My War - Installment 11

It all sounded like crap to me by then, so I resigned myself to wait and find out for myself. "The heck with it," I said to myself.

Jack and I returned to our digs to pass the time working until the meeting would begin. We seemed to be jointly working with an almost prospector's enthusiasm, as if at any moment we would hit pay dirt and strike it rich.

Time literally flew by and darkness rushed in on us. Our unit was not allowed to have lights on in any open area, only in opaque or semi-opaque structures at night. We stopped our shoveling and found some water to clean up with before the briefing. Our day had been a full one, and it was not over yet.

Twenty-one hundred hours (9:00 pm) came up on us rather quickly; the Ops meeting was normally at 2300 hours. We hastily found our way to a seat in the OPs tent. Fortunately other men straggled in for a few minutes, with the CO being the last, so I didn't feel as awkward, I hadn't been late after all.

Lt. Colonel Anderson called the briefing to order. Jack and I were officially welcomed to "A" Troop by the CO. He quickly introduced us to all the other pilots. I just as quickly forgot their names. I did manage to remember some of the more important ones, like the flight leaders.

The CO continued reviewing some of the basic policies within our unit, most of which seemed ordinary. He went over the usual patter about rules of conduct, treatment of peers and enlisted men and the like. Then he moved to the ridiculous. He made it very clear that he wanted his pilots to be in pressed fatigues every day. I thought the Old Man was kidding until the captain next to me assured me that the CO did not kid around.

"Well," I whispered to Jack, "maybe he gets a kickback from the local Chink laundry."

"This can't be for real," said Jack. "I always heard tales of how laid back things were in a combat zone. Like shaving and that sort of thing in combat areas......"

The CO must have read Jack's mind, Jack had not spoken loud enough to be heard.
"I expect you officers to be clean shaven at all times. No mustaches are permitted under my command."

"Let my lip alone. He's gotta' be kiddin,” I moaned. "I've just finished all that training time, putting up with crap like that. All those CWOs I've seen returning with handlebar mustaches and stories of.... and I've got to be clean shaven at all times. SHIT!"
Lt. Colonel Anderson continued.

"You pilots may have no more than two beers a day while on scheduled flight status. Only when you have a day off, may you have more than two."

"Hey, all right, that's one rule that doesn't bother me but this is still crappola," I said to myself.

The CO wrapped up his unit orientation and then immediately started the real OP's meeting.

"Tomorrow we will be flying some assault missions into an area just south of Bong Song near the South China Sea."

"Excuse me gentlemen, especially you new men, one thing that I forgot to mention. Here in the Central Highlands we take one large Malaria pill each Monday like everybody else in country. In addition to the one large pill we take six smaller pills, one every day for a total of seven per week. Anyone coming down with malaria will be prosecuted through military law as if disobeying a direct order. If an individual is found not taking one pill each day, he will automatically receive an Article 15. No more need be said.” (Years later I would find out that the small pill was actually an experimental drug that had been tried out on us.)

The CO quickly brought the meeting to a conclusion, complete, with what appeared to me to be, mundane details. They seemed mundane to me being inexperienced in combat.

The whole thing really hit me as asinine. We came all the way out here, to live in a foreign country, to fight another man's war for him, and then have to put up with silly rinky-dink grooming codes. Being a peon, I decided that I had better play the game by the rules.

After the OPs meeting, almost everyone returned to their place of repose. It was common practice during the late evening and early morning hours for the friendly neighborhood VC to send us a little gift in the form of a few mortar rounds. I felt a little uneasy as I listened to the rounds go off. Then suddenly, there were a number of loud explosions which, I found out later, were our men returning fire. I soon learned that there was a distinct difference in the sound between the incoming and outgoing explosions. That bit of enlightenment somehow eased my mind and I felt I could go to sleep better having that knowledge.

The OPs briefing had ended around 2245 hours, and by the time I had finished washing up, brushing my teeth, and getting used to the mortar rounds, it had been well past 2330 hours.

I was sleeping soundly through the occasional incoming or outgoing explosions, when a new sound intruded and startled my subconscious.

"Holy, moley. There are men moving about in our compound. What in hell's bells is going on? Who the heck is sneaking around out in the compound?" I rubbed my sleepy eyes and strained to see my faintly luminous watch dial. "What time is it?" I said to myself "Zero-three-forty-five hours. What in the world?"

The Scout pilots were up at this ungodly hour getting dressed, washing and shaving, and moving toward their aircraft.

The Scouts would check with OPs to make sure there were no changes in the plans from the evening before. Then in the very dim light of morning they would be pre-flighting their H-13's. It was so dark they must have been performing the pre-flight by Braille, I thought. As daybreak came slowly to that tropical October morning they cranked up and flew off into the lightening sky.

I assumed that they were doing their first light searches, checking for enemy activity around our perimeter. I found out that they also did first light searches around some other local perimeters.

"When did these guys eat?" I thought. "When did they sleep? Ah, it’s really not my worry,” I said to myself.

Again I had failed to gain a satisfactory night's sleep. I hoped I would quickly grow used to the different sounds of the camp before I fell over from sheer exhaustion.

Almost everyone else woke up around 0500 hours. At that hour there was still enough time to get a helmet full of cold water to wash and shave with before going to morning mess.

After a breakfast which consisted of an amazing variety of entrees we headed out to preflight our aircraft.

The Scouts, who had finished their first light missions and refueling, were just coming in to grab some breakfast as we grabbed our helmets and headed for our Hueys.

HELLO BONG SON

Our crew chief, Tom Johnson, stood by confidently. He was a fellow around twenty-two years of age, from somewhere in Alabama. I had been told that he was a very competent crew chief (aircraft mechanic) and was fearless as a door gunner during missions.

I had always tried to be as thorough as possible with my pre flights, and now that I was going to be flying in combat I really wanted to be sure that the aircraft would be at its mechanical best. We finished the preflight and climbed into the cockpit, my stomach was tight in anticipation and my heart pumped wildly in my chest and half way up my throat.

There had been some enemy activity along the coast of the South China Sea, southeast of the village of Bong Son. The Scouts had made some contact in that area and we would be taking the reconnaissance platoon in to further inspect the area, including a few small villages.

We sat for a few minutes waiting for the signal to crank up. Lt. Mitchell waited with his platoon, ready to board the Lift ships. He was a lean lanky fellow probably twenty-three or twenty-four years old and was the typical gung-ho platoon commander, he was also a very nice fellow. I had met him the night before and had talked briefly with him at the OPs tent.

Brigade had been involved in the planning of that day's operation and they were standing on ready to send in backup troops if contact was very heavy.

I gazed out from my position in the cockpit and scrutinized the grunts. Golly, they were young looking. I thought I was young, but it looked like quite a few these grunts weren't even old enough to shave. They squatted, nervously, along the clearing in our compound. They were armed to the teeth with M-16 automatic rifles, M-79 grenade launchers, M-60 machine guns and bandoleers of ammunition and grenades.

Funny that I should think of them as being so young, being only nineteen by a few months myself, I had always been considered older because of my actions, experiences, and activities.

I was brought back to my senses by a little voice inside my helmet, telling me to wind it up. The time had arrived for us to make our lift.

Our crew chief Specialist Johnson stood by as I cranked the turbine, bringing it to life. The RPM started to pick up and the rotors began to spin above the helicopter. Our grunts were given the signal by someone, and the four squads of the platoon moved quickly to their waiting helicopters and climbed aboard. Within a few minutes after the platoon boarded, we received the command to take off.

The Gun ships had taken off some fifteen minutes ahead of us and would prep the LZ, just prior to our landing, if it needed it. They were there to give us additional support and cover as we started our approach to set down. The gun ships were there continuing to circle the LZ and laying down suppressive fire as and if needed. The Scouts of course had been on station for some time.

We had lifted off almost in unison and climbed over the line of tall palm trees just outside the LZ’s perimeter. There was still a faint haze hanging in the morning air as we moved northward along a dirt road and climbed steadily to fifteen hundred feet of altitude. This altitude was just outside of the effective range of small arms fire. I glanced at my watch. It was 0758 hours.

My experience with flying formation had been limited while in flight training, but I felt confident in my ability to control the ship. Bill related a few pointers in regards to lining up on the ship I was flying wing on. He told me to use two points on the skids, or any place I felt comfortable with to help lined up at approximately a forty-five-degree angle from the ship we were flying wing on. It is very important to fly in a relatively close formation, especially when landing, so that all the ships in formation can go in together. It wouldn't work very well for one squad to go in at a time, because they would be more vulnerable in such small numbers.

The four Lift ships flew in an offset "V" formation with one helicopter in the lead, then one on left wing and two on the right wing. This could, of course, be shifted to weigh heavy on either wing. If an LZ was hot on one particular side the wing ships could shift so that the door gunner could place suppressive or defensive fire more heavily on the hottest side.

There was only one problem with this tactic in our unit. We usually only had one M-60 machine gun per ship, so we had to fly formation to keep the M-60's on the outside of the formation.

As the loose formation glided over the flat tropical countryside I began to look around cataloging landmarks that I would be using in the future. While we continued flying eastward, I practiced moving my ship in and out along an imaginary line running at a forty-five-degree angle from my lead ship. My practice was designed to give me a better feel for formation flying. We would be expected to come into the LZ less than a rotor diameter's distance apart from one another and I just wanted to reassure me. I began to look out ahead of us for a few minutes, feeling more secure in my formation flying and caught glimpses of the South China Sea shimmering in the morning sun, in the misty distance.

The coast of the South China Sea was beautiful. The sandy beaches looked inviting as we drew nearer. It was absolutely beautiful as the morning sun sparkled on the slight chop of the blue water.

We started our descent in unison and flew over a few grass-thatched huts scattered about the area. The radio sprang to life again and told us that the LZ was about two minutes away. Out of nowhere, gun ships appeared and moved up alongside of us as we continued our descent. The Gun ships dropped quickly and made a pass over the LZ spraying the tree-line with machine gun fire just before we flared and landed. Flaring is the process of bringing the nose of the ship upward, reducing air speed, just prior to touchdown; it is done by pulling back on the cyclic pitch and lowering collective pitch, just before pulling collective pitch to cushion the landing.

We settled into the tall grass, the grunts were out almost before we were on the ground. In an instant, Red Leader, Captain Richardson, called for take off. Again in close formation we lifted off and sped over the tree-line and steadily climbed back to fifteen hundred feet. Once back at altitude we went on to a landing strip just outside the village of Bong Son. We landed at a lager area to wait until we would be needed for another lift or extraction.

To my knowledge there had been no rounds fired at us during this, my first, mission. I'm not sure I would have been able to tell if we had been shot at. I was told later that we had received no fire from the elusive enemy.