My War - Installment 33

"Here Ted my boy."

I reached over and took a CS grenade from where it was hanging in the cockpit and held it out to Ted. He took it and held it in his hand. "Cripes was this guy for real. Whose side was he on?" Maybe he was just slow, or then maybe he was terrified of doing the wrong thing. Perhaps he was just stupid. At least he was polite. "He can't be that dumb, can he? They wouldn't have let them in the service if he were that dense, would they?"

"Pull the pin and drop the grenade out your door Ted."

I wanted to be sure he knew which door to use. Fortunately all this was faster in reality than it sounds. As slow as Ted was, what ever was down below could have been miles away before we would be able to react. Ted finally dropped the CS canister out his door. I moved backwards and hovering remained motionless watching what would happen.

The usual thick white smoke of the CS would soon be drifting out from the leaves. We hovered and waited. At least what ever was below us was not shooting at us. What was going on? No smoke, no thick white smoke at all was coming out from the greenery below. I was almost ready to move back and drop another grenade myself, thinking the first had been a dud or that Ted had forgotten to pull the pin. I looked once again to where the grenade had been dropped. The trees started to shake violently and then the surrounding greenery, which appeared to be bushes, began to quake. The rumbling foliage rustled in a path moving up hill, suddenly out came a huge elephant, pitifully wagging his head from side to side in an anguished manner.

Poor devil must have inhaled the entire contents of the canister, seeing that no smoke, at all, had appeared at the drop site. I really felt sorry for the elephant. I personally knew what CS felt like to a short human nose. It must surely have been agonizing with a nose of those proportions.
"Yea, war's hell, what do you think elephant? I'm sorry." I said to myself.

I heard one-zero key his mike, but all I heard were a few snickers, half muffled by the sounds of men trying to catch their breath. I could imagine the guff I'd catch for this one when it got around. Stuff like: Did you here about the elephant attacking Rollason’s ship today? The trunk of the matter is, Rollason is just down right cruel to animals, and on and on.

Oh well, another day in the life of a Scout. We finished our day's reconnaissance and started for home. I hoped that my day or rather one of the events did not precede me home. I could use a few minutes peace before the heckling would begin. There is something very interesting and exciting about seeing an elephant in the wild, even if it was under such unique circumstances.

We landed and shut down, after refueling. Ted was still high on the day’s reconnaissance, at least that's what I told myself.

"Sir?"

"Yes Ted. What's up?"

"Do ya think I could fly with ya tomorrow?"

"Heaven forbid." That was the last thing I wanted, a near blind observer, well for the benefit of Ted, a guy who had trouble seeing anything that was even pointed out to him, flying with me, in a tight situation - he was likeable enough, but.

"Ted. It's not up to me. You'll have to talk to Captain White about that. I want to be totally up front with you Ted. Truthfully, in my opinion, I don't believe that you’re ready to fly Scouts yet. You have to be able to see, to detect even the slightest movement on the ground. You don't seem to be able to detect movement at all. You would be putting yourself and the pilot that would be with you in more danger than he would like to be in. Talk to Captain White if you would like to. He might let you fly with him, so that he can evaluate you too."

"Yes Sir. I'll talk to Captain White."

I was glad to have extracted myself from talking any longer to Ted. A whole day was enough. He really was a nice fellow, but dumb is dumb and enough was enough.

I walked briskly from the helicopter to my hut and some of the peace and quiet that I had longed for earlier. I sat on my bunk, grabbed my guitar case, opened it and pulled out the guitar. The gut strings looked tattered from use where they had been pushed against the frets, but to my ears, still lightly buzzing from twelve hours of engine, rotor, and radio noise, they sounded sweet and soothing. I strummed a few tunes before going to mess. I felt relaxed and ready for anything. I had done lots of flying these last few days, it had all been great fun. I felt a little guilty for having had so much fun. But, fun or not, orders were orders, I was doing my job, doing what I was told to do and enjoying all of it, not just the past few days.

Buzz had a great meal for us that night, roast beef, canned I guess, and everything that goes with it. It just never ceased to amaze me what he did with what he had, or with what he had and how he got it. We all sat around the mess tent at the crude wooden tables, we ate and chatted about the day. As we drank coffee and ate chocolate cake the other Scouts told us that they still had no definite sightings and no contact with the NVA. They agreed that only their instincts assured them that the NVA were still close by and that they were just keeping low, licking their wounds so to speak. Dave and I added that there was no reason to suspect that they had fled into the larger mountains. There had been absolutely no physical signs of their presence, anywhere, in the mountains.

"The only enemy that's up there seems to be carrying trunks, eh Sam?"

"Right, Bob. They were a real menace, swarming over the mountain's side covering everything in sight. We were terrified."

We sat around the mess tent for some time talking and drinking coffee.

"You notice all the big pieces floating in the coffee this evening?" said somebody back in the shadows.

"Where did they come from?" asked Dana.

"All our water is pumped from local supplies, such as streams, rice paddies, etc., into the tank trailers and then chemically treated. I don't believe it’s filtered at all. Usually it runs through a screen, maybe they forgot to screen this batch. Just spit the big pieces out on the ground. That's one advantage of having dirt floors."

I didn't know who it was that came out with that long explanation, but it sounded logical enough. I left the tent and went to relax in my hut for a few minutes.

It felt good to stretch out on my bunk under the mosquito netting, after sitting for so many hours. No matter how much you like something or like doing it, it's a good idea to change pace or at least position every once in a while. Laying there I got so comfortable that I almost dozed off. It was a lucky break for me that Jack came by the hut on his way to the Scout tent or I might have slept straight through the OPs meeting.

There was nothing new at the OPs meeting that night, but it would have been in bad taste to miss it. We would all be, that is all the Scouts, working the mountains to the west of LZ Bird, again trying to push the enemy into showing themselves; pushing them enough to get them pissed off sufficiently to start taking some pot shots at us. I was spared any comments from the CO about my elephant and was kind of hoping the others would let it rest as well. I really didn't care, I just figured that if they joked with me very much they were showing their jealousy. Elephants weren't something you got to see everyday, even in Vietnam, and especially in the wild.

The OPs meeting broke up early so I figured I'd head for the Scout tent and practice smoking my pipe. Pipes are a bit of a pain. First, to do it right you have to know what tobaccos to choose. The heavily flavored or scented ones often use oily concoctions to flavor or scent, the tobacco, therefore causing the tobacco and the pipe to burn hotter. Also to help the pipe burn cooler and smoke more smoothly it has to be broken in; a cake has to be built up inside the bowl, the cake is made of, I suppose ash or some residue from the burnt tobacco and helps to dissipate the heat of the burning tobacco. So now you see why I was going to practice smoking pipe.

As usual when I arrived, Jack and I lived sort of across camp from the other Scouts; everyone had already stoked up their pipes and were contentedly lounging about puffing away. Clouds of blue smoke floated about in familiar patterns in the dimly lit interior of the tent. A few of the guys were sipping drinks from Christmas stocks of spirits that they had received from home. I enjoyed just sitting, watching, and listening to the older men, there were some real characters. I was having enough trouble just keeping my pipe lit. I thought of Hollice Elijah Moore while I tried puffing away. He always had a pipe in his mouth.

Most of the guys must have made their snide remarks at evening mess, the only thing they wanted to do then was play gin and talk small talk. That was fine with me. I didn't much feel like talking shop anyhow. Nobody seemed to be talking shop much since Bird that would pass with time; at least I hoped it would.

I joined in and added to the cloud of smoke around the card table and watched the heated battle for supremacy in points. I had a gin and tonic complements of Bob, while I sat with my pipe continually going out. If I could keep interested in smoking the pipe long enough I guessed that I'd learn how to operate the darn thing.

I went back to the hut mellow and relaxed. I brushed the pipe taste from my teeth and slipped into the hut. Heavens to mergatroid there was an un-inflated air mattress on the foot of my rocket box bed. I removed the mattress from its plastic bag and unfolded it, then placed the rubber valve to my mouth and began to blow. After ten minutes or so of huffing and puffing, the mattress was inflated to a medium firmness. I figured I'd sleep like a baby that night. I unrolled my sleeping bag, we kept them rolled up to keep out the scorpions and other critters, and lay down trying to decide if this air mattress was actually comfortable or whether I preferred the wooden boxes with just the bag. The least I could do was to give it a try.

I thought the morning would never arrive. I just couldn't figure why I wasn't smart enough to wake up all the way and get the heck off of that big elongated marsh-mellowy mattress. It sure is funny how we fool ourselves into not getting out of bed and rectifying something that is bothering us. It really was horrible, soI figured I'd return the stupid thing later that day or maybe I'd do somebody else a favor and throw it away. I never thought it would end up being torture trying out a mattress.

It took me longer than usual to wake up that morning, just maybe a lack of sleep. I sat in Buzz's mess tent and waited, drooling, for the coffee to finish boiling. I don’t know what I looked like, but if I looked anything like I felt I must not have looked very good at all.

I drank a large cup of coffee and then went back to the hut to wash up for the second time that morning, hoping that the cold water would wash more of the sleep from my tired eyes. It seemed to work so I went back for more coffee and breakfast; I was starting to feel human again. I never thought a mattress could be so cruel.

I would be flying wing on Dave that day. We left and headed back to the free fire zone west of LZ Bird. The day was uneventful. We just prayed that our presence was doing what we expected it to that is being there, keeping the NVA on edge.

The next few days were repeats. We continued heavy recons all over the region west of the remains of Bird, but were still unable to engage the enemy other than for brief sporadic moments of fire.

It had been slightly over one week since the LZ Bird massacre and we were still trying to relocate the enemy command post and engage them in battle. I was flying wing on Ken; we had spent most of the day doing hour after hour of fruitless reconnaissance. Ken broke away to check some of the defensive artillery concentrations in Granite Rock's AO (Area of Operation). I stayed to the west, out of the way, and continued to work some of the multitude of little cove-like valleys that ran down the mountains. GW was flying with me that day and he just wasn't acting right. Something was obviously bothering him. Something was wrong, he just was not himself. He was nervous and moody and could not pay attention to, or see anything. He acted as if he had a premonition of doom and disaster.

I was at tree top level, as usual, and was about to turn into another shoot when I noticed a number of large clay crocks about five in all, the type we usually found large caches of rice stored in. Oddly enough there was a pile of bodies laying near the crocks.

"Hey GW see those crocks and bodies under the brush there?"

"Hey Sah, man-I doan wanna see no crocks an bodies."

"Come on GW. We'll just mark them with smoke and call Granite Rock to come and take care of it all."

"OK. let us'n do it and git out'a heuh. Sah."

"Well, we'll see, GW."

I hovered over to the crocks and placed them and the bodies under GW's door. We seemed in no danger so I asked GW to hold off marking the grain until I made contact with Granite Rock.

"Granite Rock six-five - Apache one-six."

"One-six, Granite Rock, go ahead."

We have a cache of rice here, which we are getting ready to mark for you. There is also a pile of bodies, North Vietnamese type, that are here in this same location. Over."

"Roger one-six, we copy. We have a patrol working in that area. Mark your position now."

"Roger six-five, marking.