My War - Installment 22

"Hot damn, that was something,” releasing his grip on the sides of his armored seat," the CO said over the intercom or radio, to no one in particular.

I was too busy in thought to acknowledge his complement. I was thinking of how we would get out of there. I looked down at my left hand on the collective pitch; it was still tightly wound around the throttle. I had not realized that I had gripped it so firmly. My right hand was still lightly on the cyclic stick like it was supposed to be.

I reduced RPM, but left the turbine and rotor spinning while the grunts finished loading. I had kept my hands on the controls so that I could control the rotor disk and the front of the rotor's path, because it was rather low with the LZ sloping away to the rear. I wanted to be able to keep it where I wanted it for the safety of the grunts. I had no intention of killing anyone with the rotor.

The afternoon was far spent and the grunts would have to plod back over the mountain to be picked up in one of the abandoned rice paddies there in the 506. All we had to do was get the heck out of this monster of an LZ and fly back to Little Hong Kong.

I had already trimmed the trees on the way in, all I had to do was reverse the process and go back out of the exact same opening that we had come in through. All the items were loaded and there did not seem to be nearly as much as I would have believed from hearing the radio transmissions of the day. We did have a pretty good load though.

I began to increase RPM for the escape, I mean take off. The troops had backed away to the edge of the clearing and crouched there, in relative safety, to watch the show, their eyes partially shielded from the flying debris as I began my, almost, vertical ascent. The tail boom of the helicopter was the first part of the fuselage to break away from the tops of the trees; this again was due to the slope of the ridge. The rotor system was already out, being above the fuselage. To conserve on pitch the easiest thing to do was to start moving to the rear, or in a backward direction. The mountain sloped that way anyhow. I increased rearward speed for my backward takeoff, Hollis Elijah Moore and I had done these kinds of takeoffs many times in primary training. As I hit translational lift, late because of the added altitude and load and still facing the LZ, I could see the grunts silently cheering and giving the thumbs up sign for the takeoff.

I felt warm inside from their outward show of happiness. Thank God we had made it. I did a pedal turn and swung around to be facing forward going out into the valley. I then banked around and came back over the LZ where I dipped my rotor in salute to our troops. My confidence soared as I banked around to the east and slipped over the mountain and down into the 506 Valley again. We headed for home. The Colonel seemed relieved after our take off; he leaned back in a more relaxed manner in his seat. He crossed his hands in his lap clenching and unclenching his fists, apparently trying to regain circulation in them.

We flew back to LZ Hammond in silence, the CO deep in thoughts of his own. I was mentally patting myself on the back. It had been one of the best flying days since I had arrived in country. Maybe not the most dangerous, but at least I had gotten more flying time than normal. Perhaps this day would help me get into the Scout section. I was glad when we landed at camp and proud of I had done. The CO asked if I wanted some souvenirs from the day's booty. I was elated, happy as a kid in a candy store with unlimited supplies of money. I choose some black pajamas, a basket, a hammer and a cigarette lighter. The CO had specified not to take any weapons. Happy as a lark I took my prizes back home to our tent.

There had been a large amount of opium and opium pipes among the items brought back in our ship. I had heard before that the enemy was quite often drugged....under the influence of drugs while fighting. I had heard from some of our men that they had seen Viet Cong chained to trees with their machine guns. As poorly as some of them shot it would be easy to believe they were on something.

That evening I felt strangely relaxed. After mess Jack and I spent a little time working on the bunker we had started in front of our tent. Afterwards we both went over and visited with the Scouts in their make-shift day-room.

Some of the Scouts were engrossed in playing gin rummy. Some were sitting around a table playing chess and still others lounged in various areas of the screen enclosed room. All seemed to be contentedly puffing away on pipes. Billows of aromatic blue-gray smoke wafted through the day-room. On one small, rocket box, table was a voluminous paper back book, "The Pipe," by someone unknown, to me, Georges Herment a 1955 publication said to be fascinating; yeah really. A light breeze moved the pipe smoke around the room in swirling masses. Funny I had never taken note of it before. All the Scouts smoked pipes.

There was a definite air of camaraderie there, much more so than with other groups that I had seen in our troop. There was a feeling of true kinship and more; something beyond esprit de corp. There was a real bond between men, something that was just not as strong elsewhere. Perhaps this was the kind of relationships I had read about from previous wars. Relationships bonded by a close association with death and violence, combat-fighting, being in the thick of it, so to speak. As a Lift pilot there was more of a feeling of separateness from the battles, except for certain days like the time when we were on the ground. Maybe these feelings were elsewhere in the camp.

I just sat in the room, silent for some time, lost in thought, as I mechanically watched the men play cards. There was no real purpose or campaign, no binding external elements there in Vietnam, as in other wars. At least nothing for whole units to get caught up in; containing communism, what kind of binding force was that? Helping the Vietnamese to achieve freedom or democracy? What? What was a real reason to attach to it all? Daily it seemed, more and more, to me that the individual involvements and small operations were just that. “Individual.” That was it. Each day it was my war. It was my involvement, my actions, and actions that affected me and those close to me. The men in the ship I flew. Those wounded that we had pulled out; our individual survival.

"Sam, how about playing some gin rummy?"

"What!" Oh, yea sounds great. I'm not the best card player; you may have to refresh my memory on the rules of play that you use here."

That evening we were informed that there was a typhoon approaching Vietnam and we would most probably be catching the western fringe of it there in the Central Highlands. The air that evening was turning cold and seemed even damper than usual.

I sat in my tent and wrote some letters while Jack, as usual, strummed away on his guitar. I was still thinking of how nice it had been since I had picked up the Coleman lantern and how much easier it was to see to write and to play the guitar, because we had some good clean light to use.

During the night it started to mist and as the night moved on and approached early morning the rain started coming down harder and harder. It was coming down in the proverbial bucketfuls, or perhaps the one everyone hears about, raining cats and dogs. Our new tent, untested up until then, against anything more that a light mist, leaked. The more it rained, the more it leaked. We would find out later that day that our beautiful new tent, the one we had spent hours and hours protecting with sand bags and so forth had never been waterproofed. Why in the world anyone issue us or anybody a new tent that had not been waterproofed? That kind of joke was too cruel. At least if the tent had not been waterproofed, the supply people could have told us, and given us some waterproofing compound to treat it with.

As the rain continued during the following day, we remained earth bound with almost no place of dry refuge to go to. Most of our time was spent in the mess tent drinking hot coffee and talking about Thanksgiving being just around the corner.

During this storm the air had turned so cold that an emergency issue of sweaters was flown in from somewhere and they felt wonderful. Every time Jack and I check on our tent, more and more of the interior was washing away-literally caving in. Our belongings were kept dry wrapped in ponchos, but it was obvious that our place of abode, our home sweet home, was a total loss. All that work was for nothing - down the tubes. We spent the afternoon planning to build a new shelter, above ground or at least on it, as soon as the storm decided to let up.

I did not know whether or not the enemy was as miserable as we were but, chances were they weren't any better off. I'd almost bet on that!

Within two days the bulk of the storm had passed. Jack and I had managed to tough it out in the remains of our dwelling, covering our sleeping bags, at night, with borrowed ponchos. The entire camp and surrounding area was a sea of muck and mire. Our days had been taken up with the immediate needs of food and keeping relatively warm and dry. We were glad that the storm had passed. I never did hear the name of the storm, not that it matters.

Thanksgiving day started out in a misty rain, which seemed to be the norm for the past week. The air was chilly and the sweater I had been issued felt good under my light weight field jacket. Images of turkey and gravy, cranberry sauce, rolls, and vegetables galore were curiously dancing in my head, along with questions of whether those dreams of Mom's home cooking would, in some way, be fulfilled that day.

The Scouts had taken off as usual at first light to go on their appointed rounds through the hazy countryside. The main area, of concentration was to be east of the 506 Valley. We would fly to the lager area at Bong Son again. It was the only large area, close by where we could do our waiting. By 0830 hours we had assumed our position of repose at Bong Son and began the ritual of laagering. Any moment the kids would be there with their wares and the usual "Youa numba wun JI, Youa numba wun diwee." I wished and hoped that I would soon be able to join the Scouts and end my boredom.

Our waiting with the grunts usually meant that there was little, if anything, happening and no contact with the enemy. Henceforth, there was little chance of our men getting hurt or us getting in any flying time. There always seems to be some sort of trade off.

We had heard nothing from John about anything that was happening in our AO, (area of operation) so we had little concern about any involvement. Around lunch time all that changed. We were still not called to action immediately, but we did receive a brief message about what was going on.

Contact had suddenly been made at the southern end of the east ridge of the 506 Valley. One of our Scouts had been shot down and the Observer killed, a sergeant whom I had been friendly with. The remaining Scouts had given close in support until the pilot and observer had been extracted. A CH-47 was in route from An Khe to retrieve the downed H-13. After the extraction of men and machinery the Scout team called in artillery and then naval air strikes on the entire area.

After the initial bombardment of the area we were called to bring in the recon platoon to check things out. On our final approach into the area we all started receiving automatic weapons fire. We made a few evasive moves and quickly set down in an LZ at the base of a ridge. We left right away and flew back to the lager area to await further instructions.

The recon platoon was pinned down within minutes of the drop. There were heavy exchanges of fire for almost an hour although no one could really see anyone else, both our men and the enemy were completely concealed from one another. The Scouts hovered around the area trying to pin point the enemy's location so that gun ships could make strafing runs firing rockets and machine guns at the gooks.

As suddenly as the action had started it seemed to end. The grunts were out from under enemy pressure. We were called back into the area to pull them out. We went in with out a hitch, to our surprise no fire was drawn going in or out.

The Scouts continued working the area. Again they started receiving a good bit of automatic weapons fire. Air strikes were called and the bombardment continued on into the late afternoon.

We were ordered back to base and as we passed down the 506 we could see the huge fire-balls from napalm bombs as they exploded in the dense jungle. We could feel the concussion of the explosions of other bombs as they rocked the area that was under attack. KA-BOOOOM'S echoed in the valley above the popping of the rotor blades as we flew by, in route to home.

Two more Scout ships were shot down that afternoon, both of the pilots wounded. It was really strange how one person in a ship could be seriously wounded or killed, and the other person sitting next to him could come away without a scratch. I thought about that morning when the Observer had been killed and the pilot left totally unscathed.

Hanging in the cool humid air, the smoke from the afternoon bombing seemed to hover over the valleys covering mile after mile with its haze. What a day, even when we were engaged with the enemy our involvement was limited and we still only got second hand information.

"Oh, the heck with it for awhile," I said to no one in particular. "Let's go see what Sarge has for us this fine Thanksgiving evening."

We went to the mess tent soon after landing and securing our aircraft. I was flabbergasted by the spread that the Mess Sergeant had come up with. My dreams had come true. There were table clothes on the tables, small arrangements of flowers from who knew where. There were wash tubs full of ice chilling bottles of wine. Pumpkin pie, TURKEY and every other thing you could imagine you might want. The food was truly fantastic; the mess sergeant had really out done himself on this one. I ate white meat and cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes and gravy, and vegetables until I thought they would come out my ears. We all gorged ourselves, forgetting the day, and our losses, for a short time.

Captain White came over to the table where I was seated and quietly sat down beside me.

"Sam."

"Yes Sir."

"Just call me Dave."

"OK, Dave."