My War - Installment 12

After descending to the landing strip, we hovered over and sat down near a group of palm trees that stood by a few hootches. Once in place we shut down. We were just off of the PSP (Perforated Steel Plating) fixed-wing landing strip.

Although there not more than a few minutes when children dressed in the black pajamas of the countryside came running toward us to chatter.

"Yaoo numa wun 'Diwe' yaoo buy Koke?"

"Oh no, here we go again," I said.

These kids were trying to sell us warm cokes that they carried around in palm leaf baskets. I wondered where they had gotten all the goods they were peddling. We could not get cokes at our camp. Perhaps this was why? A few minutes after the "Coke boy" another child came running up with a basket full of scruffy looking bananas. The parade of children hucksters was endless as we sat and idled away the time.

In my mind I expected that we would be flying another mission shortly. How wrong I was!

We sat at the lager area, (a place of waiting to be called to action, by definition a place to sit and age) for what seemed like forever. I had expected more action. Perhaps I would learn to look forward to days like this one and enjoy them; days when none of our men were getting blown away; this kind of day when our aircraft weren't getting knocked out of the sky; days which would end with all of us in one piece.

I suppose that I had expected to be shot at every time we went out into the countryside. I'm not sure if I felt disappointed, I wasn't sure of just how or what I felt. Maybe I just expected to do more flying.

"I imagine that I'll get quite a bit of flying, eventually. Patience, Sam, have patience." I told myself.

We sat around by the helicopters in groups, which changed periodically. Some pilots told stories. Some kidded around with the children that were trying to sell their wares. A couple of the pilots had enough foresight to bring books along to read to help pass the time. These few were obviously men who knew what to expect.

I liked to read, but didn't have a book and besides I was afraid I would miss something. Maybe after a time I'd get my fill and find other things to keep me busy, other things to pass the time. Right then I did not want to do anything which would take too much concentration, that is, except flying.

Mostly we just sat around in the gathering heat of the day and talked shop, how to do this and that, such as the best way to make an approach into a hot LZ, the easiest way to sneak up at low level on a nude woman bathing in a stream (sneaking, quite an accomplishment in a helicopter). Important areas of conversation like these filled our time until hunger pangs told us we needed some lunch. I rummaged around in the aft section of the helicopter under the stretcher-like seats and pulled out a partially empty case of "C" rations.

Bill showed me how to make a disposable stove out of a small can from the "C" rations. You simply take a small can, usually of cheese and crackers, remove the top with your trusty P-38 can opener and, first of course, you eat the contents. You punch a few holes in the side just below the top lip of the can. Then one can easily reach under the Huey to the drain cock, put some JP-4 into the can and, there is your trusty stove. JP-4 jet fuel is just more highly refined kerosene, and not terribly flammable, not like gasoline by a long stretch.

We ate a leisurely lunch, and then returned to our chatter. Someone broke out a couple of decks of cards and started a game of double deck pinochle. Other more experienced men, to beat the heat of the day took siestas.

At about 1400 hours we were notified that we had to make an extraction of our Recon platoon, three kilometers west of the initial insertion LZ. We were given the coordinates and cleared to lift off by the unit CC ship.

CC was the helicopter holding our Troop Commander. The CC stood for Command and Control. That I was informed was a joke. Command and Control was supposed to fly at fifteen hundred to two thousand feet and coordinate flights, troop movements and clear other necessary movements and orders. Unfortunately, the Old Man had the habit of coming down on the deck, to a very low altitude and interfering with the Scouts and other sections in their flights. His interference was due to his close proximity to the working ships of the unit. Most of the pilots were not too thrilled with the flying that the Old Man did.

Our Recon platoon had been moving through the area for some six or more hours with only sporadic contact. There had been no casualties among our men and no known casualties among the enemy. Many times bursts of machine gun fired are triggered out of nervousness, when someone thinks they see or hear someone that just happens to be listening and looking for the same thing. It surely seems to be true on both sides, but still no casualties. Thank God.

During training we had heard accounts of the NVA (North Vietnamese Army, regulars) chaining men to trees with machine guns so they couldn't run. I had heard that on many occasions the chained machine gunner would be drugged first. I wondered if it was true and if I would witness things like that.

We lifted off and started back southeast to pick up our men. Caution seemed to be thrown to the wind for this extraction because of the reports of very light contact. The LZ was reported to be larger than the one used in the morning, so we flew in, in a more loosely formed flight formation.

Almost all of the fields in that area of Vietnam were bounded by thick hedge rows or tree rows which could make things difficult for landing, and could also conceal almost anything.

We had no sooner flown over the line of trees when the lead ship reported taking fire. A few seconds later the other ships were all taking fire. We tightened up our act and put the ship down fast.

Our grunts had been caught with their pants down. They ran, pell-mell, toward the ships while the enemy machine gun or guns rattled away. Fortunately our gun ships had been circling close by. Two of the gun ships made passes along the hedge rows; they popped off a few rockets and strafed the hedge rows with machine gun fire. While the gun ships laid down suppressive fire, we finished loading and immediately lifted off, zooming over the trees without further incident. Apparently our gun ships had done their job well.

We turned, pulled in pitch and quickly climbed back to altitude, then turned again and flew back to Bong Son. We were lucky there had been no casualties, no one wounded, not even a scratch. Thank the Lord "Charlie," or the NVA was such a poor shot.

We landed at Bong Son with everyone accounted for. There were some disgruntled grunts, but other than that all was well. I just couldn't believe that in all that confusion and movement that no one, not one single person had been injured.

Right after we landed, we were informed that we needed to refuel and ready ourselves for another mission. After dropping our load of GI's we went to the POL (Petroleum, Oils, and Lubricants) point to refuel, and then returned to the lager area. Once in the lager area we shut down and awaited further instructions.

The CO in the Command and Control aircraft had decided that he would put the Recon platoon back in just two hundred meters West of where we had picked them up. He was hoping to drive whatever force there was in the area back toward the coast. Brigade had been called in and already had ships in the air with additional men. The Scouts were in the area and would coordinate the movement of ground units. We would make our landing just prior to the Brigade Lift units.

Bill, my Command Pilot of longer service in country, and I speculated about the events that would come in the next few days. Bill told me there had been some NVA activity picking up in the region. We felt that command had in mind to drive the enemy toward the coast, then use a pincer type movement to try and close in and kick ass.

As we sat and waited in the helicopter, the ever present kids were moving around us with their baskets of goods. Cokes, bananas, shoe shines, you name it, everything but the flesh of the one other village I had visited. As I watched them, it called to mind an incident I was told about by one of my IP's at Fort Wolters.

Some children, probably looking just like these children, in their black pajamas, came up to a group of American GI's. They started with their usual chatter while carrying around their baskets. No sales were made. Soon the children moved off to another group of GI's. The first group didn't notice the basket that was left behind until the grenades hidden inside exploded. During the confusion that followed the children easily slipped off only noticed by a few observers.

"You never can tell about these kids," said Bill.

I supposed he had noticed me staring at them.

"They sure are cute and innocent looking anyway," he continued.

Suddenly we got the signal to crank up. The Recon unit moved quickly from the side of the field and again boarded the waiting Huey UH-1Ds. Even over the sound of the rotor and turbine whining I thought I could faintly hear the thudding of their boots on the PSP (perforated steel panels) of the airstrip. As soon as the troops were loaded, we received orders from the flight leader to take off. We lifted off and climbed steadily east toward the South China Sea and then banked right, still climbing, to altitude and took up our new heading.

Bill always let me do the majority of the flying. I was thankful for it and noticed that I was gaining confidence in myself and my abilities. I settled into our slot in formation and prepared myself mentally for possible action in the LZ. No one ever knew what to expect in an LZ. We didn't really know whether, in the last LZ, if there was a force of any size or if it was just an isolated and hurriedly set up single machine gun site, manned by one lone Viet Cong, or NVA soldier. In any event we approached the new LZ with what seemed to be, more respect and caution. The Scouts had been reporting a great deal of enemy movement in that general area in the recent past. Our CO was, we thought, going to try to find out if the Scouts were right.

We made a fast approach and flared to land. All seemed calm and secure. The troops quickly disembarked and moved to the edge of the tree-lined clearing. We lifted off bobbing and weaving slightly, staying low level for a short time while picking up speed. The pilots then pulled back on cyclic pitch and shot upward, rapidly climbing back to altitude. As we turned to go back to the air strip at Bong Son we could see the Brigade units landing with more grunts.

Within a few minutes we were back at the lager area at Bong Son and resumed our silent vigil. That silent waiting was one thing I was not sure I would ever be able to get used to. We sat there with no direct link to what was happening in the field.

Whatever information we did get was always related to us by someone else. All of what we got after we dropped off our payload of men was secondhand information, at best. Even someone who had been there first hand, on the ground, could not relate more than what he was doing at any given moment.

The Scouts were the only real source of information on the movements in total. They could view a firefight and have a pretty good idea of what was happening. Not even the CO flying around in his Command and Control ship could really conceive the fight or movements with the intimacy of the Scouts. The CO's aircraft, made its low level passes over the firefight areas at high speed, so little could really be seen by him. I guess he flew by so fast because he was afraid of being hit.

So, we sat and we waited.

Around 1730 hours we received our pick up call. We had spent the intervening hours as before. Kidding around with the children was hard because they knew so little English. You could say almost anything to them and they would just say "yes Diwe," with a smile.

We cranked up and took off for another extraction. Gee, this is starting to be become Old Hat pretty quickly. Well, not really. Perhaps I was too cautious, but then you couldn't be too cautious. Perhaps I was just easing up. My nervousness had passed. That was it. I just figured that I felt more at ease with myself and the job I was doing.

We came in on our new LZ with the same caution which we had used on the last drop. I figured that Captain Richardson must have just slipped on that one approach. It did seem to me that if the NVA were that hard to see, they could easily stay concealed around an LZ and wait for the extraction when everyone was bunched up together. But, why think of that?

The landing zone was surrounded by tall palm trees. We came in low and apprehensively dropped into the area. We were lucky. If "Charlie" was there, he wanted to be left alone to get a good night's sleep. Our men had supposedly pursued an NVA unit most of the day, secondhand information again. But, thankfully they let us pull our men out without incident. The really strange thing was that shortly after everyone was out of the LZ we heard one of the Gun ships report that he was receiving automatic weapon’s fire from the same area. I guess that "Charlie" got in the last word that day.

Even at that time, the end of my first full day of My War in Vietnam I questioned those tactics. During the daylight hours we spent our time seemingly trying to take almost random sections of real estate. During the night the enemy was free to move right back into those same areas, unobstructed and without resistance. We all punched our time clocks so to speak and returned to our camps to begin preparations for the next day's games.

We flew back and landed at Little Hong Kong Mountain around 2015 hours. It was nice to be able to go over to the mess tent and sit at a table to eat. I cannot recall what we had, but my previous impressions about our mess Sergeant continued to hold true. I would never be disappointed.