meet with an ARVN (pronounced Arvin) officer who is accompanying two villagers. Pick them up. There is an old man and his granddaughter that have agreed to point out some NVA positions in the surrounding area. The girl's parents were killed yesterday for supposedly not supporting the N.V.A. that had entered the village. The old man and the girl are pissed off. They've decided to help us out."
"OK, Cap, when should we leave?" asked Bill.
"Immediately, everyone is waiting on you two."
"OK, Cap. We'll see you later," said Bill.
"Johnson," I yelled. "Untie the rotor. We have a few errands to run. We need to leave now."
Johnson had, for once, been relaxing on the ground under the tail boom. He jumped to action. Within less than five minutes we were in the airborne and headed for An Khe to pick up the interpreter.
We landed at the Division base camp's (helicopter) heli -pad, which was located along-side the airstrip. Upon exiting the helicopter we were greeted by a liaison officer, dressed like he had just stepped out from an air conditioned office, or an Army recruitment poster. He seemed nervous and out of place there on the open airfield. His low quarter shoes were spit shined, his hair neatly trimmed; he was spic and span in appearance. He had obviously come from the land of hot water and showers. How quickly I had forgotten that such things existed.
The interpreter would be a few minutes late. We could relax and have some Red Cross coffee and donuts if we cared to. The idea seemed like a good one so Bill and I strolled over to where the Red Cross had a little stand-like affair set up.
"Would you boys like some coffee and donuts?" asked the homely female Red Cross worker.
"Yes, please," we replied in unison.
"Here you are, boys. That will be seventy-five cents each."
"Hey, you can take your coffee and donuts and put 'em where the sun doesn’t shine, lady."
We turned abruptly and walked away headed toward our helicopter.
"Shit, can you believe that crap?" asked Bill.
"No, not really," I replied. "What's all this hype about how great and generous and giving the Red Cross is. They probably have the concession on body bags over here also. I'll never give the bastards a dime again."
When we got back to the helicopter the spiffy liaison man was just driving up with some squirrely looking little gook beside him in a neatly washed jeep. The gook was either malformed, or had been worked over with an ugly stick pretty frequently. His eyes were close set, which seemed to over emphasize the slanted appearance, his lower jaw was cocked grotesquely to one side, plus he had a pronounced over bite.
"Gentlemen, this is Lu Duc, the interpreter you are to transport," said Lt. Spiffy.
"Hi, Lu Duc," I said. "Climb on board and we will be on our way." I motioned for him to climb in. He bowed slightly and then climbed onboard.
Lu Duc seemed to barely speak English, but ours was not to reason why. We took off and headed for the village east of Bong Son. The trip was a quiet one, no one spoke. But then Lu Duc had no headset on his apparently malformed head during the ride. Thank goodness for small things. It was 1430 hours before we landed at the edge of the village. Fortunately, and to our delight, the ARVN and his two people were waiting. The ARVN officer seemed to speak better English than the interpreter. Just maybe, between the two of them, we would be able to understand what was going on and what was to happen.
Everybody exchanged greetings in Vietnamese for what seemed like an eternity. Then, finally, the ARVN officer, the interpreter along with grandpa-san and granddaughter boarded the ship. Johnson gave his headset to the interpreter. We had brought along two extra headsets for this mission. We had borrowed them from some other Lift ships. The ARVN got number two headset and grandpa-san and granddaughter shared the third.
Grandpa-san appeared to be ancient. He was the perfect picture of the ancient oriental sage, complete with drooping, thin, scraggly, Fu Man Chu mustache and wispy very sparse chin whiskers. Probably, if you looked up inscrutable in the dictionary you would see a picture of Grandpa-san. The granddaughter, on the other hand, was quite beautiful. It was hard for me to judge the age of an oriental women. She could have been anywhere between the age of fourteen to thirty-five, at least to me. She just might have looked extra good because we didn't see many women. We had seen the Red Cross women earlier in the day, but they were nothing to write home about. I was convinced that it would be a real treat to listen to and try to take directions from all these turkeys.
After some time, trying to decipher what we were being said, we headed for the South China Sea. We made a slow turn to the north and then casually along the coastline. Bill was relaxing and I was humming Bob Lind’s "The Elusive Butterfly of Life", the version sung by Glen Campbell, to myself when we were both interrupted by another barrage of gibberish from the aft compartment. I could readily see that it was going to be a long afternoon.
Upon approaching the village from the sea side, I could see that the once pretty seaside village was now pock-marked with burned huts, the charred remains of which were scattered about the hillsides.
We zigzagged across the countryside north of the village while the old man and his granddaughter gesticulated wildly behind Bill. The ARVN and the so-called interpreter frantically jotted down notes. We were occasionally asked for coordinates; at least that's what we figured we were being asked for. Bill would write them down and pass them to the ARVN officer. We assumed he read them without any difficulty, since numbers are pretty universal. Tom Johnson seemed to be enjoying himself to no end, chuckling occasionally. It was, more than likely, the best show he had seen in months.
We passed the afternoon fighting the confusion that was taking place in the rear of the ship. After a few hours they apparently, that is the interpreter and the ARVN officer, had gotten all the information that they felt they needed or wanted. The ARVN signaled to us with a hand gesture which, we interpreted to mean that they were ready to return to the village. We landed on the western edge of the village, where we had picked up our passengers. Our job, for this part of the afternoon, was almost finished. All we had left to do was return our little yellow friend to An Khe and then fly back, we hoped, to LZ Hammond at Little Hong Kong instead of having to fly back to Bong Son. It was late enough in the day that we figured that our duties would conclude with this act.
All the information that had been gathered during that afternoon would be given to Division. It would then analyzed, and then with a bit of luck it would gradually filtered back to the units. I was not sure that Mr. Moto would be capable of passing on any information of significance. If he did it would take days to drag it out of him. By that time any information gained would be worthless.
We returned to LZ Hammond around 2030 hours, glad that the day’s work was over. It seemed to me that the enemy could not have been in the area we surveyed that afternoon, not unless they were blind, or just did not want to be seen. If the NVA had been in the area it would have been an excellent opportunity for them to shoot down our lone, unescorted, helicopter as we were flitting about the countryside.
We came in too late for evening mess, so we satisfied ourselves with "C" rations for another meal that day. It did not much bother me. I grabbed an "A" unit, a small juice can of JP-4 fuel for my home-made stove and headed home to my tent to do some serious relax'in. Jeff was in his usual cross-legged position on his bed, strumming away on the guitar, a broad grin drawn across his tanned face. He had been making some palm leaf hats earlier in the day; he had learned to make them in his native Florida. He had a few of the hats hanging about the tent pole. It felt good to be home. I lighted the home-made stove and started heating my supper.
As my meal began to warm a top the orange flame of the JP-4, I stretched out on my rocket box bed and enjoyed Jack's music. We exchanged some small talk about the day between songs. It appeared that I would get my guitar that next day if all went according to plan. I ate my meal, disposed of the empty cans, washed my face, brushed my teeth, ducked back inside the tent and soon fell asleep while humming "I Left My Heart in San Francisco". Jeff woke me to go to the OPs meeting some time later.
We received no enlightenment on the day’s activities during the OPs meeting, but then Bill and I were not directly involved with the other pilots that day. It sounded like the same old crap; bits and pieces of information with no substance, nothing to give us the "over-all" picture. For some ridiculous reason that thought reminded me of the Army's TV show that I used to watch at home called the "Big Picture". Our class at flight school was filmed by the "Big Picture" staff. The only useful information which we did hear that evening was that we would not be leaving LZ Hammond until we heard from the Scouts the following morning. I assumed that the reconnaissance efforts of the next morning must be fairly close to our home base.
Jack and I left the OPs meeting and returned to our tent. I was dog tired although I wasn't ready to give in to my exhaustion. I asked him to start showing me how to play the guitar. With a flourish he produced a book of guitar chords and diagrams for me to study. It looked easy enough, I thought. I just wished that I had the guitar to practice with; oh well tomorrow would come soon enough. In the meantime I enjoyed listening to Jeff. We sat in the flickering candlelight, my tiredness having passed, and quietly sang some folk songs.
"Well, it ain't no use to sit and wonder why babe....
It don't matter any hooooow.
And it ain't no use to sit and wonder why babe…...
If you don't know by now…
When that rooster crows at the break of dawn....
Look out your window and I'll be gone…
There ain't no use in carrin' on.
Don't think twice its all right...."
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