Occasionally there would be a small picturesque village of bamboo huts or hutches covered with thatching of banana leaves or grasses.
In the rice paddies I could pick out the light colored conical hats of the peasants working. The passing of the aircraft didn't appear to alter their movements in the least. They were accustomed to the mechanization of war. What little I did know about Vietnam reminded me that there had been fighting in this country for decades.
This whole scene seemed unreal looking down from my vantage point in the air. I had very little direct contact with these peoples so far. Perhaps they were different here in the countryside. Just maybe they had more feeling for what was going on, instead of the fast buck mentality of Saigon.
Whether real, surreal, or unreal, I had the distinct feeling that the descent that had just been initiated was the one that would plant me in the place where I would find out the reality of my situation.
WELCOME TO THE CAV
I was right. My precognitive abilities seemed to be working overtime. As we slowed on the runway, I could clearly identify the insignia of the First Cavalry. It is the silhouette of a horse's head on a yellow field of a shield, with a black diagonal strip from top right to bottom left, on the shoulder's of the grunt's.
My aerial view of the layout of the camp, had suggested its enormity. There were, what appeared to be, hundreds of buildings and tent/buildings and so forth, of varying shapes and sizes.
My heart pounded, butterflies filled my stomach again as I moved in line to get off of the Caribou with my personal effects.
There I was, a nineteen-year-old Warrant Officer, WO-1 Pilot, coming to a place where I knew absolutely no one; a scary situation to say the least. I would be expected to handle myself and my aircraft competently, not to mention those individuals subordinate to me. Since the United States had expanded its involvement in Vietnam, a lot of what returning pilots had learned had been incorporated into the tactical training at Fort Rucker; so we were expected to be more prepared for immediate combat operations than those who had taught us.
I pondered these things and questioned myself as I moved out to the waiting truck. "Could I handle it?" I asked myself. "Your damn right," I almost blurted out loud. "That's what I've been trained for and worked for; to handle it and be the best darn pilot and Warrant Officer in Alpha Troop 1st of the 9th Cav."
I loaded my gear into the truck, after saying a half-hearted hello to the GI that was sent to pick me up; I sat silently waiting to arrive at my unit.
I checked in at the tent (operations) and was introduced to a number of men that were there. The set up there did not seem bad at all. My predecessors had done well in equipping the area with creature comforts. There was an officers’ club and a small PX, everything that a fellow might need was there.
I had heard stories from and others about living in villas and other quarters where each man employed a house boy or girl to do all the trivial matters of housekeeping and so forth. There were no villas or fancy quarters or house servants, but it was comfortable.
There was only one catch. I would not be staying here. This was only the rear guard, so to speak. Paper and pencil pushers, supply people, a few and the like. In a few days I would be going to the field. "A" (Alpha) Troop was located at little Hong Kong Mountain, which was about ten klicks north of Phu Cat and about thirty-five klicks east north east of An Khe. (A klick is a kilometer.)
So in reality, I would spend only a few days here for orientation. Then I would head out again and start meeting new faces, all over again.
I met another WO-1 who would become my friend and hootch-mate in the coming days. His name was Jack Bradbury. Jack was from Florida and I believe that he had finished flight training one month before me. While at An Khe we didn't spend much time together because we had to complete various bundles of paperwork.
During my first afternoon I was told by someone, whose name eludes me, that I needed a better sidearm than my .38 caliber. "You definitely need a Thompson's submachine gun or a ‘grease gun’ to carry with you” Sir. "Either one would make an excellent personal weapon. You can fling a shit load of lead with either of them."
"You can flat cut a slope in half with one of 'em if ya want ta'," extolled another unknown enlisted man.
Both the Thompson's and the grease gun were WW II vintage weapons and time tried. I found the grease gun very intriguing because it only had three moving parts.
"OK Sarge, where can I view these pieces?", I asked.
"Well Sir, there is a friend of mine that tends the bar at the Officer's club over in another unit area that has 'em. We can take this jeep and go check 'em out when you have the time."
"How about now," I said.
"Soun's good to me. Hop in, Sir," said the Sergeant.
I enjoyed being called Sir. It was a definite change from the BS and harassment I had grown accustomed to during training.
The jeep roared to life and we navigated through the maze of tents and buildings, up and down hill and dale until we stopped outside of the Officer's club where the Sergeant's friend was.
We went in and were greeted by a short round man that came from behind the bar. He looked as if he belonged to a barber shop quartet. His hair was slicked down and shiny and he had a very large handle bar mustache. So this was the Sergeant's friend. I was introduced, but not by name and asked to sit at the bar.
The building had been built in the manner of the tropics. Native materials were used for construction and decoration. Bamboo was used extensively for the framing of the building. Leaves and grasses were used to cover the walls and ceiling. There was very little wood as I tend to think of it used other than for the chairs and bar.
On one end of the bar sat a monkey, gazing up along the edge of the ceiling. The monkey belonged to the bartender and was kept there in the bar area to rid the building of spiders and other pesky insects that were normal dietary items for him.
The weapons were brought out and placed on the bar for my inspection. Both weapons seemed in excellent condition. I would have liked to have gotten the grease gun because I could easily get .45acp ammunition. There was only one obstacle, the price.
I thanked the bar tender, praised the condition of the weapons he had for sale and then told him that I wasn't ready to make a decision just yet. Time was needed so I could think it over. In less than twenty-five minutes I needed to be on the flight line for an orientation flight. After thanking them we climbed back in the jeep and back to our unit.
I excused myself and had the Sergeant drive me back so I could pick up my flight helmet before going to the flight line. My helmet had not been worn in some time, not since it had been painted olive drab. It was pretty obvious that the old original white color would have made a perfect target for "Charlie.” Even though he had a reputation for being a bad shot, it was better not to take the chance at being a better target. As the saying goes, "Even a blind hog finds an acorn once in a while" and I didn't want my head to be that acorn.
I met Captain Tucker at the flight line for my orientation flight. He was, I would guess, about thirty-five years old, six feet tall and around one hundred and ninety pounds. He appeared to be a good-natured fellow. Time would tell. He smiled through a reddish brown mustache which matched his close-cropped hair.
"Warrant Officer Bradbury, I'm Captain Jim Tucker; they usually just call me “Red.” It’s good to meet you."
"Excuse me, it’s good to meet you too, Warrant Officer Rollason. I didn't mean to seem to exclude you.”
"That's OK Sir, just call me Sam. It’s nice to meet you."
Jack and I were to ride together on the orientation ride.
"Just call me Jack," interjected Jack.
"This orientation flight is pretty much formality. There will be at least two for you two. In that way you can alternate preflight and flying sequences. It'll give me a chance to check you out and see how well you handle the Huey. It will also give me a chance to show you the lay of this place. By the way, I'm sure you're aware that I'm the Troop’s IP here at base camp," said Jim.
"Yes, I'm aware of that," I replied.
Jack also replied with an affirmative.
"Just think of me as another pilot. I don't want you to be nervous, even though this is a check ride of sorts. It wouldn't do to fail it. We need all the pilots we can get." Red chuckled to himself.
A check ride is one in which a pilot proves, to the powers that be, that he is able to meet certain standards of proficiency for a particular aircraft. The results go into the pilot’s records, what aircraft he has been checked out in and so forth. Only a pilot who has been fully approved can act as a command pilot of an aircraft with dual controls. We walked to the aircraft, a "D" model Huey. Jack and I had flipped a coin to see who would preflight and fly first, I won.
I started the preflight. A preflight is one of the most important parts of flying. The pilot has the ultimate say-so as to flight worthiness of the aircraft. The pilot cannot count on the crew chief (The crew chief is the individual aircraft's mechanic and usually the gunner too) to be infallible, no matter how good he is. It’s up to the pilot to OK or ground the aircraft. These phrases from flight school pulsed through me as I inspected the tail rotor root and hub assembly.
There had been times in the past that I had heard of, when IP’s had deliberately used grounded aircraft (an aircraft found to be unsafe due to some mechanical problem) to test a student's mechanical knowledge of the aircraft.
I was no longer a student I was a full-fledged pilot. I didn't really believe this old trick would be pulled on me. Even if it was, I could care less. I was ready. I remembered the words of my first instructor pilot, Hollis Elijah Moore. When he had first started flying, the preflight was more or less kicking the tire and lighting the fire, but that was no longer true. The pilot had to know his aircraft.
I finished the preflight and crawled into my seat. I went on with the cockpit check list which was firmly embedded in my subconscious. I automatically flipped circuit breaker after circuit breaker and checked everything out quickly under the scrutiny of Captain Tucker.
There at the base camp the crew chief stood by with a fire extinguisher during starts. I called clear, heard the crew chief’s reply, and then began to wind up the turbine. The Huey is a turbine-powered helicopter. A turbine is basically a jet engine with a shaft running through it. The shaft propellers (little propellers on the shaft) are turned by the hot gasses from the jet engine. This shaft runs back through the engine and into a transmission to drive the rotors. Winding up the turbine is electrically turning the shaft while lighting the fire in the jet engine until the exhaust gasses can start to turn the shaft.
The turbine caught and the engine RPM started to increase. The rotor began to move, being driven through the transmission and Sprague clutch. The needles on the dual tachometer, engine and rotor RPM, joined and I moved the throttle to the operational detent position.
I smoothly lifted the Huey into a low hover, as Red called for take off clearance. We hovered over to the pad, received clearance and took off to the North. Red gave me a heading and I banked left to 290 degrees and continued to climb to five hundred feet, as per his instructions. He then asked me to perform different maneuvers as he called for them. I was mentally ready and on the alert for the inevitable forced landing maneuver (autorotation), which always seemed to be part of any check-ride.
Red seemed pleased with my performance so far and asked for the controls. He was going to show Jack and me around a little.
We dropped to low level, just off of the tree t (his low level was about five feet above the trees) and moved toward Hong Kong Mountain. Earlier in the conflict Hong Kong Mountain had been called Hong Kong Hill for some reason.
Red told us that there were miles of tunnels dug into the mountain which the VC and NVA (North Vietnamese Regular Army) had used for storage, barracks, escape tunnels and all sorts of things.
We came in close to one area of the mountain and I immediately spotted movement in the tree t. As we moved closer, I could see that there was a large group of pretty good sized, monkeys moving quickly from tree limb to tree limb. We had obviously disturbed their luncheon with the loud popping of our rotor blades. I hadn't really given much thought to all the exotic animals that I would be seeing in that country. The orientation flight seemed to be ending before it got going good. At least my part of it was finished.
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